Animal Ghosts - Wake (2021)

The Portland-based solo artist known as Animal Ghosts has already four LPs in his discography (and three of them were released in 2020 alone). But the one that brings him to my blog, is his December EP called Wake.

This is some traditional extremely noisy take on dreamy music. "Extremely" being the key word here as the artist's music sounds like something Ceremony or A Place to Bury Strangers would be proud of. Short and lively songs that would be melodic if it wasn't for the omnipresent, ear-overwhelming guitar noise that can be felt in your brain as a tangible, coarse haze. The MBV-like sound effects feel it with intriguing vibes while the airy vocals flow through the noise with beautiful ease. I especially like when the artist lets the stream of guitar sounds go uninterrupted, especially well-done in my favourite track here, Drift. It's basically a psychedelic trance infused by abusive noise. I love it.

Wake costs 3 USD.

Check: Drift

Country: Oregon, US

Genre: extreme noise rock

 

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ASHTORETH - Rites III​-​IV (2021)

Peter Verwimp released his Rites I and II in 2019. Since then he was involved in other projects and cooperations but it's finally time for the followup in the form of Rites III-IV, making the Cyclic Law's release one of the highlights of the ambient music at the end of the last year.

As Ashtoreth is "the preeminent goddess in the Bible, and the plural Ashtaroth is a generic term for goddesses", it's no wonder that Verwimp's music is all about the pagan-sounding, sacral and dark ambient. It is a sea of gloomy, minimalist electronica that is filled with horror-like, unnerving whispering vocals and distorted instrument sounds. The soundscapes he produces sound mystical and very mysterious and are supposed to explain people's "interconnectedness with nature as a whole and the necessity to acknowledge and use this connection as an amplifier of thoughts, ideas and emotions". One thing is certain, this is one of the darkest ambient pieces of the year.

Rites III​-​IV costs 8 EUR.

Check: Rite III 

Country: Belgium

Genre: dark ambient

Label: Cyclic Law

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Syupeo Jenjang - 이런 젠장 (2021)

The mysterious Korean artist is back at it! The Syupeo Jenjang project released their debut album 슈퍼 젠장 in June last year only to proceed with another two well-crafted noise-filled releases in autumn and winter. If this means that every season we get a new dose of noise from them, I'm in! Especially that이런 젠장 doesn't disappoint in the slightest.

Apparently, the title translates to "Damn It" and i have to say, damn, is this album noisy. The guitars feel absolutely overwhelming, turning the dispersed vocals into some kind of irrelevant ornamentation. The main thing is always about the instrumental noise. It is raw and coarse for the most part, the lo-fi vibes are all over the place and make listening to this album like a trip to the artist's garage for an unscheduled rehearsal. It's so loud and textured that you can almost touch the sound that appears all over you. This is complimented by the long passage of drones that very fittingly closes the album in The End. End that mischievously turn into a fine post scriptum with a hidden, melodic song afterwards. As said before, I'm up to anything the Korean project offers, but judging from the track titles and the companion single called ., this may be the last time we hear from them sadly.

이런 젠장 costs 4 EUR.

Syupeo Jenjang - 슈퍼 젠장 (2021)

Check: The End

Country: South Korea

Genre: noise rock

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Swœr - Patina (2021)

Erik Swiatloch and his ambitious post-rock music project Swœr is back on this blog. I posted about the artist five years ago and he hasn't appeared on my music radar since then. Until at the end of the last year, he released a short but beautiful album called Patina.

The tracks he included on the album have titles referring to various geographical places and for me, obviously, the most interesting is the second one: Sandomierz being a small, historic town in Poland, mostly known as the setting of one of the most popular TV series. I presume Swiatloch took inspirations from the places he visited and, since it means he was on Svalbard as well, I'm very jealous. The music he creates is very much guitar-oriented and since he does everything by himself (and "the mixing happens at home on the couch with wine") there's a certain lo-fi atmosphere to it as well. But the most important thing is that his main goal is to create a beautiful soundscape of guitar noise that can transport the audience to some other place (probably the ones referenced in the titles). The drones are spacious and the pace slow, making the music not-overwhelming and quite soft while very satisfying at the same time, especially when the German artist adds some nature-derived field recordings and ethereal vocals towards the end of this musical journey.

Patina costs 7 EUR.

