Release type: Full-length Style: Dark Ambient/Industrial/Experimental
Country: USA
Label: Fatal Beliefs
Format: MP3@VBR V2
Size: 58 mb
About Release:
Tuesday 27 April 2010
Luasa Raelon - 2010 - Vampyr: Light Of The Beast
Release type: Full-length 
Emeralds - 2010 - Emeralds
Release type: Full-length Style: Drone Ambient/Experimental
Country: USA
Label: Hanson Records
Format: MP3@VBR V2
Size: 66 mb
About Release:
CD version of of the self released/self-titled LP by Cleveland's Emeralds recorded Aug-Sept 2008. Proper follow up to their debut LP 'Solar Bridge', 'EMERALDS' takes the thick drone sound of that LP into an even more abstract and strange place. Visual music that lifts the listener up and transports them through tubes of sound occasionally to be swept into the opposite direction by an unexpected entrance into another world entirely. An intense journey that drops you off in a place just beyond death. Field recording contributions from Aaron Dilloway. Mastered for CD by James Plotkin. Contains a 16 page full color booklet featuring photo artwork by the band themselves. 11x17 full color posters will be included in the first 30 mailorder copies.
Monday 26 April 2010
Max Richter and Stéphane Moucha - 2010 - Die Fremde
Release type: OST
Style: Modern Classical/Ambient
Country: UK
Label: Cam Original Soundtracks
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 95 mb
About Release:
From the very beginning, I favoured a classical composition for my film. A soundtrack of an ethnical nature was out of the question for me, as I intended to tell a universally human story, which avoids a folkloristic perspective. Rather than being heavy on comment, I wanted the music for the film to develop it's own self-contained character. In Max Richter and Stéphane Moucha, I had found two composers who, each in their very own way managed to take that concept and fill it with life.Max Richter's influences range from the classical composers of past eras as well as Phillip Glass or Steven Reich. One of his first works was on the film "Waltz with Bashir" by Israeli director Ari Folman that showcased at the Cannes film festival. In his work on "WHEN WE LEAVE" Max Richter created an autonomous soundscape that manages to connect to the various narrative layers and strands of the film with sophistication and that does justice tothe inner tension of the characters as well as the film's epic pathos. Richter's compositions as well as the compositions of Stéphane Moucha, whose works also contributed largely to the film's soundtrack, were recorded live at Berlin and Paris. Moucha is a classical film composer whose works include, among others, the soundtrack to the academy-award-winning "TheLives of Others". His tracks compliment Richter's music and weave it into a musical score of consistency. At best, a soundtrack contributes to the success of a film. In that, it does not merely 'serve the film' but adds aesthetic value to it. On “WHEN WE LEAVE”, Max Richter and Stephane Moucha achieved nothing less. Feo Aladag (Producer, Writer and Director)
Max Richter - 2009 - La Prima Linea
Release type: OST
Style: Modern Classical/Ambient
Country: UK
Label: Cam Original Soundtracks
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 74 mb
About Release:
THE FRONT LINE is the new film by director Renato De Maria, based on the novel by Sergio Segio “Miccia Corta”. Set Turin (Italy), the film tells the story of the former commander of Prima Linea (the name given to the Leftist armed organisation), Sergio Segio, who was sentenced to 30 years for the murder of Judge Alessandrini.Taking place in the turbulent 1970-80s period in Italy, the plot centres on the passionate couple --Sergio and Susanna-- who have been living as fugitives. Pursuing an uncompromising cause as members of the notorious Prima Linea organization, they have become increasingly alienated from the real world. Their luck finally runs out when Susanna is captured and thrown in jail. Putting his life on the line, Sergio embarks on a radical plan.... Starring Riccardo Scamarcio (Sergio Segio), Giovanna Mezzogiorno (Susanna Ronconi), Lucia Mascino, Fabrizio Rongione, and Daniela Tusa. **** This score, penned by award winning composer Max Richter, is also available on all major digital platforms.
