Articles
Robert Henke / Monolake
Lawrence English
Justin Martin

Albums
Chica and the Folder
Ciëlo
Cobblestone Jazz
Cokiyu
Continuum
Crescent
Deceptikon
Fear Falls Burning / Nadja:
Feu Thérèse
Fink
Luca Formentini
Robert Fripp
Gultskra Artikler
Helios
Klima
Komputer
Akira Kosemura
Lusine icl
Michaela Melián
Morning Recordings
Geoff Mullen
Múm
Christopher O'Riley
Pluramon
Pure H
Roam The Hello Clouds
Reverbaphon
Sawako
Skøtt, Rasmussen, Munk
Sleeping People
Slow Six
Studio
Supermayer
To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie
Two Lone Swordsmen
Valentina
Worrytrain

Compilations / Mixes
Benno Blome
Booka Shade
Lee Burridge
Cielo
Justin Martin
Henrik Schwarz
VA: Add To Friends
VA: An Taobh Tuathail
VA: Echod
VA: Ikude
VA: Sky Diary Edits

3"/ 7"/ 10"/ 12"/ EPs
Antonelli
Build Buildings
Sylvain Chauveau
Christ.
Daedelus
Daso
Matthew Dear
Goldmund
Kush Arora
Litwenko
Miss Fitz
Plant43
Pulsinger + DJ Glow
Sote
Strategy

Continuum: 2
Soleilmoon

Fear Falls Burning & Nadja: s/t
Conspiracy

Impressively presented in a tall, DVD-style digipack accompanied by three postcards showing Lasse Hoile's artwork, the second Continuum collaboration between Dirk Serries (VidnaObmana, Fear Falls Burning) and Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree, Bass Communion, Blackfield) features three molten epics. After four minutes of near-silence initiates “Construct IV,” guitars enter with crushing force accompanied by a rattle-snake cymbal that thenceforth keeps slow, deathly time. Though Continuum 2's gloomy soundscaping invites an ‘electronic music' classification, hellish guitars dominate the opening piece so much the label ‘black metal' might be more appropriate. The mood is bleak and apocalyptic, and the song's ruined sonic landscapes are bereft of life, save for massive beasts that lumber aimlessly, decimating everything in their paths. The glacial tempo in “Construct IV” doesn't waver but the sound itself grows ever larger with a violent windstorm battling it out with the guitar sludge for supremacy. Phantoms murmur in the opening minutes of “Construct V,” after which the piece settles into an electrical drone and eventually morphs into a slow-burning stream of lava-like flow. The death march continues in “Construct VI,” with the intensity level again growing incrementally into a seething roar over the piece's eighteen-minute reign. How amazing that there are listeners salivating at the prospect of acquiring such lethal material.

If anything, the Fear Falls Burning (Belgium-based guitarist Dirk Serries) and Nadja (Canadians Aidan Baker on guitar and drums and Leah Buckareff on bass) collaboration goes even deeper on its four untitled tracks. The first plunges the trio into the center of a volcano where distorted drones bleed and raw chords rupture. Moving at a deathly crawl, skeletal drum beats bridge the gap between the first and second pieces, paving the way for an inferno of smoldering riffs to emerge. The guitars slowly build into a dive-bombing swarm before decompressing for the more subdued third part which resembles a meandering, low-level organ drone. A similar restraint characterizes the concluding section, until blistering chords detonate halfway through, ending the disc in a funereal meltdown. One could easily imagine the two discs to be exemplars of the ‘snuff film soundtracks' genre.

November 2007