SΔCRED ΔPE – Self Titled

We are among many claiming Sligo based songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer John Bassett as one of the most inspiring and refreshingly imaginative composers/songwriters around today and the first album from his new project gives no reason to pull back on that acclaim. SΔCRED ΔPE is Bassett’s, the founder and driving force of KingBathmat and post/progressive metal solo project Arcade Messiah, exploration into electronic/synthwave bred adventures. It is a bold new avenue to pursue for artist and listener but a continuation of the kaleidoscopic sound and visually stimulating artistry within his eager imagination.

As poppy as it is progressive, as emotive as it is instinctively infectious, the SΔCRED ΔPE album needs little time to infest an eager intrigue for something new from its creator; as instantly exciting the senses and involving thoughts and more physical involvement. In many ways, it is his most accessible offering yet though attracting and gripping attention and pleasure has never seemed to be something needing a great deal of time across any of his releases to date. It has a freedom suggesting Bassett is embracing his own electronic loves seemingly with an eighties breeding; playing with inspiring sounds and textures with zeal but weaving them into pieces suggestively complex and intimate and, especially in the album’s pair of instrumental soundscapes, cinematically pregnant though all tracks have just as potent passages.

The album opens with its first instrumental, Horn and swiftly has ears and appetite entangled with its electronic coaxing equipped with virulent melodic hooks. Intrigue coats every note and their emerging collaboration, sonic shadows dancing with melodies and repetitious seduction like an aural cousin to the imagery at the start of the old British TV show Tales of the Unexpected. Spatial yet sinisterly terrestrial, bright but with an almost cold war like drama, the track is a virulent transfixing of ears and imagination and just irresistible.

Asleep At The Wheel (Part 1) follows, contrasting its predecessors light frenetic gait with a heavier almost prowling slow stroll. There is a weight to its air and emotion, a thoughtful pondering soon emulated in the vocals of Bassett. Again melodies escaping synths rise to a celestial atmosphere yet laden with those ever present shadows to temper the climate before Birds Fall From The Sky pulsates with sonic palpitations. From within the animated lightshow a glorious darkwave scented groan, for want of a better word, erupts and swaggers into the passions. With surrounding melodic revelry and an overall creative drama at play in sound and lyrical word, there is a touch of OMD to the song; a flavouring adding to a familiar Bassett design yet as ever one of singularly fresh enterprise.

As a tangy melody steers in next up I Want To Go Back To The Happy House, a Blancmange like lure teases ears continuing to attract as the song broadens its landscape and voice with more of a Kraftwerk meets Giorgio Moroder inspiration. The instrumental floats across and surrounds ears like a summer haze with electronic imagery indistinctly but evocatively flirting from within; easily sweeping the listener up in its flight if without quite igniting the same lustful reactions as those before it.

Through the reflective embrace and dark pulsations of Season Of The Damned and the compelling theatre of Walking On Ice, Bassett has enjoyment and manipulation of the imagination in the palms of his hands; both tracks individual slices of ethereal synth pop with an earthier heart and spine to their explorations with the first a warm hug of temptation. Its outstanding successor though, brings the darker suggestion of the first into a more tangible touch on ears and thoughts creating a John Carpenter like cinematic espionage of suggestion creeping upon and infesting the senses as melodic infection gathers. It is a catchiness which soon leads the way but never diminishes the darker threat alongside resulting in the kind of mouth-watering blend Frank Tovey (Fad Gadget) was so skilled at weaving.

The album concludes with the lullaby-esque Asleep At The Wheel (Part 2), an epilogue of melancholy fuelled, melody woven inference with a childlike clockwork skeleton. It is a sigh of emotion which bursts into greater weight and drama midway and again simply captivates from its first to last breath.

It is too easy to expect big things from John Bassett because of past experiences with his music and it is an instinct sure to continue with SΔCRED ΔPE adding another impressive and seriously enjoyable string to his creative bow. It is an aspect in his creativity we fiercely hope he continues to explore and we are certain in that wish we will not be alone.

The SΔCRED ΔPE album is out now and available @ https://sacredape.bandcamp.com/releases

http://www.johnbassettmusic.com   https://www.facebook.com/arcademessiah/

Pete RingMaster 02/05/2017

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

Estetica Noir – Purity

There is no need of any written text to realise the inspirations to the sound of Italian band Estetica Noir, strong flavours which openly line each song within their debut album Purity. They weave haunting and atmospheric, frequently addictively infectious, proposals which court the imagination as easily as ears; all eighties new/dark wave influenced encounters as familiar as they are refreshingly fuelled by twenty first century imagination. The result is a sound which demands attention and a thoroughly enjoyable first album.