Max Richter - 2009 - Henry May Long
Release type: OST
Style: Modern Classical/Ambient
Country: UK
Label: Mute Song International
Format: MP3 VBR V2
Size: 43 mb
About Release:
A small independent film about two friends brought together and then torn apart is the basis for this week’s featured record, a soundtrack by newly minted film composer Max Richter. That the film saw little to no release in the country last year is of no consequence; Richter already enjoyed massive exposure from his score to the highly-acclaimed film Waltz With Bashir by the time Henry May Long came and went. It is indeed too bad though, because while Bashir’s electronic tinge was as unique as it was dramatic, the quiet and sad piano-based work on this other soundtrack, which just saw release via Mute Song International, is what will hopefully catapult Richter into the elite arena of film score composers on a wider scale. The melodies wilt and trickle along with just enough (never too much) string or woodwind accompaniment, making even the emotional and reflective parts of a movie that us here in the upper Midwest may not see until it’s out on Netflix resonate in our eardrums. A track from the instant soundtrack classic is awaiting you via the nowlikephotographs podcast.
Max Richter - 2009 - From "The Art Of Mirrors"
Release type: Full-length
Style: Modern Classical/Ambient
Country: UK
Label: SevenThings
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 120 mb
About Release:
Although this new work by Max Richter takes the form of a single, lengthy stream of music, From The Art Of Mirrors is perhaps better thought of as a series of vignettes segueing into one another. In a morphing soundscape of piano, strings and found sounds, the composer is on top form, with a production sound that's every bit as grand and emotionally resonant as the arrangements themselves. Thanks to the presence of field recordings and non-instrumental elements, there's a cinematic quality to the piece, a notion that ties in with the its compositional origins: the episodic passages were originally conceived as soundtracks to unseen films by the late film director Derek Jarman. From the crackling fireside sounds at the start of the piece to the intensely lyrical orchestrations of the more conventionally musical material, there's an evocative power to the material here, and Richter reasserts his position as one of the most convincingly original of modern composers. There aren't too many artists around who can claim to be so creative both when it comes to scoring music and manipulating it in a studio environment. Achingly beautiful as ever, and laced with enough sonic intrigue to add an extra dimension to the composition, From The Art Of Mirrors comes highly recommended.
Max Richter - 2008 - Waltz With Bachir
Release type: OST
Style: Modern Classical/Ambient
Country: UK
Label: Delabel
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 138 mb
About Release:
2008 soundtrack to the award-winning Animated film, composed by Max Richter. One night at a bar, an old friend tells director Ari Folman about a recurring nightmare in which he is chased by 26 vicious dogs. Every night, the same number of beasts. The two men conclude that there's a connection to their Israeli Army mission in the first Lebanon War of the early '80s. Ari is surprised that he can't remember a thing anymore about that period of his life. Intrigued by this riddle, he decides to meet and interview old friends and comrades around the world. He needs to discover the truth about that time and about himself. As Ari delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, his memory begins to creep up in surreal images. The film was an official selection in the Cannes 2008 film festival. EMI.
Friday 23 April 2010
Max Richter - 2008 - 24 Postcards In Full Colour
Release type: Full-length
Style: Modern Classical/Ambient
Country: UK
Label: 130701
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 80 mb
About Release:
Following eighteen months after Edinburgh-based pianist / composer Max Richter’s last album comes the release of the gorgeous, intriguingly framed ’24 Postcards In Full Colour’. Richter’s fourth album is a dazzling conceptual exercise of great beauty and emotional resonance. Certainly his most concise, ’24 Postcards…’may also be Max’s most coherent and compelling work to date. Beautifully played, richly textured and detailed, the album foregrounds Max’s sheer class as a composer and producer.An attempt an exploration of the ringtone as a vehicle for music performance , ‘24 Postcards…’ is an experimental work made up of 24 classically-composed ringtones, set to be premièred in various gallery spaces. The première is intended to be in the form of a series of installations where pre-registered audience members switch on their phones to receive SMS messages, each message alert playing back one or more of the tracks, so making up the performance. In tandem with this release, will be a micro-website hosting 24 photographic images, one accompanying each track. As Max explains: “Thinking about how we listen to music today, I wondered why it is that ringtones have so far been treated as unfit for creative music… Who says ringtones have to be bad?.. It’s like saying LPs or CDs are bad – its just a medium….”