Maximum the Hormone - Buiikikaesu!!

not the official cover; it was just too ugly

Genre(s) - Rare poep ouwe
Origin - Japan
Year of release - 2007
Bitrate - 128
Size - 44.70 MB

Okay. For some unimaginable reason someone decided to inject three Japanese menchildren and a womanchild with speed and monkey genes, take away their dictionaries, and lock them up in a room with musical instruments. The session was of course recorded and the result is Buiikikaesu!!. The music is insanely hectic and hectically insane, alternating between impossibly bouncy, happy-go-lucky stuff that will make your face go like ^___________^ and more aggressive parts with harsh vocals at a staggering speed. The lyrics would have been bilingual if the English parts weren't simply references to random everyday objects ("Bikini sport the monkey spanner ponchin!"). I generally hate music as angular and chaotic as this but this is just unforgivably catchy. And my brother asked me to up this. So there you go, sorry that it took about a year!

1. Buikkikaesu!!
2. Zetsubo Billy
3. Kuso breakin no breakin lilly
4. Louisiana Bob
5. Policeman Benz
6. Black power G men spy
7. Akagi
8. Kyokatsu
9. Bikini. Sports. Ponchin.
10. What's up, people?!
11. Chu chu lovely muni muni mura mura purin purin boron nururu rero rero
12. Shimi
13. Koi no mega lover
14. Bonus track
    

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Sun of the Sleepless & Nachtmahr

Genre(s) - Experimental black metal/black metal
Origin - Germany
Year of release - 2004
Bitrate - 192 kbps
Size - 61.15 MB

It's on the split with fellow Germans Nachtmahr that Sun of the Sleepless really starts to set itself apart by way of some very overt electronic influences, especially after the Burzum track: Neunter November is kind of trip-hop, Spring '99 starts out triphoppy too but rises and falls in metalness (it's easily the best track off the split) and Tausend Kalte Winter is a piece of pure industrial. Nachtmahr really play quite standard black metal, but it's not bad. They would be better represented on a split with another classic style band because the difference between the two is grating and to the latter band's detriment. But perhaps you may think otherwise.

1. Sun of the Sleepless - A wolf in sheep's skin clad
2. Sun of the Sleepless - Romanze zur Nacht
   
3. Sun of the Sleepless - Dunkelheit (Burzum cover)
   
4. Sun of the Sleepless - Neunter November
   
5. Sun of the Sleepless - Tausend kalte Winter
   
6. Sun of the Sleepless - Spring '99
   
7. Nachtmahr - I
   
8. Nachtmahr - II
   
9. Nachtmahr - III
   

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Björk - Post

Genre(s) - Electronic/singer-songwriter
Origin - Reykjavik, Iceland
Year of release - 1995
Bitrate - 192-320 kbps
Size - 58.74 MB

What's there still to say about Björk, the weirdest chick from Iceland? That's she's totally awesome and one of a kind? No, I'm sure that's been said a million times already. I guess Post is one of her most earthly, grounded albums and a bit more accessible than some others, at least, and It's oh so Quiet is definitely one of her most well-known tracks. Miss Guðmundsdóttir has a voice like an unguided missile, going in all directions and capable of causing massive impact in a landscape built up from a wide array of different electronic sounds and beats that gives each song a whole different mood. An eclectic tour de force and one of the most outrageously expressive, haunting voices in music today.

1. Army of me
2. Hyper-ballad
3. The modern things
4. It's oh so quiet
5. Enjoy
6. You've been flirting again
7. Isobel
8. Possibly maybe
9. I miss you
10. Cover me
11. Headphones
    

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My Dying Bride - 34.788%... Complete

Genre(s) - Experimental (doom) metal
Origin - Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Year of release - 1998
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 51.31 MB

34.788%... Complete perplexed critics and fans, and there was every reason to be perplexed. This wasn't the My Dying Bride we were used to! In the end it was too unfamiliar to digest for most doomsters and it is still generally regarded as a dubious aberration in the band's career. This is a pity because it has a lot of charm if you don't have your expectations set on crushing doom alone. It's a very vague album, not unmetal but highly experimental with psychedelic under-, over- and other tones. The Whore, the Cook and the Mother is the best example of this and therefore the most enveloping track on the disk. And I can understand nobody was hoping for a track like Heroin Chic (Not Chick as the mp3 tag and file name say! More or less my mistake), where Aaron seems especially influenced by Michael Gira's reciting-singing style and trip-hop soundscapes. But there are plenty of moments where the "old" My Dying Bride shines through (The Stance..., Der Überlebende, Under Your Wings...) so I don't get all of the fuss. Recommended to any metalhead feeling adventurous and in for something 34.788%... completely different.

1. The whore, the cook and the mother
2. The stance of Evander Sinoue
3. Der Überlebende
4. Heroin chic
5. Apocalypse woman
6. Base level erotica
7. Under your wings and into your arms
   

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Swans - The Great Annihilator

Genre(s) - You tell me!
Origin - United States of America
Year of release - 1995
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 60.03 MB

Apparently The Great Annihilator is Swans' most accessible album. Sure it's less visceral and skeletal (among other -als) than the bleak, lumbering industrial noisescapes of their 80s work but that doesn't say all that much. Although through the years the band has expanded their sonic palette in various directions, the music retains a doomy, ominous feeling. The multifaceted approach on here helps pour the disquieting rituals and visions of Swans into many different shapes - from the industrial aggression on I am the Sun or Alcohol the Seed, the beautiful drift of Warm and Killing for Company to the rock track Celebrity Lifestyle. Altogether this makes for a record that everybody into dark music can learn to enjoy, and I recommend everybody to give it a try.

