press
Locrian:
Locrian & Christoph Heemann - Locrian & Christoph Heemann (Handmade Birds): This very intriguing looking collaboration between Locrian – one of the most exciting avant-garde bands today – and noted German experimental artist Christoph Heemann turns out to be a lot subtler than any of Locrian’s recent work. This time around it’s strictly an adventure in ambient sounds, as the musical partnership creates abstract compositions by slowly layering haunting drones atop one another, with minimal percussion and instrumentation. The overall effect is even more harrowing than usual for Locrian, which is saying something. When those lead vocals kick in on “Loath the Night”, your skin will crawl. These guys could make a great horror film soundtrack, but the mental images these compositions compel you to conjure are plenty disturbing enough. - MSN Entertainment (Headbang)
[for “The Clearing” LP/2xCD]
“Plenty of bands play music that sounds dark, but few can make every note bleed black and breathe smoke. Count Locrian as part of that select circle…The Clearing could be Locrian’s most nuanced record so far. Throughout, they use slow, far-off sounds rather in-your-face noise to thicken the atmosphere. A frozen piano line, distant drum roll, or shadowy bass loop is often all the group needs to forge a palpable mood….Still, what impresses most about The Clearing is not specific turns or isolated moments, but the overwhelming mood it creates. That’s what makes the album title apt— Locrian’s dark atmospheres aren’t empty spaces, but stark traces of something that was there not long before. In other words, they’re as good at creating negative spaces as they are at filling them in. Even when they get so subdued that they approach silence, you can hear ghosts echoing in their void.” 7.4/10 —Marc Masters, Pitchfork
“Locrian have found themselves firmly in the “If you haven’t heard them yet STOP EVERYTHING” category. Every album they put out seems like it’s the best thing they’ve ever done. Which is true. But I don’t know how they do it. And The Clearing is no different. It is literally the best thing they’ve ever done. It’s massively evil & evilly massive… Like running up the down escalators of hell, finally getting to the top and finding Locrian screaming at you with an eternal wall of speakers behind them and they kick you in the face back down. Unbelievably massive & evil & fucking AWESOME. Do not miss this.” —Justin Snow, Anti-Gravity Bunny
“The Clearing shows how well Locrian has become at balancing their musical impulses with their raw, chaotic noise background. The two come together perfectly throughout this album, which does a great job at defying genre conventions and any preconceptions. This is a wonderful balance of dissonance and melody, light and dark, melody and noise.” —Creaig Dunton, Brainwashed
“Shades of Ummagumma-era Floyd emerge as opener “Chalk Point” lays down the melancholy and takes its sweet time to unfold. And when Locrian have the legroom to stretch out, on the 20¬minute drone/psych-fest of the title track, real magic happens. 9/10” —Johnson Cummins, Montreal Mirror
“[O]n The Clearing they are masters of economy, and have formed their album into an utterly unique and precise sound-work that, even as it evokes so much, feels remarkably original — in particular, amid the bland ‘experimentation’ that happens in so much US black metal — and continuously draws this listener, entranced and amazed and a little frightened, back into itself as a singular, haunted entity.” 4.5/5 —Nathan Shaffer, Tiny Mix Tapes
“Locrian are at the top of the dark experimental music heap these days…What is so stunning about “The Clearing” is how diverse the album is overall, even as it all sounds a part of a whole. The band explores a variety of approaches throughout, each successfully casting a consistent mood that leaves the listener feeling like they have taken a singular journey by record’s end. If “The Crystal World” announced the presence of Locrian as the band to pay attention to, “The Clearing” solidifies their position as a powerhouse. Locrian is THE band that matters right now, and if you didn’t know that already, “The Clearing” makes damn sure you do.” —Jason Bunch, Skeletons and Candy
“Terrifying: Trauma without kitsch…There’s no doubt that Locrian is a group that has mastered the art of imbuing their art with maximum psychological charge. The songs of The Clearing wouldn’t be out of place in a B horror movie or spine-tingling sci-fi flick. That said, the band manages to pull of its sense of extreme trauma without sounding kitsch or derivative of a bygone era of leather jackets and spiked collars. These guys mean every bit of what they’re playing. And that’s terrifying.” —Hannis Brown, Tokafi
