Can you smell the glove tonight?

Happy 6/6/06 - otherwise known as the National Day of Slayer.

Boy, has it ever been lousy. Electric shaver's on the fritz, it got all hot and humid outside, too much to do at work, my headphones broke while I was listening to a particularly boring indie hillbilly CD, no more "Lost" for months... I think the only good news I've heard recently was Jon Nödtveidt's statement that he plans to end Dissection before sullying the name any further - probably due to the poor reception of Reinkaos, to which I proudly contributed.

Yes'm, things are languid and cruddy. You know what this means. Time for a revival of the negative scale. Today's theme: sonic lobotomy. In unnecessary detail, I will examine a few examples of experimental "mood" records. Strap on yer drool cups.

Aghast - Hexerei im Zwielicht der Finsternis: Two ex-wives of Norwegian black metal royalty made this evil sonofabitching haunted house recording, released in 1995 by the creepy Swedish industrial/neoclassical/ambient label Cold Meat Industry. Andrea "Nebelhexë" Haugen was hitched to Emperor's church burnin' fool Samoth before starting her pagan folk band Hagalaz' Runedance, while Tanja "Nachthexe" Stene was famous for having been wedded to Isengard mastermind Fenriz as well as for doing some cool paintings shown in the inside sleeves from one of Fen's other bands. (Can you imagine how crazy destructive their marital spats must have been? If only they had sleazy police reality shows in Norway.) The duo only released this one recording as the brilliantly-named Aghast. Oh, and the popular story is that they recorded it with a microphone once owned by Dead, the loony Mayhem vocalist who legendarily slit his own wrists, shot himself and ended up on a bootleg cover (DON'T click that link if you're a delicate flower, it contains real brains and blood). Hexerei is supposed to be this classic freaky-ass recording, so I drank a bunch of these Warsteiners I have sitting here, turned off the lights and got ready to have my soul hexed to the beyond forevermore. I guess this what goths call "dark ambient," different from "darkwave" in that you cannot dance to it, even in a dazed or sullen manner. Everything is absolutely drenched in echo, everything meaning spooky chants, singing and spoken word with eerie minor key horror movie sounds. The artsy witch vocals are what clinch it; I've read reviews comparing them to Diamanda Galás, but they aren't nearly as technical. The recording often obscures them under reverb or distortion, or makes them sound far away, but at a few points they are up front and alarmingly loud. This all helps add to the "wrong," raw and grim feel of the thing. In its own lo-fi occult way, it's actually quite black metal without ever using guitars or other metal tools. Some of the tracks such as "Sacrifice" and "Call From the Grave" (sadly not a Bathory cover) approach a minimal melody, like a looped snippet of incidental music from a particularly scary episode of "Night Gallery". I imagine all the nonvocal sounds are done on a keyboard, but it's hard to tell, such as with the ringing sounds in "Enter the Hall of Ice" or the funeral drum pounding on "Totentanz." Sure, it's pretentious as hell, and it's not very musical. If I was playing it in the middle of the day, driving around or whatever, I might find it silly or boring. All I know is if I woke up in the middle of the night and something like "Das Irrlicht" was drifting in through the window, I would fill my bed with so much piss my kitchen would be yellow. Horns up to Nebelhexë and Nachthexe for the unsettling atmosphere.
NEGATIVITY: -4 (nocturnal rites indeed)