“Because the piece is a collection of tones, where I have no control of the order, I made a structure that holds together by use of shared material – like a cloud of pieces, or a handful of confetti, or a constellation of fragments – to be navigated as you like…” Max views the writing process in similar terms - shuffling basic elements into new constellations. The palette Max limited himself to consists of string quintet; solo piano; 16 track 2 inch tape; transistors; found shortwave radio; vinyl clicks, dust, scratches and rumble; and acoustic guitars. The players on the album are Louisa Fuller (violin),Robert Mc Fall (violin), Natalia Bonner (violin), John Metcalfe (Viola), Ian Burdge (Cello), Chris Worsey (Cello), Sua Lee (Cello), Preston Reed (Guitar), and Richter himself on piano.Fragmentary and partial by nature, these 24 brief tracks work as a varied collection of evocative miniatures - each offering a glimpse into potentially much larger pieces. The longest track here is just under three minutes, whilst the majority clock in at around just sixty seconds. Each bearing its own particular weight and measure, these haunting vignettes come across as a series of sketches on the (fugitive) nature of time and memory, stitched together to form a series of jump-cuts and foldbacks in time (the album continually reprising itself and filling the listener with a sense of deja-vu).As though extracting the absolute essence, simple, plaintive piano and string melodies - no excess, no waste, pure concentrate - butt up against passages of rich, borderzone ambience - radio static / voices leaking through dense, shifting drones. At points recalling the likes of Boards Of Canada, Bibio, and Gas (in terms of depth / grain rather than sound or style), at others Minimalism or the Elizabethan instrumental music of Henry Purcell, there’s also something about its nature that brings to mind authors like WG Sebald, Marcel Proust and filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky.
Max Richter - 2006 - Songs From Before
Release type: Full-length
Style: Modern Classical/Ambient
Country: UK
Label: 130701
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 86 mb
About Release:
Following releases by Set Fire To Flames, Sylvain Chauveau, and Max Richter himself, ‘Songs From Before’ is the fifth release on FatCat’s 130701 imprint, established as a creative outlet for music of a more orchestrated, instrumental variety. Beautifully recorded and cinematic in scope, ‘Songs From Before’ once again carries a pensive, emotionally resonant tone throughout that manages to fully engage the listener. Following 2004’s critically acclaimed ‘The Blue Notebooks’, ‘Songs From Before’ provides a further refined, perhaps even subtler take on Max’s narrative landscape, yet sounds as contemporary and impacting as any of his previous work. Punctuated by Robert Wyatt’s distinctive, understated readings of Haruki Murakami’s text (chosen by Max for it’s haunting, Kafka-esque tone), ‘Songs From Before’ utilises piano, cello, violin and viola, with Max playing piano, mixing and producing. Augmented by regular contributors Louisa Fuller, Natalia Bonner, Rick Costa, John Metcalfe, Chris Worsey, and Ian Burdge, the music evokes forgotten memories or lost histories, a series of bittersweet articulations that seem suspended somewhere between a dreamy sense of awe and melancholia. The title refers to the fact that, as well as this being a kind of specimen case of music written over a long period, the album also carries other music inside it - with the sources ranging from music between 5 and 300 years old - either used as starting points for Max’s own writing, or submerged deep within. All of Max’s music is part of an ongoing collection of writing, with music re-contextualised for each LP - records are an almost arbitrary slice across that continual process. As with a box of found objects carefully arranged to reveal meaning, the remote, grainy dubs that permeate the record, redolent of Mike Ink’s Gas or perhaps the more opaque Basic Channel / Chain Reaction output, deploy slight shifts in tone and colour, framing the music. Comprised mainly of shortwave radio sounds (a fondly revered but increasingly archaic medium with the advent of the internet), this connects with the analogue and tape aesthetics of the music, and the title itself. Recorded at Eastcote Studios on 16 track 2 inch analogue tape via the old MCI desk (a forerunner of the 24track format that became the standard in the 70s and 80s), known as “the Bob Marley desk” because of his love of it, Max expands ‘this record is all about bass, so it is perfect’. Born in 1966, Max Richter trained in composition and piano at Edinburgh University, at the Royal Academy of Music, and with Luciano Berio in Florence. On completing his studies, Richter co-founded the immensely successful contemporary classical ensemble Piano Circus, where he stayed for ten years, commissioning and performing works by Arvo Pärt, Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Julia Wolfe and Steve Reich. Richter was also pro-active in developing the group’s use of live sampling. “I have always listened to a broad range of music. In my early teens I was listening to a lot of classical standard repertoire as well as 20th century work. During this time I also built and customised a number of analogue electronic instruments and was immersed in the early electronic music scene.” In 1996 he worked closely with The Future Sound of