Music For Glaciers

My new Sound Effects site - and Other Stuff I did since Abandoning This Blog

2013-09-08T22:09:00.000+02:00

It's been forever since I wrote anything here; and even though I'm probably the only one actually reading this stuff, I feel like I'm addressing someone I haven't seen in ages. Strange feeling. Since the last post, me and my family have moved house twice, we've added a son to the head count (family of 4 now) sold 2 old cars and bought 1, and I have started a website where sound designers and

I got the new Burzum album "Belus"

2010-03-24T20:17:00.000+01:00

Yes - Varg Vikernes finally released a new album after doing over a decade in, uh...prison. He's been releasing stuff while he was in there but not for a long time. Now the wait is over. It's called "Belus" - and friends; I just got it on limited edition double white vinyl. Sorry, had to brag about it. I'm still taking it in, but it does sound similar to "Filosofem" which was released in 1996.

Mark "Barney" Greenway explains the Napalm Death song "Diktat"

2010-02-28T00:28:00.004+01:00

I had to show you this, in case you hadn't seen, or in case you thought that the guys in Napalm Death are just another bunch of bloodthirsty nazi-cannibals (they're NOT by the way): This is ND vocalist Mark "Barney" Greenway explaining the song "Diktat" from "Time Waits for no Slave", while awkwardly holding the weird long mike and sounding all soft an' all... Apparently grindcore songs can be

Napalm Death - "Procrastination on the Empty Vessel"

2010-02-23T23:10:00.002+01:00

Ooookay... The year was 1987. Napalm Death released their first album "Scum" - one of the first grindcore albums. A total blitz of uzi-speed, ultra brutal - though rather leftwing metal music. High speeds, short songs. Really short. Tracks "You Suffer" and "Dead" got the message through in about 1 second each. Point taken. Was I listening to cool, timeless music like that? No. In 1987 I got for

Things are gonna change around here

2010-02-15T21:56:00.000+01:00

The few people who read this, will have noticed that nothing has been going on for a few months. The main reason is my family and I moved, got new jobs, etc. But I have been thinking about this blog, and I've realized it has to change. The present field of relevance is just too narrow for my tastes. I like a lot of different things, not just the inaccessable noisy stuff. It dawned on me that the

m/n/m/l - "Another round thing with music on it"

2009-11-17T22:14:00.000+01:00

m/n/m/l is the kind of music my wife hates, doesn't get, frowns at, etc. Composed entirely on a Serge Modular synth (an old fashioned analog synthesizer) by one John Papiewski, it doesn't use any known musical scales, or concern itself with any sort of "agreed-upon" musical theory on what you can or can't do in music. Papiewski doesn't even use a keyboard controller with his synth; he just

Kraftwerk interview at Pitchfork

2009-11-17T20:55:00.000+01:00

I can't seem to stop going on about Kraftwerk so this was a nice tidbit for me: A Kraftwerk interview (actually Ralf Hutter) over at Pitchfork.com. Nice, even though he does exactly spill a whole lot of beans there... Been going slow here otherwise - I moved, and now I'm on the road doing theatre work (gruntwork, not acting). Will try to get something up soon.

Einstürzende Neubauten "Tanz Debil"

2009-10-20T22:11:00.001+02:00

German avantgarde/industrial pioneers Einstürzende Neubauten came out with their first album "Kollaps" in 1981, and "Tanz Debil" is the opening track. You get the pleasure of getting beaten over the head with junk percussion, weird machine sounds, distorted vocals, etc. Sounds like any other industrial record you ever heard? Well, this isn't Revco, Ministry, etc. This is something much more raw

Lee Scratch Perry - "Blackboard Jungle"

2009-10-07T20:09:00.001+02:00

Dub is for certain one of those sound-for-the-sake-of-it genres, and Lee Scratch Perry is one of the masters. Now, I'm a bit unsure of this version - the video says "Upsetters", but as Perry was known to use this name as a moniker both for his record label and for whatever constellation of musicians happened to be around the studio at the time of recording, it's difficult to say what's what here:

Kraftwerk - "Die Roboter"

2009-10-04T13:23:00.001+02:00

Came across this great performance of "Die Roboter" (The Robots) on german tv. Notice the cool makeup, the weird homemade electronic instruments, the sharp looking outfits, and the vocoded drawl when Ralf Hütter sings the word "Roboterrrr...". Too cool for words is what it is.

Kraftwerk - "The Man Machine"

2009-10-01T20:29:00.002+02:00

Yeah - I know. It's Kraftwerk, the band that pioneered electro, techno, inspired hiphop legend Afrika Bambaataa to record "Planet Rock", and so on, and so forth. Nothing new in that. So why not just revel in the band itself, and it's sound? Yessir, coming up. 1978's Man-Machine is a perfectly good example of what they were good at in their heyday: Minimal electronic beats, sprinkled with cold -

Ministry - "Lava"

2009-09-27T13:21:00.004+02:00

"Filth pig" isn't everyones favourite Ministry album, But I like it a lot - not least because of "Lava" Like a lot of Ministry songs, it's more of a mood-thing, than shock-tactics. But then Ministry is NOT a metal band (but apparently not an industrial band either, according to Al Jourgensen in an interview I read in '92). A huge distorted-bass groove, a trashy gated reverb on the snare drum,

Alvin Lucier - "Sitting in a room"

2009-09-21T09:35:00.002+02:00

The music of american composer Alvin Lucier is new to me, but judging by the piece “Sitting in a room” is right up my street. The concept of the piece is simple: Lucier records himself explaining what he is going to do, and why. He then proceeds(as he explains in the beginning of the piece) to playback the recording of himself into the same room – and then recording the sound of his first

Burzum - "Filosofem"

2009-09-13T22:07:00.004+02:00

More than enough has been said about the Norwegian church-burnings of the '90's – and of Varg Vikernes' part in the events back then. His band Burzum (of which he is both the founder and only member) is much more interesting in the context of this blog. Put on Burzum's '96 release “Filosofem”, and it's immediately clear that Vikernes knew what he wanted this album to sound like. A surprisingly

Cocteau Twins - "Heaven Or Las Vegas"

2009-09-12T22:52:00.009+02:00

Third post, and already slightly off-topic. Anyone familiar with Cockteau Twins and their music will be fully aware that this is pop-music territory. Certainly the subject of this post, the 1990 release “Heaven Or Las Vegas”. Lots of melodic content, hooks, riffs, choruses... But those traits are just not

The Alison Project

2009-09-09T22:22:00.003+02:00

One of the purest examples I know of making noise for the sake of music, The Alison Project is (as far as I know) a one-man business of wringing sounds out of an analog modular synth.The long-running series of pieces named “Torn Envelopes” is a an organic blend of everything from relatively smooth ambient-style

Introduction

2009-09-08T23:00:00.001+02:00

A blog dedicated to the sonic qualities in music. Texture, tonal nuance, harmonics, noise, monotony.Sometimes the sound itself is at least as important as the notes played.Here you will find reviews of new and old releases of music in several genres, introductions to corners of the musical world you didn't know – or perhaps thought you knew, comparative analysis (yech!), much rejoicing and