21 March 2023: Granada; Node; Deep Red: A Tribute to the Cinema of Dario Argento

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Granada biography
Founded in Madrid, Spain in 1974 - Disbanded in 1979

Pioneering early-70's Spanish progressive band, GRANADA (from Madrid...) was the musical project of multi-instrumentalist Carlos Carcamo (flute, violin, acoustic - and electric piano, mellotron, clavicordio, 12-string guitar, percussion and vocals!) and the other musicians Michael Vortreflich (electric guitar), Antonio Garcia Oteyza (bass) and Juan Bona (drums and vocals).

GRANADA had a unique style. They remind of the Mexicans ICONOCLASTA, and also other Spanish bands like TRIANA or COTO EN PEL. The British influences come from YES, JETHRO TULL and other Italian bands very present in their sound. The emphasis of GRANADA relies on the keyboards (with profusion of moog and mellotron) and guitar instrumental passages, but with more keys than guitar. They sound like a mix of fusion and symphonic influences. 

 Excellent disc of Spanish Symphonic Prog with all caracterist of genre and one of most complete of the history of the symphonic rock in Spain (excellent mellotron). Instrumental Master combination of styles like Canterbury Jazz, Symphonic Prog Classic and RockAndalus.

 

Singularity (DiN78) by Node

When synth supergroup Node first surfaced with their eponymous album in 1995 they, more than anyone else, nailed “that sound and vibe”, which had become the obsession of so many others. They seemed to encapsulate the very essence of the early German electronic music pioneers such as Tangerine Dream but with production values to die for courtesy of Node founder members Ed Buller & Flood, who were of course internationally renowned producers in their own right. But it was another 19 years before their follow up album appeared on DiN as “Node 2”, (DiN44) to be closely followed (by Node standards), with their live concert album performed at the Royal College of Music, London.

Up to that point that was the total canon of their work except for the EP “Terminus” recorded at their infamous Paddington Station gig. Surely they must have more material hidden away in their vaults and indeed this is exactly what the album “Singularity” is, the legendary “lost” Node album. Recorded at the same time as their original sessions in 1994 this has DiN stalwart Dave Bessell join Buller & Flood alongside original member Gary Stout who was later replaced by Mel Wesson for the two DiN releases. Presented here for the first time, mastered to modern standards but otherwise untouched and in its original form and recorded to two track with no overdubs. As a bonus the track “Terminus”, mentioned above, is included in the release.

The music is a snapshot in time 29 years ago when Node were first powering up their huge banks of vintage modulars and sequencers to create a tapestry of electronic sound. At times raw and almost out of control and at others delicate and ethereal this quartet of fabled musicians can create atmospheres and soundscapes like no other. The crackling energy of the sounds they coax out of these steam driven behemoths positively pulsates with life and organic energy and will be a real treat for aficionados of the Berlin school style of electronic music.

Another great release from the DiN imprint released in a beautiful Digipak CD edition with a special 8 track booklet with photos taken at the time of the original recording sessions. 

credits

released March 17, 2023
Our thanks to Ian Boddy for a promotional copy of this release.

Dave Bessell - disguised guitar, interactive phrase synthesizer, atmospheres and keys
Ed Buller - monster moog, sequences and keys
Flood - sonic interventions, sequences
Gary Stout - ring modulated trumpet, atmospheres and keys

The legendary lost Node album. Recorded in 1995 in the same sessions as the first album but largely unheard until now. Over the intervening years one or two things intended for the album escaped into the world but the majority of the material on this recording is previously unreleased. Presented here for the first time mastered to modern standards but otherwise in its original form - recorded straight to two track with no overdubs. These recordings include original member Gary Stout who was later replaced on more recent Node recordings by Mel Wesson.

Node wish to thank all those who were involved in the Node project over the years, too many to list but you know who you are!

Cover photos from the collection of Hans Jenny (1904-1972) who coined the term Cymatics to describe the patterns made by soundwaves on a sand covered metal plate.

Tags

ambient berlin school em electronic electronic music electronica modular synth moog sequencer Sunderland

Deep Red. A Tribute to the Cinema of Dario Argento

Dario Argento was born in Rome, Italy, on September 7, 1940.Before becoming a screenwriter and later a director, he was a film critic. Ever since his "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage" heart-stopping directorial debut in 1970, Dario Argento has been redrawing the boundaries of cinematic horror with flamboyant violence, feverish plotting, and deliriously stylized compositions. Initially associated with giallo, the pulpy Italian subgenre he helped formalize and would later take to unprecedented heights with his international breakthrough, Deep Red (1975), Argento embraces a gamut of fantastical influences—from sublime Gothic art and penny dreadfuls to Murnau, Hitchcock, and Disney with his distinctively baroque style of disorientating cinematography, stained-glass colorwork, and elaborate musical scores (often composed by his own rotating house group, Goblin). As far as horror film directors go, few are more influential and prolific than Dario Argento. With over half a century of films under his belt, the Italian Argento became a popular purveyor of giallo, but none made more of an impact than Argento.
"With his first cinematic foray, Argento instantly elevated giallo into an art form. Horror was never the same again. The director is often referred to as the Italian Alfred Hitchcock, and while both auteurs were skillful at building pressure-cookers for plots, Argento developed a trademark style, sophistication, and perversity all his own. In film after film — The Cat o’ Nine Tails, Deep Red, and Suspiria among his very best — he employed the familiar trope of a maniac on the loose to build delicious, glamorous, vivid, and vicious jigsaw puzzles, with plenty of blood, eerie electronic music, whispering psychopaths, children’s nursery rhymes, vertiginous camera angles, odd animal cameos, and, Argento’s particular forte, over-the-top baroque deaths. Argento was making murder and mayhem into something far stranger: a seductive deep dive into our dark psychologies, with all the attendant political and sexual upheaval of the time".

