Shnabubula - 2012 - Free Play

Instrumental Jazz

[FOR FREE]

http://shnabubula.bandcamp.com/album/free-play

• 9 songs to download
• You name the price (min 0,-)
• You get the link if you register your email address
• Listening recommendations: Polar Eclipse, The Wise Tortoise

English

Having dabbled in the underground chiptune scene for years, Samuel Ascher-Weiss has an adventurous hand with melody that is unrivaled by most of his peers. His sense of daring elevates his music to stunning highs, as it does on Free Play, his strangest—and strongest—tangent yet. Built off of improvisational pieces recorded on the piano, with layers of instruments added after the fact, this 9-song release is absolutely crammed with peaks and grooves fit to soundtrack the most epic space romance saga ever. “Polar Eclipse” immediately captivates with its frosty piano opening before stunning with a series of orchestral stabs and rhythmic twists, ending off the whole feat with a fragile and heartbreaking final act. Follow-up act “Electro Spunk” flips Weiss’ strengths 180 degrees, centering itself not on gloomy refrains but on jazzy piano, a whip-smart drum line and an array of spaced-out synths which run in and out of the track. The rest of his whirlwind creations run the gamut from stunning, majestic crests of sound on “The Wise Tortoise” to playfully malevolent jam sessions on “Morning Commute”. The breadth of the territory Weiss travels in just 43 minutes would almost be disconcerting, and sometimes his goals are so grand that he can’t help but undershoot a bit, but what ties everything together even in the release’s rare shaky moments is that sense of yearning for something undiscovered, something new. There aren’t too many artists making music as ambitious and adventurous as this anymore, and that Weiss pulls it off so effectively nonetheless is to be commended. This is a hell of a release, and we have to keep an eye on this swashbuckler, in case his next release ends up floating out of our world and into the galaxies beyond.

Eighter - Something Weird

Doom Drum and Bass

   [FOR FREE]

http://eighter.bandcamp.com/

• 6 songs to download
• For free
• Direct Download
• Listening recommendations: Track Four, Track Six
  

Disclaimer: We have several reviewers on the blog, and after checking back with the initial reviewer I take the liberty to change initial ratings a bit to adjust them on the out-of-5 scale in comparison to all the other records we featured so far.

Original Review rating: 3/5

English

Eighter's “Something Weird” is six tracks of fuzzed as fuck drum and bass. It's certainly the most apt record title I've seen in a while. Who would have thought mixing doom [metal] and drum and bass would work? The band themselves have called it “doom drum and bass”, and I feel that's a rather accurate description that I'm going to crib from liberally for this review. If the phrase 'doom' in a music review pops a giant question mark up over your head: take the blues aspects of early metal, make it slow as molasses, less reliant on sheer volume and more on technical prowess, make it sound as low as possible and cook. In this case, there are no slabs of guitar to get in the way and lyrics also completely absent, which only adds to the really heavy, dirty hip-hop vibe that simmers under all of this. That the mixing sounds extremely raw and rough around the edges adds to whole package really. There is nothing shiny or slick about this record. Aaron Todd's bass sounds like it's playing for the end of the world from a cave somewhere and he's got all day to wait for it to arrive. It fills up any and all space available to it, but doesn't overwhelm or become abrasive even with all the noise and feedback. The drumming is minimalist, not a lot flourishes here. Mike Cooper keeps the beat with a lot of snare drum, the kind that turntablists DJ's make entire albums out of. Again, both instruments are technically impressive to hear, but they aren't flashy about it. It would rattle your core before it blew you away. And yet, there are moments ('Track 3' and 'Track 5' specifically, they don't have discreet names) where things get almost bouncy, jazzy as the rhythm speeds up. The music takes on a blues rock cum hip hop mixture that works out a lot better than it might seem (the bass takes on a lot more of a guitar quality in these moments, and one may even join the fray on 'Track 5'). For 6 tracks of apparent improvisational origin, this could be a Black Sabbath fans introduction to the world of drum and bass. It could be yours too.