London on their release ‘Dead Cities’. Initially involved as a pianist, he ended up co-writing a track (which they subsequently titled ‘Max’). Following this, Richter collaborated with FSOL over a two-year period on the album ‘The Isness’, with his input ranging from programming or piano playing to arranging, mixing, co-producing and co-writing various tracks. Max’s orchestrations have also graced ‘In The Møde’ by drum’n’bass pioneer Roni Size. Max also recently produced and co-arranged the long-awaited second album by 60’s legend Vashti Bunyan. Current projects include a series of scores for the previously unseen Super8 Derek Jarman films, as well as the score for ‘Hope’, a new film from Stanislaw Mucha, written by Krzysztof Kieslowski’s long-time collaborator, Krzysztof Piesiewicz. Max is also currently collaborating on ‘Siberia’, a music and film project with Turner Prize Nominee, Darren Almond. Other collaborations include music installation and gallery works, notably with New York based artist Monica Bravo. Previous recordings include ‘Memoryhouse’, recorded by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, and The Blue Notebooks, with readings by Tilda Swinton.
Max Richter - 2004 - The Blue Notebooks
Release type: Full-length Style: Modern Classical/Ambient
Country: UK
Label: 130701
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 94 mb
About Release:
Following releases by Set Fire To Flames and Sylvain Chauveau, Max Richter’s ‘The Blue Notebooks’ was the fourth release on FatCat’s 130701 imprint, established as an outlet for more more orchestrated, instrumental material.Richter is a British-based, German-born pianist and composer. Following 2002’s highly-acclaimed ‘Memoryhouse’ - performed by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and released on the BBC’s classical label, Late Junction - ‘The Blue Notebooks’ is his second solo album, a distinctive and adventurous work that is beautifully recorded and cinematic in scope.Opening with a text from Franz Kafka over a sparse piano melody, the album moves through gorgeous, heart-wrenching string swells of ‘On The Nature Of Daylight’ (which quotes a tune from ‘Memoryhouse’); through to sparse but lyrical piano pieces; hazy, swirling atmospherics, avalanche pulse-beats and partially occluded melodies that recall Aphex twin’s ‘Ambient Works’ albums; and to reverberant organ / choir recordings.Utilising piano, cello, violin and viola, alongside electronic beats (made using a variety of antique electronics and Reaktor), spoken word passages and the occasional field recording, other sounds were generated via old guitar pedals and vocoders. The organ music was made for a chapel near Tourtres in South-West France, whilst the environmental sounds are mainly recorded around London. The tone of the album is generally domnbeat – a series of bittersweet articulations that seem suspended somewhere between a certain dreamy sense of wonder / awe and a heavy melancholia.Peppered across Richter’s music like diary entries (and backed with attendant typewriter clatter) are a number of literary texts or ‘shadow journals’ (lifted from Kafka’s ‘the Blue Octavo notebooks’, and from Polish author Czseslaw Milosz’s ‘Hymn Of The Pearl’ and ‘Unattainable Earth’). Apparently chosen by Richter on instinct, they were recorded by acclaimed British actress, Tilda Swinton, who has starred in films including ‘Adaption’, ‘Orlando’, ‘The Garden’, and ‘The Beach’. These brief passages muse over time, memory, and the impermanent nature of things.With Richter playing piano, the other featured players here are his regular collaborators, Louisa Fuller (violin), Natalia Bonner (violin), John Metcalfe (viola), Philip Sheppard (cello), and Chris Worsey (cello).Born in 1966, Max Richter trained in composition and piano at Edinburgh University, at the Royal Academy of Music, and with with Luciano Berio in Florence. The Richter family moved to the UK from Germany when Max was a young child, leaving the wider part of his family distributed around Germany. This sense of a lack of roots had an effect on his musical formation - “I have always had a sense of belonging, in some way, to the middle of Europe but not specifically to any one place…” he explains.On completing his studies, Richter co-founded the immensely successful contemporary classical ensemble Piano Circus, where he stayed for ten years, commissioning and performing works by Arvo Pärt, Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Julia Wolfe and Steve Reich. Richter was also pro-active in developing the group’s use of live sampling.“I have always listened to a broad range of music. In my early teens I was listening to a lot of classical standard repertoire as well as 20th century work. During this time I also built and customised a number of analogue electronic instruments and was immersed in the early electronic music scene.” In 1996 he worked closely with The Future Sound of London on their release ‘Dead Cities’. Initially involved as a pianist, he ended up co-writing a track (which they subsequently titled ‘Max’).Following this, Richter collaborated with FSOL over a two-year period on the album ‘The Isness’, with his input ranging from programming or piano playing to arranging, mixing, co-producing and co-writing various tracks. Max’s orchestrations have also graced ‘In The Møde’ by drum’n’bass pioneer Roni Size.
