Wire- ‘Wire’

Posted: 11th April 2015 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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1.Blogging/2. Shifting/3. Burning Bridges/4. In Manchester/5. High/6. Sleep-Walking/7. Joust&Jostle/8.Swallow/9. Split Your Ends/ 10. Octopus/ 11.Harpooned

Release Date: 13 April 2015, Pinkflag

COVEREXACTYX;1423474505072400;Wire1423474505072400.jpg;220;220

Colin Newman, Graham Lewis, Matthew Simms and Robert Grey a.k.a Wire is a band with a long and rich history in music going back to 1977 when the first studio album ‘Pink Flag’ was released with the memorable pink flag on the sleeve. Wire is a band in whose early music one could find elements of indie rock, post punk, minimal synth, new wave and electro clash genres that emerged later in music history. Even with ‘Pink Flag’ the band surpassed the limits of punk music from which it had emerged. Wire have been inventive on what concerns the arrangement and the instruments that make up their sound. In each album, different instruments, different arrangements and various vocal styles have been combined. No album has been identical to the previous ones since 1977 and the band has even used uncommon instruments such as cor anglais (i.e. a type of English horn) in their albums.

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The Soft Moon- Deeper

Posted: 24th March 2015 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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…or the music equivalent of an abstract expressionist painting

1.Inward/2. Black/3. Far/4. Wasting/5. Wrong/6. Try/7. Desertion/8.Without/9. Feel/ 10. Deeper/ 11.Being

Release Date: 30 March 2015, Captured Tracks

An album as a multilayered work of art

COVEREXACTYX;1413474707887602;TheSoftMoon1413474707887602.jpg;220;220It’s not often that I compare my experience in listening to an album with that of seeing an exhibition of painting. Listening to ‘Deeper’ was exactly like seeing the works of Jackson Pollock, Gerhard Richter and Anselm Kiefer. This feeling was instantaneous as I was listening to ‘Inside’ and its almost seamless transition to the second track ‘Black’. After 40’ the album finished and this thought returned and validated itself. In the paintings of Jackson Pollock and Anselm Kiefer the thick layers of coloured paint reveal their depth throughout the surface of the painting as long as the viewer observes them. In ‘Deeper’ all the levels are revealed and dissolved even before one realises that they are there in the duration of the first two songs; and it’s only during ‘ Far’ that we understand what has preceded. Behind the sound that replicates that of a motor, we hear an agonising attempt to metaphorically scratch all the sonic layers that make up these two tracks. The hard to decipher vocals in the form of whispers are also multi layered and enhance this feeling that Luis Vasquez is attempting to transfer us to several levels below the apparent and the evident ‘surface’ of this world and at this point ‘Far’ begins. Listening to the rest of the album we realise that the order of the songs is carefully organised so that a circle of meanings is opened and closed within 40’. Every song only pushes us further inside this ‘unfamiliar’ environment but mind you, that this is not a harmonious free-fall but rather a ‘guided’ tour into our psyches; whether one can exit from this deep plunge is another question but as always, it is the trip that matters the most!

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Mani Deum ‘When Beauty Ends’

Posted: 29th December 2014 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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ManiDeum_Whenbeautyends 1. They Murdered Your Youth/2. Every Kiss Is A Carcrash/3. My Fears Are Birds/4. Bourbon Bedtime Story/5. Walk In The City/6. Wolves In My Backyard/7. Summer Ocean Death/8. Brother/9. Stories From A Bar/10. The Storm Is Coming/11. Blood bath in E minor/12.The Fall And The Loss

Release Date:9 November 2015
Top Floor Records

‘If I knew where the good songs came from I’d go there more often’ (Leonard Cohen)

‘When Beauty Ends’ is an album which targets our hearts and ‘hits’ with emotionally charged music, with a performance that has a disarming candour and with lyrics that could be perceived as words with ‘blades’. 12 tracks with a captivating musical violence, invoke emotions and thoughts while they ‘open’ and ‘close’ parts of our psyche and our minds for 50’. Mani Deum find where the good songs come from and continue in an even better way than the one they took when they started.