1. In
2. I am the sun
3. She lives!
4. Celebrity lifestyle
5. Mother-father
6. Blood promise
7. Mind-body-light-sound
8. My buried child
9. Warm
10. Alcohol the seed
11. Killing for company
12. Mother's milk
13. Where does a body end
14. Telepathy
15. The great annihilator
16. Out
    

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Caïna - Temporary Antennae

Band/artist - Caïna
Genre(s) - Post-black metal
Origin - United Kingdom
Album - Temporary Antennae
Year of release - 2008

Another runner-up to my Best of 2008; and like the leader of that list, another project flying the flag for inventive British black metal. Caïna was founded as a one-man raw but complex BM band but gradually turned more experimental, with especially post-rock influences seeping into the music. I've tried to describe the resulting soundscapes for hours, but it wouldn't work. Let's just say the music is at times sprawling like a hillside river, at times suffocating like a dungeon wall, and at times both. Temporary Antennae oozes avant-gardism in every direction, which I guess keeps the songs distinguishable, but also makes the album more exhausting that it should have to be, and it may overstay its welcome. That's why it fell short of the chart - also I think I liked 2007's Mourner better. But hey, it's black metal meets post rock, how can it not be awesome??

1. Manuscript found in unmarked grave, 1919
2. Ten went up river
3. Willows and whippoorwills
4. Tobacco beetle
5. Larval door
6. ...and ivy wound round him
7. Them golds and brass
8. Petals and bloodbowls
9. Temporary antennae
10. None shall die
    

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A Forest of Stars - The Corpse of Rebirth

Band/artist - A Forest of Stars
Genre(s) - Experimental black metal
Origin - The United Kingdom
Album - The Corpse of Rebirth
Year of release - 2008

The UK isn't exactly famous for its extensive assortment of good black metal bands, but here we have a very strong specimen. An excellent representative for its own region with a distinctly Victorian styling, including a sample of tea being poured and drunk but mostly characterised by its great use of (actual) violins, and quite a register of other means to create something immersive, mind-melting and out of the ordinary. I'd say A Forest of Stars have royally succeeded at this goal, and that at the minor expense of sounding entirely self-indulgent. In fact I think you have to be a little self-indulgent in order to come up with this music, and most black metal of similar complexity. Not only the writing is good, the execution is as well. I love the powerful drums and the rich, full-bodied sound. The guitars seem to be rather subordinated to the total sum of the atmosphere, that is, they could be a bit more riff-orientated and it wouldn't hurt, but this is a pretty unique band... The Corpse of Rebirth is definitely one of my favourite albums to come out last year because of the completely overwhelming ambiance and splendorous, otherworldly beauty. I think I've used up all the suitable adjectives so stop reading and get the album now.

1. God
2. Female
3. Male
4. Earth and Matter
5. Microcosm
   

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Peter Gabriel - Secret World Live

Band/artist - Peter Gabriel
Genre(s) - Progressive rock
Origin - United Kingdom
Album - Secret World Live
Year of release - 1994

Peter Gabriel is one of those artists I always thought I'd never be able to like - back when one all-too processed snare drum hit could turn me away from a band forever. Hearing this particular version of Solsbury Hill later made me realize how stupid I'd been... again. This whole album has a wonderful wealth of different sounds and textures from a very large and versatile backing band, including Tony Levin on bass, you know, King Crimson's very bald, very moustached stick-bass player. I've also really come to appreciate Gabriel as a singer, his voice has a very pleasant, rugged sort of timbre, if that makes sense. He lets the glorious afrobeat-influences come to the fore in a couple of the most beautiful songs on the release, like Come Talk to Me and Shaking the Tree. And again, I have to stress the beauty of Solsbury Hill. What a song! It reminds me very much of when I was fired from the hospital after 14 days of being cooped up on one grey, depressive corridor, and I was waiting for my parents to collect me. My heart going "boom boom boom"... Son, he said, grab your things I've come to take you home.

1. Come talk to me
2. Steam
3. Accross the river
4. Slow marimbas
5. Shaking the tree
6. Red rain
7. Blood of Eden
8. Kiss that frog
9. Washing of the water
10. Solsbury Hill
11. Digging in the Dirt
12. Sledgehammer
13. Secret world
14. Don't give up
15. In your eyes
    

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Solefald - In Harmonia Universali

Band/artist - Solefald
Genre(s) - Experimental (black) metal
Origin - Norway
Album - In Harmonia Universali
Year of release - 2002

Hey Jim! You still there? Got a little something here you'll most probably enjoy. This is the closest to "blackened avant-metal" that I have and know of. Solefald's latest two albums were more viking metal-orientated, if quite unorthodox, but In Harmonia Universali (bought it on a whim in Italy once, expecting something, uh, quite different) is the epitome of only the most progressive avant-garde experimental post-black metal. Somehow it has a very Renaissance-like feel to it even though the sound is quite modern: very tight playing style, with lots of heavy, angular palm-muted guitars and catchy, if unexpected hooks. A large role is reserved for the very well-sung clean vocals, as well as for such ungrim instruments like the grand piano, the saxophone and (oh, joy!) a genuine Hammond organ. It's all in all more avant-garde than it is blackened, but without getting cluttered up in weirdness for the sake of weirdness. Every song has its own mood and its strong points, and the album harbours many surprises and secrets that you really should be discovering on your own. So get to it!

1. Nutrisco et extinguo
2. Mont Blanc providence crow
3. Christiania (Edvard Munch commemoration)
4. Epictetus and irreversibility
5. Dionysify this night of spring
6. Red music diabolos
7. Buy my sperm
8. Fraternité de la grande lumière
9. The liberation of destiny
10. Sonnenuntergang im weltraum
    

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