Indianapolis post-rock festival Post. Festival has announced its 2022 dates and lineup. As always, Post. Festival seeks to bring together both musicians and fans of post-adjacent genres “without the aid of commercial status.” This year’s line-up includes: Boris, Pelican, Nothing, Pianos Become the Teeth, Junius, Arms and Sleepers, Coastlands, I Hear Sirens, Facs, Glassing, Pillars, Fayle, Colin Phils, Glacier, Brave Arrows, Black Flak and The Nightmare Fighters, & Onus.
There’s a slow, mournful funeral march coming through the mists, on a still silent plain, on The Buried Storm (Prophecy Productions), the latest release by Darkher. Led by multi-instrumentalist Jayn Maiven, the album at times bears a resemblance to Neurosis or Triptykon at their most quiet and reflective. With each song centred around the vocal layering of Maiven, the instrumentation often stripped to cello and violin backing, it’s an evocative and understated musical landscape. Often bringing to mind Bat For Lashes, one that sings her siren song with a doom folk backing, this is soothing music for people who like it dark.
Atmospheric black metal project Tome of the Unreplenished have upped the ante on Earthbound (Avantgarde), the band’s forthcoming album. After laying the groundwork on a few initial releases, multi-instrumentalist Hermes brought in a full-band for 2017’s Theurgy – Act I. A departure from the more musically straightforward debut, 2015’s Innerstanding (both I, Voidhanger), the first “full-band” release, probably alienated some listeners. If you aren’t open to noise and industrial experimentation (think more Throbbing Gristle than Nine Inch Nails) you may want to leave that one alone. The latest release is far more in keeping musically with the debut record and it’s a satisfying forty-six minutes of riffing and atmospherics.
Following on from dropping their debut EP Celestial Towers Of Silver Ash in 2021, Vivienne is the follow up release from Oceansnow, having signed with Italy’s Avantgarde Music a label specialising in quality black and doom metal in all their forms, with recent notable releases from the likes of A Pale December and Noircure, and a stable which also includes Abigor and Violet Cold. Continue reading
The role of mythology is to inspire both individual and collective growth through storytelling. Myths do that by making sense of the world. Vital (Southern Lord) by BIG | BRAVE is a mythical-sounding album that does just that. Of the colossal yet intimate Vital, the Doom-Sludge trio from Montreal featuring Robin Wattie, Mathieu Ball, and Tasy Hudson says, “This album involves what it means navigating the outside world in a racialized body and what it does to the psyche as a whole while exploring individual worth within this reality.” Vital tells a story through sound that makes sense of the modern world, prompting growth for those who listen.
When we last brought you news of Chalk Portraits, the ambient music instrumental project from New Jersey musician Greg Kennelty, we shared the full EP stream of his debut, No Visibility. Now returning with a new release, Memory, we hear the sound evolving in a more cinematic style. Listen to “Memory III” now!
Ghost Cult is proud to present the full EP stream of No Visibility, from Chalk Portraits, an ambient music instrumental project from New Jersey musician Greg Kennelty. Reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts albums, Wendy Carlos, synth-laden spacey Pink Floyd, and the solo work of Mike Armine (Rosetta), Chalk Portraits mines a musical inner space for the listener to contemplate. Alternately boxing you into an uncomfortable space, but also possessing moments of chilled-out resolve, in just four short tracks, No Visibility takes you on an epic mini-emotional journey. The EP can be purchased at Bandcamp and streamed on all DSPs today. Stream the EP now at Ghost Cult. Continue reading
As much as I enjoy Reverend Bizarre and plenty of Sami Hynninen’s other various projects, I’ve honestly not been as enthused about Opium Warlords. Their experimental brand of Drone Doom tends to be rather hit and miss, producing ideas that can be intriguing but more frequently stretched beyond their limits or constructed haphazardly. Their fifth full-length album, Nembutal (Svart Records), doesn’t promise anything different yet I find its execution to be somehow more palatable than anything else they’ve released.
2R0I2P0 (Twenty Twenty RIP, Relapse Records) is a collaboration album from two luminaries of the Japanese experimental music scene, Boris and Merzbow. Boris has released a vast number of albums over the past 25 years, and their sound ranges from psychedelic post-rock to crushing metallic doom riffery. Noise artist Merzbow (the brainchild of Masami Akita) has been even more prolific, having released hundreds of records over a 40-year career.
For over eight years, Dana Schechter and Ashley Spungin created heavy, eerie soundscapes as Brooklyn-based duo Insect Ark. When this fragmented last year, with a new album and US tour in the pipeline, leading force Schechter found herself in a tight corner until a serendipitous union with former SubRosa drummer Andy Patterson enabled the renewed probability of both. Tour almost complete, it’s time for the fourth album The Vanishing (Profound Lore Records) to hit the airwaves and Patterson’s influence, together with a more intense writing process, sees the band’s sound throb with added weight.Continue reading