…forever in Hell without a heart…

Mani Deum compose music where every song and every verse of lyrics, leaves its own deep and unique imprint. They achieve this, by moving away from their first album entitled ‘Music For Your Local Church Or Your Local Brothel’ and look for inspiration deep inside their psyches. What makes this album great is the interesting and careful accentuation of certain words, the gaps that are left between them, the lyrical solos, the distorted sounds, the guitar trembles, the rhythmical changes in the acoustic parts, the positioning of the percussion, the melodies that the theremin plays, the ‘smoky’ vocals which were not present in the first album and the overall unique atmosphere that the album creates. The subjects of the lyrics have changed since the previous album and the aphorisms have become poems with meaning as sharp as a blade. All these elements give to this album, the fierceness of a serpent’s tongue and the explosiveness of a daemon. (more…)

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Deine Lakaien ‘Crystal Palace’

Posted: 15th November 2014 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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1. Nevermore/ 2. Farewell/ 3. Forever And A Day/ 4. The Ride/ 5. Where The Winds Don’t Blow/ 6. Crystal Palace/7. Why The Stars/ 8. The Lights Of Our Street/ 9. Those Hills/ 10.Eternal Sun/11.The Swan Song/12. Portuguese Trails/13. Pilgrim

Chrom Records, August 2014

An album which can be perceived as being the ‘mould’ that was used for the creation of all the previous albums

R-5964948-1407577883-9741They say that everyone goes out into the streets they say that spring is back in Town. And people looking at each other and no one will be left alone…

It is true that the biggest ‘enemy’ of bands with such a long discography, as Deine Lakaien, is themselves. It’s been 4 years since the release of their previous album ‘Indicator’ and even though I didn’t expect something specific from this album, I was looking forward to its release. At the same time, ‘Indicator’ had reassured me that Deine Lakaien haven’t exhausted their creativity, nor their sources of inspiration. After that album I wouldn’t be surprised if we listened to something equally dynamic and interesting as ‘ Dark Star ’ and ‘ Love Me To The End ’.

‘Crystal Palace’ borrows the name of the homonymous building which was constructed in 1851 in London, in order to host the ‘Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations’. Even though the band doesn’t seem to have any intention to refer to this building, the fact that this album is entitled ‘Crystal Palace’ creates confusion. (more…)

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Her Name Is Calla ‘Navigator’

Posted: 12th November 2014 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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1. I Was On The Back Of A Nightingale/ 2. The Roots Run Deep/ 3. It’s Called ‘Daisy’/4. Ragman Roll/ 5. Meridian Arc/ 6. Navigator/ 7. Burial/ 8. A Second Life/ 9. It Was Flood/ 10.Whale Fall: A Journal/ 11. Dreamlands/ 12. Perfect Crime

 Function Records,May 2014

Navigator_HerNameIsCallaAs is the case with all the music bands, we need our time with Her Name Is Calla in order to get to know them. Now that they released their third full length album under the title ‘Navigator’, it is becoming more and more clear what they want to express through their music and more importantly how they want to communicate this. If you have ignored this band so far, Navigator is the album that will convince you to reconsider.

This album in terms of performance, has nothing to do with the familiar psychological detachment that characterises most of the young UK bands that are part of similar music genres. Her Name is Calla bring with this album, something from the warmth of American acoustic folk and rock of the 1970s. Navigator’s music, has many reference points and this makes it very interesting to listen. The band, has made big leaps in the direction of lyrical experimentation since their previous album. This album has a significantly richer and exuberant music compared to the two previous albums of the band. The orchestration is done very carefully and in such a way that stresses the sound and melody played by each one of the different instruments even though they have completely different tones (i.e. theremin, bass guitar, violin, synth, cello, banjo, mandolin, piano). In this way the music of ‘Navigator’ tells a very interesting story unlike the previous albums of this band.
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Tuxedomoon ‘Pink Narcissus’

Posted: 26th October 2014 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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1. Nature/2. Dorian/3. Toreador del  Amor/4.Vanity/5. Bombay Tension/6.Body Parts/7.Willie/8.Hassidic Pizza/9.The Storm/10.Triumphant Procession/11.Reflection/12.Back to Nature

Crammed Discs, April 2014

“The only rule was the tacit understanding that anything that sounded like anyone else was taboo” (Steven Brown, extract from an interview)

Tuxedomoon_Pink NarcissusPink Narcissus is a soundtrack album for the 1971 homonymous movie. The album which was released by Crammed Discs, is in jazz rhythms and provides a fresh narrative for the movie which was released without the consent of its director. After a persistent effort by the american author Bruce Benderson, the movie was proved to be the work of James Bidgood and not of Andy Warhol as was originally assumed. Despite the movie’s dark and mysterious past, Tuxedomoon’s album has no narcissism as opposed to the movie’s main character.

