Link
here. Our friend at Crucial Blast wrote some descriptions of some Land of Decay titles.
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JENDON, NEIL Male Fantasies CASSETTE (Land Of Decay) 7.50
Some more fantastic nocturnal kosmiche music from the Locrian guys and their Land Of Decay imprint, here issuing a limited cassette from fellow Chicago musician Neil Jendon. Fans of dark, deep-space synth music should definitely pick up anything from Jendon; his synthesizer/fx-pedal sculpted shadowbliss references all of the great 70's space music greats like Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, and Ash Ra, while plunging into blacker nebulae like that inhabited by newer star-death explorers Procyon-X, M87, Bestia Centauri and Phaenon. The opener "Red Nurse" unfurls lush layered analogue synth drones flying high overhead a roiling black sea of industrial rumble, like a Tangerine Dream piece drowning in the smoke rising from a stygian furnace. Huge delayed waves of low-end grind and rumbling tectonic plates almost blot out the delicate veins of melodic bliss and ethereal melody that slowly take shape, as it gradually glides into the next track "Vigilante!". Here, it becomes an arctic expanse of shimmering cosmic drone and shifting waves of hiss and fuzz and glitch, then moving into the pure nebulous blissout of "White Nurse"'s fields of angelic choral voices, vast gleaming drones, and incandescent drift laced with blurred strings and infinite stretches of rumbling synth. Great stuff. On the b-side, "Sister, Impure" rises like a black behemoth, the vibe much bleaker than the first side, with endless washes of grimy, volcanic ash-cloud synths, cold droning metal thrum, a harsh industrial dronescape that flows into the cold wastes of "Pillars Before The Sea", with the roaring synths dissipating into sheets of icy thrum, light synth strings eventually breaking through the gloom, and more electronic whir and buzz pouring in, turning into shimmery Theremin-like drones and transforming the rumbling dronescape into a hazey mass of cosmic whirr and electronic pulse. Utterly gorgeous and transportational black-hole drift, highly recommended to anyone who enjoyed his Cities In Flight cd on Bloodlust. Features artwork by Locrian's Terence Hannum, and released in a limited edition of 100 cassettes.
FOISY, ANDRE After The Prophecy CASSETTE (Land Of Decay) 7.50
Here's another arm of the Locrian duo releasing solo material on Land Of Decay; Andre Foisy, the other half of Locrian alongside Terence Hannum, delivers a gorgeous little cassette of deep loop-based ambient shadow that might be the prettiest sounding tape that came in with this recent batch of Land Of Decay goods. The cassette features two tracks (which are repeated on the flipside) of glorious psych-drone, the first "The Great Disappointment" opening with a cascade of haunting looped strings, the ghostly distorted strum of a guitar drifting high above the steady thrum of deep-earth drone. The looped strings repeat continuously, with layers being gradually added, but with little forward momentum; it sort of reminds me of some of the more ambient minimalist stuff from the later Swans albums. After that comes another loop-based dronescape, "Call to Clarion: Flee That Flood", which makes up the bulk of the tape. At first, the track is comprised of a simple circular guitar loop that is gradually joined by eerie scraped violin drones, vaguely reminiscent of the Dirty Three, but as it progresses more layers of droning strings and percussive noises are piled on, and a piercing distorted feedback melody eventually emerges over the looping figures, the droning feedback and violins forming into a sort of buzzing raga, the sound getting darker and darker, becoming a pulsating psychedelic throb, growing heavier as streams of feedback and guitar noise slowly seep in. Later, it breaks down into a squall of malfunctioning guitar signals, the loops decaying into chunks of skree and buzz, getting more abstract and caustic, other guitar loops speeding up into blurs of hyper speed shred, huge doom-laden chords beginning to trumpet overhead, and in the last few minutes, it begins to sound like a mix of Phillip Glass and Locrian's ambient doom-drone and minimalist psych-guitar moves. Pretty damn terrific, and another must-get tape from the LOD crew. Limited to 250 copies.
DEAD LETTERS SPELL OUT DEAD WORDS No Words CASSETTE (Land Of Decay) 7.50
A reissue of previously released material from Swedish artist Thomas Ekelund; as Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words, Ekelund creates dolorous, dystopian dream music from minimal synthesizer sounds and simple melodies. His haunting kosimiche driftscapes fit in nicely next to the likes of Locrian and Neil Jendon on the Land Of Decay imprint, which assembled this release out of material that had previously been issued on two extremely limited, out-of-print tapes, as well as a previously unreleased track, presented with new artwork from Terence Hannum of Locrian and gorgeous black-on-black printing. This is excellent black hole kosimiche music, beautifully dark space drift that's highly recommended to those into the likes of Svarte Grenier, Jasper TX, and Anduin...