To celebrate the cinema of Dario Argento, Eighth Tower has called musicians from various countries and asked them their musical interpretation of his movies and his "dark giallo" universe". 

credits

released March 3, 2023 

Our thanks to Raffaele Pezzella (SONOLOGYST) for a promotional copy of this release.

REVIEWS

Ver Sacrum
www.versacrum.com/vs/2023/03/aa-vv-deep-red-a-tribute-to-the-cinema-of-dario-argento.html

Bizarrechats (Michael Housel)
bizarrechats.blogspot.com/2023/03/dark-fiction-6-terrorvision-stories.html


Previously unreleased music by:
Michael Bonaventure, Grey Frequency, Rapoon, Joel Gilardini, 400 Lonely Things, David Strother & Carl Royce, Gianluca Becuzzi, Kloob, Mario Lino Stancati, Arrighi-Bocci-Fontana-Lepore, Pluhm.


Published by Eighth Tower Records
Curated and mastered by Raffaele Pezzella
Design by RhaD
© 2023. All rights reserved

Tags

ambient dark ambient dark chamber drone industrial noise Italy

10 January 2023: Fruupp; dEUS; The Great Old Ones

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From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website
Psychedelic Paul      5 stars 

With a bizarre name like FRUUPP, you might imagine this five-piece band are some obscure Krautrock outfit from deep in the heart of Germany, but no, they're some obscure Belfast-based outfit from deep in the heart of Northern Ireland. They have four albums to their credit with this album "Future Legends" (1972) being their first. Later albums were "Seven Secrets" (1974), "The Prince of Heaven's Eyes" (1974), and "Modern Masquerades" (1975). A fifth album was planned for 1976, but due to poor record sales and the emerging Punk/New Wave movement, Fruupp were consigned to the prog history books when they broke up at the end of the year. Progressive Rock has triumphed over the shortlived Punk-Rock era in the long run though, because Fruupp have gone on to become "Future Legends" in their time, with their marvellous brand of mellifluous melodic prog experiencing a well-deserved resurgence of interest on the Internet. The 2009 CD remaster of "Future Legends" includes the bonus track, "On a Clear Day", which classical buffs may recognise as being a proggy reworking of "Jupiter" from Gustav Holst's "Planets Suite"

"Future Legends" opens with the title track, a short classical piece of music which acts as a prelude to "Decision", a lively and rumbunctious number that gallups along nicely with a pounding rhythm and builds up to an impressively rousing finale. An awesome opening to the album. "As Day Breaks with Dawn" follows next, with a melodic classically-inspired opening, which breaks out into a powerful thrumming Genesis-like number with the singer sounding remarkably like Peter Gabriel. Yes, we're definitely in Genesis territory here, with a somewhat heavier sound, and very good it is too. Onwards now to Track 4 and "Graveyard Epistle", a song which begins as a melodic ballad before breaking out into some very proggy, heavy and intense riffing. In true prog fashion, there are constant changes of tempo, staccato breaks and a few key changes thrown in too, to keep the listener entertained and enthralled. We're halfway through the album now and this is sounding very good indeed!

Side Two opens with "Lord of the Incubus". It's a grand-sounding title and the music is impressively grand too, Again, it sounds like a song Genesis could have recorded in their classic prog years. There's a thumping rhythm section and the guitarist is really in his element here as he demonstrates his virtuosity with some masterly soloing. Track 6 "Olde Tyme Future" has a more sedate pace, with some beautifully melodic keyboard motifs. The cryptic lyrics are shrouded in mystery but with music this good, who cares about the lyrics anyway!? And now we come to the penultimate and longest song on the album, "Song for a Thought". It's a seven and a half minute long magnum opus which opens in fine rollicking style and then transposes into a laid-back mellow and melodic groove in the middle section. before the resounding and reverberant grand finale, which might just blow your socks off. It's melodic, it's dramatic, and it'll leave you feeling euphoric. The final song is a brief and gentle vocal reprise of the classical title track which opened the album. It's a perfect ending to a magical album full of proggy tales of mystery and imagination.

This is a very impressive debut album from this Northern Irish band that's likely to appeal to fans of the classic Peter Gabriel years of Genesis. It's hard to pick out a highlight of the album, because "Future Legends" is full to the brim with great songs. If you're looking for a band with the musical talent and melodic finesse of Genesis with a somewhat heavier edge, then you'll be in prog heaven with this superb album. This prog masterpiece is such a delight to listen to that you may be inspired to give Fruupp's following three albums a spin too. A must-have album for any discerning collector of classic British prog.