Thursday 22 April 2010
Max Richter - 2003 - Memoryhouse
Release type: Full-length
Style: Modern Classical/Ambient
Country: UK
Label: Late Junction ...
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 150 mb
About Release:
"This is an album that starts from its cover. A railway line and station somewhere in Europe. Title "The Memory House." Black and white, bleak. My mother came from Austria. She lived under the occupation of the Russians and the first track invokes this bleakness rain and all. The poem, Russian? Moving, raising the emotions, what is she saying? What journey is the composer taking us on? So many unanswered questions. This beautiful album became personal very quickly with its silky changing moods. The music is thought provoking. Be ready to grit your teeth. Let the music take you anywhere you want with its startling nuances. Listen for the Mahler drum! and when the journey is over take time to look at the photograph once more. A memory house; a museum for conversation. Truely some great music from Max Richter."(PETER JAMES "Snapperfisch") "This album defies categorisation. It breaks down the barriers between genres and should simply be classified as great music. In this respect Max Richter should be considered along side the likes of Nitin Sawhney. There are moments in this album where I found myself moved to tears as in the extraordinary track Sarajevo which builds and builds until the full tragedy of that war torn city seemed to leap out and enfold me. Some tracks wash over you like a refreshing stream a bit like the best Cafe Del Mar chill out albums and then there's the kind of stuff that you might find in a tense pacy thriller; film makers would die for it. Memoryhouse comes from the soul, and it certainly stirs the soul when you listen to it. The more you play it the deeper it seems to go. It's my favourite new album and well worth buying."(D Scheinmann)
Der Blaue Reiter - 2009 - Nuclear Sun - Chronicle Of A Nuclear Disaster
Release type: Full-length
Style: Martial Industrial/Classical/Dark Ambient
Country: Spain
Label: Ars Musica Diffundere
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 132 mb
About Release:
Der Blaue Reiter returns with its third full-time album "Nuclear Sun". Each of these skillfully done compositions are made of powerful percussions and majestic neo classical passages full of pain and sadness performed by Sathorys Elenorth & Lady Nott (Narsilion, Lugburz, Ordo Funebris & Endless Asylum). This new musical chapter is inspired by one of the biggest nuclear disasters of our times: The Chernobyl disaster. You can feel the crying of our past, the legacy of humanity behind the desolation of the ghost town of Pripyat... where dreams are just a legend and death is the darkest reality... A perfect soundtrack that offers an homage to all victims that fell under the sky of "Nuclear Sun".
