Sum Of R born from an idea Reto Mader (a.k.a. RM74) had for a side project but it grew into a open structure musical project. Actually we find Roger Ziegler and Christoph Hess of Herpes O Deluxe are joining Reto for the first collective full length release. The band's homonymous album is divided into ten tracks/suites where the aim is the creation of a growing tense atmosphere which sound suspended in time. For the whole album you have a sort of cavernous reverb effect over all the sounds which is make you feeling dizzy. Most of the track are based on guitar noises/feedbacks but there are also tracks like "Basics of sleep": on this one we find a background of looped sounds (vinyl clicks and few percussive sounds) where a treated piano is free to improvise an obsessive piece. If your reference for guitar noise sound are Sunn 0, well, with Sum Of R be ready for something different: if Sunn 0 base their sound on bass frequencies growling guitars, Sum Of R make their guitars sound like a organ mixed using a vacuum cleaner and then they add to it effects and other instruments such like electronics, bass guitar, piano, drums, harmonium and Lenco turntables.
P.s. this release has a great deluxe packaging with silver printed black cardboard and a mini poster

Describing their sound as "fortean" (i.e. "pertaining to extraordinary and strange phenomenon and happenings"), Satori present to the fans of devilish atmospheres a CD reissue (containing also a bonus tracks titled "Pavor nocturnus") of their vinyl album released in 2007 by Dogma Chase. The title KANASHIBARI is a Japanese term for sleep paralysis (literally "bound or fastened in metal") and this made me recall the times I had a sort of o.b.e. experience when I was a youngster. You feel your body heavy while it's like you're staring at yourself from outside your body. You'd like to move but you're like made of cement. "Hypnagogic state" and "Nocturnal fury" create a nightmare atmosphere similar to the first moment you realize you aren't able to move, while "Unseen force" sound like an horde of demons that are rumbling because someone is evoking them. Justin and Neil are good at creating these anxious scenarios where horror and magick meet. Try them...

Available as free download at the Autopsia website, FACTORY RITUALS is a soundtrack they did for an exhibition held in Belgrade back in 1989. The seven tracks of the album bring me back to the sound of the early Autopsia releases (the "Palladium", "The Knife" and "Death is the Mother of Beauty" years") when they used choruses, industrial sounds and military rhythms. I really appreciated this release as the tracks are able to create an hypnotic atmosphere (see track IV for example with that looped strings/blows orchestra) avoiding the boredom effect. Mind you, Autopsia isn't offering these high quality mp3s for free because they aren't worth a CD release as all the seven tracks are good ones. Download them all while they are available!

I can't say I have fully enjoyed this album, because Prurient's THE BLACK POST SOCIETY is perfect for causing damage to your hearing. Behind a sort of new primitivism attitude (the info sheet talks about the depression of the hunter after he kills his prey) Prurient aim is to keep the adrenaline level high by creating a saturated wall of sound where behind distorted vocals you can find echoes of melodies and structured layers of industrial sounds. Having a sort of black metal approach to sound, Prurient recorded vocals that are at least 10dB higher than the rest and then built tracks that could be interesting if decrypted. "Rose comet" for example has a first part where vocals are kinda balanced and then you can listen to the industrial dark ambient texture he created. The same goes with the following tracks "Wooden weapons", "Mask of the boys" and "Month lengthening into years" and actually if you are into this genre you can like the maniacal atmospheres he proposes. Lyrics are kinda hermetic as their structure recalled me haiku where flashes of phrases are given to express a situation.

Originally formed in 1987 (at the time of their Broken Flag tape) by Dave Kirby and Robert Maycock. After Maycock's departure, Justin Mitchell joined in early 1994. Satori disbanded in 1996. A decade later Mitchell resurrected the project with Neil Chaney (Pessary) and soon after they released a split live album recorded in Japan with Sutcliffe Jugend. CONTEMPTUS MUNDI is the third release of the new Satori incarnation (before that they released on April 2008 an album titled "Kanashibari", reissued now on CD by Cold Spring) and it sees the collaboration of Magus Peter H Gilmore, High Priest of the Church Of Satan reading his writing. The main track is based on an adaptation of an the essay "Pervasive pantywaistism" published on Peter H Gilmore's book titled The Satanic Scriptures published by Scapegoat Publishing. On the essay Gilmore criticize the weakness of the modern world and it remembers me Boyd Rice when talk about new Darwinism issues. Musically the track convinced me as it creates a thick mix of magmatic sounds with distant drums, treated chants and creepy atmospheres which seem coming from the bowels of the earth. The second track of the album is a revised instrumental remix of the first one (for this reason I cut half star from my rate).