Psychedelic Paul | 5/5 | 2019-12-3

      

Keep You Close is the sixth studio album by Belgian rock band Deus. It was released in Belgium on 17 September 2011, in mainland Europe on 19 September and in the United Kingdom on 3 October. On its first day of release, the album was certified gold in Belgium for sales of 10,000 copies.[9] It was eventually certified platinum on 7 October 2011, denoting sales in excess of 20,000 copies                                                                                Keep You Close Review

                                                                by Jon O'Brien

More cinematic, melodic, and mellow than their usual experimental indie pop output, Keep You Close is the sixth studio album from one of Belgium's biggest musical exports, dEUS. Compared to the likes of Elbow, Tindersticks, and Broadcast, the follow-up to 2008's Vantage Point features the single "Constant Now" and two tracks featuring guest vocals from former Afghan Whigs frontman Greg Dulli ("Twice [We Survive]," "Dark Sets In"). 

 

Mythos Of Cthulhu

by The Great Old Ones

Cthulhu is the priest or leader of the Old Ones, a species that came to Earth from the stars before human life arose. The Old Ones went dormant, and their city slipped under Earth’s crust beneath the Pacific Ocean. They communicated with humans by telepathy, and, in hidden corners of the world, uncivilized people remembered and worshipped Cthulhu in rites described as loathsome. These groups had statues of Cthulhu that seemed to be made of materials not found on Earth and chanted the phrase “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn” (“In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming”). When conditions are right, the city will rise, and, with the help of the eternal Cthulhu cult, Cthulhu will awaken and again rule the world.


These Great Old Ones, Castro continued, were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had shape—for did not this star-fashioned image prove it? — but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live. But although They no longer lived, They would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in Their great city of R’lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resurrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready for Them. But at that time some force from outside must serve to liberate Their bodies. The spells that preserved Them intact likewise prevented Them from making an initial move, and They could only lie awake in the dark and think whilst uncounted millions of years rolled by. They knew all that was occurring in the universe, but Their mode of speech was transmitted thought. Even now They talked in Their tombs. When, after infinities of chaos, the first men came, the Great Old Ones spoke to the sensitive among them by moulding their dreams; for only thus could Their language reach the fleshly minds of mammals.

H.P. Lovecraft: "The Call of Cthulhu" 

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released January 5, 2023

REVIEWS

Michael Housel
bizarrechats.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-mythos-of-cthulhu-great-old-ones.html

Music by Raffaele Pezzella (a.k.a. Sonologyst) 

FreeForm Radio thanks Raffaele for providing us with a copy of this excellent release.

Special thanks for the collaboration to Mario Lino Stancati (voice and electric guitar), Alexandros Magkos, a.k.a. Grim Machine (percussion, electronics, voice).

Mastered by Raffaele Pezzella (Sonologyst)
Artwork by MrZarono
deviantart.com/mrzarono/gallery
© 2023. All rights reserved

ambient dark ambient dark chamber drone industrial noise Italy

25 October 2022: Philip Glass & the Kronos Quartet "Dracula"; Music Inspired by Bram Stoker's "Dracula"

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 Two trailblazing new music artists — Kronos Quartet and composer Philip Glass — come together once again for a recording of the first original score for the Universal Pictures 1931 horror film classic Dracula, starring Béla Lugosi. Glass’s score marks the first-ever for a film which the composer himself considers a classic. “Many films have been made based on Dracula since the original in 1931 — however, none is equal to the original in eloquence or the sheer power to move us.”

There have in fact been many screen versions of Bram Stoker’s classic tale of Dracula, but none more famous or enduring than the 1931 original. Starring Béla Lugosi as the world’s best known vampire and directed by horror specialist Tod Browning, Universal Studios’ Dracula creates an eerie, chilling mood that has rarely been realized since. Dracula’s initial theatrical release coincided with the transition from silent pictures to “talkies.” At that time limited technology existed to present the film as a sound picture, so no musical score was ever composed and there were few sound effects. Browning relied on Lugosi’s legendary Hungarian accent to give the film its distinctive sound.

Glass’s new original score for Dracula was commissioned by Universal Family and Home Entertainment Production for inclusion as part of Universal’s Classic Monsters collection, to be released on video on August 31. Philip Glass, in commenting on writing this score, said, “The film is considered a classic. I felt the score needed to evoke the feeling of the world of the 19th century — for that reason I decided a string quartet would be the most evocative and effective. I wanted to stay away from the obvious effects associated with horror films. With Kronos we were able to add depth to the emotional layers of the film.”