Karl Sanders - Saurian Meditation: Karl Sanders is the big, blonde guitarist/vocalist/amateur Egyptologist behind Nile, one of the few truly innovative bands to rise to prominence within the br00tal death metal scene's most recent surge. Nile's known for extensive and informative liner notes, which detail nuggets of Egyptian history to put the songs into context, as well as for working traditional, even ancient Middle Eastern instrumentation into often astoundingly complex, downtuned, doom-informed death metal savagery. Now, that may sound like a horrible idea, but from the vigilant assault of their early live shows to the intricate (if indulgent) artistry their fame has allowed them to explore, Nile honestly don't lack for ambition, ideas or talent. Two years ago, Sanders quietly popped out this home-recorded solo disc on Relapse. As expected, Saurian Meditation is basically like a Nile record with all the metal taken off. Every track is an atmospheric jobber with Sanders either playing acoustic guitar or Turkish-style lute. Nile's original drummer, Pete Hammoura, provides all the percussion, and a singer named Mike Breazeale does some new agey chanting-type vocals here and there. I have to admit, by the fourth track I was looking at the player to see how much time was left. It's cheesy and a bit close to my usual tastes to say that I like the epic tracks that feature electric guitar solos best, but it's true. "Of the Sleep of Ishtar," "The Elder God Shrine" and "Beckon the Sick Wind" actually move around a bit. The shorter tracks often sound like the sort of ominous Egyptian ambience you might hear piped out of a plastic Anubis carving while waiting in line for a King Tut-themed roller coaster. Aside from the convincingly majestic "Whence No Traveler Returns," it's not really that relaxing, just sort of hanging around sounding mystical, occasionally serving a cool sound or rhythm but mostly serving to block out the dull ache of silence. The worst is the penultimate clunker, "The Forbidden Path Across the Chasm of Self-Realization," where after about three minutes of spooky droning, Mensa candidate David Vincent of Morbid Angel fame comes on to spout some awful narration which begins "I am that which hath become... omnipotent! Eternal! Boundless!" It manages to get worse from there. He may still sound fine roaring out "Chapel of Ghouls", but here Vincent has the deep, resonant voice of your average D&D Dungeon Master, making a boring but inoffensive track skid straight into Crapville. And every song, even the ones I like, go on for too long. Maybe I'm just not cut out for sonething this close to pure "world music"; I got a copy of that Amadou & Mariam album that everyone was going apeshit for last year, and I ended up giving it to my uncle. I honestly prefer acts like my MySpace friends Secret Chiefs 3, Glittertind and Gogol Bordello, who put their global influences through prominent, idiosyncratic rock filters. I'd count Nile in that group, but Karl Sanders' solo joint doesn't do much for me.
NEGATIVITY: -0.5 (bedsheets of vengeance)

Jääportit - Uumenissa: I don't know shit about electronic music, but I've heard a few things I like. I saw this dude Solvent the other night at the Kinetic Playground. He was pretty bad-ass, but his music reminded me more of old synth-pop like Depeche Mode or New Order than any sort of "pure" electronic stuff. I thought Underworld was OK, and I listened to a lot of industrial in the early '90s, if you count that as electronic. As for ambient, I can handle it if it's trippy. I remember enjoying The Orb and old Moby when my friend's brother played them at parties back in the day, although they never inspired me to purchase an album. But my general apprehension is always that it's going to be too monotonous or plain for me. This Finnish guy known as Jääportit ("ice portal" or "frost gate" or something) was born Tuomas M. Mäkelä, does nature-inspired ambient, and for some reason in 2004 put out this disc through Firebox Records, Finland's finest boutique purveyors of funeral doom and other slow, atmospheric types of gloom. I put it on right after listening to a excruciatingly ugly, terminally boring early Swans album, so after only two minutes it's already great in comparison. Though his new agey hums lost me at times, I was never turned off by Jääportit's effort. No beats, just drawn-out keyboard tones, and peaceful ones at that. For something supposed to invoke the pristine Scandinavian frostlands, it sounds too futuristic and sci-fi to my ears, but it's a good listen anyway. "Ilmaan Kylmään" is probably my favorite, twinkling with cold Vangelis-style synth melodies and draped in wind sounds that gradually increase in prominence. If I ever find myself trudging about a post-nuclear holocaust wasteland, locked in a deadly battle for survival with a horde of bemohawked reptile robots, this is what I want to be playing in the background.
NEGATIVITY: -1.5 (any music that gives me visions of the future is not very nihilistic)

Folks, we're creeping up on the first anniversary of Entartete Kunst. How should we celebrate?