The two-part "No Words" makes up the first side, two versions of the same piece presented back to back; the original begins as simple, minimal, cosmic synth drifting over clouds of grainy electronic filigree, eventually breaking to allow the arrival of a doom-laden bass line, becoming ever more Tangerine Dream-esque, sounding somewhat like an apocalyptic version of TD's theme for The Keep. Dark, ominous, the looped synth melody cycling high above sparse percussion and that hypnotic bass throb. Halfway in, it dissolves into sheets of arctic drone populated with mysterious scraping sounds, then later builds back into the ominous synth riff, a dramatic chord progression repeating over and over as the sound fades into blackness. The second track that follows is a much more minimal, reworked version, a faded shadow of the original, the chordal loop now appearing as washed out drones circling over a vast expanse of muted synth swells and dark drift, the descending bass line becoming a smear of soft low end synth buzz, but becoming a breathtaking new wave of cosmic drone in it's final minutes.
On the other side is a single long track, "Forget Forgive Regret". A bleak droneworld of muted metallic percussion ringing out over subterranean blackness, eventually filled with chittering, hissing electronics, the sound of hordes of black beetles swarming over the barren expanse of ambient drift. A distant percussive banging appears, gonglike reverberations hovering on the horizon, and faint whispers and smears of subliminal melody form in the foreground. Towards the end, bits of Morse code like glitch and backwards sound become apparent, rising up out of the incessant thrumming of the central black drone that runs throughout the track, a grim, desolate atmosphere clinging to the piece until the very end, when a haunting guitar melody takes form and a steady electronic throb appears, leading through the sparse dronescape until it finally blooms into a gorgeously bleak Hecker-like blizzard of distortion and melodic detritus that billows over a pulsating, Gas-like minimal techno bass throb that finishes the side.
Safe to say, fans of the other dark drone music that Land Of Decay specializes in will love this. It's pretty limited though, only 100 copies produced, so you'll want to move quickly.
HANNUM, TERENCE False Bloods MAGAZINE (Land Of Decay) 13.98
Another gorgeous new art zine from Terence Hannum, from Chicago black kosimiche drifters Locrian. False Bloods is a twenty-eight page chapbook that has a similar presentation as the Cataract Of Fire & Blood art zine that Hannum published with fellow artist Elijah Burgher, which we also have listed in this week's new arrivals list; the 8.5" x 11" book features a black-on-black binding card and full color cover, the pages printed on quality paper. The artwork that is contained in False Bloods is much like the other images that I've seen from Hannum, lots of shadow spaces and black amplifier fetishism, piles of skulls and skeletal debris stacked in ossuaries, the images glazed with the grim, cold ambience of the abattoir. One of the things that distinguishes the work presented here is how Hannum has used the Xerox machine as an art instrument in and of itself, running sheets of artwork and photomontage repeatedly through the trays of the copy machine, creating streaks and smears of black toner that add a filthy, corroded appearance to these visions of black space, shadow, inky blackness, and obfuscated human remains. His gouache paintings of towering black amps are great to sink your eyes into, but the industrial-like collage work found here is my favorite thing about this zine. Like all of Hannum's art zines, False Bloods has been printed in an extremely limited edition, this one limited to 100 copies
HANNUM, TERENCE & ELIJAH BURGHER Cataract Of Fire & Blood MAGAZINE (Land Of Decay) 10.98
Most of you would probably know Terence Hannum for his work as one half of the Chicago-based kosmiche industrial duo Locrian, but he's also been keeping busy with his own artwork which has been featured in various Chicago area art spaces. Along with the exhibitions, Hannum assembles limited-edition art zines that he's printed and published through the Land Of Decay imprint, and they're fantastic looking art objects that go out of print fairly quickly. The Cataract Of Fire & Blood art zine came out earlier this year, but I've been able to grab a few for the shop before it disappears; presented in a black envelope with black screen printing sealed with black wax, this is a twenty page booklet that contains a mix of Hannum's moody images of shadow-cloaked amplifier stacks and black spaces, and the almost pastel-like full color illustrations of homoerotic occult rituals and flesh cutting by Elijah Burgher, another Chicago area artist whose work is fascinated with the secret rites of mysterious fraternal societies. Both artists imbue their work with occult symbology and a dark, surrealistic vibe, with Hannum's eerie amplifier fetishism contrasting sharply with Burgher's almost Crowleyan visions and the images are presented beautifully in this high quality chapbook-style document. Limited to 100 copies.