“‘The Clearing’ itself is utterly sublime. A steely pulsing spine worthy of prime John Carpenter supports the entire structure, around which circle drones of varying pitches and throat-tearing, screaming howls. The entire thing just oozes menace and dread. Crushing sub bass creeps in over time and the track begins to warp under such heavy gravity. This feels elemental, like the crushing, severe force of Geburah, fifth sephiroth – sphere – of the Tree of Life, bearing down upon the raw energies of creation in an attempt to destroy all impurities. ‘The Clearing’ sounds and feels like the grinding of worlds, the cosmic gears of Jack Kirby’s vision, vast and awe-inspiring. Beautifully minimal, perfect in construction, devastating in execution. The trio of Hannum, Foisy and Hess have truly found themselves with this recording… The Clearing IS Locrian.” —Paul Robertson, The Sleeping Shaman
[from the article “Locrian Clear Up Nothing on The Clearing”]
“…The Clearing contains some deeply fucked music, and no number of forlornly strummed acoustic guitars (“Coprolite”) can offset the disquiet that is at the core of the album. Droning synths, power electronics and guitars overlap in quiet but unyielding dissonance…Not much of anything happens melodically in a Locrian song, but Foisy, Hannum and Hess are experts at building inertia out of slow accretions of sound…Less a band than three poets of sonic desiccation, Locrian actually get bleaker the more they layer their soundscapes.
Is The Clearing a metal album? Absolutely not. Even the two minutes of blastbeats and howling in the middle of “Augury in an Evaporating Tower” are just another part of the song’s stew. But there’s a reason why Locrian collaborate regularly with members of Nachtmystium, Yakuza and Velnias. They access the alienated moods and harsh outlook of metal’s blackest wings in distinct but complementary ways. Their sound accesses terror without rubbing our faces in it. Accessible? Not unless you listen to Merzbow on your way to work. Riveting? Completely.” 4 out of 5 horns — Metal Sucks.net
“Like Fennesz covering black metal beneath a mountain of ash, or a warped krautrock LP played at 78 RPMs with the volume only halfway up, The Clearing shows Locrian at their most disparate and unusual, eliciting sensations of dread and unease.” —Jon Rosenthal, The Inarguable
“Countless musicians have tried to imitate [Locrian’s] brand of dense, blackened experimentalism, but Locrian remains in a class all their own. It’s safe to assume that [The Clearing] will raise the bar even higher, cementing them as the reigning kings of dark drone.” —OMG Vinyl
“As I listen to The Clearing, I feel like a snake shedding its skin, because with every spin of this record I hear something new…The Clearing will be the album that you put on no matter the weather, because from the darkness comes light!” —cvltnation.com
——-
Locrian + Mamiffer:
Locrian + Mamiffer – Bless Them That Curse You
Bless Them That Curse You is a collaborative album between Locrian and Mamiffer, and it’s an excerise in how sound can be molded to adjust our emotions. Beyond that, something about this album is so powerful and heavy, I’m almost at a loss for words to describe it. When I listen to this album, I just can’t help but to look within myself and think about my part in life. Locrian and Mamiffer have created the perfect depressing soundtrack for an uplifting life. That’s pretty fitting, because every song on this album is a short film filled with tension, suspense and mountains of organic audio magic. What’s interesting about this release is the way that everyone who hears it will be touched by what they hear in a different way. On the first song, “In Fulminic Blaze”, there is a shamantic energy that flows through the song like the wind. Locrian and Mamiffer are able to project their music through a kaleidoscope of juxtaposition, where what might appear harsh becomes beautiful. Bless Them That Curse You illuminates how sounds are as important as vocals, which there are very few of on this album, although you would never notice. Their 18-minute, 59-second ethereal majestic composition entitled“Metis/Amaranthine/The Emperor” is simply a masterpiece in my universe (how many times have I played it? I lost count at like 75). One of the few