[Music] Simon James – Akiha Den Den

August 13, 2017 / Rudy Carrera / Leave a comment

I think this is a case where the description of Simon James’ latest release speaks for itself:

This vinyl and CD package collects electronic music created for an abandoned space: Akiha Den Den, the crumbling amusement park at the centre of a surreal radio drama, and the setting for a story woven from the very fabric of radio.

Radiophonic and other dimensional library inspired cues soundtrack dilapidated ghost train rides, rusty dodgems and the domed Panatrope. The dark musings inside the mind of a talking thought-mining cockroach, a mysterious character known only as Monday Man and the main protagonist, M.R Cuttings (played by Star Wars’ Ian McDiarmid), a radio ham picking up the desperate transmissions from this strange ethereal place they call Akiha Den Den.

Simon James has conjured up an eerie world of pure escapist sound for this fever dream of radio waves and half heard transmissions. The full radio drama can be heard at http://www.akihadenden.com

Radio interference, snatches of intercepted broadcasts, codes, tones, signals and other haunting sounds from the wireless feature heavily alongside the soundtrack conjured up on an array of vintage, unfathomable synthesisers including the Buchla 200e Electric Music Box and the EMS VCS3. Occasionally the voices of Akiha Den Den’s inhabitants and M.R Cuttings burn through the white noise offering a glimpse of their tangled patchbay story.

Released on a specially requested opaque clear vinyl LP, the physical package also includes a redacted Akiha Den Den booklet (all artwork designed by Nick Taylor) and a beautiful bonus CD filled with over 70 minutes of Buchla Modular, EMS, drones, dramatics, cassette 4 track abuse and noise from the Akiha Den Den radio series.

The 70 minute CD “The Panatrope” is NOT available for download and is only available as part of the vinyl LP package.

Simon James has previously released space age synthesiser records as The Simonsound (with Matt Ford) and as celebrated night time doom project Black Channels (with Becky Randall) on Death Waltz Originals and Castles in Space.

This package is a must for fans of radio, inventive electronica, radiophonics, vintage synths and imagined worlds. It’s the future and the passed.

Legendary electronic pioneer Scanner has reviewed the radio drama:
“…. employs some truly inventive and exploratory use of sound in its structure…. frequently submerging and corroding voices beyond all recognition, as if burning the meaning of the words in a sonic inferno. “Akiha Den Den offers an immersive world for the listeners to lose themselves in a most alluring fashion. Free of the screen, let your ears roam around this imaginary world and let the sound take you into a lost world of fact and fiction, balancing on the borderlands of illusion and reality”.-Electronic Sound Magazine.

[Music] Celer – Plays Liberace

July 25, 2017 / Rudy Carrera / Leave a comment

The ever-prolific Celer, a composer out of Japan, gives the ambient treatment to the campiest pianist of the 20th Century, the late, lamented and terribly amusing Liberace.

[Music] O Yuki Conjugate – Into Dark Water

July 17, 2017 / Rudy Carrera / Leave a comment

O Yuki Conjugate were an early experimental music troupe out of Nottingham, England. They were not a conventional noisemaker, as their music straddled the line of ambient, experimental and ‘Fourth World‘ music made popular by Jon Hassell and Brian Eno.

This album is a reissue of an album from 1987. It sounds brilliant even after 30 years.

[Music] Scanner – Nomadic Concrete

July 10, 2017 / Rudy Carrera / Leave a comment

I normally find tribute albums done hours after the death of someone to be ghastly and in poor taste, but Scanner does an honorable job paying homage to Pierre Henry.

[Music] Martin Hannett’s lost Homage to Delia Derbyshire finally released on vinyl

July 7, 2017 / Rudy Carrera / Leave a comment

Another debt of thanks is owed to the good Al Clark, who posted this treasure on another account. Martin Hannett is known as the producer who brought the best out of so many bands from Factory Records. He put together this paean to English musique concrete composer Delia Derbyshire, who did wonders for the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop from the 1960s to about 2000.

[Music] Hijokaidan – Emergency Stairway To Heaven

June 12, 2017 / Rudy Carrera / Leave a comment

The kings of Japanese Noise, Hijokaidan, have finally entered the digital music market.

[Music/Interview] Destruktionsanstalt – Ex Bello Volaptus (plus interview with Per Najbjerg Odderskov)

June 9, 2017 / Rudy Carrera / Leave a comment

Destruktionsanstalt is one of several monikers used by Danish composer Per Najbjerg Odderskov. Per is no stranger to this blog, as we had the pleasure of reviewing his previous release, Swedenborg, a master work of bleak ambient music. His latest release, Ex Bello Volaptus, builds on that foundation, at once creating something akin to SPK and the early Sheffield sound which produced the grimy sound of early Cabaret Voltaire and Hula.

We had the pleasure of having a chat about his music:

AMOTM: I just started listening to the new release. What inspired you, because it sounds even more powerful that the last one we reviewed?

