Somewhere, in the depths of a former Catholic seminary, two sound artists struck a deal with time itself. "Stone and Worship" is not an album in the traditional sense, but a study in stillness and vibration, a slow-breathing organism where drones stretch and coil like echoes in a monastery that has long since forgotten its prayers.

Primoz Boncina, a Slovenian composer known for his metallic minimalism, and Phil Maguire, a Scottish artist who sculpts sound as if it were an ancient text, have conjured a record that hovers in the air like incense smoke. Theirs is a music of fundamental frequencies, of gestures that do not push forward but rather orbit, spinning in sacred loops. If a Gregorian choir were to perform for the ruins of a forgotten civilization, this might be what it would sound like.

The album’s first piece, "Dolorosa", is a gothic dirge where Golem Mecanique's voice haunts the landscape like a wraith, her wordless phrases circling the electric guitar’s infinite horizon. The drone is a slow-moving beast, an ocean of resonance in which every note carries the weight of something unspoken.

"(Vangelis) Acolyte" follows, and the name itself feels like a cosmic joke - what if Vangelis had been a monk, locked in a candlelit cell, scoring a film that would never be made? Featuring Dylan Desmond of Bell Witch, the piece sways between sacred music and doom-laden minimalism, a chant for an unholy ceremony. The absence of pulse here is deliberate; it is music unmoored from time, existing in the liminal space between decay and transcendence.

By the time we reach "Movements in Dust", we are no longer merely listening - we are inside the sound. The electric guitar and modular synthesizer become geological forces, shifting tectonically, grinding against each other in slow, deliberate motion. The final piece, "Megalithic Fountain", is the album’s paradox - something both massive and fluid, a sonic monolith melting into shimmering distortion.

Much of "Stone and Worship" feels like an act of devotion - though to what, exactly, remains unclear. Boncina and Maguire do not compose in the traditional sense; they carve, erode, and illuminate. It is the music of time stretching, of rituals that have lost their gods but retained their weight.

This is not an album for casual listening. It does not meet the listener halfway. But for those willing to step into its gravity, "Stone and Worship" offers something rare: the chance to become lost inside sound, to forget linearity, to experience music as a place rather than a passage.

There is no pulse here. Only echoes. Only stone.

Night Ritualz' self-titled debut is a neon-lit confession booth where darkwave pulses merge with synth-punk urgency, wrapped in a haze of desire, defiance, and Tejano spirit. Vincent Guerrero IV, the San Antonio-based artist behind the project, crafts a world where English and Spanish lyrics entwine, whispering secrets over crisp drum machines and moody synthesizers. His music exists in the liminal space between the dance floor and the after-hours introspection that follows - sweat, longing, and echoes of a night that never quite ends.

Rather than adhering strictly to one genre, the album carves out its own identity. There’s a brooding nostalgia reminiscent of old-school goth, yet the production remains fresh, unafraid to dip into modern electronica’s sleek intensity. The beats throb with a sensuous, almost hypnotic quality, channeling themes of lust, loss, and the restless search for connection. Some tracks pulsate with the energy of dimly lit club nights, where bodies move in sync under flickering strobes, while others sink into slow-burning melancholy, gazing into the void of heartbreak and self-reflection.

Drawing inspiration from luminaries like Depeche Mode, Deftones, and At The Drive-In, Night Ritualz blurs the lines between darkwave, electronica, EBM, and post-punk, birthing a genre he dubs 'Fuck Wave'. This audacious term encapsulates the album's essence - horny, erotic, and sensual vibrations that invite listeners to shed inhibitions and revel in unfiltered expression. As Guerrero IV asserts, it's about embracing life's fleeting nature and pursuing what brings joy, unshackled by societal judgments.

The album opens with "Make Me Feel", a track that encapsulates much of the best of modern electro-infused post-punk. The repetition of "The way you make me feel" becomes a hypnotic mantra, drawing listeners into a trance-like state where emotion and rhythm coalesce."Sharing Skin", the album's lead single, is a haunting exploration of intimacy and vulnerability. A simple guitar and echoing fuzzed vocals greet you, haunting with a slow drawl, telling of a longing of the heart for another. Like a call to arms, the rhythm kicks in, speeding up the world around this track, with delicate synths twinkling in the background. The lyrics, 'Sharing skin and secrets', cherish those intimate moments, whether that is sex or sharing confidences reserved for no one else. Tracks like "Soñar" and "Vida" delve deeper into Guerrero IV's cultural roots, seamlessly blending English and Spanish lyrics. In "Soñar", he laments, "Porque tú me haces llorar, sin ti no puedo soñar" ("Because you make me cry, without you I cannot dream"), capturing the melancholic beauty of longing. "Vida", featuring Vick Vapors, contemplates life's demands and the struggle to find meaning, repeating the word "vida" as both a question and an affirmation.

