[Music] Pesniary – Gusliar

Prog River Records is releasing some very obscure, but absolutely crucial, progressive rock gems from all over the world. This particular release comes to us from Belarus, where the group, the legendary Pesniary, melded folk-rock with prog-rock weirdness and a tinge of psychedelic rock, sounding something like early Frank Zappa / Mothers of Invention at times.

Their popularity was so strong in the former Soviet Union that they were granted a shot at touring in the United States in 1976, proving to audiences that Soviet Rock was something to take seriously.

The lyrics are based on the works of Russian and Belarusian poets, including Yanka Kupala. This is quite a charming work.

[Music] Arturo Stàlteri – From Ajanta to Lhasa

This release comes as a very pleasant surprise! Arturo Stàlteri (Italian bio) is a pianist and composer of incredible ability whom I came across at least 30 years ago when finding a record by his early project, Pierrot Lunaire, who release a couple of progressive rock masterpieces.

This new album (and I’m not really sure if it is a reissue or something that was sitting in the vaults for 40 years) compares well with minimalist composers influenced by Eastern culture like Terry Riley, Philip Glass and La Monte Young.

This really is a minor treasure. I’d be very interested to see if Stàlteri has a few more hidden albums waiting to see the light of day.

[Music] Jeff Gburek Projects – Polish Soundscapes

Today has been a good day to start working on a few projects, potentially a more professional podcast complete with investment in decent equipment, so I started going through older links and MP3s I had in my hard drives.

The disc digging led me to a release from 2016 from American expatriate composer (now residing in Poland), Jeff Gburek. He has been featured here before, and is one of our favorite active sound artists. This album serves as something of a travelogue of Poznań, Poland, perfect for our rainy day here in Brno.

For my taste, the best composers allow me to close my eyes and imagine a film to match a great soundtrack. Jeff never fails at providing me with this opportunity to make such images in my head.

[Music] Takuya Kuroda – Zigzagger

This release came out of nowhere for me. Well, that’s not entirely true, because Takuya Kuroda‘s name was dropped on the recent edition of Bandcamp Weekly, and I was impressed enough by his Miles-like fusion pulses melded tastefully with hip-hop of fine quality, a mix that seems to be pleasant to my ears these days.

Kuroda‘s based out of New York, and his playing is fresh, innovative, occasionally weird, and serves as a great foil for his collaborators to underpin.

[Music] Batavia – Quite Mean Spirited

For those of you into Industrial metal, goth metal and that sort of thing, I have to say that Batavia are not doing too shabby of a job. From their press release:

Batavia is a gothic industrial band from Jacksonville FL, the band is comprised of husband and wife duo Terri and Ed Cripps. The story of Batavia is less about the band, but more about the people behind it. The two had been acquainted years ago and reconnected only by chance. The chemistry between them was immediately apparent and scarcely has there been a day where they have been apart sir. They were married in November of 2019 in a retro arcade in downtown Jacksonville, before an Addams Family pinball machine, in true nerdy-goth fashion. Both being musicians, having strikingly similar musical tastes and already doing everything else together, it was a natural step to form a musical project. 
Terri’s comeuppance was in the Madison WI scene. She began playing piano and singing from a very young age. Ed spent most of his formative years playing in bands in the Providence and Boston area. He had been recording from his teenage years on, starting with primitive tracker software and thrift shop synthesizers to score video game mods.

They both came into the punk and industrial scene during its 90s stride and draw much of their inspiration from the music of that era; Skinny Puppy, 16Volt, C-Tec, Godflesh as well as goth and post-punk bands The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Smiths and a litany of other influences.

Batavia’s music is an amalgamation of all those influences, using those textures as a framework and building into new directions, painting vibrant pictures, exploring new ideas and to make more of the music they would want to listen to themselves.

Batavia are signed to Tigersquawk Records.

The newest release from Batavia, titled ‘Quite Mean Spirited‘, is an exploration of malevolence and what drives the human soul to inflict indignities upon their fellow beings.

The recording took place in our home studio in Jacksonville FL, with marathon recording and writing sessions spanning several weeks. 
The title song delves into justification of inflicting vitriol through the veil of tribalism by means of a bleak, brooding goth-rock drone. To break the morose subject matter, track 2 is a jaunty cover of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Upside Down‘, delivered in industrial metal fashion.

Tracks 3 and 4, ‘Ab Initio‘ and ‘Finis‘, are two parts of a whole. Based on the true story of a woman in 1930s Soviet Russia who was taken from her home and sent across the sea to an island prison. Shortly after her arrival, she was assaulted by the guardsman. When she turned to her fellow prisoners for help, they instead tied her to a tree and cannibalized her. ‘An Initio‘ is based on a sailor song that was adopted by the Red Army during this time. ‘Finis‘ is a dreary, gothic orchestral illustration of the terror and despair this woman must have experienced.

Track 5, ‘The Absinthian‘, paints a picture of the malice in the individual. There are no questions to be asked, but a cavalier affidavit told from the perspective of unrepentant malevolence. A representation of the evil that lives in each and every one of us at its purest form in the form of a man. 
Track 6 closes the EP with a remix of the title track, provided by Leæther Strip

[Music] Ocean – Ocean

My friend Henning Küpper is the impresario of Lollipope Shoppe, perhaps the first indie label whose work introduced me to everything from psychedelic music and weird Russian rock. For this, I owe Henning a massive debt.

Continuing his amazing curative abilities, he released an album New York-based psych-folk band Ocean. This mellow folky freakout was released in 1969, but the stereo tapes were lost thanks to their label, Apostolic Studios, went under. Thankfully, guitarist John Townley saved a mono recording, and after Lollipope Shoppe polishing, it is available again after 51 years.

[Music] Various Artists – Anthology Of Persian Experimental Music Vol. II

September 4 is one of those Bandcamp Fridays where the company doesn’t take its normal commission in order for the artists to either make a bit more money or donate it to the cause of their choice. Though well over 1,500 releases flooded by email inbox today, there was one which came to me from a dear friend of the blog, Raffaele Pezzella (owner of the incredible Unexplained Sounds Group, whose compilations never fail to impress.

This one is a second batch of Iranian dark ambient and experimental music composers, featuring such maestros as Xerxes The Dark, Reza Solatipour, Force Ignore and a host of names which are not only new to me, but who have managed to capture my interest rather quickly.

Today, of all days, is a fine one to introduce yourself to a fresh batch of music from Iran’s dark ambient wellspring.