Four years after "Absurdity" the Japanese duo Jack Or Jive is back with a new work titled KAKUGO. The album takes inspiration from Bushido's "kakugo" concept which tells to think about death differently: Kakugo" does not suggest violence, it tells us to think of death and don't do honor-less acts in everyday life. The album is divided into twelve tracks which during almost one hour of length create tense and melancholic soundscapes made of ambient electronic pads, experimental intuitions and characterized by the presence of the particular voice of Chako. Her voice isn't perfect but it is functional to the creation of the sort of ambience which translate into music people's sorrow. The track I appreciated most is "It can't be reset". A song which recalled me Cocteau Twins atmospheres but here the dreamy atmospheres are turned into nightmares.

Also declared under the sub-title "Hidden Forms Compilation Series One", the new US-label Tympanik Audio offers its first release of a well packaged DCD digipak-set. Musically they have collected 29 appearances based into the wide and mysterious fields of Dark Electro, Experimental, IDM, Techno, Dark Ambient and Electronica music. This isn’t that sort of a Harsh EBM collection, which gets often praised and released like sand on the beach, the whole concept rather tends to collect Electronica music with demand – the featured music here requires attention from the listener.
Some international renowned names like the haujobb-project ARCHITECT (with a double-remix-play on here, remix works got provided by DRYFT and DISPLACER), S:CAGE, the up and coming NEGATIVE FORMAT side-project DISTRAUB, TOTAKEKE (Frank Mokros, new signed to Tympanik Audio!), FLINT GLASS, AB OVO, HECQ or MNEMONIC are proof of a diverse and quality-oriented selection. CD 1 is mostly influenced by Dark Ambient and technoid Industrial tunes, but – as strange as this sounds – I tend to say that the most promising appearances got provided by the rather unknown artists of this compilation. ARCHITRAV seems to be a Dark Ambient-inspired side-project of Germany’s MNEMONIC and offer a static and ominous sounding opening track. We had already the Alaska-based project LUCIDSTATIC in our review section on here, but this new tune left me breathless! So it has to sound if multiple programmings can mean multiple drum patterns, this "Night Vision" is a rhythmically bomb and the best piece of work of this project so far. Good to know that Tympanik has signed on them too, a new album should be come out during summer. TZOLK’IN is a mutual project between EMPUSAE and FLINT GLASS and got recently signed to Ant-Zen. Their track comes out quite melodious and straight oriented, while not at all forgetting its musically belongings. There are more favorites worth to be named available on CD 1 for sure, but since this whole compilation is that filled with more than 143 minutes of purest Experimental Electronica music, I just like to concentrate only on the to me very best.
CD 2 offers a decent collaboration between the Ant-Zen AB OVO and FLAQUE, while the Swiss act STENDECK gets remixed by Slovakia’s top-notch act DISHARMONY. FREEZE ETCH and their track "Stalwart" is another straight example with inserting layer sounds. Other highlights I like to name with GINORMOUS (straight and effective) FLAQUE ("Black Shadows In The Fog" – the title couldn’t explain it better how it sounds...), while the Big-Beat- and sample-driven "Witching Hour" of Canada’s DISPLACER causes a smile in the face of the listener. Same judgement like on CD 1, here can be named several other act, which my satisfy the listeners even more.
However, Tympanik Audio have released a full-scale quality compilation which is a feast to all open-minded listeners who get thrilled by some more Experimental-oriented music. Another nice side effect is the fact that this DCD set will never enter the world of legally download portals. Although I have already seen a link available on a well-known illegal Russian downloading portal, I like to forward congratulations to the responsible people behind this label – this may is the right initiative to start a rage against downloading procedures to save the format CD. Soon more with new releases about this fine new label.