Per Najbjerg Odderskov: It was more or less a unconsciously choice .. It felt natural to build on something which this project was build upon. A see the one as a bigger, brutal brother to Vivens Monumentis. (Craneal Fracture 2015)

Inspirations… came out of boredom. I was living in a town where I didn’t know a soul, and nothing was happening. I think this album was a reaction to that.

AMOTM: Boredom seems to be the spark of so many great musicians.

PNO: Yup… I think Trent Reznor said the same thing, same as those musicians from Sheffield who pioneered British electronic music. When you’re bored, you’re isolated in your mind. It’s easier to have more focus on things without being disturbed, although I am doing music which some find disturbing.

AMOTM: It’s almost as if you have time to meditate on a crumbling world. Would that be a fair idea to hold? Considering how messy the world is, it seems like now is a ripe time for musicians like yourself to give full expression to a vision of a rather gruesome political, religious, and cultural situation.

PNO: I think that… I don’t know. So much is happening as we speak that it’s hard to mentally digest. We’re being mentally bombarded with terrorism, politics, religion, hate crimes, almost to the point where nothing matters. Nothing can shock anymore –
we’re getting more and more numb to these tragedies. Tuning into that sound of numbness, would probably describe the theme of Ex Bello Volaptus I think..

AMOTM: I’d say so. The album is definitely shares much in common with its predecessors like Throbbing Gristle, that mighty Sheffield scene which produced Cabaret Voltaire, and of course, SPK. In general, were there any projects outside of the early Industrial Records movement which inspired your work?

PNO: Well, I guess NON have had a huge impact. Also the rhythmic brutalism of Esplendor Geometrico. Nocturnal Emmissions is also another project I have a huge love for. Konstruktivists as well. But still, witnessing Throbbing Gristle live on original VHS-tapes back in 1998… Jeez… My life changed when I saw those 4 tapes in one night!
I had most of their albums on CD, but live .. That was powerful!

AMOTM: Heh, I can imagine. I stumbled into this music in my teenage years during the 1980s, and I’d have to say I’ve never been quite the same since! Are there any other influences which motivate the work of Destruktionsanstalt or any of your other projects? Film or literature, for example?

PNO: Literature from Lovecraft, Poe, Robert E. Howard, Brian Lumley, Ramsey Campbell. Love that kind of pulp horror, from Gothic to splatter-punk. If we´re talking about art as in paintings then I’ll have to mention Giger and Richard Corben. And regarding movies… The classics of horror cinema: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Henry, Nosferatu (K.Kinski), Alien, and also arthouse flicks like The Begotten and Possession, and of course watching old and classic Dr. Who episodes (black and white) with William Hartnell or Patrick Troughton. The classic vintage synth soundtrack on them are amazing, by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

AMOTM: You’ve done a splendid job synthesizing these influences into something focused and cohesive. Are there any plans for touring, or performing in festivals or art installations any time this year?

PNO: Hmmm… I’m doing an art installation in July in Aarhus. This town even got a prize as being the Cultural Capitol of Europe of 2017. So I guess I’m going into the art world. I’m presenting a HNW video on a screen with cars crashing in Russia. I´m surprised that I got approved!

AMOTM: Now is as good a time as any to send Destruktionsanstalt into the art world. It may well be a breath of fresh air, considering most installations these days are rather lifeless. Should be expect any new projects this year under Destruktionsanstalt or any other aliases?

PNO: God Cancer I’m keeping my focus on. Having some ideas for this project. Big-city vintage-synth-soundtrack is a way to describe it; lots of improvisation and weird glitch sounds.

AMOTM: We look forward to hearing this, and wish you continued success with this remarkable new release by Destruktionsanstalt.

PNO:
Thanks, and blessed be.

[Music] Various Artists – Outro Tempo: Electronic And Contemporary Music From Brazil 1978-1992

April 26, 2017 / Rudy Carrera / Leave a comment

Brazil, the land of gorgeous women, sensuous music, favelas, beaches, crime and jungles, was also the home to a very healthy experimental music scene during the late 70s and early 80s.

The Dutch record label Music From Memory is responsible for publishing this amazing comp.

[Music] Sonologyst – Ancient Death Cults And Beliefs

March 23, 2017 / Rudy Carrera / Leave a comment

Sonologyst is the main project of Unexplained Sounds impresario Raffaele Pezzella, whose work should be seen in the same vein of dark ambient as labels like Sweden’s Cold Meat Industry.

[Music] Various Artists – Superspectrum

March 16, 2017 / Rudy Carrera / Leave a comment

Superspectrum is a compilation featuring some of the finest dark ambient music active today. My personal favorite from this record is a track called Oblivion by Iranian composer Xerxes The Dark.

The label which released this comp, Eighth Tower Records, is a subdivision of Unexplained Sounds Group, run by Raffaele Pezzella, well known for his work with his project Sonologyst.

This is wonderful late-night headphone music.