Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Neil Jendon & André Foisy Tapes Shipping Now (Order Both for a Limited Discount)

LOD is still offering a limited discount on any orders of both of these releases. We'll ship both of these for $13. We'll offer this deal until Monday, May 3rd. All pre-orders of these two releases have shipped.



Paypal to:

landofdecay@gmail.com






Artist: Neil Jendon
Title: "Male Fantasies"
Format: Cassette
Catalog Number: LOD 010
Edition Size: 100 Copies

Neil Jendon has been one of our favorite Chicago musicians since we first saw him play at Enemy with Consumer Electronics in 2008. "Male Fantasies" is a modular synthesizer workout that follows up his recent CD "Cities in Flight" (Bloodlust!). The pieces on here range from being thick, noisy, abrasive passages to quiet serene and contemplative. Neil is one of the most talented musicians in the Chicago music scene and we're elated to be releasing this tape for him. Our description isn't going to do this release justice so check out part of it below.

Artwork/design by Terrence Hannum. Edition of 100 professionally duplicated tapes.

Track titles:
A: Red Nurse - Vigilante! - White Nurse
B: Sister, Impure Pillars Before the Sea

Price:
$7.00 USA postpaid
$10.00 Rest of World postpaid with International First Class Mail


Hear Side A: Red Nurse - Vigilante! - White Nurse here:

Red Nurse - Vigilante! - White NursebyLandofdecay



Artist: André Foisy
Title: "After the Prophecy"
Format: Cassette
Catalog Number: LOD 013
Edition Size: 250 Copies

Two tracks of string-based (mandolin, acoustic and electric guitar, and violin) drones recorded in 2007. Edition of 250 professionally duplicated tapes. Track 1 appeared previously on the "Summer Solstice" compilation album from Twilight Luggage. CD cover design by Keith Utech. Photographs from Kelly Rix.

Track Titles:
A1/B1) The Great Dissappointment (4:34)
A2/B2) Call To Clarion: Flee That Flood (21:29)

Price:
$7.00 USA postpaid
$10.00 Rest of World postpaid with International First Class Mail

Here's track one "The Great Disappointment:"

Track 1 The Great Disappointmentbylandofdecay


Also.............we have the last remaining copies of our Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words tape "No Words." We recommend that you pick this up quickly if you'd like a copy. Ordering information below:




Artist: Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words
Title: "No Words"
Format: Cassette
Catalog Number: LOD 009
Edition Size: 100 Copies

Land of Decay is pleased to announced the our newest release, “No Words” from Sweden’s Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words. Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words is the project of the Swedish musician, as well as designer, Thomas Ekelund. His “Lost In Reflections” album was one of our favorites from 2008/2009 and this music follows that album’s trajectory: minimal, haunting, and minor. “No Words” is both ethereal and unsettling.

The artist recorded the music for this release in summer 2009 at Keiller’s Park, Göteborg, Sweden. When Skies are Grey originally released this material in two editions: the first and edition of 23; the second an edition of 46. We were lucky enough to get copies of the original release and we are honored to be releasing this edition.

The Land of Decay version contains artwork and design from Terence Hannum, as well as bonus material that was not included in previous editions of the release.

Track Listing:

A1: No Words
A2: No Words
B1: Forgive Forget Regret [Not available on original release]

Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words — No WordsbyWhenSkiesAreGrey


Ordering Information:

Price: $7 USA/$10 Rest of World @ postage paid

Please send payment to: landofdecay@gmail.com

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Neil Jendon and André Foisy Tapes/Track Previews/Pre-order

Please note that LOD will offer a limited discount on pre-orders of these two new tapes. If you order both of these now, then we'll knock off a dollar for combined postage, thus both tapes will cost a total of $13 ppd U.S./$19 ppd World.

Paypal to:

landofdecay@gmail.com

Images of both of these releases will follow shortly!


LOD 010 Neil Jendon "Male Fantasies"

Neil Jendon has been one of our favorite Chicago musicians since we first saw him play at Enemy with Consumer Electronics in 2008. "Male Fantasies" is a modular synthesizer workout that follows up his recent CD "Cities in Flight" (Bloodlust!). The pieces on here range from being thick, noisy, abrasive passages to quiet serene and contemplative. Neil is one of the most talented musicians in the Chicago music scene and we're elated to be releasing this tape for him. Our description isn't going to do this release justice so check out part of it below.

Artwork/design by Terrence Hannum. Edition of 100 professionally duplicated tapes.

Track titles:
A: Red Nurse - Vigilante! - White Nurse
B: Sister, Impure Pillars Before the Sea

Hear Side A: Red Nurse - Vigilante! - White Nurse here:

Red Nurse - Vigilante! - White Nurse by Landofdecay

Price:
$7.00 USA postpaid
$10.00 Rest of World postpaid with International First Class Mail

Neil Jendon cover artwork here:














LOD 013 André Foisy "After The Prophecy" CS

Two tracks of string-based (mandolin, acoustic and electric guitar, and violin) drones recorded in 2007. Edition of 250 professionally duplicated tapes. Track 1 appeared previously on the "Summer Solstice" compilation album from Twilight Luggage. CD cover design by Keith Utech. Photographs from Kelly Rix.

