Aural Holograms is the name of a series of works that, at least in this first chapter, are due to Aural Hypnox/Aeoga/Halo Manash/Dolorian mastermind Antti Haapapuro, joined by J. Saivo, J. Hietaniemi and J. Tuomi. As with all AH releases, there seems to be a heavy ritualistic/exoteric background which the liner notes, however detailed, can only hint at. The album features three lengthy (and I mean it - almost 74 minutes in total) tracks of drones created, from what I can guess, with Tibetan bowls and other resonating metal instruments, a reed organ, possibly voices/breath and unidentified sound effects. It is surely the most stripped-down and minimal work in the AH catalogue, without any standard "dark ambient" element, and its legitimate place would be somewhere between Harry Bertoia, Phil Corner's "Metal Meditations" and buddhist ritual music. "Before the Great Stone" still bears some resemblance of recognizable notes, dissolving in a liquid ambience, which leads to the deeper drones of "The Day of Opening the Tomb", where the metallic vibrations reach the organic feel of a gigantic breathing creature. The third and final track, "Beyond the Black Deep", is a huge, slowly uncoiling piece of more than 30 minutes, where the Aural Holograms drones reach their full resonating power - listen to it at medium to high volume and you'll find yourself bathed in a thick, vibrating amniotic well. As usual, words don't do justice to the overall experience - this is a massive album that not everybody will be willing to experience, but that ranks among the most impressive minimal recordings that I've listened to. I am still convinced that the whole Aural Hypnox milieu is not getting the attention and exposure it deserves, but they probably don't care, and they'd be right. As long as they continue releasing these amazing works, it is not that important.

The Spire series on Touch (www.spire.org.uk) has already given space to an impressive number of creative and unorthodox performers (from Z'EV to field recording master Toshiya Tsunoda) working with church organs, with often amazing results. This full-length by Norwegian performers Lasse Marhaug (electronics) and Nils Henrik Asheim (organ) is possibly the most daring and successful of the whole lot, and immediately ranks among the best fringe recordings of 2007. The two, collaborating since the 2004 All Ears festival, met again in 2006 to improvise in Oslo Cathedral, and recorded one hour worth of material, which was then structured into five pieces and mixed down by Marhaug last January. Both must have been in a state of grace, because the interplay and the power of these 56'35" are incredible. In "Bordunal", a suspended drone fills the air, with floating high frequencies and ebbing low tones. If you close your eyes, you can almost imagine it as smoke or fog layers. Then, Asheim starts emitting higher wails, like whale calls, soon pierced by Marhaug's noise bursts; then, the latter's interventions drown everything in an electric storm. "Phoneuma" is equally varied, with airy, slowly modulated tones made thicker by electronic throbs, then ground by darker frequencies and mechanical loops, up to an epic crescendo; Asheim eventually breaks loose accumulating exhilarating clusters, and Marhaug tries to fight back, tooth and nail, with his devices. At the end, you start feeling dizzy. "Magnaton" is a short touch&go piece where abrupt organ notes battle with the screeching chaos of the oscillators, and such a tempest is followed by the two quietest tracks, "Philomela" and "Claveolina". The former is a static quicksand puddle of low-end tones and sinewaves, streaked by Asheim with menacing higher tones. Any intemperance is finally quenched in the lulling drones of "Claveolina", closing the often physical ambience of "Grand Mutation" with a dreamy catalepsy.

