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Locrian
Territories

This is the point where Locrian’s train picks up a shitload of devotees – the record that takes what’s gone before and vaults it.  The atoms of ambient, noise/drone, power electronics and black metal have been split and reconfigured in these six tracks.  On Territories, the core of Andre Foisey and Terence Hannum may well be collaborating with other players, but this still feels like a truly Locrian record.  Again they’ve scratched out a view of the world that’s negative/dystopian/ugly, but infused the music with a metallic, detached sheen.  Territories isn’t a polished production by any stretch, but there are clean lines of Gristilised thought in amongst the jarring synths and gobbets of noise.  With a handful of collaborators on drums, saxophone, guitars and vocals, it’s Bloodyminded’s Mark Solotroff who sounds most integral to Territories.  His vocals are in turn brutal, lost, ugly and completely vital.  An absolutely flooring album in an age where such things matter less and less.  – Scott McKeating

at long last, the new releases will be on the site on Saturday.

http://antigravitybunny.blogspot.com/2010/03/locrian-territories-at-war-with-false.html

Where the fuck do you start with a record like this? I guess the first thing I should mention (in case you didn’t notice) is that Territories is too much of a monolithic beast to be contained by individual labels or continents. It took FOUR labels to put this thing out. That right there should clue you in as to how fucking massive this record is.

Then there’s the fact that this isn’t just André & Terrence playing, like most Locrian releases. Nope, they’ve recruited, like, every awesome metal dude around. Mark Solotroff (of Bloodyminded) on vocals and synths, Blake Judd (of Nachtmystium) on guitar, Bruce Lamont (of Yakuza) on sax and vocals, and Andrew Scherer (of Velnias) on drums. DUDES. We get it. You’re trying to make to most badass record ever. No need to go overboard (just kidding, always go overboard please).

What Locrian usually go for is black. You know, black metal, blackened ambience, black doom, black noise, all the black one record can handle. But combine their entire discography’s blackness and you still can’t muster even a half hearted fight against the epic black hole that Territories.

This record is fucking incredible. It opens with a super textured lurching hunchback of a song, with piercing squelches of feedback over a gurgling swamp of vocals and noise. The next song chills out a bit with some not-too-scary low end drone played by a mourning sax and commiserating synths, accentuated by spurts of crashing cymbals. But the third song is where they fucking kick it into gear. All out black metal fury that totally fucking annihilates in the most gorgeous way possible. I don’t think I’ve heard them delve this far into the BM yet, and it’s so. fucking. good. It’s not especially fucked or twisted that way I normally like my black metal, but it’s not too straightforward either. They balance the blast beats and wall of buzz with droning static and plodding thunder in a way that makes me think “Why don’t they always do this? It’s unbelievable.” But then I listen to the rest of the record and remember why.

Territories finishes with 3 more songs that really get into some true terror, blackened rumbling, traipsing thrumming, soaring static, and more of that torturous feedback. Clouds roll in and shit gets dark, heavy, and scary as fuck. Helicopters flying in launching tear gas rockets to stop the rioting masses, decrepit malfunctioning machines topple, rusted tetanus infections, doomsday alarms, the demise of our society. And it all culminates with a black metal march of triumph over the decay, proof that even in the Future American Dystopia, no matter how debased and degenerated we have become, it’s still going to be fucking beautiful.

Posted by Justin Snow at 11:53 AM

click here to go to the release page

Things are getting sorted with the Locrian LP shipment. We’ll hopefully know more tomorrow.

This compilation will be made available at the time of the Locrian: Territories LP and Drenched Lands cassette.

http://www.foxydigitalis.com/foxyd/reviews.php?which=5344

Namazu Dantai “Under Manchurian Soil” 3” cd-r

Small Doses

This brief release, by the German noise musician Sascha Mandler (who also creates music under the names Izanami’s Labour Pains, Palatial, and Mazakon Tactics), put out in an edition of 62 copies by the Small Doses label, can sound like a force of nature. Recorded “live in one autumnal night in 2009,” there is a real tension, immediacy and energy in its sound, as though you are listening to an enormous storm or earthquake taking place. This impression perhaps comes from the interest in Japanese culture and mythology that permeates Mandler’s work; the project name and record title here seems to refer to the myth of a giant catfish living under Japan, Namazu, held down by a giant rock beneath the earth, or under the soil, the movement of which was believed to cause earthquakes, and I wonder if Mandler is linking the concept of Namazu to the Japanese occupation of Manchuria.