Der Blaue Reiter - 2008 - Silencis
Release type: Full-length
Style: Martial Industrial/Classical/Dark Ambient
Country: Spain
Label: Caustic Records
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 141 mb
About Release:
Caustic Records presents "Silencis" the long awaited second album of DER BLAUE REITER. More apocalyptic than ever, Sathorys Elenorth and Lady Nott (Narsilion) are back with a new chapter of darkness and sadness, in hands of an uncertain destiny where human being shines under the last days of its tormented existence and in world surrender under the most absolute madness … Decadence and death, sin and desolation are the keys which guide us through forgotten ambiences where the martial holds the reins of our sad reality. Our future dawn deconstruction has already begun, now you just decide when die…
Der Blaue Reiter - 2006 - Le Paradise Funebre, L'Envers Du Tristesse
Release type: Full-length Style: Martial Industrial/Classical/Dark Ambient
Country: Spain
Label: Caustic Records
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 152 mb
About Release:
Caustic Records presents DER BLAUE REITER, long awaited new project of Sathorys Elenorth (Narsilion, Lugburz, Ordo Funebris) inspired by warlike ambiences impregnated with an apocalyptic martiality, where powerful percussions and majestic neoclassic passages are the protagonists of this new work, more than an hour of melancholic music replete of feelings and deep pain … Feel how the crying of a cold war, legacy of the past, stir itself in the tops of destruction of our last days, where the dreams are just a legend and the death is a dark reality … Industrial dark ambient for fans of Predella Avant, Sophia, Raison d'êtré, Triarii and Les joyaux de la princesse…
Sunday 18 April 2010
Atrium Carceri - 2009 - Phrenitis
Release type: Full-length
Style: Dark Ambient/Industrial/Experimental
Country: Sweden
Label: Cold Meat Industry
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 157 mb
About Release:
'Phrenitis' takes the listener to a twisted place where the walls between worlds are razed. The ruinous cities of wars long past, where time itself is but a prisoner and the warlords roaming their purgatorial halls are free to destroy the very foundations of the natural order. 'Phrenitis' is the 6th album of Atrium Carceri and is yet another step of the ever increasing Atrium Carceri wake up call. Simon Heath shows himself and the world, yet again, that no man is ever truly the master of their art unless they strive to evolve with it. The soundscapes he has created bypass the conscious mind, taking the listener deep into his pristine nightmare. The evolution of sound is spot-on and sets Atrium Carceri apart from other lazy dark ambient acts by being a truly diverse piece, replete with details upon details to make the illusion complete, and haunting compositions to make the mind yearn.
Atrium Carceri - 2008 - Souyuan
Release type: Full-length
Style: Dark Ambient/Industrial/Experimental
Country: Sweden
Label: Cold Meat Industry
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 102 mb
About Release:
3 years in the making, Atrium Carceri is back with another visceral masterpiece entitled Souyuan.After careful psychological observeration of test listeners, Simon Heath has done it again - renewing the genre through careful planning and painstaking attention to each fragment and detail, however minute. With fresh atmospheres, and a depth previously unfathomable, Souyuan will amaze initiates and pundits alike with its complexity and pureness of form. Never before has the artists innermost recesses been so sublimely conveyed to any medium.Simon, born in 1977, started producing when he early on played around with his Amiga and a microphone. In the years that have followed, Simon got involved in numerous projects and developed his knowledge and skills. During the process and through the years, he has been part of writing 16 albums and additionally many other tracks on compilations and other albums, released under various names, touching a broad range of ambient, dub, IDM, psy, folk, medieval, classical and black ambient. Simon is known for having reached a very high level both in story telling and production technique.Atrium Carceri has been praised by music critics and embraced by a cult audience for its depth of atmosphere. As described by one reviewer, "Heath creates a world where time collapses, where the ancient world of conjured spirits, the physical limitations of being all too human, and the infinite outreach of potential futuretech, all coexist.
Atrium Carceri - 2007 - Ptahil
Release type: Full-length Style: Dark Ambient/Industrial/Experimental
Country: Sweden
Label: Cold Meat Industry
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 132 mb
About Release:
The fourth album from composer Simon Heath (Sweden) ventures beyond the vestiges of your mortality, granting a fleeting glance at the world beyond the veil. As ever, Simon has reinvented the genre as well as himself with a unique ambience created from his ever-increasingly complex and obscure techniques of mental dissolution and musical innovation. Atrium Carceri emerges from the vapours with yet another stunning release entitled Ptahil (fetahil). The obsidian citadel stands stoic, its forceful gaze forever over streets running rampant with the councils bidders, while the citadel of glass attracts the mindless reincarnates grasping at anything physical while their memories slowly burn away in the womb of their eternal home. The comforts of quiet lives forever washed away by a miasmic tidal wave of necrotic flesh, sagging, protean forms and the chill of the grave.This is a place where steel rusts and is forgotten, where flesh and the fleeting forms it inhabits are forever changed. Ptahil sees all, and forgets naught. Let your mind be stripped to the pulpy, undulating core with this darkened voyage into domains both dreadful and serenely beautiful.
