When you get something from the British consortium World Serpent you know what to expect, and expectations were met when I started spinning the fifth The Soil Bleeds Black album. Its name, "Quintessence", refers to the elements of earthe, air, fyre, water and essence, considered to be magical in medieval Europe. The five tracks (named after the five elements) present a band that has evolved from 1992 to these days, going from a synth-based trio trying to emulate antique sounds to a capable set of musicians who use different (male & female) chants and voices alongside with naturally sounding traditional instruments such as flutes, various types of percussions, and obviously acoustic guitars, which still give it that classical World Serpent apocalyptic folk vibe that we're used to. So there you have it, a mixture of medieval folk and pagan goth atmospheres, lush melancholy and decadent harmonies soaked in a noir beauty.

Wow! When I opened the package and saw the name Mlada Fronta I got really excited for a moment, even though I didn't even exactly remember what they played, this band had a particular significance in my memory because they were the first band I ever interviewed in my music writing career ;-). That was back in 1993, "Illusiory Time", but I have totally lost track of them afterwards and from their discography I gather that that was their debut CD and after that two more releases saw the light in '95 and '99, before it was time for "Fe2 O3" to come out. The name of the album is the chemical formula that describes the iron trioxide element (I believe), which basically is one of the last stages of iron, commonly called rust... The beautifully packaged double CD actually has a very nice booklet with lots of pictures from old rusted industrial sites, so I think I got that right ;-). By the way the packaging of this product is absolutely mind-blowing and incredible! A luxurious 3 panels folding digipack with an awesome 20-pages booklet all boxed inside a cardboard shell: you got to check this out yourself! But let's go to the music. The bio tells me that this french one man band (Remy Pelleschi, one of the two founding members, is now alone) has moved away from the sound of their debut (Treponem Pal meet Ministry and Young Gods) already by the time of the second album and has instead developed the electro-industrial side of their soul giving up the guitars and every other traditional/human instrument, focusing on atmospheres and beats instead. The former of these two CDs, called "Fe2", is the more atmospheric one, where floating and extremely cinematic ambient music with spectral stereo-plays meets beautiful dark electronica, while the latter, "O3", presents us with fourteen tracks of rough hardcore industrial beats mixed with hypnotic and pounding dancefloor material. When I say cinematic, I mean it! Not only this music would be very suitable for a number of movies I can think of, but it also is filled with voices from movies that I know I have seen ('cause I recognize the voices and what they say) and it's interesting to hear those little speeches in a record... Also don't think that it's all fancy trancy background music only, there actually are beats and song structures that develop into full body compositions. The really nice thing about it, though, is that the balance is kept all the way through the two CDs and it never gets boring or too intense (is there such thing in music as too intense anyway?), so when you are listening to the first CD there might be some sprinkles of industrial beatz here and there, in the same way as the second one, the more aggressive one, actually opens up to layers of calmer moments of electronica and soundscapes that maybe enhance the hypnosis of the overall experience. The chemical approach (further emphasized by the songs' titles) and the experiments Remy has been doing in his audio-laboratory have definitely lead to a new and exciting formula that I recommend you all to check out carefully! The album is very interesting and multi-faceted and a quality production and very good sound help the impact of such a complex opera as well! By the way, there are five remixes by Orphx, Savak, Dither, Zonkt and Kaltesglas.

Following up to their critically acclaimed 2000 debut "Believe", which sold over 7000 copies worldwide, Rain Feel Within released their second Dark Symphonies album, entitled "Refuge" during February March 2002. "Refuge" features ten dark-wave-metal-new age songs with female vocals and lots of guitars. Atmospheres range from heavy and powerful to soft and ethereal. As you know this is not exactly Chain D.L.K.'s cup of tea, but we enjoy every now and then giving exposure to bands like these, who certainly deserve credit for what they do and how they do it. The music is well-played, well-recorded and well written. Even though I haven't listened to dark-wave-metal x-overs in a while, they kind of reminded me of bands such as Opeth and maybe 3rd and the Mortal. Engineered and co-produced by Ron Vento. The cover design is by Mike Riddick frem the band The Soil Bleeds Black).

You would expect a Dutch like Michael Banabila to release an album such as this one on the national label Staalplaat, instead he chose Tone Casualities, one of California's most interesting labels for experimental and avant ambient music. This CD, which follows the two Tone Casualities releases VoizNoiz I and II, contains seven tracks of pure textural work, soundscapes that reinvent turntablism through the use of pops and clicks. You feel like you are listening to an old and worn-out vinyl and you are possibly touched by the warmth that those little noises transmit, but instead you are being hypnotized by seven smooth and beautiful compositions whose title, "Spherics", fits right on (maybe 'cause it recalls the very shape of those old records you used to dislike when CDs overtook). Created with editing, splicing and sampling and enriched by Jorien Muste's violin and Piet Lichtveld's guitars (I really like what the guitar does!) "Spherics" achieves some amazing and soft ambience (with occasional cute percussion samples) and goes well beyond the concept of a plain ambient album when it reaches into minimal rhythmical structures and makes it huge with cool deep droning sounds (by some mysterious guy/band/machine called Bobby - there was a Japanese noise band once called Billy, maybe it's a relative) that actually give it a quite a push sometimes. The evolution of a song is real slow, the peace is layed back and small bits of sounds make it cooler every 16 bars or so, but as you all know good things come to those who wait ;-) In conclusion it's a great piece of sounds, I really enjoyed listening to it and I think you will too, especially cause you know you are listening to a CD and so you won't be cursing and getting crazy cleaning the needle, which you would do if this was an LP, trust me! ;-)

When I first saw his picture on this cute 3" CD, I thought: "what a freak!". But I didn't mean to be mean; the funny-looking captain-dressed 50 year old man with a vague resemblance to Benny Hill and Walter Matthau on the picture is indeed german filmmaker Klaus Beyer, who apparently dresses like that to go to parties and sing Beatles songs in german over karaoke tapes! This is what he has been doing since 1980 (besides films, of course). I visited his website and he truly has an impressive discography!!! He doesn't have a great voice and doesn't have a great pitch either, the sound quality is very very very home d.i.y, but this guy is been getting attention from Rolling Stone magazine and even Playboy, tv documentaries and other media! Don't ask me why, but apparently listening to out of tune, poorly instrumented and poorly recorded German versions of "Yesterday" and "Yellow Submarine" is supposed to be interesting, or at least amusing, considering how much fun the folks at the live recording of the fourth song are having... I understand German and I can see how it can be funny, I am an extremely open minded person too (you have to be, in order to enjoy Staalplaat's releases) and I am not evil when reviewing weird stuff either, but in this case I must give a thumb down; I mean, if you ask me, he should stick to films!