Track Titles:
A1/B1) The Great Dissappointment (4:34)
A2/B2) Call To Clarion: Flee That Flood (21:29)

Price:
$7.00 USA postpaid
$10.00 Rest of World postpaid with International First Class Mail

Here's track one "The Great Disappointment"

Track 1 The Great Disappointment by landofdecay

Cover photo here:



Better photos of both of these releases + artwork to follow shortly.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Small Doses: Sold out of "Territories" LP

Small Doses is now sold out of the Locrian "Territories" LP too.

If you would like to get one of the remaining LPs, then you will need to order it from one of the European labels: Basses Frequences, or At War With False Noise. These will be gone from all of the labels soon so act fast if you're interested.

Friday, April 16, 2010

"Territories" LPs and "Drenched Lands" LPs are Sold Out From Us

Please don't order "Drenched Lands" LPs or "Territories" LPs from us anymore because we are sold out.

Thanks to everyone who ordered for your support.

If you would like a copy of this album then please contact At War With False Noise, or Basses Frequences.

Bloodlust! is sold out as well. Small Doses may be sold out already as well.

Pitchfork - "The Out Door" Interviews Locrian

Link here.

Territories, the new album by experimental Chicago duo Locrian, is a kaleidoscope of grays and black, where suffocating sustains and piercing feedback swirl deliberately with crippled blastbeats and mangled shouts. For several years, the music of André Foisy and Terence Hannum-- who first played together in the quartet Unlucky Atlas, with their wives-- consisted largely of dark, mesmeric drones, made menacing by Hannum's lacerated roar and noise textures. This time, they recruited a tell-tale list of collaborators-- Nachtmystium's Blake Judd, Yakuza's Bruce Lamont, Bloodyminded's Mark Solotroff, and Velnias' Andrew Scherer-- from the worlds of electronics and metal to, in effect, darken their darkness.

And so, Territories plays like a study in both instability and intensity: The album's centerpiece, for instance, is called "Procession of Ancestral Brutalism." An 11-minute, feedback-and-static-damaged black metal marathon, it teeters constantly on the brink of auto-destruction, a system bound for sudden failure. That's appropriate for an album that builds so heavily on themes of accidental ruination, where humans force themselves into scenarios that render doomsday outcomes.

Foisy and Hannum both work at Columbia College in Chicago, where they teach at night and assist with student development and long-term university planning by day. Despite the malevolence of their music and, to an extent, the despondency of their world views, they spoke candidly and humorously about their musical development, Locrian's creative process, and the premonition that we've got some troubling days ahead.

MP3:> Locrian: "Ring Road"

MP3:> Locrian: "Procession of Ancestral Brutalism"

Pitchfork: Where did you come to Chicago from?

André Foisy: I lived in Buffalo, but I'm from northern New York state, near the border of Ontario and Quebec-- kind of in the middle of nowhere, the northern Adirondack Mountains. It's about an hour's drive to Montreal.

Terence Hannum: I came from Florida. I moved here pretty much as soon as I finished college.

Pitchfork: I grew up in a rural town in North Carolina, so I always wonder about how people who came from similarly somewhat isolated areas found their way into a musical world bigger than that of their classmates. Modern country, for instance, ruled my school.

TH: For me, it was my dad. Whenever I said I liked something-- he still does this to this day-- my dad would say, "Well, that was done in the 60s," and he will pull out some record-- Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, whatever. I quickly kind of realized that most of the crap in the late 80s that was being fed to my demographic was just that-- crap.

So it was a gateway. You start listening to Black Sabbath, and you start wondering, "What's heavier? What's around now?" You might get into Metallica, and I think it was quick into punk and underground, self-made music that, in the D.C. area, was pretty easily accessible even when I was 10 or 11.

AF: I got interested in different music when I was in my early teens. The strange commonality that Terence and I share [is] we had a shared background in what used to be the hardcore scene. Growing up in northern New York, I didn't love that place-- or everything about that place. I didn't identify with a lot of the people I went to school with or were around those communities. I would try to get out of northern New York as much as possible, so I'd be going to shows in Ottawa or Montreal and seeing bands that Terence and I really bonded over-- like One Eyed God Prophecy and Ire.

TH: [Union of] Uranus...That pathway led into the 90s, where hardcore and the youth culture of that time was still kind of active-- pre-Internet-- and creative. Not everything was handed to them, and people had to generate these interesting networks. Most of those bands that André mentioned were around an area or a record label. You'd get one 7", and you can get the next one and you'd be like, "All, right this is a scene! It kind of has a sound! It's kind of dark…"

Pitchfork: That seems to relate to your discography, which is pretty diffuse-- LPs, CDs, 7"s, 3" CDs, eight-tracks, tapes. Is that a pretty conscious homage to that scene, a direct continuation of it?