The basis of this soundtrack

The movie ‘Pink Narcissus’ is a homoerotic one revealing an obsession with the male nude body and an over projection of a rather unnatural connection of this body to nature. The original soundtrack of the film is of minor importance as it is a mix of classical music, film noir music and sounds influenced by eastern music as well as by traditional greek music from Epirus (e.g. clarinets create an atmosphere of undefined, vain and almost annoying experimentation).

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Tokee ‘Bouquiniste’

Posted: 6th September 2014 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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bouquiniste_cover1. The Day They Came/ 2. Awakening/ 3. Faded Sun/4. Stormtrooper Waltz/ 5. No Place To Hide/6. Fields of Silence/7. The New Tomorrow/8. Untitled/9. Untitled/ 10. Untitled/ 11. Faded Sun (Hysterical Version)/12. Stormtrooper Waltz( Crashed Waves version)/13.The Day They Cane (Tokee remix)/14. Awakening (Electro Shock version)/ 15.Untitled

Unguided Records, August 2014

…an unofficial score for an imaginary choreography…?

Tokee’s latest brainchild is entitled ‘Bouquiniste’ and is quite different from all of his previous albums. Traces from his classical music training and his involvement with the films’ industry (Tokee worked on actors’ recordings for the movie ‘Munich’ by Steven Spielberg) can be identified in all of his previous albums. Five years after the release of his debut album ‘Plus’,  ‘Bouquiniste’ makes reference to Tokee’s classical influences which are more prominent without excluding the presence of psychedelic/idm sounds! Tokee has also released the following albums in 2014: ‘Struktura‘ and ‘Unknown Spheres‘ by Raumklang. (more…)

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Hologram_ ‘Geometrical Keys’

Posted: 15th June 2014 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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R-5348587-1391775818-83901. Fall Into The Maze/ 2. First Piece of The Puzzle/ 3. Origamia/ 4. Last Day of Happiness/ 5.??Enigma??/ 6. Time to March The Riddle/7. Endless Passage/ 8. Symmetric Lines/ 9. Hypnotic Equation/ 10. Holy Haunted Box/ 11. Second Piece of The Puzzle/ 12.Before The Sun Will Rise/13. The Ballet Of Abstract Motion/ 14. Third Piece Of The Puzzle/ 15. Parasite/Paradox/ Paralysis/ 16.Room 586

Ant-Zen, April 2014

If you ever envisaged taking a walk inside an animated version of any of M.C. Escher’s worlds, then ‘Geometrical Keys’ would be an ideal musical accompaniment. This is the dark, mystifying, atmospheric, spiritual, inspiring debut album by Hologram_ aka Martin Delisle. It is an album which heightens our emotions in all the ways that good IDM (or Intelligent Dance Music) is supposed to do, so expect to be motivated to dance, explore your emotions and thoughts and to drift away mentally into imaginary places and times.

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Raison d’Etre ‘Mise En Abyme’

Posted: 7th June 2014 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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1. Abyssos/ 2. Infernos/3. Katharos/4. Agraphos

Transgredient Records, March 2014

raisondetreIt’s been five years since the release of ‘The Stains of Embodied Sacrifice’ where Peter Anderson a.k.a Raison d’?tre created fairly abstract and not so passionate dark soundscapes as he used to do in the past. There were no vocal samples in that album and the familiar almost dystopian atmosphere was not as intense as in his previous albums.

It’s been also three years since the first time that I saw Raison D’?tre live at one of my favourite scene, Schaubühne Lindenfels during the Wave Gotik Treffen in 2011. Despite my fever, DSC01861 the atmosphere was unique because Peter Anderson is offering much more than an audio experience of his ritual dark ambient music. Through unique lighting designs he is creating an atmosphere which complements the music and becomes a very important element for appreciating and be enveloped by the music. This is what makes Raison D’?tre stand out from the rest of the dark ambient bands who might rely only on video projections. While performing his music he intervenes to the whole space (not just the stage) as well, transforming it and giving dreamy characteristics to it. With this way the audience and himself become part of the same experience in a way that challenges the traditional roles of musician and audience. This is something that becomes apparent and clear only when his music is listened live. (more…)

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