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Soooo, fancy a bit of gloom with your goth? I may have the answer to your lachrymose prayers, in the shape of Sacramento duo, Venetian Veil and their EP, released on November the 11th, called The Lands Of The Living And The Dead, on the Dune Altar label. That title alone should have peaked your interest dare I say. The EP was recorded by Jim Willig in the Sinking Room between 2020-2021, and then mixed & mastered by Patrick Hills at Earth Tone Studios.

First we must be “Asleep In The Land Of The Living“. The guitar strums delicately over the droning noise, an electric guitar in sonic overload in the maudlin atmosphere. The shotgun drum machine rhythm and understated synths in “Quiver” really harken back for me to the early 80s. So simple and so effective, especially with the male vocals. There is something so utterly gentle about “The Lamb“. The soft, feminine vocals, the low and controlled bass belie a great sorrow and shame, for the blood of the Lamb was supposed to wash away the sins.

“Awake In The Land Of The Dead” is the instrumental bridge and the mirror image to its sister, “Asleep In The Land Of The Living“, where now most is quiet but for the strumming guitar. “Treeline” offers perhaps the view point of a soul leaving it’s earthly bonds, heading for the void. Slow and thoughtful, with stirring vocals. The Cure like “Phantom“, tinkles with those sweet guitar notes and sweeping synth chords. The lyrics are not so much sad but almost an acceptance of something that can never be.

I hear the experimentation and in a way, it greatly reminds me of the early 80’s when The Cure created Faith, 17 Seconds and Pornography, albums that truly pulled you into their misty, Victorian era like, dark and tragic romanticism. Light the candles, a drink of what you please and settle down to the Venetian Veil, as they take you to The Lands Of The Living And The Dead.

The Lands of the Living and the Dead | Venetian Veil (bandcamp.com)

https://www.facebook.com/venetianveil

http://venetianveil.com/

https://www.instagram.com/venetianveil

http://dunealtar.com/

http://facebook.com/dunealtar/

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We are going to go back to December of 2017 to revisit the electronic EP, Wavelets. Released by Secant Prime, a US based artist who’s first release was in 2010 with the Wavelets EP that is made up of 5 tracks ranging in length.

Imagine a sound of impending doom. It could be “Jacobi Elliptic Function“, a sonic dirge of undulating pandemonium of both electronic noise and human. Named after the mathematical equation that describes the swinging of a pendulum and also the design of electronic elliptic filters. There is always this low, one could almost say near feeling of dread and as the piece continues, it develops that crunchy experimental texture before becoming nearly atonal again.

“Dirichlet Convolution” is a mathematical function using binary operation as well as the title of the next track. It is metallic and sharp with no room to be otherwise. The machine in its computations will churn out its screeching answers that it rhythmically hums to itself. You hear a child lost in the noise, maybe a victim of the problem solving.

The next concept is slightly beyond my understanding but ‘Montgomery’s Pair Correlation Conjecture” is about equations that include the possibilities of finding zeros. The music has a sense of being out of touch, much like my understanding of the maths. Echoes, whispers and perhaps the intermittent ticking of a clock, all completely out of sync with a buzzing sonar like beat. At seventeen and a half minutes, this is the EP’s longest track but the lulls and build ups will keep your attention.

“Hankel Transform” is the fourth track and I can’t even describe this therorum but I can tell you the music swirls, as if in a vortex, sucking everything towards it, mixing it all as it flies past. The garbled voices add to the sense of imminent implosion at any moment.

I looked up “Fourier Bessel Series” and saw the words an infinite series expansion on a finite interval…..pursed my lips and exhaled. A slow build up of soundscape and rhythmic nose, more ticking like time is getting away from us and a growing feeling of claustrophobia. Constant, infinite and yet finite

in some ways this is my nightmare music, based on high level maths, however this works for Secant Prime. Maths is clinical and exact, with no grey areas. And many like myself find the idea of working out these therorum terrifying. The music is not comforting, stark and bleak, devoid of human warmth. A clever use of experimental noise to create ambient, nightmarish soundscapes. Wavelet is available on Bandcamp currently for name your price and other forums.

https://secantprime.bandcamp.com/album/wavelets

http://www.secantprime.com

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Long The Night is the project of UK based, multi instrumentalist, Derrick Stembridge, who released his album, Illusion, in the beginning of April. Stembridge is most well known for his main act, Drifting In Silence.

“Divided Souls” is a sonorous blanket of sound, unwavering and deep like an ocean, bereft of a spark to ignite a soul torn asunder. The beginning of “Untold Mind” is in a similar vein, however distinguishes itself, with a generic buzzing, that belies the calm as it slowly builds in strength. The introduction of Gregorian style monks chanting is a sublime touch.

An unearthly sense to “Divine Symmetry” as it almost hovers, imperceptibly, at a distance, while “Transparent” is smooth and, for the want of a better word, breathy, like air being inhaled and exhaled at an ever so slow rate.