songs with actual vocals, it always puts my mind in the right state to appreciate all that is special around me. The vocals on this record seem to float out of the singers mouth into your ears, before expanding into sonic oxygen. I don’t want to give it all away, but I will say that 10 minutes into “Metis/Amaranthine/The Emperor”, something happens – you just have to listen to find out. Bless Them That Curse You will is released via Profound Lore (CD), and is out now Sige/Utech Records for the vinyl format, and Sige/Land of Decay for the cassette version. For a look at the awesome artwork and packaging, go here, to check out a rad Artist to Artist interview with them go here and to be able to listen to “Corpus Luteum” off of this killer record go here. In closing, CVLT Nation would like to everyone who created this very special piece of history; this is music that has the power to change DNA! - Cvlt Nation
…[Which] sonically traces an arduous Armenian deathmarch sludge-trudge (Fleshpress/Maruzaan-esque) through post-Soviet landscapes, through awe-inspiring valleys, cathedrals and subterranean temples, cracks the eggshell between our atmosphere and space, breaks through into that envelope and vaults across the heavens like some 21st century Springheel Jack. Being the product of U.S. underground heavyweights Faith Coloccia and Aaron Turner’s collaboration with some well dark Chicago munters, this project is most serpently one with love in every stitch. It’s an extraordinary journey that unfolds in umpteen bizarre sonic twists’n’turns. As an Odinist, however, I take issue with their album title BLESS THEM THAT CURSE YOU, though knowing this pair’s music fairly well, perhaps I’m missing a Too Subtle wry smile. Nevertheless, motherfuckers, this is one hefty essential I strongly advise y’all to acquire. Released on the Profound Lore label, this music’s long term medical efficacy is, admittedly, as yet unproven, but – to my mind at least – those of you who prefer to make do with a burn of this beast are simply Slumming It! – Julian Cope
[Excerpt from 2012: Tapping Into The Macabre - An Uninterruption in Bubonic Amusement]
…When Nathan Shaffer interviewed Locrian and Mamiffer back in Feburary about their then forthcoming release Bless Them That Curse You, similar points were made during a discussion about song titles and the forlorn themes that run through that extraordinary collaboration. Faith Coloccia of Mamiffer reflected on the sonic representation of ritual and the manner in which states become altered through separation and decomposition, pulling on ideas concerned with tarot readings and divination, influences that could not be more apparent on the album as a whole. Such concepts are aurally transfigured into lengthy, bludgeoning pieces that stir up some wonderfully macabre imagery; sustained bass guitar drones fed through unrelenting hiss and submerged vocals, an inevitable ceremony lament ebbed across six tracks that pertain to an artistic drive for exemplifying an irrepressible gloom. The track titles are indeed indicative of the aesthetic nature of the music; “Second Burial” kindles imagery of that very act, and it is dealt with in a fashion that would generally be considered tasteful and discreet in its tackling of a subject so often deemed taboo — representational of memory, reflection, and commiseration. - BIRKUT (read the full article here -tinymixedtapes.com)
Locrian:
The links between heavy metal, harsh noise and dark electronic drone should come as no surprise. Some of the best black metal records, after all, feel like half-still sonic smears, and the control of or chaos in feedback has inspired legions in every form. Even if the means are distinct, each of those genres revels in musical viscosity—who can be the heaviest, the meanest, the most exhausting with their sound? But few artists have exploited those intersections as vividly and explicitly as the aggressive, interstitial Chicago [trio] Locrian. -Grayson Currin
“Successful Popol Vuh cover aside, the real accomplishment is a recording that contains more variety and depth in less than a quarter hour than most bands can produce in an entire career. Absolute highest recommendation possible.” - SKELETONS & CANDY
“… but that doesn’t detract from the droned-out, disorienting vibe of this record; if you let it, New Dominions will get you lost; you will be in a world without order, without rules, and indeed without norms. And the best part of it is that you may not want to come back.” - Hammer Smashed Sound