Dracula: Music Inspired by Bram Stoker's Novel

 

Eighth Tower is here to celebrate Dracula on the book’s 125th Birthday.
Two books, since first publication, have never been out of print. One is the Bible and the other is Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Dracula is the embodiment of Satan for the Victorian age. The character is sinister. He is cunning. He is repulsive, sickening in fact. He is quite different to the suave gentleman that any of the films depict him as. He is an old man who grows younger when gorged with blood. He is a walking, rotting corpse, the opposite to us and a reminder of our own mortality. He is arrogant, psychopathic and obsessed with imperialism. Perhaps the novel’s popularity has always been in its ability to make one feel like order has been restored through a strong empathy with the characters. We feel that we have become part of their existence through reading their diaries, letters and hearing their phonograph recordings. There is a real element of hope in their words and in their practices, we even see technology used to aid their war. Therein is progress alongside the knowledge of the past, looking to the future to dispel the shadows and bring us light where once we only saw fear in darkness. We can see the war of civilisation versus our baser instincts, not only in the fight against the sexual charge in the vampiric bloodlust but also in the ability that our heroes have to prevail against the animalistic forms that Dracula brings. As the Bible this is a book full of temptations and resistances that gets to the core of the psychological war inside us, as we fight our own inner biblical adversary, subdue the satanic beast within us and aspire to righteousness.
To celebrate this modern myth Eighth Tower has called musicians from various countries and asked them their musical interpretation of the Dracula myth. Either gloomy soundscapes or electroacoustic compositions, all the pieces are inspired by chapters, scenes, or characters from Bram Stoker’s novel. 

credits

Our thanks to Raffaele Pezzella for providing us with a copy of this release.

released October 7, 2022

REVIEWS

OndaRock
www.ondarock.it/recensioni/2022-aavv-dracula.htm

Bizarre Chats
bizarrechats.blogspot.com/2022/10/eighth-towers-dracula-inspired-music.html?sc=1665128621667#c942901699638122052


Published by Eighth Tower Records
Curated and mastered by Raffaele Pezzella
Artwork by John Chadwick
© 2022. All rights reserved

ambient dark ambient dark chamber drone industrial noise Italy

16 August 2022: Guilt Machine; Nyarlathotep - A Tribute To Howard Phillips Lovecraft; Cousin Silas

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Guilt Machine is a musical project by Dutch musician Arjen Anthony Lucassen, owner of other musical projects such as Star One, Ayreon and Ambeon. The project's debut release, On This Perfect Day, was released in August 2009.  The cover of the album was made by Christophe Dessaigne, an artist discovered by Arjen Lucassen on Flickr.^[1]  The album features several audio messages sent by fans throughout the songs. The music deals with "the destructive psychology of guilt, regret and the darkest form of secret -- the secrets we hide from ourselves.",^[2] and the music ranges "from dark and heavy to atmospheric and melancholic.",^[2] as can be noticed via the preview track published at the band's MySpace page.

Since its release, On This Perfect Day has received strongly favorable reviews. Elements that were praised included Steverlinck's voice and the dark atmosphere developed by Lucassen; Metal Storm considers it "the darkest and most melancholic [album] the Dutchman has ever released".^[5]

Metal Storm gave the album a rating of 9/10 while stating that the album enjoyed "a promising line-up" and "emotional vocal work that builds up intensity as it goes".^[5] Metal Underground remarked that it is "a bold combination of grit, beauty, and strong themes riding the line between progressive metal and rock".^[6] RevelationZ considers this album as "overall a great album and another worthy addition to the Lucassen catalogue."^[8]

Reviews differ about its similarity with Lucassen's previous works. Metal Storm stated, "from all of his side-projects, this is probably the one closest to Ayreon"^[5] and Dangerdog.com calls it "different, but the same".^[4] However, Sea of Tranquillity stated, "I'm sure there are going to be plenty of Ayreon fans who might balk at the overabundance of atmospheric and mellow moments here and miss the more upbeat and bombastic elements of Lucassen's other releases".^[9]

 

Eighth Tower is proud to reprint the rare and long time out of stock compilation “Nyarlathotep - A Tribute To Howard Phillips Lovecraft”, originally released in 1997 by the label KADATH. With this remastered release Eighth Tower brings to light a jewel of the Portuguese post-industrial tape culture, featuring some of the most interesting projects from the late 90’s Portuguese, Italian and French underground.

Special thanks to Nuno Loureiro (KADATH label mastermind) and all the artists who provided the original master tracks for the reprint project.

FreeForm Radio thanks Raffaele Pezzella (Sonologyst) for a promo copy of this release.

credits

released August 5, 2022

REVIEWS

Avant Music News
avantmusicnews.com/2022/08/10/amn-reviews-various-artists-nyarlathotep-a-tribute-to-howard-phillips-lovecraft-2022-eighth-tower-records/

Edited by Eighth Tower Records
Mastered by Raffaele Pezzella (Sonologyst)
Artwork by John Chadwick
© 2022. All rights reserved

ambient dark ambient dark chamber drone industrial noise Italy

 

	1.	Kirlian Camera - Die Hochöfen Des Schmerzes (Organ Version) 01:37
	2.	Tombstone - Ritual Affliction 05:44
	3.	In Articulo Mortis - The Perfect Solitude Of The Wolf (Song For Bernd Thies) 03:33
	4.	Gerstein - Dagon 07:10
	5.	Nigredo - De Tenebroso Lacu 03:37
	6.	Tombstone - Illusions? 02:00
	7.	T.A.C. - Deadly Nightshade 08:00
	8.	M.Nomized - Tantra Music 19:31

 

10 May 2022: The Great Old Ones; Richard Bennett

 KMXT is live broadcasting the Kodiak City Council work session which may run past 9 pm.  

The show will begin as soon as the work session ends.

