Dougmore‘s debut album is a foray into folkloric music through the lens of art rock. Indeed, Outerboros is lush and complex, deep and progressive, and, on top of that, inspiringly beautiful. Don’t be fooled by the apparent simplicity of the folk singer-songwriter foundation of the project – with Douglas and his banjo -, for there is here a plethora of invited artists – playing a wide range of instruments, from wine glasses to trumpets, from bouzouki to double bass, from dulcimer to harp, and a lot of other things in-between. This not only bring in a variety of timbres … Read more
Tag Archives: avant-garde
EXCLUSIVE SONG PREMIERE: Vmthanaachth – Holographic Speleothems Firsting a Hugeness of Twilight
Texan avant-garde chamber music ensemble Vmthanaachth, after expanding our minds with their debut, Fit secundum regulam, prepare for their sophomore release, Inferotemporal. Out on June twentieth, the album, which offers more than an hour of new challenging material, will come out on their bandcamp page along with its physical version. We have the pleasure of being the first to bring you the closing track. At over twenty minutes long, ‘Holographic Speleothems Firsting a Hugeness of Twilight’ is quite a journey (that’s an understatement). It’s harsh and comforting, brilliant and pitch black… It’s its own antithesis, and, instead … Read more
Schammasch – The Maldoror Chants: Hermaphrodite
The Swiss avant-garde black metal quatuor, not satisfied from having released perhaps the best triple-album ever just last year, is already back with The Maldoror Chants: Hermaphrodite. It’s sold as an EP, but crosses the thirty minutes threshold that is commonly used to distinguish EPs from full-lengths; it has seven tracks, but the whole thing feels like one continuous journey into the obscure places of our mind; it’s a work of art that goes above and beyond the traditional scope of black metal and the avant-garde… Indeed, the band themselves wrote that Hermaphrodite is an ‘artistic experiment’, and it’s … Read more
Glass Bell – Glib Glab
Music is a wonky art form. It’s so ethereal and intangible, unlike poetry or sculpture. It’s just variations in the density of a medium – air, most of the time –: they pass you by and you try to grab enough to make sense of them. You don’t get a second glance, you can’t hold it and analyse it thoroughly unless it’s transformed; either as notation or spectrum analysis. That’s why, I suppose, the most popular forms of music keep their message simple; more people can comprehend what they’re experiencing. Even then, it’s messy, it’s blurry, and, most of all, … Read more
EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE: Les chants du hasard – Chant I: Le théâtre
French avant-gardist black metal project Les chants du hasard release their debut, self-titled album on June twenty-third. We’ve already reviewed the amazing and forward-thinking album right here, but, today, we team up with the band and I, Voidhanger Records to bring you a new song in anticipation of the release.
‘Chant I: Le théâtre’ is the album’s first track, and it puts all on the table. You’ve got the whole orchestra with their melancholic and slightly dissonant beauty, the gravelly and pitiless vocals, as of a decadent opera, sing hopeless lyrics in this devoid of any light chant. It … Read more