The Soil Bleeds Black's side project (together with Psychonaut 75) called Hexentanz (the dance of the witches, in german) is an evil sounding collaboration that aims at «expressing the mythic image of sorcery and witchcraft as it stood in the Middle Ages». For all you vinyl-hungries out there, here is a 7" with silver and black art work. The opening track is an occult and almost tribal chant (I keep thinking of witches dancing around the fire) with blasphemic voices that really seem to come from ancient rites. The second track could well be a more shadowy TSBB composition. Side B opens with scary processed voices and droning dark ambient sounds, and continues with more percussive marching peace and flutes. Again very close to what TSBB's last record sounds like, except this is a lot darker and devilish, and the vocal parts (not TSBB's vocalist) are more like recited. This EP wouldn't look bad in the Cold Meat Industry catalogue and if it came out at the time of the Blairwitch Project these guys would have probably got the gig.

The Riddick brothers are back with what probably is their most medieval album to this date, just one more work of love in the plethora of releases since their beginning, in 1992. 11 tracks on two sides (yes you've read right, this is a thick phat 12" LP, and for those who just don't get it -the vinyl thing I mean-, there will be a CD version of this record coming in the summer on World Serpent Distribution) with an array of traditional Renaissance percussive instruments (kick drum and tambourine mostly, but also timpani, woodblocks and stuff like that), string instruments (harpsichord, lyre/lute, acoustic/nylon guitar, dulcimer/zither etc) and lots of different breath instruments (flutes, pan-pipes, recorder, bagpipe/cornamuse/bladder pipe -only once, on side A- etc), as well as jew's harp, organ -just once, on side B-, bells and more. [I may have missed, added or wrongly identified some in the list, because there are some many, and they're so alike and so rare]. Eugenia Houston, with her high-pitch voice (ideal for this kind of chants), has pretty much taken over the singing job. While the twins orchestrate the songs, only occasionally do they contribute with their deeper vocal tone to remind what TSBB are also known for. But like I said earlier, this is quite definitely their most medieval/folkish work ever. It sounds like they put the dark vein aside and concentrated on actually quite solar folk tunes, embracing an authenticity that I have previously only heard from La Camerata Mediolanense. And because the italian guys I just mentioned are among the leaders in the genre, if you are into middle-age sonorities you should know better and make sure that this record becomes part of your collection, no matter if on CD or LP.

SELLISTERNIA ("Feast for the Goddess") is the first release of a girl who fell in love with techno rhythms, gothic atmospheres and medieval singing style: this girl is called Regan. The reasons of this musical blend is because the past musical experiences Regan had: she studied classical music since the early ages but in 1993 when she left Boston to move to L.A. she started to link with people of the DJing and goth scene. This brought her to strengthen her interest about electronic, industrial and gothic music. SELLISTERNIA is like divided into two different parts: the first five tracks (along with the last one "Airetaina") are more influenced by classical music, medieval melodies and fairy voices (part which is boring for my tastes). The following six are more intestesting as they mix jazz, ambient, techno and goth with 50's style vocals. Even if this music isn't my cup of tea I found this CD interesting because of the variety of musical ideas but if you love these kind of sounds for sure you'll find it more than interesting.

Murmer uses as sound sources different field recordings which are manipulated, processed and assembled with strategies that resemble some kind of ambient orchestration rather than stricter concrete music. There's a lot of composition behind these tracks. Take my favourite one, ".errum": sources are "air vent on a 73 bus, malfunctioning gas heater, feedback, escalator at Pimlico tube station" – the result is a massive work with tribal metal clattering, a tranquil droning passage, and a crescendo of tweaks becoming an ear-numbing noise storm. A similar pattern is used in ".mmeru", which is "air vent in a red austin mini, wind whistling through a 3rd storey window, air vent on a 73 bus" turning into a hypnotic series of loops. At times the feel is almost ritual, like in the percussive sounds and echoes in ".rumme". There are some minor defects (like a cut&paste feel in some passages, where one can sense the gaps between loops) and some arguable choices (I think the 1st track is a tad too long – 25' -, though the loop is pleasant in itself), but this is a truly great work which shows creative genius and good taste in composition.

Dave Dando Moore is a guy coming from Whitehill, UK and he's also the founder of a new label called Fleshmadeword. Detritus is his musical project and SENSE/MARTYR gathers his first two MCDs. Musically the eight tracks of the CD deal with industrial, noise treatments, various electronic sounds, orchestral arrangements and rhythmical extravaganzas. The first thing that catched me has been the way Dave treats samples, because there's always something that change into the track's structure, just like as the sound is evolving while the tracks is played and this is very useful to focus listeners' attention. Also the upbeat tempos used are very energetic and along with the use of sounds coming from different sources give to tracks like "Sense" or "Detritus" a dramatic sense, as it was an industrial soundtrack. Visit his website and give Detritus a try, it's worth it!