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Earth came around in the early 1990’s with a sound unlike any other. ‘Earth 2: Special Low-Frequency Version’ gave birth to the Drone-doom genre and cemented Earth a place in Metal history, be it just in the underground. Bands like Sunn o))), who started off as an Earth tribute act, and Jesu later took their own spin on the genre but are very much in debt to Earth. Throughout their discography Earth have made slow transition into Americana and, simply, experimental music. With their new album, ‘Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light Pt. 2’, Earth take on a new turn of events.

While still resonating the same repetitive structure of drone, this album is for removed from the genre they helped pioneer. Influences on this album come from as far wide as jazz, heard on the fragmented bass lines, and soundtrack music, which is encased in the albums overall sound. This album isn’t an aural assault of fuzz and bass but a solemn scene documented by the band. Instead of conveying a dark and treacherous atmosphere, wading through the bogs of sludge, this albums set down an odd sense of neutrality. The neutral nature creates its own unease in a world of unknowing. Take ‘His Teeth Old Shine Brightly’ for example; you’re in an old saloon, cigarette ablaze, while the whole scene is encompassed in a drop of grey, nothing is particularly wrong but you know something is offset. This unease is scraped across the whole album and that is what the album’s sound conveys.

Space plays a big role in this album. Instruments play unfinished lines with no inclination of such and phrase lengths come across as odd, as if they’ve been stretched across an iron maiden and left disfigured and bruised. These features add to the albums sense of dismay and worry and the whining strings that weep their way through the depths of these pieces, hiding behind the sparse and overbearing pounds of the percussion, tap into the depths of your sorrows.

Another way to describe the album would be by comparison to the artwork. The artwork, which is superb in its own right, portrays a tribal battle scene, giving off elements of South America. While the album doesn’t fit the chaotic events of a tribal war it does fit the aftermath; a sea of bodies amass on the flour, men consoling themselves over what they seen and what they have done and a crimson tide set across their own friends and brothers. This album perfectly fits that snap shot and Earth set the scene with ease.

This record is very much a sit down album. Not in the sense that you’ll only fully or truly enjoy it if you give it your full attention but that you don’t then you won’t enjoy it at all. There’s just so much beauty and intensity packed into the small ensemble and that transforms itself in this dense and thick recording. This is the album depression, cigarettes and a bottle of bourbon were made for.

8/10

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After the gig I met the band and got pictures and such, which I’m not going to post, and they were all really nice guys. So, thanks Mastodon.

Set list: (An asterisk signals some standouts)

1. Dry Bone Valley *
2. Black Tongue *
3. Crystal Skull *
4. I Am Ahab *
5. Capillarian Crest *
6. Colony of Birchmen *
7. Megalodon *
8. Thickening *
9. Blasteroid *
10. Sleeping Giant *
11. Ghost of Karelia *
12. All the Heavy Lifting *
13. Spectrelight *
14. Curl of the Burl *
15. Bedazzled Fingernails *
16. Circle of Cysquatch *
17. Aqua Dementia *
18. Crack the Skye *
19. Where Strides the Behemoth *
20. Iron Tusk *
21. March of the Fire Ants *
22. Blood and Thunder *
23. Creature Lives ********************************************************

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesreviewsmusic/sets/72157629118669961/

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I’ve never heard a Gonjasufi release before this one. I’ve been told about him in the past and I know that his last album, A Sufi And A Killer, was well received by many but I’ve never decided to give him a listen, until now.

Gonjasufi’s music covers a lot of bases. He treads between Hip-Hop, Soul, Lo-Fi and many others over the release but, to me, it never seems like he’s completely mastered any of them. The main protagonist in this is that none of his ideas seem fully developed. Take ‘Nickels And Dimes’ for example, it has a monstrous beat behind it and a smooth layer of vocal samples that provide a perfect basis for a number of things. And while Gonjasufi takes the track into more soul orientated quarters, he fails to full expand on what he set out to do. Nothing changes throughout the whole song. There’s no structure, just the continuous strain of the same beat and that gets monotonous and very boring. Some of the shorter tracks can pull of this styling he takes on, such as ‘Rubberband’ and the subdued magnitude of its beat, but towards the end, where more of the longer track begin to enter, this album become a real chore.

These problems could be accounted for with Gonjasufi paying more attention to the music and sounds rather than the song-writing, because he is an extremely talented producer. A protruding layer of dirt and filth sets itself among these songs. On ‘Timeout’ the beat he creates is simply phenomenal and ‘Skin’ could pull itself off as a Liars self-titled era demo, before the vocals come in that is. But it’s also moments like those that make me resent this album for what it turned out to be, draining. “When I guy can make a song like ‘The Blame’ how can he make album that ends up boring me?” I’ve asked myself many times.

This album is a ‘mini-album’, clocking in at just over 24 minutes, and when an album is  that short and it starts to drag and grate on you then I guess all the production skills in the world can’t help you. I do however suggest that you do listen to album just for the beats because they really are fantastic but I get very little out of the album past the studio work and can give it no more than 5/10.

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Clark is one my favourite artists on Warp. His earlier work fitted the I.D.M. extremely well, maybe with a little Hip-Hop influence, but his latest works have seen a more experimental approach. Turning Dragon saw his take on dance music, with more apocalyptic  tendencies, and Totems Flare had him experiment with vocals, ambient tracks, Gameboy music and all out noise. Clark fits all these suits so well that I was excited to hear what he was going for on his latest album, Iradelphic.

.

This track doesn’t take Gameboy music and make it more dynamic and lively, like the Clark of past, but recreates it, exactly. This could have straight form a SNES or Gameboy and nobody would know the difference, apart from it sounds better, organically. Polyphonic lines tangle throughout the piece and it even has a couple of mood changes. Like all, or most, music featured on these games, it’s pleasant and nothing more. To me, this comes across as more of a novelty, a little too relaxed and non-existent of any flare.

Although this isn’t what I want from Clark exactly, I enjoy the song enough to give it a 6/10

FREE DOWNLOAD FROM WARP

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