TH: Maybe subconsciously. I've always listened to vinyl, and I've always collected vinyl. I don't buy CDs. I've always made tapes. I've never not made tapes. I was looking back, and every year, I've made some kind of tape. I've always made a cassette, since I was 14 or whatever, of my own music.

AF: Growing up, the ultimate thing-- if your band was cool-- was you got to release a CD. That was better than an LP even though, with an LP, the artwork looks cooler. I guess there's just never been this happy medium with me. I don't feel like there's any format that's perfect for anything.

We're finishing a CD right now, and we're playing with a percussionist, Steven Hess. He's got his drums tuned to this frequency that's really, really low, and you can't hear them on certain speakers. That frequency is going to come off perhaps better on CD, even though I like that format a lot less. It tends to have a better bass response than vinyl, even though there are certain nuances on that record that are going to sound a lot better on vinyl.

With MP3s, they're good for some things, but as far as giving the artists control, it's not very good. We're not going to be able to control who hears this new record: People are going to be listening to it on their computer speakers, and they're going to be missing a big section of it because the frequencies won't work on those speakers. Or even on Territories, some frequencies are not going to work on those computer speakers. Some of those are pretty abrasive frequencies, so maybe some people are thankful for that.

Pitchfork: Collaboration is somewhat new for Locrian. At what point did you decide that was where you wanted to head next?

AF: We've been playing together for a few years, and I think we felt comfortable as a duo. That definitely made us more open. In the noise scene, it's like everyone collaborates all the time, and there are a whole lot of collaborative splits, all this stuff. Some of them are great, and some of them are total duds. I think we were really wary of making a dud-- or overdoing it, like where you have a "CD-R leak" of some collaboration that you've done. Not to disparage that, it's just that we really wanted it to make sense and not be just because everybody else was doing it.

Pitchfork: You said "noise scene." On Territories, you play with noise and metal musicians, and I think this record will find laurels and criticisms on both sides. Where do you consider yourself?

AF: This project has always been an avenue where Terence and I explored a bunch of common interests and both of our common interests in music are so-- I think there's definitely a unity to them, but it's also all over the place. For instance, we're both into Krautrock or more experimental stuff-- early-90s death metal.

TH: A lot of our motivations when we started dealt with our frustrations at that time. There was no Kuma's Corner in Chicago [a metal-themed burger joint-- Ed.]. Any metal scene was really small and really marginal.

AF: I think we both felt there was this provinciality to the music scenes we were around-- that's still prevalent. You think about, I don't know, Earache. Earache used to be a record label that would put out some really challenging stuff, and then they kind of stopped.

TH: Not just them, specifically. When you think of someone like Earache, or Relapse, you think, "Wow, that record, when I was a teenager, was really challenging." You look back, and it still holds up as an intense record with its subject matter, its speed, its aggressiveness, or whatever. And then you kind of listen to what they're doing now, and it's like, "What are they doing?"

There was this momentum, this creativity, this kind of feeling that you're pushing boundaries. In a similar way, we looked at Chicago and the metal thing, and maybe that's why we gravitated to people like Blake and Bruce and people we felt were trying to challenge that scene. Nachtmystium's Instinct: Decay-- I still put that record on. I think it's brilliant. I think the guitar playing's really amazing, really dense. It kind of begins to transcend that black metal tag in a positive way. Likewise, Bruce, with Yakuza.

That was a reaction that we had, that it was a small enough scene and there weren't enough people really pushing things. Now I think the metal scene is a lot healthier and the same thing with the noise scene. It was much more marginalized, pre-Wolf Eyes on Sub Pop. I think kind of post-Wolf Eyes on Sub Pop, it's gotten really big. Everyone has a band and a tape label, and now this healthy process has happened where some really solid musicians are coming out and are doing really interesting things with noise and power electronics and experimental music.

AF: If you have people from the metal audience who are picking up this record, I hope they're listening to the non-black metal tracks. I hope they are kind of taken aback. We have these more direct parts on this record, but both of us are like, "We should make people wait to get to those direct parts, really kind of suffer." If anyone's picking up this record because they read that Blake from Nachtmystium's on it, they're going to have to wait through some…

TH: Some ambient stuff. I think there will still be some middle passages, I think, that can act as some kind of a buffer, a purgatory or whatever. I'm really proud of those passages.

Pitchfork: That's a concept I've always loved-- putting a litmus test up front, to see who's really into the record for the long haul. What's the downside of that, though?

TH: People are going to like what they like. There's plenty of white guys playing guitars and making pop music that you can listen to. When we play live, there's a lot of other things we have to think about and consider. A lot of times, when we play live, we start out pretty low key because we have to build up a lot of stuff normally, especially if we're playing just the two of us. We have to build up a lot of loops and brin g in other instruments.

Our key phrase to each other is "take our time." We like to take our time, especially with a live set, and we spent two years or so before we went into the studio to record something. Most of our recordings from before then were from live or radio shows. Pacing and timing were really important. Whether to draw someone in, like a story or narrative of some kind, I think that's a common thing in our releases. Maybe that would give people more patience.