Atrium Carceri - 2005 - Kapnobatai
Release type: Full-length
Style: Dark Ambient/Industrial/Experimental
Country: Sweden
Label: Cold Meat Industry
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 159 mb
About Release:
Beyond the malignant jail cells and narrow asylum walls, our hidden tormentors laugh at us from a world of smoke and mirrors. Kapnobatai, the third installment from Atrium Carceri, ventures further still into the wretched world beyond the place we so resignedly inhabit, and into the sublimely unkown. Shattered yet enlightened we are thrust forcefully through the illusion of our making, to the ancient sprawling city that is the one true testament to human achievment. The visions of the Kapnobatai (those who walk in smoke) are seen, heard and felt in this genderbending and exquisitely detailed black ambient album from philosopher/visionaire/composer/artist Simon Heath. This is a place of ancient machines, rusty walls and whispered sighs. With lavish attention to detail this profound composition of the mind wrests the listener away from the mundane, perchance never to return.
Atrium Carceri - 2004 - Seishinbyouin
Release type: Full-length Style: Dark Ambient/Industrial/Experimental
Country: Sweden
Label: Cold Meat Industry
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 140 mb
About Release:
Seishinbyouin is the second album from Atrium Carceri, and drags the listener on a violent journey through haunted mental asylums, ripe with the cries of the lost and the damned. Rotting jailcells, past insanity and the crumbling domes of the other side are a few of the many eerily twisted images that this evocative music compels. There is a constant dark majesty that forcefully propels the message of inevitability: The colorful illusion people spend most of their lives in is fragile as a rose petal, and just as easily shattered in Seishinbyouin. With brilliant use of the full spectrum of dystopia, this will surely leave no one unscathed. The album is filled with dark ambient soundscapes, haunting symphonic intensities and engulfing atmospheres that let you get inside the twisted psyche of the total other. One can but wonder at the twisted mind of the tortured soul that made this vision spring to ghastly unlife.
Atrium Carceri - 2003 - Cellblock
Release type: Full-length
Style: Dark Ambient/Industrial/Experimental
Country: Sweden
Label: Cold Meat Industry
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 100 mb
About Release:
With Atrium Carceri, composer Simon Heath releases his debut Cold Meat album with a theme from deep within isolated prison walls, haunted chambers and the cerebral cortex. With Cellblock, Simon Heath takes us on a journey through what darkwave should have been, filled with details and complex mixing techniques. With a classical music background and as a member in Za Frûmi (Waerloga Records), Simon decided to make something new of the darkwave genre he always listened to in younger years, thus the project Atrium Carceri was born. Part of the idea behind it was to reinvent the genre of darkwave and inject it with intellect and atmosphere and remove the monotonous feeling. With the debut album, Atrium Carceri position themselves somewhere inbetween the exuberant sounds of CMI labelmate Sephiroth, and the subterranean rumblings of Loki Foundation stalwarts Inade and Predominance.
Thursday 15 April 2010
Nils Frahm - 2009 - Wintermusik
Release type: Full-length
Style: Modern Classical/Ambient
Country: Germany
Label: Sonic Pieces ...
Format: MP3@VBR V2 MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 70 mb
About Release:
Frahm (hailing from Berlin/Germany) created a wonderful record that was originally intended to be a christmas present for his family. He plays solo and the instruments featured are piano, celesta and reed organ. It’s no wonder that Sonic Pieces realized the beauty of the music and made it available in a first edition of 333 copies (which is now sold out) and in a second one of 500 copies. The record consists of only three tracks but has a total running time of circa 30 minutes. The opener is a little 3 minutes piece that features some gentle melodies and that mediates a feeling of bright snowflakes falling down right before your window. You can feel the cold coming through the pane a little bit, but you yourself are inside, in the warmth, relaxing and watching. As you watch you sink into some deep reasoning and the winter creeps in with the vanitas motive right on his back in form of track 2, Tristana. Now you are all alone with your thoughts, the falling snow is just like some white noise you’re staring in. Seventeen minutes of thinking, a melancholy feeling takes over your body but you stay calm and you try to sort your thoughts. Sometimes there are moments you think will end in a breakdown, but then you are again the master of the situation. Your head gets colder. You realize your situation and you go back to the fire to warm yourself (that’s track three). You sit down and everything seems to be alright – but one thought stuck in your mind and you can’t let it go. You start to think again and now everything has changed, you can’t get rid of it and so it slowly takes over all your reasoning and you feel some sort of deep resignation and depression take over your body and your thoughts become a whirlwind without an eye. Everything seems to fall down and collapse. But then the 30 minutes are over – how does the story end? That’s your part of the story. Wintermusik is a great record even though its character is mainly a melancholic one and you won’t get a happy feeling listening to this music (that is besides the happy feeling you get because the music is so good). I highly recommend to spend an ear on this one and to buy a copy as long as supplies last. To do so, click here for a physical copy and don’t forget to visit Nils Frahm’s MySpace.