One of the most interesting aspects of this recording comes through the variations in the live recording; sounds often seem to come out of nowhere, as though you are catching glimpses of something through a sand storm. Even what seems like an overall underlying static quality is actually, on a closer listen, a rapid variation of sound conveying speed and movement. This recording is very much worth checking out–the excellent packaging and presentation from Small Doses is an additional bonus.

9/10

– Jordan Anderson (3 March, 2010)

One of the packages of Locrian LPs on their way to Basses Frequences HQ was accidentally routed to Italy somwhere. We’re pretty sure it is now France-bound, but as soon as its delivery is imminent, we will all make the LP (and me the cassette) available. I’ll keep things updated here.

I’ll also have the Heavy Focus Benefit compilation 2cdr ready for purchase at the same time!

at One True Dead Angel

http://theonetruedeadangel.blogspot.com/2010/02/more-words-about-often-noisy-bands.htm

Locrian — TERRITORIES lp [At War With False Noise / Basses Frequences / Bloodlust! / Small Doses]

Here we have an album so immense, so blackened, and so heavy that it required four separate labels to lift it off the ground and cram it down your throat. Part of what makes this one so heavy is the additional firepower they bring to the game — their diabolical fusion of noise, drone, and black metal is augmented by additional sonic death courtesy of guests Andrew Scherer (Velnias) on drums, Blake Judd (Nachtmystium) on guitar, Bruce Lamont (Yakuza) on sax and vocals, and Mark Solotroff (Bloodyminded, Anatomy of Habit) on electronics and guitar. With the duo of Locrian backed by a full band, the result is a sound that’s louder, thicker, and goes off in more directions than ever before. The opening track, “Inverted Ruins,” makes this clear from the beginning, with plodding drums, bowel-scraping noise, and a serious commitment to skin-crawling dissonance. “Between Barrows” opens with an ominous cyclotron drone that could have been lifted from one of their earlier albums, but soon it is overlaid with eerie cymbal washes straight out of the Book of Khanate and more power-electronics hum, and as the piece progresses, the drone and crackling noise are embellished by dark ambient washes and eerie feedback drones, all playing out in languid but anguished fashion, like an unsettling prelude to violence. That violence finally arrives in “Procession of Ancestral Brutalism,” where — after an uneasy introduction of vaguely atmospheric ambient noise — a buzzing guitar, pounding drums, and pained howling swaddled in mountains of reverb usher the album firmly into pure, antagonistic black metal territory. “Ring Road” returns to the more familiar pleasures of grinding, near-industrial tones and screech-laden power electronics, a deliberately grating sound that evolves into a dark, throbbing drone made even more threatening by the alienated noises that rise and fall in the background; the song eventually dissolves into a swirl of static and devolved black metal guitar wailing, like a lost soul disappearing down a rabbit hole. “Antediluvian Territory” is not quite so sinister but every bit as eerie, with a plinking guitar figure creeping across a burnt ambient soundscape of fogged-out noise and cryptic tonal dread, while “The Columnless Arcade” ends the album with an orgy of noise fed through enormous amounts of delay and echo as huge, shuddering drone action threatens to topple the entire sonic architecture into a cold, poisoned ocean… and then the pounding drums, treble-heavy black metal guitar, and hellish vocals burst forth without warning and the sonic destruction REALLY begins. What a way to end a completely filler-free album. Heavy, heavy stuff, o my brothers and sisters, heavy stuff indeed. If you haven’t been smart enough to worship Locrian yet, you really should pick this up and get with the program.

at Brainwashed

http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8097&Itemid=96

Locrian, “Territories” Print E-mail

Written by Creaig Dunton

Sunday, 28 February 2010

Looking back, it has only been a bit over a year since the Greyfield Shrines LP, my first exposure to these guys, yet in that year I’ve heard as significant amount of development and change in their work. While that release was reminiscent of the intentionally minimalist drone of Sunn O))), subsequent work has brought in greater elements of noise, electronic music, and post-punk alternative. This LP is perhaps the ultimate culmination of that, being released by no less than four labels and featuring guest appearances from members of Bloodyminded, Nachtmystium, Yakuza, and Velnias.

