Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Zero Tolerance on "Territories"

Locrian "Territories" Review at Cracked Austria

Link here.


Dystopias always had a big place especially within noisy and dark circles of heavy music. From Wolf Eyes to Sunn0))) the aural description of the downfall of society, the destruction of nature by mankind and the ongoing global suicide by humanity has been a source for all kinds of impressive and great music. Especially droning, noisy and heavy music. And it is also true that there is an intricate beauty in these sentiments. That the random rust, obliteration or damage on abandoned buildings or factories has its own fascinating aesthetic. (Check out http://www.opacity.us/ for further input.) So far it seems there is no need to conjure up foreign fantasy worlds with dragons or demons or devils to find powerful images of destruction. Actually, to me, all this fantasy shit is a sign of lacking creativity to me.

The new Locrian CD somehow got buried underneath the rubble that stacks beneath my stereo system and seems to grow by itself like the trash mountains outside an urban metropolis. It is thematically a fitting place, but completely unfitting as �territories� is probably the most mature and evolved release of Locrian I have heard up to now. A lot has been said and written about the kinds of nightmares and storylines the music of Locrian has kindled in the minds of reviewers, but with their first full band approach the music has turned one step bigger, two steps more complex and three steps higher on impact. Andr� Foisy and Terence Hannum, who are still the main powerlines of Locrian, have recruited a small crew of likeminded musicians to blow up their visions into real nightmare size.

There are some names you might now if you are deep into the genres of doom, black metal and general darkness in music. And especially those parts where they mix with even further out ideas, such as urban noise, dark drones and ambient or the as of yet unnamed number of musicians interested in the humming and buzzing of deep bass sounds alone. To be specific: Andrew Scherer from Velnias on drums, Bruce Lamont from Yakuza on Saxophone, Black Judd from Nachtmystium on guitar and Mark Solotroff from Bloodyminded and Anatomy of Habit on more vocals and synthesizers. It is still astonishing how Locrian are one of the few bands employing a number of keyboards and even a saxophone and still sound dark, heavy and as doom as possible. Actually, it should be astonishing that this is still astonishing in the 21st century. Maybe it should be astonishing that we are still alive in the 21st century, but this is a different thought.

Locrian have always dwelled in slow paces, and they do so now within their self-defined, lose bandcontext as well. They dive into these long-winding powernoise drones with intricate shifts in frequencies that suddenly turn into a black metal track without ever losing the epic proportions (�Procession of ancestral Brutalism�). It is these moments that I think fit them best and work to the biggest impact in the new line-up. The pure explorations of bass versus feedback versus noise versus the sounds of urban decay are still interesting, darkly fascinating and able to induce all kinds of unruly thinking. Just how they mix a melancholic organ line with feedback and rumbling noise somewhere deep in �Ring Road� is a moment of radiating beauty. But finally it is those headbanging moments (even if it is very slow banging) that are new and powerful and therefore most remarkable.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Land of Decay Related: André Foisy - "Seven Thrones" Available Now

We now have some copies of the André Foisy "Seven Thrones" CDR from Twilight Luggage. The packaging look great.

If you'd like a copy of this and you are in North America, then please send $10 @ postage paid to: landofdecay@gmail.com

If you are anywhere else, then please send $15.

We don't have a lot of copies of this, so act quickly if you are interested. Edition of 65 copies.

Monday, June 28, 2010

For Future DLSODW Orders

We are really low on the DLSODW tapes, please contact before you send payment for this release to confirm that we have a copy.

Thanks for all your support on this release.

Land of Decay Reviews from The One True Dead Angel

Thanks again to The One True Dead Angel!



Neil Jendon -- MALE FANTASIES cs [Land of Decay]


Formerly a member of bands like Catherine and Reliable Sound Products, Jendon gets his solo gig on here with five tracks of drone noise created using a Korg Lambda, Doepfer modular synth, and various efx pedals. The first salvo of sound here appears in the form of gritty clouds of dark drone on "Red Nurse," where the sonic terrain is dominated by various buzzing noises in the foreground and bleak synth washes in the background. This track segues seamlessly into "Vigilante!" and "Red Nurse" -- so seamlessly, in fact, that the entire side appears to be one long track -- and the ice-like synth drone acts as the anchor for all the buried sonic effluvia happening around and beneath that sound. Side two of the cassette opens in a similar vein with "Sister, Impure," where there's more endlessly bleak synth in the background and a swirling miasma of muted, dirty noise upfront, a sound that manages to be subdued and edgy at the same time. By the time the track segues into "Pillars Before the Sea," the synths have burned off, leaving only the swirling noise element; then light synth drones begin to creep back in, steadily growing stronger and more prominent as the noise recedes into the background. At last the synths turn into a steady hum like the sound of a blown-out amplifier as warbling noises waft up from nowhere and mutate into the sound of UFOs hovering overhead, waiting to descend and lay waste to an unsuspecting world. Dark, brooding, eerie stuff, and limited to 100 copies.

Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words -- NO WORDS cs [Land of Decay]


The band with the long, unwieldy name is the work of Swedish musician / designer Thomas Ekelund, and this release combines tracks from two obscure and limited releases now out of print. The tracks were originally recorded in 2009 and this version includes artwork by Terence Hannum. The A-side consists of two variations of "No Words"; the first is a pensive, minimal track strongly reminiscent of early Tangerine Dream, featuring a melancholy synth loop that is eventually joined by repetitive bass lines and spare percussion. The synth loop drops out halfway through and is replaced by cryptic rattling noises buried under icy keyboard drones, until a percolating bass line fades in, accompanied by a chorus of strident drones. The end comes via a simple but dramatic chord progression on the keyboard that continues even as everything else dies away. The second version is a radically remixed version that reduces the track to an even more minimal bedrock of drone over a muted rhythmic loop. Over time the loop grows louder and more prominent as the harmonic tone of the background drone becomes denser, but even at its apex of activity, this is still a pretty subdued drone track. The flip side, "Forget Forgive Regret," is just under twenty minutes and is a much darker and brooding piece of work. A slow but persistent rhythm that sounds like a distant gong reverberating in the far corner of a darkened dungeon forms the backbone of the track as a black drone hums in the background until disturbing noises begin to creep in, like the sound of metallic roaches attempting to escape from captivity. The parade of incidental sound continues, but the distant, booming rhythm and near-static death drone remain the primary forces at work, giving the track a desolate sound. It does get louder and the drone more harsh toward the end, but mostly the track is about distance, simplicity, and subdued sound. Land of Decay deserves a commendation for making this obscure but potent work available to an American audience, even if the pressing is limited to only 100 copies.



Andre Foisy -- AFTER THE PROPHECY cs [Land of Decay]


If the name is unfamiliar, it's because you haven't been paying enough attention: Foisy is one-half of the godlike Chicago noise duo Locrian. This cassette, on the band's own label, features two tracks (repeated on both sides), and the big surprise is that these tracks are less about noise and more about psychedelia and drone. The first track, "The Great Disappointment," opens with the looped sound of neo-folk guitar over a background of subterranean drone. It's a fairly static track in that it doesn't really develop much, but it's also not long enough for that to become a problem, and in the meantime it certainly sounds swell. The rest of the side is taken up by the considerably longer (21 minutes or so) "Call to Clarion: Flee That Flood," which opens with trancelike harmonic bass lines and complementary guitar arpeggios and gradually but inexorably expands into a series of drone-heavy movements. At one point the drone action is augmented by peals of noise like a whirling army of knives, but eventually that noise is transformed into something considerably more appealing, a sound rich in harmonic overtones. The bass-heavy rumble that kicked off the track returns long enough to usher in a new direction to the track, one in which the drone becomes more subdued and the guitar action more minimalist... then the looped neo-folk guitar returns, accompanied by a strong drone that rises and falls, then drifts into muted, jangling movements of delayed guitar lines and more haunting drones that eventually dwindle away into nothingness. Unlike Locrian, this material is more meditative than soul-crushing, but it's every bit as brilliant as the work of that band. It's also limited to 250 copies, so you should move on it.

Friday, June 25, 2010

"Last 7 Words" Blurbs

Kikaxemusic

Plague Haus

Rock Ass Dick

Locrian Perform To A Screening of Scott Treleaven's "Last 7 Words" film featuring Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: July 10 @ Light Industry, Brooklyn, NY



Date: Saturday, July 10, 2010
Time: 7:30pm
Location: Light Industry, 177 Livingston Street Brooklyn, New York
Cost: $7, tickets available at the door

Chicago-based experimental drone metal outfit, Locrian, perform at Scott Treleaven's "The Touching of Hands" exhibit. The group will be performing their piece "Visible/Invisible" as part of the artist's "Last 7 Words" (2009) video, Treleaven's affectionate and ethereal Super-8 portrait of Breyer P-Orridge*. Locrian will also be performing a separate set at the end of the exhibit. Read more information about the show below.