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The music you hear on tonight's show is available on the artists' Bandcamp pages and websites (links below).    

We urge you to support the musicians you hear on FreeForm Radio.

ALSO:Tonight at 7:15 pm I'll play a track from Lobate Scarp's upcoming album You Have It All.

Yog-Sothoth

Yog-Sothoth is an unfathomably powerful deity and one of the most powerful of the Outer Gods, a race of ancient deities who wield great power, size and intelligence, equal and possibly even superior to Azathoth himself, and is a truly cosmic menace that is beyond mortal comprehension. Yog-Sothoth is the embodiment of all of time and space across an essentially infinite number of space-time continuums. For all intents and purpose, he is connected to the multiverse. He is the grandfather of Cthulhu and the grandson of Azathoth. Yog-Sothoth is an all-knowing, all-seeing, and (supposedly) all-powerful being. He was born from the Nameless Mist, one of the three offspring of Azathoth alongside the Darkness and Nyarlathotep.

"Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again."

H.P.Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror

credits

Thank you to Raffaele Pezzella (Sonologyst) for providing us with a copy of this release.

released April 29, 2022

REVIEWS

Avant Music News
avantmusicnews.com/2022/04/25/amn-reviews-the-great-old-ones-yog-sothoth-2022-eighth-tower-records

Warmth Highest
birdboyblizzard.music.blog/2022/04/23/yog-sothoth-by-the-great-old-ones/


The Great Old Ones is a project by Raffaele Pezzella (a.k.a. Sonologyst). Yog-Sothoth is the first of a series of soundscapes inspired by the Lovecraftian pantheon of deities.

Music by Raffaele Pezzella
4th track in collaboration with Kenneth Kovasin playing daxophone, cymbal, kantele, lyre, electronics.

Cdr limited edition of 100 numbered copies

Edited by Eighth Tower Records
Mastered by Raffaele Pezzella (Sonologyst)
Artwork by MrZarono
deviantart.com/mrzarono/gallery
© 2022. All rights reserved

license

all rights reserved

ambient h.p. lovecraft lovecraftian dark ambient dark chamber drone industrial lovecraft noise the great ones Italy

 

 

Richard Bennett East Grinstead, UK

Richard has played piano since he was 9 and done the exams up to grade 7. He has been writing music since his  teens. He tune s and repairs pianos as a profession and just enjoys writing music and recording it as a hobby. He has five albums available on Bandcamp.

25 January 2022: Sweet Smoke & Hauntology in UK

 

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The music you hear on tonight's show is available on the artists' Bandcamp pages and websites (links below).    We urge you to support the musicians you hear on FreeForm Radio.

KMXT is live broadcasting the Kodiak City Council work session which may run past 9 pm.  The show will begin as soon as the work session ends.

 Tonight we'll feature tracks from Sweet Smoke's only two studio albums.

Sweet Smoke were a psychedelic jazz-rock band formed in Brooklyn, New York in 1967. The group moved to Europe in 1969, living in Germany, and performing in Germany, the Netherlands and France until 1974 when the band split up. Initially, some members stayed in Europe, some went to India, but most of the band returned to the United States. Although originating in the U.S., Sweet Smoke is often referred to as a Krautrock band.^[1] Noted for their buoyant rhythms, inventive improvisations and complex musical structures, in interviews, the group says their music was influenced by Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, John Coltrane and The Beatles.^[2][3]

https://sweetsmokeband.com/

 

The second half of tonight's show is dedicated to Eighth Tower Records recent release, Hauntology in UK.  

Our thanks to Raffaele Pezzella aka Sonologyst for providing us with a copy of this release.

“Hauntology” is one of those difficult philosophy words that seems designed to exist on the margins of our consciousness. The term originates in the work of the notorious Algerian-born French philosopher Jacques Derrida, and is first mentioned in his book Specters of Marx, which was originally delivered as a series of lectures at the University of California in 1993. In Derrida, the concept of hauntology is very much a political one. But the word "hauntology" has gained the currency it has today thanks to Mark Fisher, philosopher, cultural critic and blogger, who took his own life in 2017. Fisher has posthumously assumed the sort of legendary status reserved for thinkers considered to be among the most important or insightful of their time. In Fisher’s view, the 21st century is oppressed by a crushing sense of finitude and exhaustion”; the current cultural moment is “in the grip of a formal nostalgia”, in which ostensibly “new” things are produced only through the imitation and pastiche of old forms. It was originally as a way of understanding the “loss of the future” that Fisher – in correspondence with the music critic Simon Reynolds – began to invoke the concept of hauntology.

In Mark Fisher’s words:
“Let’s put it this way: “Things were great in the 70s, let’s go back to the 70s,” but I think the real issue is “What kind of future did we expect from the 70s?” I mean, there was a trajectory, and this trajectory was interrupted. And now we find ourselves haunted by this future that we vaguely expected at the time, and that was terminated somewhere during the 80s.”

“Invited to think of the futuristic, we will still come up with something like the music of Kraftwerk, even though this is now as antique as Glenn Miller’s big band jazz was when the German group began experimenting with synthesizers in the early 1970s.”

“The past keeps coming back because the present cannot be remembered.”