“The Crystal World” is the essential release, finding the band creating a sound all of their own. A sound that evades simplistic analogies to black metal, power-electronics, noise, or other categories. This is the album that will stun fans of the bands previous works with how far the group has come from their early releases.” - Spencer Matulaitia, Puregrainaudio
“Locrian aren’t a standard metal band. [They] build textures and soundscapes as often as they delve into riffs or melodies, smearing the aesthetic extremes of doom and electronics into something wholly unique.” - Zero Tolerance
9/10, “This album makes me want to make something. Perhaps a crudely constructed monolith in my backyard made of scrap metal and bird feathers.” - Scott Seward, Decibel
8/8, Disco del mese…. Acquisto consigliato! - Stefano I. Bianchi (Editor in Cheif), Blow Up
“…it feels like a stretch to classify Locrian’s sound as metal, especially since The Crystal World is mostly devoid of anything resembling a power chord, it still manages to capture the genre’s aggression, its harshness, and Locrian’s music taps into the listener’s primal, subconscious mind in a similar way.” - Musical Warfare
Locrian brazenly announce they are the new kings of heavy, heavy psych. This trip is for real. 9/10 - Johnson Cummins, Montreal Mirror
Locrian are of the most important names to watch in the realm of guitar drones, improvised raw soundscapes, and for lack of a better term, ‘post-metal’. - O.S., Evening of Light (NL)
It’s impossible to attach a label to what Locrian have accomplished on The Crystal World, but it’s dangerously close to that elusive, perfect balance between hostile dark ambient textures and more focused and emotive metal structures… While it feels like a stretch to classify Locrian’s sound as metal, especially since The Crystal World is mostly devoid of anything resembling a power chord, it still manages to capture the genre’s aggression, its harshness, and Locrian’s music taps into the listener’s primal, subconscious mind in a similar way. - Musical Warfare
[An] intriguing album for listeners wanting something a bit more challenging than the usual guitar/bass hum of most other drone releases. This is a beautiful and haunting album all rolled up into the one package, an album to be cherished for years to come. Locrian should be proud of this masterpiece, this demands your attention… 9/10 - Doom Mantia
Pan•American:
“Cloud Room, Glass Room”
Mark Nelson’s cherished Pan American quietly slip back into our consciousness as a band proper, now adding the estimable talents of Steven Hess (Locrian/Cleared/Haptic) and Nelson’s former Labradford bandmate, Robert Donne to the project. While Nelson assuredly handles all production, the live feel is definitely more prominent, folding in the patter of Hess’s percussion and Bobby Donne’s languid bass at the centre of seven beautifully diffuse soundscapes bordering on the frontier lands of post-rock, dub techno and ambient electronica, yet never clearly falling within any one sector. Every element is given ample room to breathe thanks to Nelson’s typically intricate production render, allowing Hess’s hi-hats and cymbal strokes to really shimmer and Donne’s bass to ring out wide and sag purposefully low, but you’re never really focussed on either, the emphasis is on the whole ecology of sound and the way it’s all in fragile and comfortingly sublime equilibrium; a cats cradle of ambient lushness intended to suspend the listener, pensile in its womb-like amniotic fluidity. - Boomkat
In ‘Cloud Room, Glass Room’, shards of broken glass seem to reverse in on themselves, as if collected by a deep intake of air coming in through an open window. An enriching, refreshing breeze floats in, arriving on the cusp of white clouds and then skirting over the horizon as high altitude imaginings start to take flight. As the music clears, so too do the clouds, disintegrating to allow a subtle, fizzing ambient atmosphere a way through. Descending through the white, this atmosphere pierces the fluffy sheets as if they were the very same – if only softer – shards of glass in the process of shattering. Peaceful scenes welcome the eyes at lower altitudes, of stone-washed harbours and blue skies. Pan American’s music is this wisp of a breeze, surrounding the air-flow with a settled, easy on the eye environment. Touching this atmosphere lightly are crystal-toned, ambient layers; look up, and the quarter and eighth notes can be seen flying as free as a bird, only with stems for tails.