*"Breyer P-Orridge" is the 3rd Being createx by the collaborative fusion of the artists Lady Jaye & Genesis of which they are each an active half.

The Touching of Hands
Saturday, July 10, 2010 at 7:30pm


“The title for the show comes from a remark that Gysin made to Genesis, and Genesis to me: that magical training can only be passed on by the touching of hands.” — Scott Treleaven

An evening of solo and collaborative projects by Scott Treleaven and Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, focusing on the shared influence of artist and mystic Brion Gysin. Gysin’s close friendship with Breyer P-Orridge, and in turn her friendship with Treleaven, has over time given rise to a number of aesthetic and philosophical affinities found in the work of all three, communicated from one to the other by direct contact.

Each has explored, in his or her own way, the nature of extreme mental states, ideas of eros and thanatos, and modern applications of occult thought. Permutations of the cut-up technique, invented by Gysin in the 1950s, can be found in the reordering of visual information by both Breyer P-Orridge and Treleaven. A preoccupation with the legend of the Cult of the Assassins led to Gysin collaborator William Burroughs’s novel The Wild Boys, Breyer P-Orridge’s collective Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth and, later, Treleaven’s The Salivation Army, his VHS classic about a mid-90s movement centered around a Wild Boys/Psychick Youth-inspired zine. All demonstrate what Treleaven calls a “pre-Web concept” of “total intimacy and privacy, unmediated by uncontainable social networks.”

Tonight's program will consist of rarely-seen Temple Ov Psychick Youth ritual videos (circa 1990), a newly completed piece by Breyer P-Orridge, Weird Woman (2010), and The Salivation Army (2002).

About Light Industry

Light Industry is a venue for film and electronic art in Brooklyn, New York.

Developed and overseen by Thomas Beard and Ed Halter, the project has evolved into a series of weekly events, each organized by a different artist, critic, or curator.

Conceptually, Light Industry draws equal inspiration from the long history of alternative art spaces in New York as well its storied tradition of cinematheques and other intrepid film exhibitors. Through a regular program of screenings, performances, and lectures, its goal is to explore new models for the presentation of time-based media. Bringing together the worlds of contemporary art, experimental cinema, new media, documentary film, and the academy (to name only a few), Light Industry looks to foster an ongoing dialogue among a wide range of artists and audiences within the city.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Anti-Gravity Bunny on André Foisy tape

Thanks for Justin for the kind words. Link here.

Ordering information for this release here.

I'm gonna be honest. The last thing I expected a solo project from one of the dudes from Locrian to sound like is looped string drone. But that's exactly what André Foisy's After The Prophecy tape is and it's fucking great. There's a catch though. There's only 2 songs, repeated on both the A & B sides, and one of the songs was previously released on a Twilight Luggage comp. So is it worth it? Come on guys, this is a Land Of Decay release. Of course it's fucking worth it!

The first (previously released) track, "The Great Disappointment," is a swirling medley of mandolins, violins, and guitars. Very hypnotic. The electric guitar buzzes along with a layer of feedback, lots of plucking, lots of chords, it's just a royal mess of harmony. It's over wayyy too soon but it sounds fucking grand.

Then comes the real bread winner, the 21 minute "Call To Clarion: Flee That Flood." Starts out with a Ty Braxton style guitar loop foundation, some Dirty Three drones come in, and then the resonant feedback breaks through. It's a dense blend and the layers just keep getting piled higher & higher, more feedback, some percussion, until about 10 minutes in, it falls apart into a FX glitch squall. This is some dark shit, let me tell you. The Locrian influence shines its evil horns. Even when it's just the lone dusty guitar towards the end, it's still unmistakably the work of a Locrian dude.

Locrian bends genres in the most interesting & beautiful way possible, so it only makes sense that this doom/noise/psych/ambient tape is from the hands of someone who has an intimate relationship with Locrian. But this isn't Locrian. It's André Foisy, with his own style and take on the drone side of things. But After The Prophecy is every bit as awesome as anything Locrian has done. Only 250 copies. Hurry your ass up.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Land of Decay Related: André Foisy - "Seven Thrones"


Available from Twilight Luggage. For anyone in North America, Land of Decay will have a few copies of this release very soon.