In “Ghosts of My Life”, Fisher says that “What should haunt us is not the no longer of actually existing social democracy, but the not yet of the futures that popular modernism trained us to expect, but which never materialised. Hauntology is not, therefore, primarily about nostalgia: it is about imagination. Any progressive politics worthy of the name is founded on our ability to imagine a world better than the one we presently have. If capitalist realism represents the attempt to take our political imagination away from us, then hauntology can do the work to get it back."

This project by Eighth Tower Records is dedicated to the memory of Mark Fisher. Special thanks to all musicians who joined it: Robin Storey (Rapoon), Gavin Morrow (Grey Frequency), Robin The Fog (Howlround), Raffaele Pezzella (Sonologyst), Michael Bonaventure, Ellen Southern (and the Dead Space Chamber Music band), Pascal Savy, Drew Carpenter (Foreseer). We all paid a tribute to Mark Fisher, to the past as well as to all the lost futures, but still we forward with hope in our eyes. 

credits

released January 7, 2022

REVIEWS

The Electricity Club
www.electricity-club.co.uk/hauntology-in-uk-various-artists/

Avant Music News
avantmusicnews.com/2022/01/09/amn-reviews-various-artists-hauntology-in-uk-2022-eighth-tower-records


Curated and mastered by Raffaele Pezzella (Sonologyst)
sonologyst.com
Edited by Eighth Tower Records
Photography by Gavin Morrow
Cover photo: Clun Castle, 2018
© 2022. All rights reserved

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ambient dark ambient dark chamber drone industrial noise Italy

 

17 August 2021: Nigel Mullaney "The Turning" (DiN67); The Beyond - Music Inspired By The Lucio Fulci Death Trilogy

Be sure to follow KMXT FreeForm Radio on Facebook and Bandcamp.  

Please support FreeForm Radio and KMXT by going to KMXT.org and pledging your support.

I'll be hosting "Rural Electric" from 7-9 pm tonight, leading into FreeForm Radio at 9 pm.  My playlist will include country music from New Zealand  as well as a number of excellent singer-songwriters.

 Our first featured release tonight is an excellent hour of electronic music from Nigel Mullaney. 

 Our thanks to Ian Boddy and DiN for providing us with a promo copy of this release.

Nigel Mullaney for many years has lived a life of relative musical anonymity preferring to inhabit the worlds of soundtrack and library music. Whilst he has been involved with several other collaborative musical projects it is only in the last couple of years that he has started to spread his solo musical wings with the album releases “31 Days” on DiN and “The Navigator” on Behind the Sky Music.

The last year has shown all of us how fragile our existence is and how vital it is to nurture a physical and artistic connection to creativity and those that surround us. The Turning is an album that was forged from the concepts and ideas first explored in the album
“31 Days” (DiN61), a desire to capture the raw emotion of a live electronic performance coupled with the expression of Jonathan Jowett’s piano playing and Mullaney's work with the Elemental Chamber Orchestra. Modular & Moog synthesizers were used to assemble a deep sonic palette that reflects the emotional concepts of the album fused with a variety of studio sessions, acoustic recordings and Elektron machines. The tracks were all mixed on to a vintage Ampex ATR-102 using an SSL desk and numerous vintage outboard equipment.

The 10 tracks on this album, whilst dominated by modular textures and sequences take this style of composition to new heights in their truly widescreen cinematic landscapes. The opener “Lost At Sea” is a beautiful example of how to create such a journey in under seven minutes. The following eight pieces take the listener on an emotional travelogue before succumbing to the blissful closing of the album with “Nostalgia Bomb”.

DiN label boss Ian Boddy curated the track selection and running order to create an electronic music album full of emotional complexity and hope. 

credits

released July 16, 2021

All tracks composed, programmed and recorded by Nigel Mullaney
August 2020 - January 2021.


Instruments:
Moog, Eurorack Modular, Elektron, Korg & Taylor T5 Guitar
The Elemental Chamber Orchestra
Jonathan Paul Jowett - Piano

Special thanks to:
Jonathan Paul Jowett - Phoenix Creative Media Ltd
Ian Boddy - DiN Records
Wendy Carroll - DiN Records
Ben Wilson - DivKid
Robin Rimbaud - Scanner
Dan Wahlbeck - DPW design

all rights reserved 

ambient edm em electronic electronic music electronica idm downtempo modular synth Sunderland

For the second half of tonight's show, we offer our listeners a little more challenging listening experience.

 

Our thanks to Raffaele Pezzella and Eighth Tower Records for providing us with a copy of this release.

