Westwind's 7th effort, the double disc set of 'Ravage' released earlier this year on Steelwork Maschine, is a monumentally epic narrative of the apocalypse that will leave you wanting more of its devastation when it's over. At which point you may want to look into its limited edition companion EP entitled 'Eliminate! Exterminate! Eradicate!' (and this reviewer plans on doing exactly that).

'Ravage' is immersed in meanings much too deep to justly delve into here; but as the title of disc 1 suggests, 'Doomsday Songs' provides the soundtrack for a not only decaying, but dying earth. Evolving from sinister, pulsating synth drones layered in samples to viral carnivallian dirges to pseudo-theremin laden marches to droning feedback and noise to almost channeling 'Fragile' era NIN laced with Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn, this disc doesn't flow perfectly smooth, but then again, when Yawm Al-Qiyamah comes, I doubt that it will come smoothly, or with such a great soundtrack.

Disc 2, 'Requiems for Collapsing Cities' is rich with funeral marches, dirges and the aforementioned requiems. Pounding, martial law inspired percussion, drones and the ever throbbing basslines lay the groundwork for scattered guitars, synths, religious sampling and a variety of ethnic instrumentation which come together to pay homage to the remains of a once thriving earth. The overall tone of this disc is much more dark, brooding and hopeless than the first, and comes together with a bit more of a seamless flow. The tension gradually and continuously builds throughout the disc, making the listener almost feel the impending doom slowly overcome.

'Ravage' seems to very loosely follow a storyline, but more so pulls together many obscure references to apocalypse from a plethora of different religions and viewpoints as inspiration for this epic. These two discs, the first being a bit more experimental, the second being a bit more structured and dark, combine so many bits and pieces of different genres and styles that it nearly defies categorization, but I think it a safe bet to say that all of its elements congregate under the umbrella of martial industrial, with its tales of death, destruction, plague, etc and the musical groundwork to make you feel that the end of days may truly be upon us.

A SCENT OF GARMAMBROSIA is a conceptual work of avant-garde music where layers of strings, processed sounds and field recordings form a constant flux of changing sounds where dissonant trumpets meet piano notes and strings. Petit took the David Lynch's Twin Peaks definition of the word Garmonbozia (which is "pain and suffering that is consumed") and mixed it with the Greek mythology Gods' food "Ambrosia" just to coin the new term "Garmambrosia". The seven tracks of the album have been written as it was a musical score for a soundtrack and if we take Lynch as reference I don't think we could make an error as "When a seagorse meets a seafish...", "Pellicula", "The neptunial flights of fireflies", "A scent of garmambrosia", "Night elves jukebox", "The moon woman" and "The nightcrawler" transpose in music the chaos and pain expressed by Lynch into his most experimental works (and we aren't forced to think about "Eraserhead" as also "Twin peaks" had such panicking moments). Intense...

Everything But The Gargoyle is a collaborative project between Ferrara Brain Pan (Forms Of Things Unknown) from San Francisco and Pixyblink (aka Kyra Pixy) from Fallbrook, in southern California. Turns out Ferrara stumbled upon Pixyblink's MySpace profile while exploring G. James Wyrick's 'The Method Learned' page. I have no idea who Gregory James Wyrick is, but the relevance to this CD is that the subtitle is 'Four Musical Settings of the Poetry of Gregory James Wyrick'. Anyway, Ferrara connected with Pixyblink and found his muse. The spark was ignited, and 'Four Flies on Grey Velvet' is the result of the first long-distance musical project by Everything But The Gargoyle. (The CD title comes from the title of a 1972 Dario Argento film, a kind of a thriller-slasher flick.) Instead of doing the project under the Forms Of Things Unknown moniker, they decided on Everything But The Gargoyle as the project name. Confusing perhaps, but useful to keep future projects by the duo separate from their other endeavors.