The interplay between melody and texture is striking. Vocals drift between shadowy murmurs and urgent proclamations, at times dissolving into the synth-laden atmosphere. The bilingual approach adds to the emotional depth, seamlessly shifting between intimacy and grandeur. Beneath the surface, an ethos of rebellion lingers - not just against musical expectations, but against societal constraints, embracing raw emotion and personal truth without inhibition.

The album feels like a time capsule of Guerrero’s current artistic and personal landscape, a snapshot of who he is at this moment. Each song stands as its own vignette, yet together, they form a cohesive journey through desire, regret, and nocturnal reveries. It’s an invitation to let go, to feel deeply, to revel in the dark. Night Ritualz doesn’t simply provide a soundtrack; it conjures an entire atmosphere - one where every beat, every breath, and every synth wave pulses with life.

Somewhere between a Sergio Leone dream sequence and a David Lynch fever dream, DELREI conjures a ghostly Western landscape where spaghetti guitars shimmer under neon moons, dusty highways stretch into oblivion, and every note sounds like it’s been sunbaked and wind-worn in the middle of nowhere.

With "Curtarock Festival", Italian guitarist and sonic gunslinger Alessandro Mercanzin takes his cinematic "Spaghetti Western noir" sound from the sterile solitude of the studio to the raw, whiskey-soaked energy of the stage, flanked by Giovanni Beghetto on drums and Davide Dalla Pria on bass. This was DELREI’s first-ever live performance, but you wouldn’t guess it - each track carries a swagger that suggests the band has been riding together for years, trading riffs like outlaws exchanging glances before a showdown.

Opening with "Solitario", the band immediately plunges us into a widescreen desert mirage, where reverbed guitars tremble like distant mirages and rolling percussion mimics the sound of boots crunching on sand. The following "Into the Wasteland" ramps up the post-apocalyptic dust storm, a Morricone-esque gallop through desolation, complete with sun-scorched melodies that feel like a lost frontier ballad.

Then there’s "Nowhere to Ride", a track that kicks up the dust even higher - its lean, mean energy almost punkish in its brevity and directness. But DELREI is never just about speed; "Ensenada" slows things down, a late-night cantina tune where ghosts drink mezcal and memories dissolve into cigarette smoke. It’s as if Calexico and Angelo Badalamenti decided to score a film where Clint Eastwood meets the ghost of Roy Orbison.

Throughout the album, tracks like "Far from Here" and "Lonely Night" drip with solitude, their melodies painted in shades of amber and rust, while "Mysterious Traveler" takes us on a twilight journey where the horizon keeps slipping away, like a mirage that refuses to be caught.
And then, there’s "Get Lost Blues" - a perfect closing number that doesn’t end so much as it fades into the desert wind, a reminder that every Western hero eventually rides off into the sunset, never quite reaching where they were going.

What makes "Curtarock Festival" truly special is its unvarnished authenticity. There’s no studio gloss here - just real instruments, real sweat, and real energy. As Mercanzin himself put it, "playing live is always a rock’n’roll experience and a proof of authenticity". And he’s right. These songs don’t just breathe outside the confines of a studio - they kick up dirt, roll their sleeves up, and hit the open road.

If you love Morricone twang, Lynchian noir, the shadowy highways of Twin Peaks, and the timeless ache of a desert horizon, "Curtarock Festival" is your ticket to a world where rock meets Western, where every note tells a story, and where getting lost is part of the journey.
Best played while driving aimlessly at sunset, with the windows down and the ghosts of old Westerns riding shotgun.