A sombre darkness from “Through Blind Eyes” and through the ambient drone, it almost seems as if there is much going on, in an near overwhelming nature. Then there is “A Forgotten Time“, where the electronics gradually swirl to conjour a dream like memory.

But is it real and are these monks luring you into the piece. “Altered State Of Conciousness“? It vibrates under the skin until it reaches the point of calm. The longest track is “The Myth Of Now“. It sounds like an electronic orchestra, warming up at first, with fingers of ethereal tendrils wriggling between, growing and stretching.

‘Immaculate Perception” does feel like you are sitting in a cathedral with an organ playing, where something heinous may have occurred. Last track to grace us, is “Illusion“, that growls in its being restricted, trying to push at its confines and yet, like an illusion, cannot be touched, ephemeral as a phantasm.

This is an evocative album of musical sounds describing the dark without words and yet there can be no darkness without some light that gives depth. Really love the Gregorian styled monks which make this even more special. This is the first release under the moniker Long The Night, on the label Kalpamantra and if you love electronic droning sounds that evoke your mind’s eye then I highly recommend Illusion.

https://kalpamantra.bandcamp.com/album/illusion

https://www.facebook.com/longthenight/

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From the online music publisher, Ton Doigt Dans Mon Cul Netlabel comes the artist La Flore Intestinale, whom recently released Onani: Ambient Works Volume One.

La Flore Intestinale is the nom de plume for the female mind and noise artist, Florence, behind this experimental, avant-garde music, who is based in Saguenay, Quebec.

“Apres Le Guerre Lorsqu’il Ne Reste Que Les Morts” literally means ‘After the war when only the dead are left’. A haunting, wavering electronic noise breaking with distortion greets your ears. You can almost image a far off war being waged in the distance getting louder as the mortars go off, as it closes in on you, only to fade out.

Is it industrial knocking of a machine in constant motion?  Getting gradually louder with a near imperceptible buzzing drone above it all that eventually takes centre stage. This is “Blank Keurig Space Tape”.

The science fiction effect of “Tentaculas” is a temporary interlude before “Satic Black Tits”. Like a radio in a Faraday cage, the voices cut in and out as the static takes over the airways, creating its own morse code calling out to the world.

Beautiful chords strike out for “Melissa, The Professor’s Daughter”. This is relaxing and floats with lightweight synth, lulling you into a sense that all is in equilibrium. It gently charms your ears into another realm.

Ton Doigt Dans Mon Cul Netlabel puts all of its music online for free download, so what is stopping you from checking out La Flore Intestinale? Absolutely nothing, so enjoy the electronic soundscapes today!

ton doigt

www.facebook.com/lafloreintestinale
soundcloud.com/la-flore-intestinale

www.facebook.com/tondoigtdansmoncul
tondoigtdansmoncul.bandcamp.com

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From the online publisher, Ton Doigt Dans Mon Cul Netlabel, we have an E.P. with two artists. Building Castles Out Of Matchsticks (Anne Sulikowski) from Canada and Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt of the USA with the rather intriguing title….Why Should I Give You The Cure, When I Can Always Give You The Treatment.

building
Building Castles Out Of Matchsticks (Anne Sulikowski)

Swirling noise with reverb pulsate cosmically, like an epic space trip into the unknown. Why unknown? Because we, as the listener, are unsure of this journey and we are here for the ride and experience.

Like twinkling stars and beating quasars, this transfixed you though sound alone. It is imagination unbound and the composer might be the alien hand guiding us.

It is hard to imagine that Sulikowski can make many of these amazing sounds on a guitar but then “Differential Diagnosis” is a 13 minutes and 42 seconds piece of electronic beauty and the only number by Building Castles Out Of Matchsticks.

 

sean
Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt

 

 

Someone is leading a crowd in unity in “Dreamers” and so starts Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt‘s contribution. Laid over the top is discordant piano and feedback, then it suddenly……stops.

“We Destroyed All the Mirrors and Glass Out of Fear That You Will Forget Us and Fall In Love With Yourself” could be the longest song title I have ever had to write and this is a low cacophony of sound, which when you listen you can hear drums and chanting within, like Tibetan monks and their throat music, within a storm, within a can.

Bells chime, clear and bright over a haze of noise. This is “Instant Karma” which is the segue way, even though it suddenly stops for the last piece, “Tod von Heike Klar”. Buddhist monks chant with german spoken word, not so much vying for attention but running in harmony with the chanting. You just accept the words and sutra rather trying to understand them or garner meaning.

These pieces take you on journeys to feel and hear whatever you take from them but ultimately, let it take you away to new realms.

Yes, this was released 2 years ago but then this is the whole point about music is the search for what gives you pleasure and bringing things to the broader attention.

All music on the Ton Doigt Dans Mon Cul Netlabel is for free download, so why not indulge your senses.

soundcloud.com/buildingcastles
buildingcastlesoutofmatchsticks.bandcamp.com

https://www.facebook.com/seanderrickcooper.marquardt

www.facebook.com/tondoigtdansmoncul

http://tondoigtdansmoncul.bandcamp.com/