★Conrad Sound
Svart/Hvitt
*2024 stock* "Put on the circuit via Oslo / Norway-based imprint Conrad Sound on December 4th, 2k20 is "Svart / Hvitt", the sophomore album effort created by the multi-membered group named The Touchables which includes a plethora of artists from the countries Jazz and Contemporary Music scene with at least one of its members - Martin Taxt - being a household name to readers of these pages for his deep explorations of microtonal tuba performances. Split in four subsequently numbered, unnamed part…
Shadows
*2024 stock* This is not a split album. Shadows is the curious offspring of MoE and The Observatory, a radiant chase after light and darkness, casting amorphous, illusory paths of Indian carnatic loops and heavy narcotic gamelan dreams. Containing just three songs, the album explores a hauntology of sounds, a melange of evocative synths, disembodying voices, percussion, and a ton of guitars from the most rancorous to the more profound. Wandering along the length of spaces and in between, Shadows…
Drums & Octobass
*2024 stock* "A lone voice rises over the booming rumble of the octobass, a large acoustic instrument resembling a double-bass, yet twice the height. The octobass’ unusually large stature lends itself to these haunting sounds, looming over this cacophonous reverberation like a specter of monstrosity. Another voice lightly ascends, and the two vocalizations coalesce as this musical foundation crumbles along, carried by the tapping of harmonium keys, swimming and dissonant.
This patient singing b…
Dots Kinematics For Electronics & Chamber Orchestra Version II
The name Painjerk, the musical project of Kohei Gomi, didn’t come to mind for a long time. Offhand, I’d say it is likely that I reviewed very few of his releases. Many of those he released himself, and the ones of Harbinger Sound, Editions Mego, Alternative Tentacles and Hospital never reached me. He’s among the few musicians leaving the harsh noise behind and doing other projects. He calls it the “exploration and practice of kinematics of electro-acoustics using unorthodox methodologies, mainly…
Skinwalker
*2024 stock* "Recorded back in 2019, in Newcastle upon Tyne, “Skinwalker” is a collaboration between noisy British punk band Bruxa Maria and Norwegian trio MoE. Between these two acts, fireworks might be expected to fly constantly but “Skinwalker” turns out more restrained and controlled than you’d expect. Four tracks, of which three exceed ten minutes, are on offer here, all of them brimming with caged fury and aggression which, if unleashed, could turn this recording into a tapestry of burning…
Saint Vitus Dance
*2024 stock* "On the same day that MoE released “Skinwalker”, their collaboration with UK band Bruxa Marie, the Norwegian trio also released “Saint Vitus Dance”, itself also a collaboration with Escalantes (Martin and Oscar). As with “Skinwalker”, we can expect a lot of noisy experimental jazz improv / sludge doom rock fusion, though with Martin Escalante on saxophone the recording leans a bit more to the free jazz side. Even so, sludge doom metal fans shouldn’t dismiss this album as there’s ple…
Tolerancia Picante
*2024 stock* "I picked this album up because I was (and still am) enthralled by MoE’s 2018 release with Lasse Marhaug. The sardonically titled Tolerancia Picante, however, is a different beast altogether and this beast is punk rock. The adjective, the attitude, and the aesthetics. Not pop-punk or post-punk or one of those derivations, but straight-up cacophonous, cantankerous in-your-face aggression…minus the power chords and fueled by free jazz curiosity and musicality. “Tolerancia Picante” ope…
Capsaicin
*2023 stock* The band MoE (Guro Skumsnes Moe, Håvard Skaset and Joakim Heibø Johansen) and electronic noise aviator Lasse Marhaug are both prolific staples of the Norwegian music scene on their own, but have over the years also collaborated on various other projects. Most recent on the Skaset/Moe acoustic side project Sult, that resulted in the notable album «Harpoon» (rated as one of the best experimental albums in Rolling Stones in 2016), and Marhaug and Skumsnes Moe's work on the soundtrack t…