Swœr - unfinished thoughts of an innocent dead child (2017)

Check: Sandomierz

Country: Germany

Genre: noisy post-rock

Label: Poly Unique

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Hiemis - Zothique (2021)

Juan Carlos Toledo is known as a member of Silent Love of Death and under the moniker of Hiemis. As the latter, the Spaniard releases albums filled with dark and tribal-characterized ambient music, probably best sounding on his newest work called Zothique.

His music makes subtle soundscapes collide with clear folk-like drums and unnerving chanting, a perfect recipe for dark and unsettling ambient music. The gloomy parts generate such a massively spooky atmosphere, but in my opinion, the tribal folk intrusions are what really fuel the darkness here: it certainly has the vibes of folk-inspired horror movies and I'm here for it. The pretty complex album goes on and on without losing anything from this dark grip and this is something that should be appreciated.

Zothique costs 7 USD.

Check: Xylac

Country: Spain

Genre: tribal dark ambient

Label: Noctivagant

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KAATAYRA - Inpariquipê (2022)

Caio Lemos comes from Brazil and creates his music under the moniker of KAATAYRA. And it's quite outstanding what he does: the blend of psychedelic rock and black metal makes the last year's Inpariquipê really special.

He also calls his music "acoustic black metal" and I can understand why: the whole compositions are based on the repetitive passages of drums and... pretty exotic-sounding tropical music in the backgrounds. The psychedelic music's ability to mesmerize the audience is all over the place here, which makes the compositions suck the listener in with ease. This tropical component is also extremely interesting; it needs no explanation that black metal is usually connected with cold places (geographically speaking) and when a project's from a country like Brazil (and the South American metal scene is also very strong), they usually embrace the Nordic themes as well. Kaatayra is an exception here; every second of his music says that he's very well connected to the tropical reality around him and I appreciate that.

So where's the metal part in all of this actually? The artist's fifth album is filled with instrumental music mostly, but there are fragments that include his desperate, angry vocals. Still, they feel like they are put in the backgrounds, sounding more like shouting in a wilderness with much anger, but not so much power when compared to the forces of nature. It's perfect in Dundararaiê where the metal vocals additionally get a tribal treatment only empowering the mesmerizing features of the whole album. 

Inpariquipê costs whatever you want to pay (if you buy on the artist's Bandcamp site).

Check: Dundararaiê

Country: Brazil

Genre: tropical acoustic black metal

Label: Weary Bird Records/Pest Productions

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Tristesse - Im schwächsten Licht (2021)

Ah, yes, a catchy, energetic and very noisy new band from a Germanic country. But this time, after a wave of Swedish ones, this is a band from Germany (singing in German too!). Tristesse are from Berlin and back in December released a very promising debut EP.

The EP's title translates to "Where there's light, there's also a shadow" and I find it as great way of describing the music genre: where there's catchy melody, there's also a solid dose of noise. The band creates music that is certainly up-beat and energetic, very much the perfect option to dance to. The ease of writing catchy compositions is obvious here. The artists added to the pop's catchiness a good deal of guitar noise that go together, hand in hand, for the whole length of the album. I love the sheer energy they are able to transfer to the audience, also thanks to the good quality of sound which I appreciate a lot. All of the short songs are worth checking out, but my money is on the album's finish in the form of Mono. I love the song's flow and how it smoothly goes on top of the noisy backgrounds.

Im schwächsten Licht costs 3.5 EUR.

Check: Mono

Country: Germany

Genre: noise pop

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Wilson Trouvé & Wil Bolton - Escape (2021)

The French artist, residing in Belgium, Wilson Trouvé and Wil Bolton, the Englishman already known to the readers of this blog, released a short (for the ambient genre) album called Escape and this trans-channel cooperation makes one of the most beautiful farewells to 2021.

The lengthy soundscapes they offer burst with life and sounds under the apparent ambient layer. The rich compositions are filled with curious electronica that sound both beautiful and mesmerizing - like an invitation to the realm of self-discovery and wistfulness. Especially when the music is filled with clock-like pace (in Escape) that feels more fairy-tale-like than hasty and nervous. This otherworldly atmosphere is really what is so attractive in the artists' work, no wonder that the album's title suggests to escape with this perfect escapism tool.

Escape costs 3.5 EUR.

Wil Bolton - Above the Neon Glow (2021)

Check: Escape

Country: France/UK

Genre: trance soundscape

Label: 1631 Recordings

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Horse Show - Falsterbo (2021)

A new supergroup from the Swedish city of Malmö released their first every album. The EP is called Falsterbo, making it the most difficult album to search for online (as Falsterbo is actually a name of a horse show in Sweden). But most importantly, it's a great debut all about fuzzy and melodic noise pop songs.