Pitchfork: The song titles on Territories seem very deliberate, maybe even didactic, in relating to structures-- barrows, roads, columns-- and decay. Are song titles a convenient way for experimental acts to convey a message?

TH: They're all kind of based off of architectural descriptions and this kind of bleak world. There was this architectural movement, the New Brutalism movement, and that was a really big influence, all of their ideas. The whole first song came from this screed from the 19th century, in England, about industrialization. I thought it was really poetic when you kind of edited it down-- things hadn't changed that much. I really doubt most progress. I think that's really behind a lot of the lyrical content of the record, this doubt of this direction. Both André and I were kind of raised around hardcore music that felt that they had all the answers and kind of whacked you over the head all the time with…

Pitchfork: A message?

TH: How to fix your life and judge everybody else's lives and all that great stuff. I think we reacted to that. Maybe it made us more cautious about some kind of stance or something like that. That's what U2's for.

AF: Yeah, and all those ranting about ways to change your life and fix the world. They're like, "Hey, I'm going to go vegan, and that's going to make the world better!"

Pitchfork: You could argue it's the same, in a way, as religion. It's something that makes you think that tomorrow will be better, that there is progress.

AF: It's just that we live in a very disturbing world. The fact that we're putting out vinyl records that are extremely pollutive to the environment, that's a contradiction I think about when we release records. I think, "Oh, we're causing some pollution, but at least it's limited to an extent." We're both trying to grapple with maybe that hardcore scene we were part of that gave us the answers but disturbed us and made us more critical of things, maybe more cynical. Maybe part of our output is finding a balance in that. Maybe it's our way of trying to deal with that cynicism.

TH: I'm also totally comfortable with the fact that the human race will cease to exist at some point, probably because of its terrible decisions. I'm okay with that now. And I don't really have much hope that we're going to turn things around in some way. Our tendencies to self-correct, we've kind of marked ourselves out of any way that we're actually going to right that course. The idea that we can is really funny to me, that we have any say in how this planet functions. We can certainly affect it, but it was here before we were here, and it'll be here after we're here. It'll regenerate in some way. I know it's fatalism. I don't really have much hope for humanity, I guess. Sorry. -- Grayson Currin

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Land of Decay Related: CATARACT OF FIRE & BLOOD / Zine

For those of you who so graciously supported our first printing endeavor New Rites a few months ago and maybe even followed up with a purchase of Black Arts or even Profaned Missive for Fan Death Record's DNA TEST FEST III, Locrian member Terence Hannum has not stopped, and in fact brought in a cohort in this new publication. We have a limited quantity of their new zine Cataract of Fire & Blood, more info below:

Firelight in a pitch-black space. Sigils carved into ready flesh. Cataract of Fire & Blood is a collaborative effort by Terence Hannum and Elijah Burgher, pairing images by the artists that explore subculture and ritual.



The title of the zine is lifted from a passage in William Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell":

"beneath us was nothing now to be seen but a black tempest, till looking east between the clouds & the waves, we saw a cataract of blood mixed with fire, and not many stones' throw from us appear'd and sunk again the scaly fold of a monstrous serpent."



7" × 8.5" / 20 pages. Full color zine in black envelope, stamped with wax. Edition of 100.

$10ppd (US) / $15ppd (world)
Please send payment to: landofdecay@gmail.com

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

DLSODW Tape at OMG Vinyl

Link here.

---------------------------------

Land of Decay, the label owned and curated by none other than our Chicago metal brethren Locrian, has got a new cassette from Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words available for ordering. This is beautiful, blissful drone music to sink into and fry your circuits on. Some might even call it “drone pop”. Did I just say “drone pop”? Fuck me. Anyways, if you don’t listen to tapes, then you need to be ordering the Locrian album from these guys (that’s on vinyl). If you do listen to tapes, you can get this plus the new Locrian album shipped to your door for $25. That’s money well spent, my friend. Visit the landofdecaycatalog.blogspot.com to figure out ordering details (hint: it involves Paypal).

Locrian "The Columnless Arcade" at Stereogum


Link here.

Locrian’s Territories ends with the torrentially uplifting “The Columnless Arcade.” The Chicago duo of André Foisy and Terence Hannum still create plenty of dark, crumbling, murky washes and spacious Prurient-on-Loren Mazzacane Connors noisescapes, but since their last collection Drenched Lands (and a handful of shorter 2009 releases), they’ve added a rock layer to the bleak ambiance. The assistance comes via a well-curated cast of Chicago-area metal/extreme music regulars:

On the aforementioned closer and 11-minute mid-collection epic “Procession of Ancestral Brutalism,” the guys are joined by Nachtmystium’s Black Judd on guitars (plus vocals on “Procession”), Yakuza’s Bruce Lamont on saxophone, and Velnias‘ Andrew Scherer on drums. (Elsewhere, Bloodyminded’s Mark Solotroff shreds his vocal cords and affixes dense synth drone.) Last July I booked Locrian on an intentionally weirdo bill with three different kinds of grindcore groups (Anal Cunt, Fuck The Facts, and Compremesis) and a more straightforward progressive Opeth-style crew (Gwynbleidd). At time the time, Foisy and Hannum’s electric, spacious sheets of synthesized/looped noise and dense smoke machines created a gorgeous, religious-seeming swerve from the rest of the bill. A year later they’d still be the odd-men out, but they’d also be creating blackened anthems that’d give just about anyone a run for their blast beats. You get a bit of both worlds in “The Columnless Arcade.”