The Slovakian act can also look back on a longer band history under different monikers and some first activities starting more than 10 years ago. Consisting of musicians from acts like KIFOTH and SAMHAIN, they could make themselves a good name with a first release entitled "Illusions And Reality" out in 2003 on the nowadays defunct Polish Black Flames label. So it has taken now four years until these guys could reunite for comeback – not surprising that E.A.R./Vendetta-Music had still an open ear for them, if you take a more detailed look onto the last releases. Also LAST INFLUENCE OF BRAIN can be sorted into the wide field of Dark Electro, while they don’t act too obviously to act like a PUPPY-clone - some exceptions included of course. "Inner Wars" lists 16 tracks at all, but you’ll find a 17th unlisted track as well – maybe a mistake with the tack list, or it is a real hidden track. This album starts marvelous with a great instrumental opener entitled "Return 0001" offering nice layered synth-pads – it needs to be mentioned that you’ll find 5 different "Return"-tracks, all of them offering a different mood. "Greed" follows and I tend to say that this piece is one of the outstanding tracks on here, although strongly infiltrated with the PUPPYan-influence. Unfortunately the following tunes can’t rival with the quality of both opening tracks. I had to realize that LIOB can act unforeseeable from track to track and at times their bass lines and textures are sounding plain and rather like a first testing on some new synths instead of well-thought. Some of the tracks like "Players" or "In Death" are concentrating too obviously to push the speed to reach some dancefloor-compatibility. Compared to the first excellent tunes they act like filling stuff. Other very good tunes have to be named with the rather mid-tempo-based tracks like "Why Are You Waiting", which is also available in a remix version created by Dominique Debert of BRAIN LEISURE, "In Our World" and "Return 0004". In these tracks there’s more "music" in form of some cold synth-layer sounds available – it seems that all efforts offering a different mood to the straight-oriented dance tracks do well here. "Inner Wars" is in all a decent Dark Electro-album and comes out with more than 74 minutes playing time – the term full-length album has never before insisted that strong by any other label before. But it’s also recognizable that three different musicians try to concentrate to include their very own personality and talent to form the sound of LIOB. This works mostly well, but some tunes can’t offer at all a coherent outfit.

The project BLAQK AUDIO consists of the both US-based musicians Jade Puget and Davey Havok, both are surely better known with their rather Rock-music-oriented main band AFI. BLAQK AUDIO therefore has to be seen as a side-project, a Synth- and Futurepop-driven I should admit, but also with a tendency to some Pop/Alternative genres. The lyrical content of this full-length release deals mainly with the one and only theme, which the title likes to announce. The male vocals are provided in that style how you would expect it from any related production in this music genre, very clear and natural sounding. The winning points of this release can be heard by the music. It surprises that they can provide this well-thought and diverse arrangements, several breaks and quite a lot different moods are resulting in a quite entertaining album, from which – I must admit it – several acts musically always and ever based in that Synth-/Futurepop genre can learn from. Tracks like "Snuff On Digital" or "Semiotic Love" are pushing the speed and can bring some motion on the dancefloors, two really well-done Futurepop anthems. They also provide the right nose to place two rather slow ballads with "The Fear Of Being Found" and "Wake Up, Open The Door And Escape To The Sea" – the right mood to sit in front of a fire-place in a cold winter night. But the most outstanding work has to be named with "Bitter For Sweet" with a catchy-as-hell refrain and – good point – not too obviously trimmed to fall into Pop-cheesyness. That this album comes out that fine can also be caused by the production work of star-producer Dave Bascombe (DEPECHE MODE, for instance...). But I guess also without his helping hand, this release would be still a great example how sweet and on-top this genre can sound. A constant good album!

The Idiosyncratics project was founded in 2003 by Belgian soundmakers Yannick Franck and Phil Maggi, recently joined by Maxime Lê-Hûng, and so far has booked concerts and launched a few quality net-releases (be sure to check out the one by Tomas Korber and Adam Sonderberg). The label debut on cd is this tasty sampler gathering some of the most interesting artists in the vast minimalist/drone field. Let's say that styles vary from noisy layering (KK Null) to crystaline Fahey-esque fingerpicking (Steffen Basho-Junghans), but most of the rest is in between, i.e. droning, and all tracks are nice pieces (no leftover rush here). My personal picks would be Janek Schaefer's drones+turntables mix, Sébastien Roux's glitchy guitarscapes, and Daniel Menche's surprisingly mild percussion-based "Cadence". Charlemagne Palestine surely wins the "weirdest of the lot" prize with "La beauté et la bête", mixing ethereal organ tones with orgasmic female moans and sheep field recordings - as bizarre and upsetting as some of Walter Marchetti's pieces. Worth mentioning are also the owners' projects, Eve and the Sickness (Maggi with Gabriel Marguerie) and Idiosyncrasia (Maggi and Franck themselves), both offering two excellent pieces of dark electroacoustics. Other names involved were Keith Fullerton Whitman, Critikal, Rapoon, Troum and Jazkamer, all up to their standards though offering no real surprises. An excellent compilation, assembled with taste and care - may it be the first release of a long series.