Shekinah - 2011 - The Wind Lost Its Breath Redux

Post-Rock

[FOR FREE] 

http://shekinah.bandcamp.com/

• 5 songs to download
• You name the price (min 0,-)
• You get the link if you register your email address
• Listening recommendations: The-writers-ink-redux

English

When people recommend albums to me, I can be a bit skeptical. I tend to have wildly varying tastes that are hard to nail down. Unless that person recommend me post-rock. Then we're on the same page. Such is the case with Shekinah's The Wind Lost its Breath Redux. An excellent record of reworked songs (according to the band's bandcamp site) that pushed all the right buttons for this reviewer. As long time readers will know, I enjoy this kind of music regardless of its grasps for originality. This record is lyric-less and mostly guitar driven as you might expect, with a pummeling rhythm section underneath it all. Pretty by the books in that regard, but really, if you're still reading this review you're obviously here because you're fine with that notion. And you should be Shekinah doesn't break the post-rock mold but it these tracks make for an excellent listen. I would actually describe the sound as rather uplifting, in so far as the guitar wanking is always aiming higher and higher (except on 'The Writer's Ink' – more on that later) and not going for a low, angry sound. If the song titles are anything to go by (and in post-rock you never know how much a band is taking the piss), these could be trying to tap into some kind of spiritual thing. WWJDFPR? If it sounds like this, let them praise whatever deity they like, the crescendos pay off in spades. I mentioned 'The Writer's Ink' as differing from the others because the riffs are not aiming for the heavens; instead the riffs repetitiously meander down among us mortals. Very wounded crying out for help in the night sort of mortals. It's a shift in song structure and it keeps you on your toes. If the music preceding it was an ascent to a higher plane, this is a contemplative walk through nature. It's post-rock. You're either in or you're out. I'm in, and will be listening to this EP for the foreseeable future. You should too, if you enjoy your rock music soaring and wordless.

the sky does not care about me - 2010 - any speed any direction

Ambient/Industrial 

[FOR FREE]

http://theskydoesnotcareaboutme.bandcamp.com/album/any-speed-any-direction

• 7 songs to download
• For free
• Direct Download
• Listening recommendations: sitar freeman, film, knife

English

A bit of an older album compared to what I've reviewed thus far, but probably one of the stranger; “Any Speed, Any Direction” seems to be inspired by the soundtracks to games like Quake and Half-life or science-fiction films. With that in mind it performs admirably. AS,AD is mainly industrial and ambient music, that isn't as interested in following typical song structure conventions in favour of creating soundscapes that would work great paired with a visuals of sterile complexes and desert wastelands. The first track; 'sitar freeman' is both an actual song and certainly lives up to its name. All sitar, all the time, and could even pass as a recurring theme for a character. I don't think I could take an entire album of this, but it is a fun starting point. Everything that follows “sitar freeman”clocks in over 9 minutes and sounds like someone took a microphone through a manufacturing plant to record every sound they possibly could and then added static and occasional glitchy bleeps over top. Well, except 'armor' which appears to be more song oriented, but is still seven minutes long. On the other end of the scale, a couple of songs are soothing to listen to for all their lack of context and noise('film' and 'knife'). This probably isn't a record you'd throw on for guests or dates (unless your guests/date are awesome), but if you do happen to want some background music while you frag over Xbox Live or happen to be putting together an art piece about futuristic dystopias, then “Any Speed, Any Direction” is one art show away from perfection

Town Portal - 2011 - Vacuum Horror

Hard Rock 

[FOR FREE]

http://townportal.bandcamp.com/

• 6 songs to download
• You name the price (min 0,-)
• You get the link if you register your email address
• Listening recommendations: Salut, Drastic Insights
  

English

'Vacuum Horror' is a crunchy slab of instrumental hard rock that seems to have its sound rooted several of rock musics harder camps – grunge without the white male persecution complex lyrics that often accompanied the lesser acts that came to dominate that grunge post-1994 (Staind, I'm looking in your direction), sludge metal, even a bit of post-rock for variety. I would say of those three, grunge is the one this record seems to thrive on most. Town Portal know enough to slow things down just long enough so we can catch our breath ('Segway', 'Phantom Time's second half), but doesn't seem as interested in extending the proceeding into the 8-10 minute epic territory, were ambience plays a much larger role in slower sections. In cases like Isis' “Wavering Radient”, the ambience creates gloomy atmospheres, here it would be unnecessary padding. The guitars are thick and happy to riff things along at a quick but steady pace, the baselines are low and dirty (Tell me you don't need a shower when 'Salut' is over) and along with the drumming provide just the right amount of kick to get headphones nodding. Vacuum Horror would fit nicely among the harder hitting grunge records from the early 90's, but thankfully can be heard in 2011 without any nostalgia required to be thoroughly enjoyable. For those that like their rock with a little more meat to it, Town Portal's Vacuum Horror is highly recommended.