* Locrian – “The Columnless Arcade”

Territories is out now on LP via At War with False Noise, Basses Frequences, Bloodlust!, and Small Doses. (It takes a nation.) It’ll be out on CD in August. More details on that soon. In the meantime, make room on your year-end lists.

Blastitude Reviews "Drenched Lands" and "Territories"

Link here.

LOCRIAN Drenched Lands CD (AT WAR WITH FALSE NOISE / SMALL DOSES) For Locrian's "first full-length studio recording of all new material," the ingredients may remain the same (metal, noise, drone, power electronics), but they are presented in their most confident and seamless blend yet. This duo can actually play music on their instruments, and use this ability to create extended compositions. Therefore, there's no need to hide behind drone and distortion, allowing these tactics to be used as weapons, and only when necessary. The result is a mostly quiet album that is still more brutal than a lot of today's amps-on-11 extreme music yawnfests.

LOCRIAN Territories (AT WAR WITH FALSE NOISE / BASSES FREQUENCIES / BLOODLUST! / SMALL DOSES) Showing a continued intent to develop and reinvent themselves, Locrian augment their duo lineup with various key guests from Chicago's metal, experimental, and experimental/metal scenes. The result is as solid and satisfying as all of Locrian's releases have been, but given several fresh twists, which we hear right off the bat on "Inverted Ruins," featuring Mark Solotroff of Bloodyminded doing a killer job singing bleak lyrics and Andrew Scherer of Velnias playing kit drums, I believe a first for Locrian. Other temporary members include Bruce Lamont of Yakuza on vocals and saxophone, and perhaps most notably Blake Judd of Nachtmystium on guitars and vocals. All four of these ringers appear throughout the album, in different combinations, but not on every track... though only one track ("Antediluvian Territory") is by the original Locrian duo lineup, there is also only one track ("Procession of Ancestral Brutalism") that features all six musicians. Not surprisingly, it explodes out of the middle of the album as the most raging and traditionally black metal sounding track on here, though I might prefer the nearly 10-minute Solotroff/Locrian trio cut "Ring Road."

Monday, April 12, 2010

Locrian "Territories" at The Fader


Locrian


Four labels from three different countries and four collaborators, including Mark Solotroff from Bloodyminded and Blake Judd from Nachtmystium, join Locrian on Territories. I wasn’t that familiar with Locrian before this but Territories is as good and engaging an introduction as any. I fall on the side of enjoying the spaced out bleak ambient tracks on this record over the more black metal infused tracks. It is not that metal tracks like “Procession of Ancestral Brutalism” aren’t good, they are – lots of pained screeches and riffing but the first two songs on Territories, “Inverted Ruins” and “Between Barrows,” create such an atmospheric and engaging tone for the whole album that I found myself turning back to those songs more. “Inverted Ruins” features Mark Solotroff from Bloodyminded on vocals and his growls complement the repetitive guitar and creaky synths of the song nicely, creating a trance inducing piece and proving that in the case of Locrian collaboration does something more than just fill up a press one sheet. Bloodlust is sold out of the record but it is available through Small Doses for US customers, get it HERE.

Locrian "Falling Towers / After The Torchlight" at Crucial Blast

LOCRIAN Falling Towers / After The Torchlight CASSETTE (Black Horizons)

Coming right in the wake of their latest LP Territories (which I'll have listed and written up in next week's new arrivals list), this two-track cassette is a brand new offering of blackened cosmic psychcrush from Locrian, serving up some heavier kosmische-tinged blackness from the Chicago band. The first track "Falling Towers" is massive, a swirling sprawl of blackened guitar riffs and droning feedback and spacey synthesizers, like an especially sinister Earth riff floating through a vast void of rumbling cosmic drift, with horrific distended screams lathered in reverb and other effects, smeared across the pitch-black cavernous abyss, eerie melodic guitar winding across the blackness, almost like something from Old Man Gloom but far more bleak and sinister, disembodied abstract dronemetal hovering in stygian shadow.

The other track "After The Torchlight" is even longer and heavier, opening with a malevolent minor key black metal riff that slowly dissolves into a whirring dronescape of buzzing organ tones, rumbling low-end drift, chant-like moaning, electronic crackle and crumbling blackened heaviness, all fused together into a mighty psychedelic roar that gets more and more abstract and blurry, everything melting down into a massive wash of hum and drone and tectonic hum and plinking piano-like notes, crushing and formless and totally mesmerizing. And like that cassette that Locrian released on Fan Death, this features the recordings repeated on the flipside, but in reverse, the music warped and murky, even more abstracted and creepy and hallucinatory.
The tape comes in fantastic packaging,with screen printed black covers printed in silver ink, a shiny metallic silver label on the cassette, and limited to 200 copies.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Locrian "Rain of Ashes" Review from Plaguehaus.com

Link here.