The band consists of members of a handful of bands from Malmö and the southern Sweden in general (like Hater, FEWS and YAST), who may have various music backgrounds but together make up an ethereally energetic combination. This supergroup of the Scania airy tunes, filled their debut EP with lively dream pop music that makes me think of the early Pia Fraus: there's noise, there's fuzzy guitars, but the melodies are what drives the project. There's a lot of earnest songwriting here: the songs feel straightforwardly fun and energetic with this lo-fi twee vibes all over them. It's all well audible in songs like Used To, Memory Chain or my favourite one Shame - all of them present an insane level of catchiness. Not to forget that Shame finishes with a very psychedelic and noisy way - the perfect combination. The short album really fits my private discovery of Swedish dream pop artists that made a great deal of the last year's airy music playlist for me.

Falsterbo costs 3.99 EUR.

Check: Shame 

Country: Sweden

Genre: noise pop

Label: PNKSLM Recordings

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anthéne - maritime (2021)

Brad Deschamps, a well-established ambient artist and curator of Polar Seas Recordings, released a fantastic album last November (curiously, through the Ambientologist label). And maritime catches attention with the subtle but ever-changing soundscapes that rush the audience into a dreamy trance.

Mastered by Ian Hawgood, the album is said to be unique for the artist as it "shift[s] from his usual expansive, time-stretching soundscapes" into "something altogether more grounded, more focused". The tracks don't feel particularly rushed, they present well-developed, delicately noisy soundscapes that seem to represent an open gate to the land of dreaming. Melancholic drones and peaceful mood really feel like invitation to a trance. Perhaps one less comfortable composition the audience can find in what the night will bring with its slightly more danger-sounding vibes in the synthy backgrounds, but maybe it's just autosuggestion. 

maritime costs 8 EUR.

Check: what the night will bring 

Country: Canada

Genre: dreamy soundscape

Label: Ambientologist

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Neonach - II (2021)

Craig Douglas debuted with his project Neonach only a year ago and he managed to got back with a follow-up album already in the final days of the last year. I love how unique and fresh the artist's music feels while still deriving the best parts from established music genres of shoegaze and psychedelia.

The uniqueness of Douglas' music is bound to the use of electronics means to achieve an unbelievably fun and smooth flow in his music. The songs seem to slide from one to another like people dancing on ice. And it doesn't matter that the follow-up album seems to be heavier than the debut, it's still the same, immersive and inviting atmosphere. There are moments of shocking noise (like in my favourite A Dream that sound almost like something taken from dubstep but melted in the ethereality of this music) or even metal-like galloping pace (in Human) but even they are so fantastically catchy thanks to the use of ethereal choirs and synth-like backgrounds. As well as the particularly distorted vocals that may feel like taken from older psychedelic rock records but feel very well fitted in the modern music the artist creates.

II costs 7 USD.

Neonach - Neonach (2021)

Check: A Dream

Country: Massachusetts, US 

Genre: electronic psychedelic rock

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WE​.​THE PIGS - WE​.​THE PIGS (2021)

It's been already 6 years (!) since the Swedish band WE.THE PIGS' debut EP I posted about on this blog back in its beginnings. The musicians finally (!) released their first LP and, fortunately, I can safely say it was wort waiting for as the self-titled album shows a lot of noisy and dreamy magic.

Their noise pop is characterized with lo-fi, bedroom recordings quality and it directly influences the haziness and mystery surrounding the melodies. To dig through the noise and the whole fog of imperfect sounds to reach the airy vocals and lofty tunes is a fantastic experience. And very rewarding too as songs like Drift to Sleep or Curtains show how beautifully merged the ethereality and catchiness are here. It goes without saying that the airy vocals and ballad-like compositions boost the ethereal atmosphere that is thick and moody from the album's beginning to its end. Not to mention the melancholic, city-based and emotional lyrics. And even when the band steps on it and gets more indie-rock powerful in songs like Fuck Your Songs or Vi striker, the overall blanket of haze and dream-like atmosphere swiftly reappear to provide more airy vibes for the audience.

WE​.​THE PIGS costs 12 EUR.

we.the pigs - EP (2016)

Check: Drift to Sleep

Country: Sweden

Genre: lo-fi noise pop

Label: Dreams Never End Records

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Hemelbestormer - Collide & Merge (2021)

Hemelbestormer is one of the bands that define the heavy music scene in Belgium, one that never disappoints fans' expectations when it comes to the overwhelming guitar noise compositions. Three years after their third album A Ring of Blue Light, they are back with immersive and absolutely massive Collide & Merge.