Hailing from Torino, Estetica Noir was formed by vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Silvio Oreste and bassist Rik Guido in 2013. Their self-titled first EP came out in 2014 with a re-mastered re-release coming two years later, its body showing more of the electronic spicing which now adds to the tapestry of sound shaping Purity. With their track I Will Kill You making a potent addition to the For The Bats compilation and another in Beautiful Absence part of the third instalment of the series, the songs nesting between offerings from the likes of The March Violets, The Eden House, and The Danse Society, Estetica Noir have only lured increasing interest and support to match a praise drawing live presence seeing the quartet share stages with bands such as Christian Death and The Chameleons. Last year, Estetica Noir linked up with Italian label Red Cat for the release of Purity, both sure to come under greater spotlights due to the album’s captivating presence and character.

With its line-up completed by guitarist/backing vocalist Guido Pancani and drummer Paolo Accossato, Purity swiftly grabs ears with opener Hallow’s Trick. An initial electric shimmer of guitar is the spark for a great crystalline melodic hook within a fuzzy keys bred seducing around a swinging rhythmic coaxing. It is an instantly successful persuasion increased by the expressive tones of Oreste. Like Thomas Dolby meets the synth pop version of Ministry, the track strolls magnetically into the imagination, its virulent chorus inescapable bait for participation as it makes a powerful introduction to the release.

Next up Plastic Noosphere is no less a tempting; its own instinctive catchiness immediately grabbing body and appetite as guitars and keys conjure individually descriptive enterprise for a B-Movie meets She Wants Revenge like offering with a nagging rhythmic persistence from Guido and Accossato recalling the likes of Leitmotiv. As its predecessor, the song has ears in the palm of its creative hand before In Heaven provides a fiery romancing of ears with its steely guitar bred melodies, melancholic yet inviting bassline, and fuzzy keys. A thicker intensity and drama does little to lessen an inbred infectiousness in the Estetica Noir sound, rather showing the variety and imagination nurturing it, echoed again in the likes of Suicide Walk and I Hate.

The first of the two creeps around ears like atmospheric fog, almost prowling with its instrumental suggestiveness as a melodic radiance glows at its heart while the second straight away flirts with the senses through bold but controlled and imagination serenading melodies. It is just the opening shadow to another rampantly catchy escapade with lively beats and a just as tenacious brooding bassline calling from inside a web of feisty electronic and guitar spun temptation.

The outstanding Polarized brings its electro pop spiced exploit next, complete with another irresistible hook and smouldering keys in something akin to Nine Inch Nails meets Blancmange while Deluxe Lies Edition reveals the strength of inspiration the band find in The Cure, its dark climate and emotive shadows as inspired by Robert Smith and co as Oreste’s vocals. Both tracks captivate and inspire ears and imagination respectively, the adventure in the Estetica Noir creativity here and across Purity compelling.

Hypnagogia is a second instrumental which like its earlier companion is a provocative piece, its piano cored emotional shadow intriguing before the band gives its own touch to the Pet Shop Boys written, Eight Wonder track I’m Not Scared. It is another easy to embrace offering but lacks something the band’s own penned songs have, as emphasized by A Dangerous Perfection which follows. Laying somewhere between Modern English and again The Cure and early Ministry, the track throbs with rhythmic and melodic theatre as an epidemic of creative infection swarms through ears.

Completed by the melancholy haunted You Make Life Better, an imaginatively twisting and turning track as fascinating and persuasive as anything on the album, Purity leaves nothing but lingering pleasure in its wake. As mentioned, its influences are a strong texture in its body and songs but it is a ‘lack of uniqueness’ which matters little in the unbridled enjoyment found. If any of those influences mentioned hit the spot, checking out Estetica Noir is a must.

Purity is out now via Red Cat Records through most online stores.

https://www.facebook.com/esteticanoir   https://twitter.com/esteticanoir   https://esteticanoir.wordpress.com/

Pete RingMaster 31/01/2017

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

BLiNDNESS – Wrapped In Plastic

It may have been a long time coming but the debut album from BLiNDNESS makes time immaterial as it sizzles on the senses from start to finish spreading a dark wave electro pop seduction which is just as likely to snarl and explode with attitude as it is to smoulder and caress. Wrapped In Plastic is a sonically and imaginatively charged incitement, an adrenaline driven helter-skelter of sound and energy that ears and thoughts quickly bask in. The accompanying press release to the album calls it a “rollercoaster ride of beautiful chaos” and that about says it all.

