Owl – Orion Fenix

Mar28

There are places and experiences you fear engaging in but still feel compelled to immerse in; dark and imposing yet inescapably seductive propositions which lure and ensnare despite their ravenous shadows. Orion Fenix is one of those propositions or rather one which takes you and your imagination into such a shadow thick emotionally dark landscape so beguiling the only real option is to lose yourself in its tenebrific majesty.

Orion Fenix is the new EP from Owl, the solo project of Valborg guitarist/vocalist Christian Kolf. A single track, 22 minutes in length, the song is the creation of instinct and emotion, a piece which Kolf said in regard to its birth, ”There was no big thinking behind it, I just wrote it and that’s it. Let my feelings go.” It is an organic affair with flows over and envelops the senses like a tempest bearing lover; engaging and inflaming the imagination with every new twist and turn. Its epic length is like a slowly revolving kaleidoscope, bringing new emotive scenery and shades of light and shadow in an exploration which never truly repeats any of its fascinating moments or bewitching trespasses.

Emerging from sonic mists with a throaty resonance, immediately there is an alluring invitation from Orion Fenix but one with a portentous edge to its smouldering beauty. Graceful yet with a threat in its tone, the track rises until its tempestuousness sparks a heavy doomy gait. Its corrosive suggestiveness though is instantly tempered by the harmonic tones of Kolf, his voice similarly pure enticement and menace laced melancholy.

That early mellow air is in time a burning pyre of emotional and physical dissonance but just one passage in the journey as ill-boding lines a new relative calm from which melodic charm blossoms within the bleak climate; it in turn evolving into a desolate yet magnetic consumption.

And so the song continues, every minute a fresh suggestion, each turn a harbinger of new instinctive exploration either reassuring or unsettling; usually simultaneously both and always enthralling.

Quite simply Orion Fenix is stunning; invasively glorious and hauntingly torturous. It is also a riveting appetiser for Owl’s forthcoming full-length album Nights In Distortion; an experience which now just cannot come soon enough.

Orion Fenix is available now via Zeitgeister Music.

https://www.facebook.com/owlmetal

Pete RingMaster 28/03/2018

Moi Saint – New Moon EP

Sep6

Potently introducing itself as well as the artist behind one of its first releases, UK label Syndicol Music has just unveiled the New Moon EP from singer songwriter Moi Saint. The four track encounter is a haunting and bewitching embrace of dark electronic music, an intriguing fusion of various electronically bred atmospheres and textures as intimate as it is surreal and perpetually fascinating.

Hailing from Manchester and now Liverpool based, Moi Saint emerged in 2015 intent to bring a sound to her deep thoughts and emotions. Embracing the inspirations of artists such as Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, Coil, and Enigma, Saint explored her emotional escape in ambient and electronica adventure with the first explorations making up New Moon on the Charlie Dawe, of British alternative rockers Ventenner, founded Syndicol.

The release opens with Lost in Time (Kind) and an initial melody with an inviting Visage like feel to it. Saint’s voice swiftly wraps around the potent lead, her tones charming and seductive as more industrial nurtured essences crawl into the mix. Shadowy and alluring in equal measure, the song immerses ears in electronic noir pop, its air as suggestively visceral as its heart is melodically poetic and sheer mesmerism from start to finish.

The catchiness of the first is replicated in the even thicker shadowed Reptile though it too is a beguiling fusion of light and dark as gothic overtones lie romantically across the imagination enveloping soundscape. Once more intimacy aligns with a broader ambience as the track boldly simmers in ears, each second a dramatic and smoulderingly erotic suggestion and every note and syllable an ethereal incitement to devour.

Void comes next with the EP’s most transcendent exploration, synths and vocal chords embroiled in a gaseous trespass grabbing ears and imagination like celestial smog. There is that ever present intimacy to the tide of suggestiveness too, melodic venture lighting its melancholic yet rhapsodic heart. Saint in voice is gossamer on the senses while her sounds caress the senses with a matching addictive gentleness which simply haunts thought and emotions.