 

Lucio Fulci, born in Rome in 1927, remains as controversial in death as he was in life. A gifted craftsman with a sharp tongue and a wicked sense of dark humor, Fulci achieved some measure of notoriety for his gore epics of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Abandoning his early career as a med student, Fulci entered the film industry as a screenwriter and assistant director, working alongside such directors as Steno and Riccardo Freda. Fulci quickly established himself as a prolific craftsman adept at musicals, comedies and westerns. In 1979, Fulci's film making career hit a high point with him breaking into the international market with Zombi 2 (1979), an in-name-only sequel to George A. Romero's Zombi (1978), which had been released in Italy as 'Zombi'. With its flamboyant imagery, graphic gore and moody atmospherics, the film established Fulci as a gore director par excellence. Over the next three years, Fulci plied his trade with finesse and flair, rivaling even the popularity of his "opponent" Dario Argento. Bleak horrors are transformed into bloody poetry - Fulci's loving camera technique, and the decayed splendour of his art design, make the films more than just a gross endurance test. His opus latifundium, his “real estate” is the “Trilogy of Death”: Paura nella città dei morti viventi (City of the Living Dead, 1980), a Lovecraftian story of a priest who hangs himself thus opening the gates of hell; L’aldila (The Beyond, 1981), about a hotel which is a gate to hell, and Quella villa accanto al cimitero (House by the Cemetery, 1981), about one Dr Freudstein who, by transplanting parts of his victims to his body for over a century has managed to stay alive. These films are about intrinsic quality, texture, consistency. For this reason they affect sense rather than intellect – confusion, disgust, suffering, delight at the pangs of horror are the qualities these films evoke. The screen is not the marker between actual and virtual but, in Paul Virilio’s words, the “osmotic membrane”. Or in the Gilles Deleuze’s words “not in a different world but in a link between humanity and the world…to believe in this as in the impossible, the unthinkable, which nonetheless cannot be but thought”. By the 1990s, Fulci went on a hiatus with film making for further health and personal reasons as the Italian cinema market went into a further decline. Lucio Fulci passed away at his home on March 13, 1996 at the age of 68.


This new Eighth Tower Records project, dedicated to the Lucio Fulci’s “Trilogy Of Death”, a unique and unrepeatable corpus in the history of Italian “supernatural cinema”, tries to imagine an alternative soundtrack for those movies. The several souls of Fulci’s movies are evoked by the musicians - Nàresh Ran, Mario Lino Stancati, Daniel Ferreira (Kloob), Leonardo Granchi (Bad Girl), Cristiano Bocci, Paolo Acquaviva (DuoSerpe), Sara Fontana, Dario Arrighi (Progetto No Name) - through a variety of music styles (electroacoustic, dark ambient, concrete music, progressive rock, drone music). Some of them kept in mind the lesson of the master Fabio Frizzi, the well known composer of the original soundtracks, while others escaped any attempt to revive that glorious tradition and interpreted Fulci’s horror universe in a totally contemporary and unedited way. 

credits

releases August 27, 2021

Curated and mastered by Raffaele Pezzella (Sonologyst)
Edited by Eighth Tower Records
Illustrations: ©John Chadwick 2016 - 2021
www.behance.net/jdchadwick
jdchadwickdesign@gmail.com
© 2021. All rights reserved

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ambient dark ambient dark chamber drone industrial noise Italy

27 April 2021: Bernhard Wostheinrich & Tim Motzer: Schloss Tegal

 Be sure to follow KMXT FreeForm Radio on Facebook and Bandcamp.  

Please support FreeForm Radio and KMXT by going to KMXT.org and pledging your support.

Recorded live on May 27, 2017, broadcast of Frank Somalus' show at RSD-Radio, Berlin, Germany.

"I remember vividly flying past many tall buildings in Bernhard's sister's speeding old blue convertible and the blur of a vast German boulevard somewhere in former East Berlin. It was a long drive and rather dream-like. I had just finished a European tour with Bandit65 with Kurt Rosenwinkel and Gintas Janusonis, and was now here in Berlin visiting my great friend & colleague Bernhard to play a few shows.
This radio broadcast set was quite inspired. We had not improvised together in quite a long time, perhaps a few years. It was so good to be back in Berlin among friends. I still remember the feeling, as it was the last time I've been there since Covid-19 has taken hold of our planet. Listening to this brings back so many memories, and our performance that day went to amazing places. I believe it to be my favorite concert we've ever done thus far.
We hope you will enjoy this magic sonic ride, filled with mysterious melodic and harmonic sequences, ever shifting driving rhythmic terrain, beauitiful transitions and colours like I've never heard or experienced since. We were so in it. This is so ON! This magic duo. This is a great one folks." - Tim Motzer

credits

Materiaal Series, Vol. XLII   released April 18, 2021

Tim Motzer - guitar, electronics
Bernhard Wöstheinrich - keyboards, live-arrangements, electronics
recorded live in Berlin at RSD-Radio

Mastering: Markus Reuter
Artwork by Christine Kriegerowski (duckwoman.de)

Thank you to Frank Somalus!
www.rsd-radio.com

Tags

ambient ambient electronic big beat big beat electro electronica Berlin

 