Track Listing:

01 Like Light Over The Plain (17:39)
02 All Through Eternity (21:56)

The album is limited to 65 hand numbered copies, and comes on pro printed CD-Rs in a slipcase wallet, sealed within a spray painted, hand made bag made of smooth fabric.

€10 - including worldwide shipping.

[Order at Twilight Luggage]

Hear an excerpt of "Like Light Over the Plain" below:

Friday, June 18, 2010

Land of Decay Related: FALSE BLOODS / Zine & "Mount of All Lands" c20

For those in this congregation interested in printed matter, Locrian's Terence Hannum has issued his sixth zine, False Bloods for the month of June. If you've been keeping score with the past 5; Temple of the Immortals, Cataract of Fire and Blood (w/ Elijah Burgher), Profaned Missive (for Fan Death), Black Arts and our own New Rites - you will not be dissapointed.

Sixth in a series of zines. Full size, 8.5" × 11" pages, full color cover stock covers featuring four new drawings, xeroxed insides gone over multiple times in the copy machine, with a black on black print on the outside binding this missive together.

False Bloods borrows from the misanthropic screed in Shakespeare's Timon of Athens to investigate the combination of amp worship, ritual and death by culling from the source material for his gouache drawings and layering them in the copying process.

Edition of 47
8.5" × 11"
28 pages
black on white / black on black
xerox and color laser print

Price: $12ppd (US) / $15ppd (world)
Please send payment to: landofdecay (at) gmail (dot) com

PS:Terence's show Negative Altars opens July 16th 2010 at Peregrine Program in Chicago, IL.

AND:

Land of Decay has sold out of T. Hannum's 3" CDR Mount of All Lands but our friends at 5nakefork have repressed it on cassette in a small edition of 50. We have a few copies available for $7 (Please send payment to: landofdecay (at) gmail (dot) com)

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Locrian w/ Hair Police and Cold Cave Tonight!

Link here.

Time: 10:00pm
Cost: $10
Where: Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western Ave., Chicago, IL

With a slew of raved about limited vinyl and cassette releases from exciting Philadelphia outfit COLD CAVE on Hospital Productions, What's Your Rupture and Dais, it was only a matter of time before Matador hopped on the COLD CAVE love train and re-released Love Comes Close last year. Combining synth-pop, post punk, new wave and atmospheric industrial references into dark, synth-spaced pop songs, Pitchfork went so far as to postulate, "if vampires are as cool as I'm told they are right now, COLD CAVE would've cleaned up at the Teen Choice Awards this year." Joining COLD CAVE on this tour, HAIR POLICE return to the Bottle with their exquisite, pedigreed noise. There are few acts who can match their creativity and explosiveness and their deconstructive, nihilistic tendencies are thrilling and unparalleled. Electronic drone metal heads LOCRAIN open tonight playing tracks from their March released Territories LP. Their disembodied, doomed pieces are among our favorites, and even the Chicago Reader has taken note praising their "alien beauty" and "eerily gorgeous noise."


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Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Locrian "Territories" on iTunes

"Territories" is now on iTunes. iTunes does have a high quality download of the album so it should sound better than the mp3 of the album that are floating around out there.

If you like this album, then please get the vinyl. The vinyl version is the way that we'd like this album to be experienced. The download does not do justice to the phenomenal job that Chicago Mastering did on cutting the vinyl. The vinyl for this record has a really dynamic cut and we're really happy with their work on this release.

Basses Frequences and At War With False Noise still have copies of the LP.

We'll be playing new material from an album that we recorded this winter, The Crystal World, at our show on Thursday at the Empty Bottle with Cold Cave and Hair Police. Show starts at 10:00pm and as far as we know, there are still tickets.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Locrian: Sentireascoltare (Italy)

link here.

Locrian
Quello stesso nero pesto mondo
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Quando accogliere blast-beats e voci in scream nel proprio droning è l'inevitabile conseguenza di un tragico sentire comune.
Locrian
Krixter 2008

Contaminazioni tra metal e rumore se ne sono viste a centinaia negli ultimi 10 anni e lasciando da parte Stephen O'Malley e tutti i suoi progetti, tra i vari fenomeni di musica brutta significativo è un manipolo di musicisti diversi per provenienza ma che con il truce universo nordico hanno finito per condividere una visione del mondo, fino a trasformare la convergenza in una fusione inevitabile. Dominique Fernow è stato (ed è) uno di questi. Se propriamente black è la sua band Ash Pool, Prurient rappresenta il moniker di una personale interpretazione dello spirito profondamente tragico che è l'eredità più sigificativa di gente come Burzum o Abruptum. Un'oscura genealogia che va oltre i paletti di genere, la stessa di cui Locrian, ovvero Terence Hannum alle chitarre e André Foisy ai synth/voce, rappresentano oggi un passo successivo.

