The Erlöser EP is the latest release from Austria’s Flamongo, a solo project from visual artist (under the name Irrwisch) and musician Alexander Trinkl. Erlöser means “saviour” or “messiah”; in this case salvation takes the form of noisy and hypnotic electronic textures.

The EP clocks in at just 18 minutes and is available in physical format as a 12-inch vinyl record with one side containing the music and the other an individually hand-painted design. Trinkl also takes a painter’s approach to the music itself, with each of the five pieces having been constructed as a kind of soundscape as opposed to anything that could be called a “song” in the traditional sense. However, the tracks themselves are perhaps surprisingly easy to latch onto. There is terrifying distortion, dizzying atmospheric synth textures, and punishing industrial beats, but there is also an attention to form, dynamics, and sometimes even melody that lends the EP and the works within a satisfyingly structured musicality.

The music was composed using an improvisational stream-of-consciousness approach, and we follow the journey from “Einführung” (“Introduction”) to “Ausführung” (“Execution”) as Trinkl leads us through an exploration of various different feelings. There is tranquility and there is chaos; there is rhythm and there is ambience; there is electronica and there is industrial noise rock.

My only criticism would be that some of the more “natural” synthesised instruments, such as the drums in particular, could do having a little more attention paid to processing and mixing in order to sit a little more comfortably in the mix with the harsh and spacey synths. Having said that, “comfortably” is probably not how Trinkl would imagine the listener to be sitting whilst listening to this mind-bending work of experimentalism.

Unpredictability, experimentalism and cross-disciplinary approaches have always been cornerstones of genuinely exciting and intriguing art, and Flamongo’s Erlöser takes its place as a new exploration in this spirit. I for one will be waiting eagerly to see and hear what Flamongo’s next music / visual art crossover project will be and what new directions he decides to push this project in.

Erlöser is available for digital download or to pre-order on special hand-painted vinyl (to be shipped as of July 2020) from Flamongo’s Bandcamp page.

Try as we might, there is no escaping the fact that the current global pandemic has caused a lot of people to have to miss out on many of the things that normally keep them sane. Dancing to grinding and hypnotic music at excessive volumes is an outlet which allows many to transmute rage and frustration into something more positive. This escapism is not currently available.

Thrillsville is a darkwave / industrial solo project from LA-based composer and producer Rani Sharone, who has worked with such luminaries as Marilyn Manson and Puscifer, as well as running his own dark cabaret project Stolen Babies. The newly-released track “Lockdown” is a “Dark dance club song inspired by the unrelenting restlessness of being ‘stuck on lockdown’”, and it does indeed bring the listener immediately into the bleakly energising world of industrial club culture.

Sharone seems to have used Lockdown as a vessel in which to pour anxieties and suffering. “Tightness in my chest / Anxious and distressed” is one of the first lines, growled in a bitter whisper over a punishingly harsh beat. “That nervous twitch wasn’t there before” croons Sharone as blasts of all-powerfully huge metal guitars stamp over everything in their path. The groove is also sensual in a way that brings to mind “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails, and the lyrics of the chorus reflect this: “I should be driving to your house / We should be under the lights / Instead of stuck here on lockdown / Losing my fucking mind / This is not a test”. As that last line is repeated the music soars to an enraged crescendo of turmoil. The whole thing is has an empowering energy which will undoubtedly inspire many to don the white makeup and dig out the glow-sticks. If they flash the living room lights on and off and allow Lockdown’s ultra-tight kick drum and pulsating synths to embody them they might even momentarily believe that they are right there in the grime and beauty, moving “under the lights” with hundreds of others.

The current global situation is so huge and all-encompassing that it can’t be entirely avoided by artists in their work. There is an ongoing debate about how directly the situation should be referred to in creative works, and I don’t have a correct answer to that. What I am sure of is that Rani Sharone, through Thrillsville’s Lockdown, tells his own truth and delivers it in catchy hook form atop an undeniably powerful blast of fury which will be of great appeal to fans of dark electronic and industrial music.

Lockdown by Thrillsville is available now from major digital outlets.