Ektoise - 2011 - Kiyomizu

Ambient/ Alternative/ Electronica

[FOR FREE]

http://ektoise.bandcamp.com/album/kiyomizu

• 10 songs to download
• For free
• Direct Download
• Listening recommendations: Kuroi Kami, There and Here, The Golden Bough

Today we finally got around to writing a proper review for Ektoise, which were already featured in the mail bag section once. There was quite a lot of good feedback regarding these guys, so we thought it might be a good idea to extend our impressions.

English

Writing this review has caused my brain to burn out at least twice now, as if experiencing the album is the only way to tell someone about it and trying to do so by any other means boggles the mind. Genre douchebaggery and descriptors floating in the air around me. That may sound like faint praise for Kiyomizu; the new release from Ektoise. But that is not the case, nor the intention. No, the album itself is exceptional, it's just densely packed into a ten song aural experience unlike any other I've had the pleasure of listening to in a long long time.

One might come to take the band, and the album as a whole to be the post-rock same old, same old going by the lushly textured, yet sludgy post-rock staple song structure of opener, “The Shoreline by Morning.” After that however, any pretense of what to expect is thoroughly tossed aside, as Ektoise let loose with a sonic attack from all possible angles. This is not a band concerned with genre restrictions or labels as songs freely flow from one time signature into another, totally changing musical landscapes along the way. “There and Here” is a prime example of this, starting out as paranoid trance before transforming in thudding drum led techno-rock akin to big-beat wrapped in noise and feedback, then bleeding itself out into a piano and drum freak out that ends in near silence. Obviously the calm before the storm, as “Square Peg” comes out of the gate firing on all industrial metal cylinders to pummel everything in it's path, namely the listener. And album closer “Down River” wouldn't seem that out of place on an album by dark ambient pioneer Lustmord. There are no discernible lyrics on the record, and it's better off for it. None of these songs require words to create images of warm, serene beauty and grimy Teutonic nightmares in equal measure. Of the ten tracks, only “Dissolved”s chilled out guitar riffs swimming casually in space could really support a voice without it feeling out of place. Get the right female vocalist and this would be a smash on the charts. That being said, even the most relaxed, less rock focused songs that round out the album have a sense of urgency to them that makes everything fit and flow together naturally. Not rushed by any means, more a sense of purpose and destination in mind than playing through 70+ minutes of music as fast as they can.

An album that's too good to be free. You'd be doing yourself a disservice not grabbing it from their bandcamp.

Alex Ananiev - 2011 - demo 2011

Instrumental/ Postrock

[FOR FREE]

http://alexananiev.bandcamp.com/

• 4 songs to download
• You name the price (min 0,-)
• You get the link if you register your email address
• Listening recommendations: Northwind (demo), Settlers (demo)

Deutsch

Heute ein kurzer Eintrag über dieses instrumentale Postrock Demo Tape. Ich würde allen empfehlen sich wenigstens das erste Lied "Northwind" anzuhören, welches eine fantastische Steigerung im Songaufbau hat. Es beginnt beruhigend und langsam, verwandelt sich aber in ein musikalisches Kunstwerk. Alex Ananiev weiß definitiv wie man verschiedene Töne und Sound Effekte benutzen muss, um verschiedene Emotionen auszulösen, was man bereits am ersten Lied merkt. Das zweite Lied ist auch sehr gelungen, kann sich aber nicht ganz mit dem ersten messen. Er hat ohne Frage ein Talent für Töne und ich hoffe es kommt noch Nachschub. Außerdem scheint er auch als Fotograf durchaus Talent zu haben, schaut dafür auf seiner Website vorbei: www.alexananiev.com

English

Today, a shorter entry about an instrumental demo tape. You all should at least listen to the first song "Northwind", which has truly great build-up. It manages to start off with a soothing entry, only to slowly shift to become a quite monumental piece of music. Alex Ananiev's use of the different sound effects to create different emotions within the same song is actually quite impressing. The second song is interesting as well, but doesn't manage to stand out as much. Nice work, hopefully he'll put out more of that. Also, he seems to have some talent as a photographer, check his works out here: www.alexananiev.com