…You may think that the forward motion – set up by the bass – will prevail, but Cloud Room, Glass Room doesn’t shy away from her electronic side. Cloud formations wisp through the bass-lines, the warm, gentle ambient air and through the more prominent use of percussion, united together. Steven Hess plays with reserved flair, and sets the tone for what now feels like a blossomed, fully matured sound – a band instead of a solo project. These instruments don’t keep the fluffy atmosphere at bay; on the contrary, they help the ambient wings to lift off and soar away. - James Catchpole for Fluid Radio
A decade-and-a-half ago, Mark Nelson created minimalist side-project Pan American in order to release material he felt was too electronic-based for drone-core trio Labradford. Since then, ambient music has evolved to the point where guitars and live drums sit snugly alongside synthesizers and processors. On Cloud Room, Glass Room, Pan American’s seventh full-length, Nelson finally merges these two musical archetypes. With the addition of Fennesz and Aidan Baker percussionist Steven Hess as a full-time member, much of Cloud Room, Glass Room works off of organic/inorganic soundscapes, crafting seven bubbling, stretching, snail-paced pieces. Hess’s stick work manages to give Pan American’s slowcore added texture, as album opener “The Cloud Room” benefits from a molasses drum beat that pulls on Nelson’s synth-drone, while tracks like “Laurel South” and “Glass Room at the Airport” come off analogously jittery and anxious. With Cloud Room, Glass Room, Pan American’s original recipe feels slightly new–and-improved. – Daniel Sylvester (Exclaim.ca)
…project mastermind Mark Nelson has inducted percussionist Steven Hess as a full-time member. The seven new songs began to take shape as the pair prepared for a series of European performances in late 2011. Nelson’s Labradford bandmate bassist Bobby Donne also contributes here and there, giving the album a stronger live feel. First taste “Glass Room at the Airport” exemplifies that, tracing an organic progression built of intertwining fuzz, percussive bits, and warm sub-pass pulse. At six minutes, it’s a miniature vacation from whatever obnoxiousness might be plaguing your day. – SPIN
…each track on Cloud Room, Glass Room is not unlike gazing into (or perhaps out of) a room, observing the workings of each set of structures, textures and immersive background features. Much like how Brian Eno’s Ambient 1 was titled for airports, these pieces suggest the embodiment of projected spaces: “Glass Room at the Airport,” “Project for an Apartment Building.” Each are post-rock blueprints, the ambient outlines for bodies of sound…. Hess’ percussion on “The Cloud Room” is subtle yet mechanical, purveying a sense of motion for Nelson’s waking guitar drones to seep in; elsewhere, “Relays” pulses along with a tear through its side, and “Laurel South” skitters along a weighty instrumental murk. The overall effect is observational, equally content to seep through the ambience of open space and be isolated through headphones. Cloud Room won’t force one’s attention, but it certainly welcomes it in transient spans — there are no bursts, but rather the sense of constant movement and observational poise. – Devin Friesen (FFWD)
This album has so much depth you could almost swing your legs and clamber into each layer of sound. But you don’t need to put any effort in; you could just lie buoyant on the surface of the sound and then let it wash over you. Mark Nelson, Steven Hess and Pan American have created a delightfully ambient but interesting world we can sink into, shut out our troubles, and sail away to. That is, until you hit an iceberg, and the waves splash up, serves you right for being complacent… – Sarah McRuvie (Echoes and Dust)
“Worth every minute of the four-year wait.” – Bleep.com
Cleared:
“The duo’s penchant for hyper-real magnification puts them in the same boat as the Basic Channel crew, and I’m sure Hess and Vallera know their techno; the LP (of which 500 were pressed) was mastered at D&M in Berlin. But no matter how deep they sink into the realms of texture and tone, at heart Hess and Vallera are rock guys. They respect the riff and love a good limb-triggered lurch as much as any oscillation, and their forays into processing simply put these qualities in stark relief on Breaking Day.” - Bill Meyer, Dusted
“this record is all about the physicality and quality of sound; the rumble of stylus against vinyl or the hiss of tape against heads just adds another layer to an already laminal cake.” - Dusted Magazine