Thanks to Plaguehaus.com for the support!

--------------

Locrian : Rain Of Ashes
Written by J.

Locrian : Rain Of Ashes
Basses Frequences : 2009
Format : CD

Released via the French experimental label Basses Frequences is another new disc from Chicago’s kings of drone metal, Locrian. This band has been ultra prolific that past couple of years and this disc is actually a re-release of a cassette version from earlier in 2009 on Fan Death Records. The CD consists of 2 tracks clocking in at nearly 30 minutes a piece. Both were recorded live during a set the band for the "DNA in the DNA" show on University of Maryland’s freeform radio station WMUC while on tour.

Calling these “tracks” is actually a disservice. These are more akin to movements or journeys. So that being said the title track begins with an airy ambience that is quickly shattered by André Foisy’s ringing guitar work. It’s a sound so mournful and piercing that at times it’s almost painful. And all the while Terence Hannum subtle synth flows underneath. Around the 10 minute mark the guitars drift out and this repeating synth line moves in that reminds me all the world of the Steve Miller Band as the guitar slowly creeps back in. This journey takes a more ominous turn as the guitar takes a heavier, doomier feel. It reminds me a lot of the Pacific NW Black Metal sound. They keys follow suit with organ tones and hiss. Then the whole descends into chaos with rolling, rumbling noise and distant screams. Tragic and beautiful.

And if you haven’t figured it out by the time you read the title (and it took a minute for it to sink in with me, I thought it was Gaelic), “Sehsa Fo Niar” is the first track completely in reverse. As quirky and amusing as this may sound, it actually works. Granted, I like the first track better, but it’s strange and fun.

This is a standard jewel case release with an eight panel insert. There are some great shots of the band mixed with some manipulated nature photos. Limited to 400 copies.

Websites: myspace.com/thelocrian | bassesfrequences.org

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Locrian Confirmed for Hopscotch Fest, September 9-11, 2010 Raleigh, NC

Locrian will take part in the Hopscotch Festival in Raleigh, NC this September 9-11. The Hopscotch Festival is presented by Raleigh’s Independent Weekly and this year’s fest will also include PUBLIC ENEMY, PANDA BEAR, LUCERO, HARVEY MILK, OCEAN, and many more. Additional information on the festival can be found here.

Locrian will be performing on Thursday, September 9th, 2010 with: Horseback, Ocean, and Harvey Milk.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

"No Words" Track Preview from DLSODW

Here's a preview of one of the tracks from the DLSODW tape.


No Words by WhenSkiesAreGrey

Ordering information here.

Locrian Interview w/ Scott McKeating (Foxy Digitalis)

Thanks to Scott McKeating for the great questions.

There's a link to the interview here.
-----------------------------
Locrian
by Scott McKeating

Chicago’s Locrian have just dropped their first vinyl LP, “Territories”, and it’s a split release across 4 excellent labels – any of which alone would be a strong enough indicator of the records quality. With guest appearances from Andrew Scherer (Velnias), Mark Solotroff (Bloodyminded), Bruce Lamont (Yakuza), and Blake Judd (Nachtmystium), this moves away from their drone source and into a more black metallicised and noisier ‘territory’.


Can you sum up Locrian with a current genre tag for the real lazy bastards out there?
Terence: I call it obsidian-gaze.


You’ve got links to Bloodyminded, but where they come across as in extremis you guys seem a little more mysterious?
André: We’ve been friends with Mark Solotroff for just about as long as we’ve been playing together. I guess we initially played with Bloodyminded and then we played on some of Mark's shows. He’s been really supportive of us and we’re really big fans of the stuff that he does now and the stuff he did before we were friends with him.

Terence: That is good that it is mysterious, even if slightly. Good.


What’s your relationship with black metal as ...as a style?
André: I generally like black metal as a style a lot of the time (when it's done well), but I can’t think of anyone that we’re directly influenced by. I grew up in northern NY state, on the boarder with Quebec and a lot of the music that influenced me in my development was hardcore music that bore a lot of similarities to black metal, though I’m not sure that the music that I listened to at the time evolved in response to black metal. I tend to think that this music developed in parallel evolution to the black metal that was coming out of Europe at the time rather than from any direct black metal influence.

Generally though, I don’t listen to much black metal. As with any style, there are people that do it well and people who don't. I like groups that are doing really creative stuff with the genre, like Menace Ruine, but at the same time there are some groups that are doing things musically that I'm interested in, but that I can't listen to because I can't really get into the message behind it.

Terence: I do, I would definitely say that first Abruptum was a pretty big epiphany for me, or how intense Emperor's In the Nightside Eclipse is with the keyboards.