Track list:

EO¹:

Architrav: Bewegungsspielraum
Eretsua: Proto-Awareness
Rekt: Somebody Set Up Us The Bomb
Urusai: Slow Forward
Lucidstatic: Night Vision
Architect: Caine in the Brain | Displacer remix
Distraub: Motion Sensor | Recalibrated
Tzolk'in: Imix | Hidden Forms remix
Totakeke: Power of Ideas | Hidden Forms mix
Talvekoidik: Hymn
S:cage: Unearth
Freeze Etch: Irrotator
Architect: Stairway | Stairwell Sidearm remix by Dryft
Unterm Rad: On the Brink (Verge) | remix by Dreams Are Maps

EO¹ - Run Time: 71:30

EO²:

Flint Glass: At Takwi
Ab Ovo vs. Flaque: Circle of Memories
Stendeck: Like Falling Crystals | Disharmony remix
Freeze Etch: Stalwart
Atomatik13: Traffic Lights
Hecq: Moonkissed
Ginormous: Part of Him Died That Night
N0nplus: In Your Wake | Lying Right Next To Me remix
Phylum Sinter: Shadow Codex
Justin McGrath: The Last Thing You Said Was Fall
Displacer: Witching Hour
Flaque: Black Shadows in the Fog
Nebulo: Reverse | remix
Mnemonic feat. Qasot: Porous Dreams
Aural: Narcoleptic

EO² - Run Time: 72:04

Total Run Time: 143:34

Nazi Bastards From Aldebaran were a particular industrial e.b.m. Russian band active during the 1997/99 period. They recorded only a bunch of tracks and didn't do anything to promote them. Only recently people got aware of them because "Swastika Man" was released on the "Red Square" compilation by KultFRONT label. On this MCD you can check the particular instrumental industrial e.b.m. blend of the combo. Their tunes are characterized by catchy tunes, great and fitting samples, upbeat tempos and a good sense of irony (see the title "Nazi ufo attacks Paris nightclub" or "Old cunt"). On "Swastika Man" they used what I think to be Hitler samples, on "Illuminati" Aleister Crowley vocal excerpts, on "Cleansing the planet" other WWII samples along with cries, etc. I know that only by reading my description you can think that Nazi Bastards From Aldebaran were only a bunch of morons... Who knows, anyway what's for sure is that they were able to compose great tunes where they were able to create a crescendo effect made of industrial e.b.m. sounds used as they should be used. This MCD made me discover a great band and you should check some excerpts here http://zhb.radionoise.ru/eng/zhb-xiv.html. Act fast if you like them because there are only 250 copies available.

The brainchild of DJ Korpserape, Wasted Consumption Patterns’ (WCP) latest release "Solder" offers a mixture of industrial and jungle. The album can be best described as a mixture between Cubanate’s "Interference" and Haujobb’s "Solutions for a Small Planet," only not as good as either of those albums. Most of the tracks on "Solder" are comprised of fast paced generic jungle rhythms (which sound like they were pulled from a Zero G sample CD) and highly distorted vocals and synthesizer effects. All of these elements work together towards a very outdated and uninspired sound that prompted me to check my calendar just to make sure that it still wasn’t 1996. The few lines that one can discern from the distorted lyrics demonstrates that the WCP’s lyrical content is at best banal with lines like "take this soul it’s all I got." The two weakest tracks on the CD are "Sheep" and "Discord," which deviate from the industrial jungle sound to a slower groove that is at best a weak attempt to sound like PIG that completely lacks the tongue in cheek lyrical stylings and competent musical arrangements of Raymond Watts. The press kit that accompanied the CD explains a lot, discussing how Korpserape completed the album in 2000 but put off its release until now because his drug use led to his institutionalization in a mental hospital, which provides a reasonable explanation as to why this record is so weak and outdated sounding. If this story is in fact true, then it’s quite sad that a record label would use it to try to market an album that is so poorly put together.

Limited to 100 copies TWO SPHERE GEOMETRY is the latest CD of the Romanian dark ambient project Abbildung. The eight tracks of the album are based on a multi layered structure where drones, voices, treated guitars and electronic sounds (mostly pads) are gathered to form a growing primordial magma made of sound waves. Tracks like the opening "Dark pole rising" or the really good "Decreasing entropy attractor" have a certain viral effect which make them change constantly while the rhythm and the samples make them more "accessible" and less abstract. For this reason I found that they are able to create a better ambience and Abbildung did the right thing by using "Decreasing entropy attractor" as base to the four minutes of the DVD video titled "Two sphere world" (the video is based on the contraposition of nature and electrical experiments visual extracts). Only the fourteen minutes track "Call of the hypersphere" didn't convinced me too much because of the minimal approach which don't give anything else than the usual humming drone structure.