“Resonant guitar drone and brittle but fierce drum pattern make it sound like a grinding This Heat song played through a transistor radio—the album celebrates how signals break down, with passages bounced repeatedly among different analog media until they become unrecognizable.” - Peter Margasak, The Reader
“This rolling, revolving door of sound is what makes this such an impressive and incredibly listenable album.” - The Liminal
“Following up their killer lp on Immune, the Chicago-based duo of Steven Hess and Michael Vallera offer up another 40 minutes of expansive, haunting drones and skeletal blues. subterranean tones sacrifice themselves into mounds of barely-there rhythms before Hess takes over those duties with aplomb. Combined with Vallera’s angular guitar work, there’s a feeling of wandering through empty city streets on “II (6PM)” while “III (NATURAL)” is as dense and sprawling as a black hole. Cleared sounds like Chicago. What stands out most with cleared is the subtlety with which these two operate. This is long-form experimentalism at its best.” – Digitalis
“Cleared sounds like Chicago.” - Mimaroglu/Keith Fullerton Whitman
“It is hard right now to add anything new to the so-called drone scene, but Cleared are fathoms deeper than the current crop of pseudo ambient non-releases. ‘Cleared’ is gritty and stunningly well-realized sound from two composers who know exactly what they’re doing and how to do it. An incredible record, and one of the best of the year so far.” - Boomkat
“The five very evocative tracks here form an extraordinarily well-assembled set of slowly paced compositions—economical, natural, and diverse in a wintery kind of way…The tension between the industrial and the pastoral is a major strength of Cleared, a concept they’re clearly both familiar with and follow in a unique way here. Based on this album, it’s one very much worth pursuing.” - Foxy Digitalis, 8/10
Haptic:
“I am reminded of a Turner sky when I listen to this music. Everything is rich, layered, full of powerfully emotive depth, and yet all about the overbearing atmosphere that grips you firmly and pulls you into the work, as if trying to drown you.” - Richard Pinnell, The Watchful Ear.
(reviewing The Medium LP/DVD)… “While on the audio track these drone masters take the sounds of amplified hum, snare, and electronics and lather them into a lovely sound bath, along with some contributions from Tony Buck, Boris Hauf, and Olivia Block. Intervals float in and out, as if rubbed glass, and distant organ chords undergrind the whole. Wonderful music in which to lose yourself, like sinking through something thick and oily.” - J.R. Fritsch, Signal To Noise
“…the most enjoyable new release I’ve heard thus far in 2009… Rich, ringing, growling and gorgeous.” - Brian Olewnick, Just Outside
“The trio’s piece Danjon Scale is among the most striking displays of sustained texture in recent memory. The sound they create together is hypnotic and seamless.” - Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader.
“Awesome music, which is both sharp-minded and unclassifiable. A 70-minute CD of stuff like this after such a taster is not “desirable” - it’s demanded.” - Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
“Haptic’s side of the 10” is even deeper and more palpable. Beats, each surrounded by a ripple of echo, loom like craters; electric buzzes seem to come at you from their far-off invisible edge and slam you against the wall… Meditate upon this stuff at your peril.” - Bill Meyer, WIRE
“…A commanding mixture of looping sub-basses and metallic caress, slowly evolving into an isolationist riverside from which one can observe dispersed detritus floating over dark currents. Sharp minded and unclassifiable.” - Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
“…prime rib dark, rich drone music…” - Paris Transatlantic
Ural Umbo:
“At times it sounds like the vibrations that might still lingering in the air in the aftermath of an occult ritual, by an assembly of robed monks conducting arcane, abstract rites. Or maybe it’s the sounds of the rites themselves, isolated, slowed down, ghostly, heard through a gauzy veil, dimmed and distant. Ural Umbo’s gentle echoes, crackling distortion, swelling drones, mysterious clattering, indistinct voices, and other manifestations, can be quietly creepy, or massively grinding, but at the same time seem mystically serene if you give yourself over to it.” - Aquarius Records
“…9 dense studio cuts are amazingly heavy on atmosphere, tension, and an appetite for exploring the occult-diabolik underbelly of the universe.” - Ed Pinsent, Sound Projector