...as collectors?
André: I really don't own much black metal. I try to keep my belongings to a minimum so I really try to keep my music collection to a minimum.

Terence: I have really enjoyed the new Ruins of Beverast, Skagos and other things.

André: If you mean black metal releases as objects, then I think that it's interesting what some black metal bands are doing lately in order to remain 'kvlt' and different from more wider known black metal bands. In a lot of black metal, there's this emphasis on individuality, anonymity, and not-being-like-everyone-else. I'm interesting in how these ideas come across in different black metal releases. There are a few current black metal bands that I'm familiar with that only release music on tapes. The reason behind this, I think, is to reinforce this idea of the inaccessibility of their music.


...as an ideology?
Terence: We're not satanists, or even trying to push any of those cliched buttons. I would say sonically we're very negative and we seek to generate a lot of that blackened aura around what we do. There are a lot of black metal bands who do that well, but there are also a lot of 'kosmiche' bands who can do that as well.

André: These are big questions and ones that I could write extensively about. I like a lot of themes that pop up in some black metal. I don't know if there's any one ideology. You have all of these flows between different scenes, perhaps you could call these ideoscapes. Some of the ideoscapes I'm interested in: an emphasis/worship of nature; prophecies of the future; and the bleak outlook of the world that's typical of a lot of black metal.

I'm not really interested in black metal bands that utilize satanic themes since it seems pointless to me to write another song about satanism, paganism, or religion. I just find those topics to be really overemphasized in metal in general although I'm sure that these themes are important to some people, not me though. On the other hand, I'm not interested in artists who incorporate ideas about race or nationalism into their music. For instance, I liked Akitsa musically until I read an interview with them and found out about their Quebecois nationalist stance. It would be a longer conversation if we wanted to analyze why nationalism and race pop up so much in black metal, and the noise scene.

I'm also really bored with the fetishization of Norwegian black metal, specifically the hate crimes that were related to this scene in the 1980s. I think that all of the scholars, journalists, and fans have really exoticized the black metal culture in that area which has added to misunderstading of the issues fueling the violence of that era.
Terence: I think having been involved in such politically polemic scenes with hardcore I just because so skeptical of bands whose definition is around some certain ideology, it all reminds me of either a youth group or horrible young republicans gathering, where like you're supposed to forgive the unoriginality and horrid logic because of a supposed shared ideal.

André: Black metal to me is also interesting as an identity. It was great playing with Horna recently because we got to share a dressing room with them. Not that we usually get a dressing room, but they were these pretty normal metal dudes until about an hour before they played and they asked us to leave the dressing room. The venue put all the free beer for the bands in the dressing room and all the bands got sick of waiting for the beer so I politely asked them if I could come in the dressing room on the premise that I closed my eyes. So I ran in there and grabbed a bunch of beer, but the entire time I had my hands over my eyes with my fingers split so that I could see what was going on which was interesting: all these kind of macho dudes putting on each other's corpse pant. Apparently, they got really mad at some of the other band members who were supposed to be able to use the dressing room and it essentially came down to the fact that there's this liminal stage between when someone in a black metal band is a normal dude and when they are their alter-ego (not that all black metal bands have this alter-ego). It was really embarrassing for these dudes to show themselves to anyone in their liminal stage because of its inherent ambiguities: each person isn't really in their normal state, but they're not in their full corpse paint state either.

The promoters gave us food for that show too, so it was interesting to watch these dudes in corpse paint eating Doritos afterward.One of our friends got some cool secret pictures of those dudes doing that.

Also, it's interesting how far some of these black metal bands go in order to repulse people. Back to the Horna show we played, Horna and another band utilized rotting pig heads as part of their performance. These guys weren't getting a new pig head every night of the tour, they just put the rotting head in a garbage bag and left with it afterwards. I can't imagine having to ride in a van for two weeks with the same rotting pig head. I mean, some of these guys really make this idea of repulsion a part of their identity and they have to suffer for it.Of course, I'm just using Horna as an example, since there are other bands out there that are very similar.


Do you work on a release with a particular idea/concept in mind? Do the titles reflect what you were working towards or what you give birth to?
André: I think it’s different at different times.

In general though, we work really intuitively so it's usually a surprise what will come out.


Did Territories come together by accident in increments or was it something you were looking to work on as a project?
André: After we recorded Drenched Lands in July 2007, we started collaborating with Andrew Scherer quite frequently in our live performances—probably from September 2008 until early 2009. Unlike many noise musicians, we really haven’t collaborated with anyone else until we started working with Andrew from Velnias on drums. When we recorded “Territories” we had been performing with Andrew for a few months. We knew we wanted to record something with him and we had some other people that we wanted to collaborate with. We essentially had about two song ideas before we recorded that album.

We’d been fans of Mark’s work in his multiple projects and we knew we wanted to bring him into the studio for a collaboration. We essentially just recorded as much as we could for about two days and at the end we were able to convince our friend Bruce Lamont to come in to do some saxophone stuff and Blake came in at the end to record some guitar parts. For a while we weren’t sure that we were going to release it because it was really hell to record. We recorded it in January 2009 and we left with some rough mixes, but the mixes sounded so fucked up that we just wanted to scrap the sessions. It was probably in April or May that we finally got around to mixing this album and we ended up being pretty happy with it at the end.


