by Aker
Wed, 23 Jun 2021
Read in 6 minutes
The Week in Review: Aker’s Deep Dive (7/6 - 13/6)
The Interdimensional Vortex is a bottomless pit. Diving deep into the murky depths is a risky game. Gems can be unearthed from the thick mire of releases beneath the tasty-if-safe pickings from the surface. There’s a reason, though, why many releases float the deeper depths. Some are niche - too extreme, too experimental, poorly publicised - and some are just bad. We embrace all at the Vortex. We know gems are rare and rarely we find them. But there are always interesting if flawed releases floating about in the deep aether. So, join me - Aker - for a weekly review of a week’s deep diving.
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2021 has been a year of discovery in the realms of ambient and electronic (and its adjacent sub-sub-genres). The most satisfying dives have come in these realms, moving into the genre from an intrigue in industrial, noise and electronic elements of extreme metal artists. Siavash Amini’s A Trail of Laughters is a sinister and subtle exercise in soft layering of sounds that builds to droning ultimatums. Lengthy horror-movie orchestral flows encompass the record. It’s a rich 38 minutes that twinkles and cranks in a cosmic, ambient, dream-nightmare in-between land. It’s a record that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be: aesthetically ambiguous. Nonetheless, interesting. Yes, interesting.
Aker-bait time: It’s sultry red neon and post-punk depression with Folly Group and their sombre-yet-punchy E.P. Awake and Hungry. There seems to be a stronger effort to create quirkier post-punk that spits in the face of the garage-revival style UK bands of the 2000s onwards. Awake and Hungry is 21 minutes of fluctuating movements: languid, moaning passages are cut across by bouncier crusts before the sadness reconvenes. Vocals slithering through treacle moan atop twinkly guitar lines and deeper bass throbs. It’s Squid writhing with Modest Mouse in a downstairs nightclub as Gang of Four plays through warped speakers. The E.P’s success is in its ability to merge typical modern post-punk tropes with a feeling of, in my mind, authentic unease. There’s little to truly shout about, but Folly Group are proficient. Arty in the sense it plays with percussive elements and electronic fragments, there’s enough here to maintain intrigue whilst retaining a downcast groove. Hip dance of death
More of a warming deathhold from Nature, Austrian blackened neofolk outfit Dornenreich has emerged from a seven year hibernation with ninth full-length Du wilde Liebe sei. Blackened formats are dragged away from the amp: Dornenreich imposes misery upon acoustic instrumentation. This is a record that simmers with a soft sadness, a rich acoustic journey that is accompanied by the occasional jut of aggression (“Liebes dunkle Nacht”) and martial stomp of (“Dein knöchern' Kosen”). Dornenreich’s whispery restraint is their strongest trait. Like Empyrium from earlier in the year, Dornenreich weaves a tapestry of folky delight and torment. Unlike many extreme metal bands who force in acoustic and folk sound for a deceptive sense of variety, Dornenreich knows how to formulate their sound with acoustic and folk instrumentation front and centre. Nine albums in, though, and the band are lacking in major developments: Nature has them in timeless stranglehold, perhaps to their detriment.
The oxymoronic Spring Snow reflects a muddled affair. Croatian Amor and Scandinavian Star’s new-age, synth throb soundscape is at times sickly and more suited to being in the background of a Virgin Holidays advert. However, I found an endearing quality to the placid layerings of summer beats and atmospheric, slightly pensive, ambient washes. Spoken word fragments - often hated by many - direct the music, as do varied instrumental intrusions played in a similarly placid, saccharine style. Listen to this during a tired, pre-sun morning - you’ll want to listen to stuff that has real substance and direction when the day takes its true form.
T. Griffin is well known for composing soundtracks for non-fiction films. With his latest non-film release The Proposal, Griffin channels the city-cruising grit of Bernard Herrmann as the listener stops off at various curious cinematic locales. Post-rock world building, jazz-twanging sensuality and ambient atmospherics merge seamlessly. The Proposal is a record that simmers, rarely building to crescendos and peaks that hook powerfully into ear meat, but the scope of the record is instantly recognisable.
With three tracks and a 66 minute runtime, Eremit’s Bearer of Many Names moves like the seasons. If funeral doom resides at the bottom level of the grave amongst the ancient grubs and grinded bones, Eremit’s funeral sludge resides nearer the surface - fuzzy bone rising through the mud. Eremit’s style is buzzed monotony in the bass-heavy territories of the super-sludge sphere. Song’s build slowly and rarely deviate from a downbeat one-tone thrust, although there are spacious atmospheric breaks that counteract the density well. There is something meditative about the incessant fuzz and something alluring about the lengthy atmospheric gaps between the sludge oppressiveness. As a funeral/stoner-sludge hybrid Bearer of Many Names is promising for those who like to be pummelled by fuzz for an hour. The Lewandowski cover isn’t as developed or instantly awe-inspiring as his other pieces - the music is similar.
The blasphemous second wave tirade of Gorgon’s Traditio Satanae is a quick death in comparison to Eremit. Traditio Satanae is forty minutes and eleven songs turned up to 11. Conventional and abrupt, what makes straight-down-the-middle black metal releases stand out is their balance of mix and tone. Gorgon’s sole member has a fat snarl and rasp that spits and froths above a round, full low-end and crisp, grizzly mid-range. It blisters, it grooves, it rips. It’s just black metal that sounds angry. It’s also black metal that embellishes the rage with just enough melodicism and thrash groove to grease the wheels. What more to say? Well, it’s nothing special but it’s good to know that there are timeless souls out there blazing their riffsticks to the devil and ignoring hype and memery.
Although Crypta’s vocalist sounds like a shrunken version of Chuck Schuldiner screaming from a model village gig venue, their slightly technical death metal is a robust machine (It was only after writing this that I realised Crypta are an all woman outfit from Brazil). In fact, there’s a touch of everything here: symphonic cheesiness, tech-death frilliness, rickety old school furor, and progressive vastness. It’s a conveyor belt of wonderments and the record occasionally loses the grit and power that upholds the frilly flourishes. Too many threads, not enough direction. Still, Echoes of the Soul is worthy of a listen if you’re a death metal addict.
Unfortunately, no gems were unearthed from Aker’s reckless deep diving this week. Anecdotally, metal releases are down in the dumps at the moment and there has been little to sing and dance about. Maybe it’s time to dive deeper into the cabinet of past curiosities - look out for some deeper, time defying dives in future weeks.