A consistent slab of doom metal-inspired atmospheric ghostly pieces. Somewhere between Svarte Greiner and Sunn 0))). - Monsieur Delire
On their debut collaboration [Ural Umbo] create brilliant film score-ish compositions that, on the surface, are as dark and bleak as any that can be imagined, but the structure and instrumentation used give far more depth and variation to what otherwise could be mundane and trite. The result is a diverse set of pieces that prove there are a wide gradient of shades of gray. - Creaig Dunton, Brainwashed
“On their debut collaboration, percussionist Steven Hess and Reto Mader create brilliant film score-ish compositions that, on the surface, are as dark and bleak as any that can be imagined, but the structure and instrumentation used give far more depth and variation to what otherwise could be mundane and trite. The result is a diverse set of pieces that prove there are a wide gradient of shades of gray…. [It is] an engrossing debut from these two established artists.” - Brainwashed
“I didn’t expect something this rock, this noise rock, this doom-noise rock. Very, very good stuff. Heavy slow drumming, dirty yet well-controlled textures. I’m thinking of Nadja, with something less obvious in the sludge approach. Somewhere between KTL and Bohren & der Club of Gore, perhaps? Impressive and satisfying!” - Monsieur Deliere
I’ve seen quite a few reviews classify Delusion of Hope as a dark ambient record and, yes, at times, such as the eerie resonance of “Resinous Compound,” there are elements of dark ambient, but, to be frank, this album is much too interesting to be classified as such. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Northaunt and Lustmord as much as the next (strange) guy, but your standard dark ambient album lacks the intrigue and immediacy set forth by the duo of Reto Mader (guitar/bass/kalimba/synth, also of Sum of R and RM74) and Steven “the busiest man in experimental music” Hess (percussion/electronics, also of Locrian, Haptic, Pan-American, et cetera). Songs like “Sych” give way to massive Tribes of Neurot-like tribal drum jams, and there are more than one occasion where Mader and Hess explode into mind-altering psychedelic jams and short, punctuated segments of analog noise. To put it lightly, this isn’t your average drone record, or even your average record overall.
Ural Umbo’s ingenious mix of aquatic unease with spectral dreaminess on the cosmic Delusion of Hope sets them on their own separate scale. Is it drone? Is it dark ambient? Is it noise? The hell if I know, but what is certain is that Ural Umbo is by far one of the most impressive, unique projects in the underground experimental scene. This stellar album is available as a clear LP + CD, limited to 300 copies, from the always fantastic Utech Records. – The Inarguable
On:
This marks their third collaborative effort, and they’ve invited the renowned guitar experimentalist Christian Fennesz to preside over the sessions. “Something That Has Form…” stands as a testament to the power of repetition, as well as an exemplary snapshot of some of today’s finest experimental artists operating at the top of their game.” - Carl Ritger, Big Shot Mag
“…a soundtrack set somewhere between the remote corners of an ascetic post rock and the richer, yet also more threatening, reaches of electronic music in its most abstract incarnation. The result is a record which teems with life and underlying energy.” - The Milk Factory UK
“Incredibly deep yet brilliantly sublime, On’s sound built the very rooms that Burial and Deepchord would inhabit later, albeit in an entirely different context… [“Your Naked Ghost”] is a monolith, an uncompromising statement vital to musical cartography. In other words: a landmark.” - Jan-Arne Sohns, Foxydigitalis
“[Helge] Sten hurls the prepared sound waves of Hess and Chaveau’s compositions even further out into the abyss, adding a sinister sense of field atmospherics to the already dense and quiet tones. Warning: Don’t listen to this alone at night.” - Ron Hart, Pop Matters
Robert Hampson + Steven Hess:
“The drums/percussion are there in the middle of an electrical storm, waiting for it’s elevation. More like hurricane, in which the drums will twist and spin with a 100 mile plus per hour rate, until drums and electronics dissolve. Electronics become drums, and vice versa. Strongly rhythmical forces are thrown together, but hardly the sort of drums you can tap your feet or nod your head too. The four pieces, which might be enjoyed as one piece actually as well, form a vivid web of sounds, a highly dynamic force. Great electro-acoustic music.” - Vital Weekly