This extremely long album (physically existing as double CD/LP) is filled with long and slowly developing (or even developing and diminishing and then developing again within one track) very much guitar-oriented compositions. They seem to last forever while the storm of guitar noise comes and goes, making this feel nature-like epic. There are traces of electronica here, but the focus is solely put on what can be achieved with a wall of guitar noise - and the results are so impressive! The blizzard of sound they can generate is fantastic with the noise parts in Collapsar (or rather somewhere within Collapsar's complicated soundscape), the first seconds of In Praise of Sun and in my favourite Void that constitutes almost a quarter-of-an-hour-long love letter to loud music.

But there's more to this music than only the crushing quality of noise. There's a lot of space for moody atmosphere building, drone ambient-like passages as well as for skillful guitar riffs. I love those mysterious spoken word/whispering bits in Quasar as well. In general, the whole album sounds like it was carefully designed to reflect what's the best in instrumental guitar music.

Collide & Merge costs 6 EUR.

Hemelbestormer - A Ring of Blue Light (2018)

Check: Void 

Country: Belgium

Genre: massive post-metal

Label: Ván Records

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Saáadon - мреть (наутро ночь) (2021)

That's a great story on itself: two music projects Sádon (a Russia-based duo) and Saåad (Romain Barbot from France) came together to make music so they called this collaboration Saáadon, I think it's brilliant. Their album is called мреть (наутро ночь) which translates to "Die (in the morning night" which makes it clear that its content is going to be dark and poignant.

And the opening notes of heavy organ-like keys are certainly an emotional treat. The very slow soundscape the artists create have those heavy qualities, it's clear for the audience that the music i made to overwhelm and make them feel things. It's noisy, it's tear-jerkingly beautiful and, to top that, there are dispersed vocals that are based on Sádon's Donat Mavleev's poetry. They talk about "the end of time, its horizon and beyond" - quite bombastic themes but also, for ambient music, this is the most grandeur-invoking music you can get, especially thanks to the organ-like parts that make me think of Anna von Hausswolff's collab with Godspeed You! Black Emperor - similar dark and sacral vibes here.

мреть (наутро ночь) costs 8 EUR.

Check: Явь

Country: Russia/France

Genre: heavy soundscape

Label: Cyclic Law

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Fragrance. - Salt Water (2021)

Matthieu Roche, a.k.a. Fragrance with a dot, comes from France and creates very unique blend of heavy club music with extremely airy vocals. His music is both moody and catchy so I couldn't miss the opportunity to post about his second album called Forevermore.

His music, in many ways similar to what another French artist, Hante, does, creates this peculiar feeling in the audience: the urge to dance and to sink in the melancholic atmosphere at the same time. The basses Roche creates are deep and the compositions very much club-fitting, but there's a touch of darkness in them as well. Darkness that is obvious when you listen to his vocals - airy, smooth and whispering-like, a true dream pop way of singing. This surprising and exciting marriage of genres is only more so when the music becomes full front dance-inciting in Bind Me Up with Your Flesh. This depressive dance feeling is so well explained in my favourite track on the album, Crisis: "You will dance your pain away/ You will dance it anyway/ Now the crisis’s back/ Intertwining dark". Easy - you're in pain but you dance anyway, like all of us.

But the true value of the album is how the tracks are both dreamy and extremely catchy at the same time with songs like Covered in Gold (with those fantastic backing vocals!) and Crises are simply speaking pure music hits and it's only fortunate that they, in some way, belong to the dream pop genre.

Salt Water costs 7 EUR.

Check: Crisis

Country: France

Genre: dreamy dark electronica

Label: Synth Religion

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Oka Sun - Twin Flame (2021)

Oka Sun is a musical duo (or "the love child between two long time friends" as they adorably state on their Bandcamp page) from California. Previously known as The New Tenants, the band consists of Yoshi and Mandy and a lot of lovely, artistic pop released on their debut album Twin Flame.