Provenienti dalla Florida il primo e Buffalo il secondo, trovano a Chicago un terreno di sussistenza (lavorano come assistenti al Columbia College) e una pianta stabile per suonare. Inizialmente l'intero mondo sonico-immaginativo è necessariamente limitato dal ristretto set-up: attraverso grevi drones e urticanti reiterazioni, i due descrivono paesaggi urbani in rovina, architetture abbandonate da un umanità in estinzione della cui scomparsa non nascondono lucide rassegnazioni. Le visioni, spesso un'intensità stordente, raggiungono la massima espressione nel nastro Drenched Lands, un album difficilmente inquarabile in una qualsivoglia mazzo e proprio per questo destinatario di consensi e attestati di stima.

E' più per quella che per ragioni meramente soniche che i ragazzi si ritrovano a suonare con i chicagoani Bloodyminded, furioso act Power Electronics di Mark Solotroff per l'etichetta del quale - la Bloodlust! - finiscono per incidere e ricongiungersi in quello che è chiaramente un percorso verso l'estremo. Territories è la risposta: ai due s'aggiunge, oltre allo stesso Solotroff, Bruce Lamond (sax della band avant-metal Yazuka), Andrew Scherer (già batterista nei Velnias) e Blake Judd (chitarrista dei Nachtmystium), quest'ultimi due provenienti dalle più influenti band del USBM.

Ne viene un fluido droning con sfuriate grind e voci in screaming, eterogeneo ma coerente e soprattutto il primo passo per realizzare l'ambizione di sintetizzare un sound che scavalca, inglobandoli, gli stilemi

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Land of Decay Podcast 6/9/2010

This is our first attempt at a podcast. We hope you enjoy it. We're very likely to do more in the future. We believe that all of these releases are still available from their respective labels.

Envenomist - "The 11th Hour" from The Helix [Killer Pimp, 2009]
André Foisy - "The Great Disappointment" from After the Prophecy [Land of Decay, 2010]
Intrinsic Action - from Peepland: The Complete Singles "Motivation" [Bloodlust!, 2006]
Neil Jendon - "Sister - Impure Pillars Before the Sea" from Male Fantasies [Land of Decay, 2010]
Skullflower - "Black Rabbit" from IIIrd Gatekeeper [Crucial Blast, 2003]
André Foisy - "Call to Clarion: Flee That Flood" (excerpt) from After the Prophecy [Land of Decay, 2010]

Click here to download the podcast as an MP3 file.

Also, please note that Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words is now taking orders for a very nice looking T-shirt. You can find out about that here.

Locrian will be performing our only June 2010 show at the Empty Bottle next week with Cold Cave and Hair Police. The show will start at 10:00pm and you can find out about getting tickets at the Empty Bottle's website.

Here's what the Empty Bottle had to say about the show:

With a slew of raved about limited vinyl and cassette releases from exciting Philadelphia outfit COLD CAVE on Hospital Productions, What's Your Rupture and Dais, it was only a matter of time before Matador hopped on the COLD CAVE love train and re-released Love Comes Close last year. Combining synth-pop, post punk, new wave and atmospheric industrial references into dark, synth-spaced pop songs, Pitchfork went so far as to postulate, "if vampires are as cool as I'm told they are right now, COLD CAVE would've cleaned up at the Teen Choice Awards this year." Joining COLD CAVE on this tour, HAIR POLICE return to the Bottle with their exquisite, pedigreed noise. There are few acts who can match their creativity and explosiveness and their deconstructive, nihilistic tendencies are thrilling and unparalleled. Electronic drone metal heads LOCRAIN open tonight playing tracks from their March released Territories LP. Their disembodied, doomed pieces are among our favorites, and even the Chicago Reader has taken note praising their "alien beauty" and "eerily gorgeous noise."


We're not sure where the Empty Bottle got their information, but it's very unlikely that we'll be performing anything from our "Territories" release at the show.

It is more likely that we'll be performing some tracks from our as-of-yet unreleased album "The Crystal World." Come and hang out if you're around.

Friday, June 4, 2010

"Le Morbide Macchine"

Here's a small section of the recent Locrian interview with Blow Up Italy. Thanks so much to Stefano for the great questions.