The release closes with Faded, an arguably more defined proposition in individual textures as an ever present eighties synth pop influence across the EP keenly teases from within melodies and hooks. The track is equally enticingly spiritual in tone and breath with Saint again pure magnetism in voice alone.

It is a kiss on the senses bringing the fine release to a memorable close, each song living up to that description in their various explorations. New Moon is an increasingly striking introduction to artist and label and the first step in the rise of both we suspect and eagerly anticipate.

The New Moon EP is available now across most stores.

https://www.facebook.com/moisaint/ https://www.syndicolmusic.com/

Pete RingMaster 05/09/2017

Evil Sex Party – E.S.P.

Jul4

Listening to E.S.P., the new album from US ambient noise weavers Evil Sex Party is like driving in the thickest uncompromising fog where mere inches of visibility toys with the imagination. Every second is fraught with the unknown; danger and unpredictability hiding along a highway once familiar but now an imposing relentless test on the senses. The exacting scrutiny offered by E.S.P. is the sonic equivalent, an instrumental exploration and examination of ears and imagination which never allows a moment for either to relax or find sanctuary in the safer realms of the psyche.

Submerging the listener in a smog of raw noise, ravenous drone, and dark ambience, Evil Sex Party is the latest project of Otto Kinzel, one half of Skin Drone as well as behind many other projects. If there are others involved in his latest adventure we have not discovered yet, but Kinzel has a pedigree of being involved in attention grabbing adventures and in discovering them as the former head of Bluntface Records and Evil Sex Party is no exception.

Like an aural interpretation of The Ring movie, the Japanese original, in that the sounds and imagination immersing qualities of E.S.P. keep coming at you with a dark and relentless intensity, the album devours the senses from the first touch of opener Commencement. Instantly a thick glaze of shadow bound sound engulfs ears, its mono tone creating a rapaciously textured wall with subtle changes creating ripples in its emotionally suggestive mirror. Swiftly thoughts and emotions are sucked into its devilry, a breeding ground for all imaginations to conjure and weave, as across all tracks, interpretations which are sure to be individual to each listener. Equally though, there is an infectiousness in its droning crawl, an almost meditative hue which rewards the closing of eyes and the removing of distractions from the world around with fresh explorations in each and every listen.

The far briefer and sonically harsher incitement of Tangle Of Flesh follows, its visceral touch and caustic air as seductive as they are corrosive leading to a climax of a handful of seconds which are pure antipathy before Liturgy lays its cosmic charms and darkwave nurtured noises upon thoughts. Spatial yet with a threatening intimacy which is almost occultist, certainly Crowley-esque in its other-worldly air, the track captivates as it infests a by now willing imagination for the release.

The Body And The Blood rises up next with a carnality in tone which scars and grates as magnetically as it entrances. The track’s drone nags the senses but again each subtle wave is an evolution on the last, pressing and flirting with its victim with a ravenous yet threateningly controlled appetite. Like a predator, its patience is unrelenting, its trespass undeterred before making way for the aberrant beauty of Transmogrification. Its melodies are a fusion of elegance and the grotesque, the former to the fore but carrying a sense of dark deceit which again has the imagination running with creativity.

The album concludes with firstly the sonic sacrament of Communion; pain and pleasure, violation and love clad deception at one within the track’s sinful secrecy and enticing hum, and lastly the melancholic temptation and low key but infectious swing of Retreat To Light. As the album overall, both tracks are a spark for thoughts and emotions and a testing enigma for increasingly welcoming ears.

Certainly Evil Sex Party and E.S.P. will be a challenge too far for many but a gateway into rich adventure for just as many with greater understanding of band, album, and one’s own inner shadow stalked psyche blossoming with each subsequent listen.

E.S.P. is out now @ https://evilsexparty.bandcamp.com/releases