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Nebelkorona - 2009 - Des Nachts in tristen Nebeln
Release type: EP
Style: Dark Ambient/Neoclassical Folk
Country: Germany
Label: Aphelion Productions
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 103 mb
About Release:
Two new tracks + the tracks from the limited 7” ("Dämmerung im Herbst" & "Blätter im Wind") accompanied by two video clips coming in at more than 30 minutes. 16 page booklet with card slipcase. Limited to 1000 copies.
Nebelkorona - 2006 - Reminiszenzen An Das Morgenrot - Relikte Des Abendrotes
Release type: Full-length
Style: Dark Ambient/Neoclassical Folk
Country: Germany
Label: In the Morningside Records
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 116 mb
About Release:
Emotional and romantic nature art, the perfect soundtrack for misty Autumn nights. A new Vinterriket incarnation, which brings to mind the mighty Empyrium! Comes with 3 pannel deluxe digipak and deluxe slipcase, plus 16 pages booklet.
Nebelkorona - 2004 - Dammerung Im Herbst
Release type: EP
Style: Dark Ambient/Neoclassical Folk
Country: Germany
Label: Not On Label
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 31 mb
About Release:
Dark ambient / neoclassical from Vinterriket's frontman.
Dânnâgôischd - 2009 - Emm Dichdâ Ondrholz
Release type: Full-length
Style: Neofolk
Country: Germany
Label: Percht
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 134 mb
About Release:
Dânnâgôischd - the ghost of the dark forest - is a project coming directly out of the deep Alpine and Swabian woods. ”Emm dichdâ Ondrholz” (in the dense brush-wood) features 16 tracks of ALPINE FOREST FOLK, telling tales in ancient Swabian language about creatures living in darkest woods, with all their legends, atmospheres and myths. The album carries a vast variety if instruments and styles and also includes two video-clips. The atmosphere spreads between melancholy, tradition and pure forest life. Dreamy songs are mixed with dark and natural (sound)tracks, as well as with more folky tunes. ”Emm dichdâ Ondrholz” is a perfect trip to the misty fir tree forests. Feel the rustling of the trees, the burning of fires, the ghosts and creatures around you… Meet wild animals, feel the aura of the woods and sink into a unique forest atmosphere. All lyrics on the album are written in deep Swabian dialect and the album was mastered by Axel Frank (Werkraum/ Sturmpercht) at the Blue Lounge Studios in Berlin / Germany. Dânnâgôischd is a project of Waldwuudz, alias cz (Vinterriket / Atomtrakt / Nebelkorona / Battle Dagorath / Nocternity / Sturmpercht...). 16 songs / 58 min. (+ 2 videos)
Desiderii Marginis - 2009 - Years Lend a Golden Charm
Release type: Full-length
Style: Industrial/Experimental/Dark Ambient
Country: Sweden
Label: Eternal Pride Productions
Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps
Size: 167 mb
About Release:
To gain a deeper understanding of what is, it is necessary to examine what was – to go to the sources and the origins. With the emergence of this brand new offering by Desiderii Marginis, ‘Years Lend a Golden Charm’ we are invited to experience the very birth of what is now a well established and worldwide recognised project within the dark-ambient industrial scene. The contents of the new album is made up of some 73 minutes of material from the first three tapereleases from 1993. Highly sought after by collectors but only available in a mere dozen of handmade copies, these songs are now finally made available to a greater audience. When you listen to the music with the knowledge that hindsight brings - it is obvious that these are the roots and the foundations, not only of the first full length album ‘Songs Over Ruins’, but of every succesive release up to the latest ‘Seven Sorrows’. In 1993 there was no set course, no long term plan – and still, maybe it couldn’t have turned out any other way?
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