The change and evolution of their sound is immediate once “Inverted Ruins” launches. The carefully controlled feedback of Andre Foisy’s bass guitar and the simple echoed stabs of Terence Hannum’s synths could be on any of their releases, but the addition of live drums from Velnias member Andrew Scherer and the distant, disgusted vocals of Bloodyminded’s Mark Solotroff push the sound closer towards rock territory, while synthesizer drones and digital noise pull it in the opposite direction. The song slogs along at the pace of stoner rock, but there’s far more noise experimentation going on for it to drift into caveman riff-heavy Sabbath territory.

The long “Procession of Ancestral Brutalism” embraces the squall of black metal, but with a distinct sound and structure that contradicts the genre’s infatuation with muffled flatulent production and cookie monster vocals. Aided by Nachtmystium’s Blake Judd on vocals and guitar, it’s not surprising that it conjures images of black metal, but the complex layering of guitars over Hannum’s almost prog-rock synth lines and Scherer’s freak out drumming, all with a cavalcade of vocal parts sounding like Mayhem and Can battling it out with neither side dominating the other.

The closing “The Columnless Arcade” features the same line-up, with the addition of Yakuza’s Bruce Lamont on saxophone. The screamed tortured vocals and rapid staccato guitar also give a metallic sheen to the proceedings, but there is a greater aridness to the track, a bit more light let in. Shades of the post-punk guitar sound that appeared on the recent 7″ split with Harpoon are here as well, giving a purer tone and color than other artists are usually able to muster.

Between these longer pieces linger a few shorter, more sparse instrumental bits that are no less captivating. The sustained organ and insect saxophone of “Between Barrows” have a meditative quality that fits well between the louder, more boisterous tracks. Similarly, “Antediluvian Territory,” which sits as the penultimate track, is a sparse duet of organ and guitar, which soars and rings on with a melancholy beauty that calls to mind, at least in mood, some of the best moments of the Cure’s Seventeen Seconds for some reason.

This time last year I thought these guys were doing something different in the field of drone metal, which has continued to be an overly cluttered genre, but I wasn’t sure exactly what that difference was. While I have been concerned at their prolificness over the past year, their output has never been superfluous or unnecessary. Territories stands as the full realization of the tapes, EPs, and split 7″ singles that the band has issued in this time, perfectly encapsulating their dark, dystopian sound with the ideal balance of pure heaviness and pensive drone. Topping this one will be tough, but I’m thinking they will be able to do it in time.

http://www.musiquemachine.com/reviews/reviews_template.php?id=2361

Izanami’s Labour Pains – Osorezan No Itako [Small Doses - 2009]

‘Osorezan No Itako’ is rather manic &  fucked-up ride into often rapid cut-up: harsh noise textures, bent & abused shaman music/ chants, overloaded industrial junk beats, demonic Madman vocal bays & all manner of head-screwing-up & noisy mayhem all fired at you in the two ten minute tracks that make up this 3inch cdr.

Izanami’s Labour Pains has been active since 2004 & has only released 13 release in total so far, which I guess can been seen as not much by noise standards; but there are so many ideas & textures forced in to this 3inch it’s easy to see why the projects not that prolific. It’s one of the solo projects of German born Sascha Mandler(whose also in power electronics project Mazakon Tactics & HNW project Namazu Dantai) & he’s obsessed with Japanese history & mythology. This release is based around the legend of the Itako – The blind female shamans of Mount Osorezan which is in the center of remote Shimokita Peninsula in the Aomori Prefecture region of  Japan. Each of the ten minutes here twists, cuts in & out of all manner of changers & textures from: searing, to creepy, to unhinged. You really don’t know what’s around the next seconds connor.

Truly a deranged, manic, brutal & at times atmospheric ride into the legend of the Itako- this was my first taster of any of Mandlers work & I can assure you it won’t be my last. If you want a really messed-up & brain melting ride you’ve got pick this up!.

here’s the full front/back of the cover. click to see it bigger.

it should only be a matter of days now. information is now up on the releases page.

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locrian: territories lp

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locrian: drenched lands cassette