A few years ago I stumbled upon this one man project from Herr B., Paris, France. The artwork of it’s first release in tasty pink was surprisingly bizarre as the project title promising and I was lucky enough to get the CD so I realized the care which went into the sound design and the overall release.
In the meantime the return to Vinyl boom kept going and a reissue on fitting colored LP of ‘Lullabies For Babies’ is available, as will be his new album (in grey marbled) soon.
While the cover art seems to be more fitting to the overall melancholic mood this time in fact he kept his style of subtle experimentation and painting careful shades of grey, instrumental and with added lyrics where fitting.
Starting with "Whenever A Child Dies" the listener gets sucked in the otherworldly atmosphere, supported by bells chiming and echoes and a creepy but not too creepy vocal. A more ceremonial voice with added organ on "Shinj" lures me into a slo-mo moody state which is continued further in the following songs.
Some innocent childs voices are set against heavy bass drones in "Ashes Of Yesterday" and Herr B is even swinging a bit in "The Grave Is Where The Heart Is" which works as the centerpiece of this album.
Followed by equally careful crafted tracks which all share that special warmth in sound which does get assigned to analouge electronics mainly this is a pleasure to listen to up to the last song "As Hours Go By". I admit I really appreciate a classy finale rounding an album off.
The tracks themselves are surprisingly short and never outstay their welcome, leaving one even a little puzzled with the feel of having missed sth. due an early fade-out or the well used stylistic element of an aprupt ending.

'Life Is A Lonely Path' is a brilliant and coherent collection of temporary electronic neo gothic music consisting of slow and mindful movements and melodies setting a distinctive sign against the panic and hectic of modern everyday life…

Support the artist’s own label ‘Lonely Demon Records‘ and get it – or both – directly on his bandcamp, available on March 14th or as preorder.

Some albums arrive fully formed, polished, and eager for release. Others lurk in the shadows, abandoned by time, waiting for the right moment to resurface. "Artefacts" belongs to the latter category - an album recorded in 1995 as the intended follow-up to "Travelogue", only to be left in the vaults, half-forgotten, half-mythologized. Nearly 30 years later, with a fresh mastering treatment and a brand-new vocal track from Edward Ka-Spel (Legendary Pink Dots), "Artefacts" finally steps into the light. The result? A transmission from another era - one that still sounds eerily at home in the present.

Dark Star has always been an enigmatic presence, dwelling in the liminal space between post-industrial, ambient, and electronic psychedelia. "Artefacts" plays like a séance with its own past, a collection of lost futures imagined in the 90s and reanimated in the 2020s. It’s not just an album - it’s a time capsule, an echo of a scene where synths hummed like incantations, samplers glitched into oblivion, and reverb-drenched guitars whispered secrets into the void.

Right from "Faculty X", the opening track, we’re plunged into a deep, meditative drift. Glacial synths shimmer, distant voices murmur, and the track builds with an almost ritualistic patience. It’s music that feels like it was designed to accompany the slow-motion unfolding of forgotten dreams.

Then there’s "Eleven", featuring Yaxi Highrizer on guitar, where plucked strings float over dense electronic textures, evoking the kind of cosmic psychedelia that might have been transmitted from a parallel world where The Orb and Coil collaborated over an old radio frequency. "A 481" is a shorter, sharper detour - mechanical pulses and filtered drones giving way to flickering, spectral melodies.

But the album’s real centerpiece is "Walking in Patterns", a sprawling, nearly 10-minute odyssey featuring Technogod. It’s a piece that refuses to sit still, shifting between hypnotic loops, whispered vocals, and percussive glitches. The beat lurches forward, only to dissolve into ether before reassembling itself again - like memory itself, unreliable yet persistent.

The most striking addition to this unearthed collection is "Polyphemus", featuring Edward Ka-Spel, whose spectral presence elevates the album into another dimension. Ka-Spel doesn’t just sing - he narrates, whispers, conjures. His voice is a fever dream, guiding us through a landscape of fragmented myths and decaying radio signals. Coupled with field recordings by Kurt Maninouk, the track unfolds like a transmission intercepted from a parallel reality. It’s unsettling, poetic, and hypnotic in the way only Ka-Spel can be.

Listening to "Artefacts", it’s tempting to wonder: what if this had been released in 1995? Would it have slipped into cult status, whispered about in underground circles, its influence felt in unexpected corners of experimental music? Or was it always meant to remain in the vaults, waiting for a world that had caught up with its spectral beauty?

Whatever the case, we have it now. And it still feels vital, still feels like it’s speaking to us from a liminal space - somewhere between the past that never was and the present that never quite makes sense.

Play while you may. And definitely play it on headphones.

Score: 24-bit hallucination / 10