I'm familiar with Ferrara's FOTU project; not too long ago I reviewed his 'Black Trenchcoats, Swatstikas 'N Shit' CD for Chain D.L.K. Minimalist, moody dark ambient stuff it was with a lot of diversity; a little uneven, but still pretty good as I recall. The Nazi toilet paper roll cover of the CD even added to the CD's weird collectiblity factor. Not being familiar with Pixyblink, I decided to visit her MySpace site and check out her tracks. I found the music to be minimalist ambient, kind of moody and dark, with occasional spoken word and wordless singing. Briefly checking her other collaborations (anotherAntidote, winter umbrellas, cave dwellers) which come from such far-flung-places as Australia and Russia, I found ambient music that ranged from shoegazer to industrial with a lot of variety between tracks and often with lyrical vocals or spoken word by Pixyblink. Vocally, there is a similarity to Jarboe in her quieter, more reflective moments, although Pixyblink is no Jarboe.

Over the four tracks on this EP CD, Everything But The Gargoyle sets a mood that would be right at home on the Cold Meat label. On the first track, 'Sleeping With Ghosts,' Ferrara's bowed psaltery is the main instrument that accompanies Pixyblink's poetical recitation (of G. James Wyrick's Poetry, I presume). It's a nice minimal piece, and a good mood-setter. I played this song for my girlfriend in Spain, and her cat (who also heard it) freaked out and started biting her arm! 'Susto' benefits from a little minimal guitar courtesy of James Severance, along with buzzes and drones, again with Pixyblink's Ophelia-like poetical recitation. The music, which includes Ferrara on moaning but jazzy woodwinds, glockenspiel in a repetitive eight-note pattern, and other moaning samples or vocals give the impression of acute melancholia with possible hints of dementia. More drones on third track 'Pretty Blue Forever,' which again features Pixyblink's poetical spoken word vocals, drenched in sadness and sorrow. (Moping Goths are sure to love this.) In the final track, 'The Hum of Blood,' Pixyblink recites over tympani with a martial cadence and a mournful woodwind giving an impression of a funeral march.

Everything throughout the entire CD is low-key and understated, with a consistent mood and extremely well done. Overall, it's kind of Neofolk with a touch of Martial on the last track. There isn't one weak track, and I found myself wanting more. In fact, that's the biggest beef I had with Four Flies, there just wasn't enough of it! I hope these two will collaborate again soon. There seems to be a synergy in their partnership which is a little lacking in their individual efforts. Some kind of tempering or fusion, but it just works. I'd surely have rated it higher if there was more, but as a first effort, it's marvelous. You can go to the EBTG website and check out all the tracks, but I'd recommend picking up the CD for its collectible value. Nice glossy digipack with a cover photo by G. James Wyrick, not of Pixyblink, but a model named Tracey Metro. I think these two deserve some of your hard earned cash for their effort.

Sehnsucht is the new project by Mayhem front man Maniac who, aside from his power noise metal outfit Skitliv, asked to Andrew Liles (Nurse With Wound), Ingvar Magnusson (Skitlivs' guitarist), and his girlfriend Vivian Slaughter (who's also vocalist/bass player into the Japanese all girl band Gallhammer) to join him for a new adventure. The new band sounds really different from all his others and this time we have a ten tracks album that spans from free jazz spoken word with a noise doom background (check the title track for this) to rock neo-folk (like "South of Cincinnati"), passing through experimental electronic noise with metal guitar riffs (see the opening "Sult") or industrial blues (try to imagine a blues song filtered through Nurse With Wound, Einsturzende Neubauten and a bit of Whitehouse and you'll have "Good morning great Moloch"). For something totally different that sounds like Godzilla playing with a Nintendo game, check "Tokio daymare", which mix Japanese day-life city recordings to electronic rhythms/improvisations. Another example of good industrial spoken word influenced by rock guitarism is "Hanging in English garden" which mix noise, clean guitar with reverb and spoken word just to meet a filtered Current 93 song toward the end. The album closes with "Ten", a five minutes mayhem of throbbing sounds, electronic noises and spoken word. WUSTE to me sounds definitively more inspired than the Skitlif release on Cold Spring and for this reason I suggest you to check it.

DSNHDIV is one Marc Brenner, who takes the kitchen sink approach to sound, adding the noise of everyday life to the musical drone. Like doing the dishes while listening to the hum of existence (if we could actually hear it, of course). Limited to 300 copies on clear vinyl.