Atmosphere is key on Volans-1800, the second album from Switzerland’s Ian Mason. At 18 years old, Mason’s musical palette already incorporates ambient, drone and noise music and elements of avant-garde classical, all fused together with what Mason calls a “punk rock attitude”.

The electronic soundscapes are bleak, dark, brooding and otherworldly. Samples of string instruments provide minimalist melodic or chordal interest and tension, and spacey sound effects creep in and out.

Mason has a very strong grasp of harmony that would put a lot of far more experienced noise / ambient producers to shame. His use of musical intervals to create tension and resolution is admirable and lends a journey-like quality to the music that can sometimes be lacking in works from this type of genre.

Through the five tracks of varying lengths - all titled simply “Volans-1800” with a Suffix denoting the track number - the droning unease continues and follows peaks and troughs. There is a sense of chaos, mystery and even the reverence of contemporary classical music within the deep tones. There are some truly magical moments. “Volans-1800, Pt Four” features a descending drone section which made me want to either throw up or grab on to something for dear life.

On occasion Mason’s relative lack of experience shows. The intention of using the string samples is ambiguous. Are these meant to be electronic / “keyboard” sounds (in which case the sounds could be made to be more robotic or lo-fi) or are they meant to sound like real acoustic instruments (in which case actual string players or a much more fine-detailed approach to programming and effects could be employed)? They don’t quite sit in either category and this can jar a little.

Album closer “Volans-1800 Pt. Five” is very different. A drumless psychedelic Stooges-esque wig-out; here we get to witness Mason’s rock influences. As the song disappears I am left not entirely satisfied with this musical journey, but equally aware that this album shows a great deal of promise, talent and creative drive.

Ian Mason says “Volans-1800 is my sound”. It certainly captures a moment, and it lays bare Mason’s determination to create idiosyncratic and challenging music. Mason’s sound will no doubt continue to twist and change. He can go in any direction he wants to. And he probably will. Watch out for him.

Volans-1800 is out now on streaming platforms including Spotify and Bandcamp.

Many of us are in search of duende, whether we know it or not. This internal, “spirit of evocation” is the ultimate aspiration for both creator and witness. When music makes us feel a communion with something higher than ourselves, we “get out of our own way” and we forget who we are. Or maybe we remember who we really are.

“Get out of my own way” is what KatieJane Garside says she seeks to do. Liar, Flower is her new project with partner, collaborator and multi-instrumentalist Chris Whittingham. This is their “reincarnation” of the folk-influenced Ruby Throat and this time they are “ready to make some noise”.

Garside’s history speaks for itself. The facts that she has been venerated by Courtney Love and was courted for Madonna’s label, and that she created history with bands including Daisy Chainsaw, Test Dept and Queenadreena, can be taken or left in the face of Geiger Counter, which speaks with such calmly forceful conviction that it demands all preconceptions be dropped.

This record is magical. Garside says “I use so many words to say ‘I will not speak’”. As I am reading back this last sentence I realise that I am participating in the idea being alluded to here. She doesn’t even need words sometimes. I enquired about a translation of the non-English introduction to the first song “I am Sundress (She of Infinite Flowers)”, and the response I received indirectly from Garside was that “this is an essentially unknowable language from ‘my’ unconsciousness...no translation available”. This gets to the heart of why the whole album is so wonderful and why this review is so difficult to write. It seems churlish to talk about the technicalities of something so pure and direct. “No translation is available.”

Nevertheless. The music really flows. It effortlessly navigates myriad styles (from pastoral autoharp folk to punishingly abrasive punk) and in stepping forth never puts so much as a little toe wrong. Even the dissonance is somehow perfectly placed - welcome. The songs seem designed to both soothe and energise, from the tempos to the lush yet raw production. It transfers a certain kind of empowerment - terrifying yet comforting, like a freezing cold night in an empty forest. With an insane house party just around the corner. And screaming. Lots of screaming.