Most of the stuff on the album is entirely improvised. When we recorded it we figured that we would just pick through later and put together like puzzle pieces.
Terence: In the end it really came together and had a certain flow from the harsh beginnings through ambient passages toward the more metal sections. It felt a lot like King Crimson's Islands to us so we wanted to pay homage to their massive influence over us through the title and some of the artwork, ours being more earth bound and decay laden of course.

-- Scott McKeating (7 April, 2010)

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Land of Decay 009 Out Now: Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words: "No Words"



Artist: Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words
Title: "No Words"
Format: Cassette
Catalog Number: LOD 009
Edition Size: 100 Copies

Land of Decay is pleased to announced the our newest release, “No Words” from Sweden’s Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words. Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words is the project of the Swedish musician, as well as designer, Thomas Ekelund. His “Lost In Reflections” album was one of our favorites from 2008/2009 and this music follows that album’s trajectory: minimal, haunting, and minor. “No Words” is both ethereal and unsettling.

The artist recorded the music for this release in summer 2009 at Keiller’s Park, Göteborg, Sweden. When Skies are Grey originally released this material in two editions: the first and edition of 23; the second an edition of 46. We were lucky enough to get copies of the original release and we are honored to be releasing this edition.

The Land of Decay version contains artwork and design from Terence Hannum, as well as bonus material that was not included in previous editions of the release.

Track Listing:


A1: No Words
A2: No Words
B1: Forgive Forget Regret [Not available on original release]


Ordering Information:


Price: $7 USA/$10 Rest of World @ postage paid

Please send payment to: landofdecay@gmail.com

Bloodlust! Sold Out of Locrian "Territories"

Note from Bloodlust! today stating that the label is sold out of "Territories."

Link here.

If you're in the U.S. then Land of Decay and Small Doses have copies left (though not many.) There's ordering information below.

Re-post from Bloodlust! Website
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BloodLust! Sold Out of Locrian "Territories"
Please note that BloodLust! is sold out of the new Locrian "Territories" LP. Please check with the band or with the co-releasing labels for remaining stock. Thank you for the strong support on this release!

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If you are in the U.S., then you can still order copies of the album from Small Doses here or from Land of Decay, by sending $18 ppd to: landofdecay@gmail.com.

If you are in Europe then you can get copies from Basses Frequences here or At War With False Noise here.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Locrian "Drenched Lands" Review from Meridian 9 Zine

Link here.

There's also an interview w/ Locrian inside as well as a track from "Drenched Lands" on the zine sampler.



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Locrian on "Soothing Soul Suckers" Radio

Link here.

Locrian "The Columnless Arcade" on Soothing Soul Suckers radio, right where the track belongs: between Mastodon and Motley Crue.

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Playlist below


Neil Young & Crazy Horse/Ragged Glory/Over And Over
Bob Dylan/Live 1975/Isis
Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention/One Size Fits All/Po-Jama People
Van Halen/5150/”5150″
Built To Spill/Carry The Zero/Forget Remember When
Ruinzhatova/Close To The RH/Close To The Edge
Magma/Wurdah Itah/C’est la vie quin les a menes la
Ya Ho Wa 13/V/A The Source: The Untold Story Of Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa 13 And The Source Family/Live At Beverly Hills 1973
Boris/Pink/Farewell
Cop Shoot Cop/Ask Questions Later/Surprise, Surprise
Mercyful Fate/Don’t Break The Oath/A Dangerous Meeting
Iron Maiden/Live After Death/Revelations
Manowar/Kings Of Metal/Hail And Kill
Motley Crue/Too Fast For Love/Starry Eyes
Locrian/Territories/The Columnless Arcade
Mastodon/Remission/Emerald
High On Fire/Snakes Of The Divine/Bastard Samurai
Dio/The Last In Line/I Speed At Night
Enslaved/Frost/Yggdrasil

Thursday, April 1, 2010

"Territories" Review from Yellow, Green, Red

Link here.

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Locrian Territories LP (At War With False Noise / Basses Frequencies / BloodLust! / Small Doses)


If it takes four record labels to put out one album, so be it, so long as it’s as nicely produced as Locrian’s Territories. Continuing in the spirit of cooperation, this one features a number of guest players, including none other than BLOODYMINDED’s Mark Solotroff on vocals and synthesizer, the type of collaboration any Chicago-based freak would envy. Speaking of synths, Territories has a lot of them, practically dominating the landscape where metallic guitars once reigned. There are still some fierce black metal guitar riffs here, which make for a nice balance, but my money’s on the synth-drone mood pieces; there might be just a little too much china cymbal for my tastes on the thrashing metal tracks. Their metalwork here is better than I am recalling, it’s just that when a track is credited to Solotroff’s synth and vocals, a bass guitar and another synthesizer, how can anything top that?

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