In the Blur of a Vast Boulevard 57:08    I met Richard Schneider (Schloss Tegal) at Klub 007 in Prague in December 2019, right before the pandemic. Having been invited by Jan Kruml to work together on a radio transmission on Radio 1, I stayed in Prague for some days and had the chance to attend a Schloss Tegal live performance; that night, various musicians from the Prague underground played at the club, including Vladimir Hirsch. After the concert I had some talks with Richard regarding his participation in the compilation "Drone Islands – The Lost Maps" which I was going to release a month later, and I congratulated him on the performance. At the time, I couldn’t imagine that our paths would have crossed again till the moment we talked online about the release of “Musick From Madness” (a document of the early Schloss Tegal productions) through the Eighth Tower Records label. More than a simple release - though one of historical importance that I’m honored to publish - this publication represents the best way to remember some friends whom I had the pleasure to know and collaborate with: people I could hardly meet in person at the moment. Raffaele Pezzella Musick from Madness on Bandcamp Schloss Tegel was a Berlin-based hospital: see below for more information credits releases June 4, 2021 Music by Schloss Tegal (RL Schneider, MW Burch). RL Schneider: Synth, Samples, Electronics MW Burch: Tapes, Samples, Electroacoustics Recorded between 1986 and 1990 Edited by Eighth Tower Records Originally released on C46 cassette in 1991 by State Of Flux Mastered by Raffaele Pezzella (Sonologyst) Artwork by Black Space Industry eighthtowerrecords.bandcamp.com © 2021. All rights reserved   FreeForm Radio thanks Raffaele Pezzella for providing a promotional copy of this release. Notes: Tracks “The Father is Omnipotent”, “I Give Everything to the Devil”, “The Red Skull”, recorded between 1986 and 1990, and previously unreleased. The original cassette, published by State Of Flux, existed in two editions. In the first, an edition of 25, each copy has a bone glued to the inside cover. The second edition is exactly the same, but without the bone. A State Of Flux was a label, distributor and radio program on WCUW-FM in Worchester, Massachusetts all run by John Collegio.  Tags ambient dark ambient dark chamber drone industrial noise Italy   1. Blood Of Sacrifice 04:00 2. In the Light In the Darkness 05:46 3. Smart Drug 04:26 4. Cadaver Obedience (Decay Mix) 03:11 5. The Father Is Omnipotent 6. Ring In Place 7. Vortex 8. Natan Speaks 9. I Give Everything to the Devil 10. Watch Me Flop Around 11. The Red Skull    Schloss Tegel was a Berlin-based hospital where disaffected soldiers were treated for exhaustion, depression, and other mental conditions spawned by the very violent and demanding nature of their profession. One would think that, if a post-industrial project known for the darkness embedded in their work chose this as their name, it would be because of the dubious methods used to treat their patients; perhaps the hospital was known for having submitted its subjects to inhumane experiments and practices that were on the verge of being pure psychological and physical torture. Nonetheless, this couldn't be further from the truth. Schloss Tegel was a place where the healing process was approached through music and art therapy. How can a project with such gruesome sound and aesthetics be named after a place of healing and improvement? Can we take it as black humor or as a way to reflect the fractured and foggy state of mind of those who attended such an institution? Having been spawned out of the decaying biomechanical world of early industrial music, which fused technology with primitive impulses to create bleak and harsh soundscapes instead of danceable techno pieces, Schloss Tegal (RL Schneider, MW Burch) released "Musick From Madness" on cassette tape around the early 90s, and despite being their second outing (the first being the Procession of the Dead 7"), it already showcased the elements that would grant them the title of pioneers - or even founders - of the dark ambient genre. We had the paradoxical positioning of harsh and soft textures, obscure samples, a very cinematic presence, and loose song structures that flowed like nightmares from which, as the title of the final track in the seminal "Oranur III" (Tegal Records, 1995) states, you can't wake up. Now, thanks to Raffaele Pezzella’s Eighth Tower Records label, Musick from Madness finally has a proper reissue. If industrial and some of its offshoots, like the ever-controversial power-electronics, intended to place the listener in the center of a tumbling building being demolished by heavy and rusty machinery, Schloss Tegal aimed to create ethereal wreckage: the structure being explored and subsequently destroyed was not one belonging to an unnamed urban landscape, it was the mind itself. While it still had the raw power of early Throbbing Gristle or Whitehouse, the force with which Schloss Tegal struck was very different; somewhat gentler, but still very unnerving. Every detail and every sample is buried under decaying sound layers that feel as if they are struggling to keep everything underneath, but their presence somehow seeps through the cracks. It is all very subliminal. These suffocating atmospheres came rather naturally to the duo if we are to take into consideration everything they were consuming outside of music. With interests such as the teachings of Satanism, the intricate plots that only conspiracy theories can provide, and a proclivity towards the darker side of human nature manifested in a strong interest in serial killers of the late 70s and 80s, it is no wonder that Schloss Tegal were able to conjure such bleak, yet intriguing, landscapes with little effort. To listen to “Musick From Madness” is to let the darkness take hold and lead us through a slow, overwhelming and spiraling descent into uncharted territory. Beginning with hypnotic pulses and unintelligible samples whose echoes linger through the songs with a ghost-like presence, the album eventually gives in to cacophony; nonetheless, it is all very subtle. It doesn't turn harsh or dissonant, but as it progresses, its persistent, maddening state becomes highly - and dangerously - contagious. The duo were already experts in creating engaging experiences, knowing when to hold back, and when to bring back certain motifs to give us a sense of direction, even if for a brief moment. The goal was never to scare us, but to help us assimilate the darkness within. Parting from that point of view - which one could say is very psychoanalytical - it starts to make sense that this enigmatic duo took their name from a, rather wholesome, mental facility. This is the dichotomy of Schloss Tegal. Jorge C. Ortega