The primal-scream-of-consciousness lyrics bridge the gap between dry-humoured musings on the everyday (“I was in a band called where’s my fucking phone”) and far-reaching spiritual proclamations (“daughter of nebula sing with me / cos I’m already sky / cos I’m already sky”). We are the “housefly called God” (thanks, Nick Cave) on the wall of KatieJane Garside’ soul. She is also God and she is also the housefly. She screams, she moans, and she whispers. She lulls us to sleep, safe in the arms of her all-powerful voice. “My Brain Is An Airport” is New York noise rock , all scuzzy bass and growling guitars. “9N-AFE” sounds like Jarboe via the Cocteau Twins. The Western-soundtrack guitars on “Blood Berries” just hang there, pregnant with violence, swelling but never bursting. The smouldering “Little Brown Shoe” seems to always be slowing down, but finishes at the exact same pace it began. There is no “genre” here. The sounds are a mere vehicle to communicate unknowing universal truth.

Album closer “Door’s Locked, Oven’s Off” grounds us. Garside’s desperate bleating has faded away to silence. This is folk guitar and dissonance as an embodiment of worry and reassurance - the cyclical and ever-unquenched thirst for closure. It is human nature shutting its eye to the force of nature. Locking the door. Saying goodbye. Saying hello again to “reality”, whatever that is.

Geiger Counter is as close to the true essence of art as anything you’ll witness. When I stepped off this ride I felt physically lighter. Cleansed. I found myself uttering these words out loud to nobody: “I need more”. More of this feeling. This duende.

Truly exceptional.

Geiger Counter is available now on One Little Indian Records to pre-order as a special package (limited to 500 copies) with a release date of 8th June 2020.

Are artists the true authors of their artistic output or do they “channel” that which already existed; that which needed to be “liberated”? I found myself ruminating on this question while listening to Feelings Of Depression Are Created To Prevent Collapse Of My Spiritual World. The album is described by Yasuyuki Uesugi as a “noise wall”. It is a collection of “deeply experimental noise tracks that reflect ideas of the spiritual world, mental illness and the human brain”. Its creation involved setting up a noise-making chain of synths and effects and then - crucially - leaving the equipment to make continuous sound and recording the results into a Tascam recorder.

Walls of noise these pieces may be, and formidable they may appear, but - much like the remaining facets of the Berlin Wall, adorned as they are with wonderful art - this music is as beautiful as it is horrifying. Each track draws us into its sound world, and forces us to think while we are there. Every track is around 4:30, and for that time we are self-isolating with darkly sardonic titles such as “It is More Convenient for Society if My Brain Isn’t Active” or “Mental Stability is Made Chemically”. We enter each piece with trepidation and caution, feeling out its environment - the drones, the hiss, the distortion, the screeches. Each track pulsates steadily. The sound is threatening in its harshness but also inviting in its warmth. There is a circularity and a stability in the darkness. A very important element, which holds our interest in the face of the monotony, is the presence of microscopically subtle variations from each piece of analogue gear’s own unique “personality”.

We might imagine post-apocalyptic scenes, relentless biting winds, representations of our own demons rising up from scorched ground and dancing sarcastically in our faces. But we can learn to find the safety and security in these worlds. This is pure electronics and this is also pure nature. It is only disappointing when each track ends (very abruptly); we learn to appreciate and understand each new sound environment and then it is taken away from us without warning. But we accept this as well as we move to each next track.

The “ethos” and general sound of each piece on this 35-minute album is essentially the same, but the album holds our attention. The cohesion between tracks allows us to use the immersive and cathartic music and clever titles as catalysts to considering the type of world(s) we want to inhabit and to better understanding how our own minds relate to our external and internal realities.

Listeners interested in the genre who choose to invest in and live with this record will ultimately be able to have their pain eased and to feel uplifted. One way or another we all sometimes need to feel liberated from the battles we fight in navigating the world. This album could be part of your path towards that liberation.

Feelings Of Depression Are Created To Prevent Collapse Of My Spiritual World is available for streaming and download now at https://yasuyuki-uesugi.bandcamp.com/album/feelings-of-depression-are-created-to-prevent-collapse-of-my-spiritual-world.