As the intro in The Storm suggests, the album is all about beautiful compositions on piano and violin. Their chamber pop or art pop songs are based on melancholic vocals that sometimes sound more dream-pop-like, sometimes like some kind of indie folk. And so the lyrics they write are very fittingly about finding home, feeling lost in life and tons of melancholia ("Endless seasons/ Growing weakness/ Somewhere I’m sleepless/ Reckless and restless") - a perfect marriage of indie pop/rock/folk and the dreamy genres. And so is the music in the backgrounds with the sad guitar/violin/piano combination that is so moody and atmospheric. But the artists prove they can navigate through various music genres like in the album's finish in Twin Flame where their music turns into very moody post-rock, and, I have to add, I dig this ending.

Twin Flame costs 7 USD.

Check: Twin Flame

Country: California, US

Genre: dreamy indie folk

Label: Old Press Records

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Murmure - Les mémoires dissociatives (2021)

I remember the Canadian Murmure as extremely airy dream pop, very much Slowdive-style. However, the new release, an EP called Les mémoires dissociatives, added to this a lot of heavy-sounding guitars  enriching the sound and make it even more shoegaze-like.

This short album is clearly inspired by the best shoegaze artists from the past. There's the airiness and ethereal vibes of Rachel Mayer's vocals and a lot of catchy melodies with loud and noisy guitars on top. Those are fantastic - in Au bord de l'abysse the guitar passages seem to have unlimited flow and ability to engage the audience on such a good level. No wonder the track is called "On the edge of the abyss" - it feels like just a step further, one would end up in a really noisy madness of sounds. The Ep is collection of potential shoegaze hits with Post-traumatique being one of the best tracks to combine the genre's holy trinity: the melody, the loudness and the ethereality.

Les mémoires dissociatives costs 3 EUR (4 CAD).

Murmure - Nos idées fantômes (2018)

Murmure - Évaporation (2017)

Check: Post-traumatique

Country: Canada

Genre: shoegaze dream pop

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Hope Drone - Husk (2021)

The Australian band Hope Drone works as a collective for some time now (10 years!), but recently they found they needed some change in their sound and this change (make their music and their name more fitting together) is something that turned me back to them with their new album Husk being a really solid take on offstream metal.

As far as I remember, the band's previous releases didn't quite strike a chord with me "Strange times call for new perspectives and the chaos of the last few years has given rise to our new release where we set out to experiment" - this change of sound involves putting more focus on bass and drums at the expense of guitars and vocals that got transferred more into the backgrounds. This made their music more ambient/drone metal with its hazy atmosphere and soundscape-like values. And even that the pace of drums is usually very much black metal, the general impression left by their music is the massiveness and weight. The album consists of four tracks only, but they are long enough and written in such a way to slowly develop and impress the audience with heavy and satisfying finishes (so well-done in Existere) and leave it wanting even more.

Husk costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Existere

Country: Australia

Genre: drone metal

Label: Moment of Collapse Records

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Christina Giannone - Glazed Vision (2021)

The New York City's Christina Giannone was introduced to the Past Inside the Present label back in 2019 but only now her first LP for them is released. I mean was in the last October when Glazed Vision was released with its drone soundscapes that accumulate like grey clouds over your head.

The whole album is absolutely filled with drone soundscape. The sounds twirl and create layers becoming considerably heavy and thick. But this is a peaceful music, very much leaning towards relaxation and self-reflection. Nocturnal music but without the element of danger and uncertainty. I feel like everything is fine and there's little to worry about when the short (for an ambient album) release is revealing its contents. And it is finished with a remix by worriedaboutsatan, which is a big deal on its own. 

Glazed Vision costs 6 USD.

Check: Divinity

Country: New York, US

Genre: dark drone

Label: Past Inside the Present

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Blush - Blush (2021)

It's incredible how many shoegaze/dreamy bands are called Blush (or similar like Blushing or Blush Response) now.  This time it's a debuting band from Singapore whose sophomore EP called, you guessed it, Blush, presents some adorable and catchy noise pop.

The band may be new but the artists were involved in quite a big number of Singapore-based projects, most notably including Sobs. You can hear that they know what they do - the guitars produce a good-quality noise and bring exciting melodies while Soffi Peters' vocals are dreamy and airy, just as they should be. The EP is very short and includes the previous single track Best Friend and two quality noise pop tracks. And just as it is advertised (that "ubiquitous to Blush’s sonics are a crescendo fuzz that’s thick as syrup, and as cathartic as it is cacophonic"), they are very noisy and loud and this loudness transforms into an ethereal bliss in the listeners' minds (especially in the more slowcore-like, album-finishing Suck).

Blush costs 2 EUR (3 SGD).

Check: Suck

Country: Singapore

Genre: noise pop

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