Formed in 2008, BLiNDNESS consists of Beth Rettig (vocals, programming, noise), Emma Quick (bass, noise), and Debbie Smith (guitar, feedback, noise) previously of Curve, Echobelly, and Snowpony. Since emerging the London based band has persistently been an explosive proposition on the Capital’s live scene and beyond. Now it is the turn of Wrapped In Plastic to set the fuse to fresh and major attention, and from its opening proposal it easily leaves ears and appetite seriously engaged.

Serves Me Right is the first protagonist and from an opening sonic lure which has the senses flinching whilst anticipation licks its lips, begins a perpetual transfixing swiftly enhanced by a grizzly bassline. With pulsating electro beats and a scuzzy air to the guitars lining up soon after, the song resonates and enthrals as it broadens its landscape, the warm but steely vocal tones of Rettig riding its thick melodic mesh of sound and intensity to further stretch the captivating start.

   The guitar sculpted Deserving keeps the strong potency going with immediate effect next, fiery flames from the strings of Smith igniting the air as the dark tones of bass and gripping tones of Rettig bring contrast and balance. Pungent beats spark a meaty stride to the slice of fuzzy rock ‘n’ roll, the song emerging like a mix of Garbage and Breeders dug for extra spicing into the originality of BLiNDNESS. Contagious and bracing, the track pushes the album up another gear to a stirring level matched as magnetically and forcibly by Last One Dies. Tenaciously simmering with electronic imagination and brewing a sturdy and bewitching tapestry of melodic and psych rock, the third song simply rumbles and flirts with increasing energy across its vibrant body.

A gentler croon emerges with No One Counts, though as all tracks there is a volatile edge to sound and invention which means unpredictability is as ripe as melodic and fuzz soaked enterprise. The bass of Quick once more adds a delicious shadow rich twang to proceedings whilst melodically and in creative crescendos there is an air of Muse to the fiery encounter, though just one whisper in a few to something ultimately individual to the band.

Both Sunday Morning and Humming Song wrap ears to pleasing effect, the first vocally and melodically with a mellow tone and reflective shimmer. Its rhythmic shuffle adds a kinetic energy and catchiness to its mesmeric busyness whilst its successor initially slips into an even slower and elegant serenade, swimming over the senses and around evocative rhythms, before brewing a dramatic blaze of sonic and emotive intensity then repeating the cycle once again. The theatre and vocal drama of the song is bewitching, and though neither inflames the passions as powerfully as those before them, each leaves a want for more.

It is a hunger quickly fed by the dark textures and atmosphere of Broken. There is an open shoegaze glow to certainly vocal delivery and melodies throughout the album but probably at its most vivacious here, though that is beautifully tempered by the underlying growl of bass and character of the track, and indeed its almost acrid swamp of sonic imagination and ferocity. Hypnotic until its final parting breath, the track is a meditative, almost carnal incitement.

All In One raises the temperature of the album next, its physical presence as mercurial as its invention. BLiNDNESS entangles seventies psychedelic rock and nineties alternative/ electro rock into its resourceful scorching fire, feedback and celestial acidity as always an ever potent presence. The track ignites ears with ease before Confessions ensures a blistering close to the album with its bluesy inferno of intoxicating rock ‘n’ roll. It is an intense and thrilling end to Wrapped In Plastic, a release finishing on a high and sparking the want to go again.

To be particularly picky there is a similarity in certain areas of some songs which threatens to smother the invention and creative adventure specific to each track but close and constant attention covers that, Wrapped In Plastic a release you need to spend time with to reap all its strengths and qualities. BLiNDNESS definitely rewards such focus though with an encounter which leaves ears ringing, bodies sweaty, and satisfaction bloated.

Wrapped In Plastic is available now via Saint Marie Records @ http://saintmarierecords.limitedrun.com/products/553220-blindness-wrapped-in-plastic

http://www.weareblindness.co.uk   https://www.facebook.com/weareblindness

RingMaster 08/07/2015

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

 

Listen to the best independent music and artists on The RingMaster Review Radio Show and The Bone Orchard on Reputation Radio @ http://www.reputationradio.net

Vulturium Memoriae – Nato per ragioni ignote

Dark shadows and melancholic immersions can be quite meditative, certainly in the hands of Vulturium Memoriae. This is exactly what the one man project of Italian musician/composer Mirg reveals with new album Nato per ragioni ignote, which translates as “born for unknown reasons”. Consisting of six simultaneously mesmeric and oppressive landscapes converging into one epic soundscape of emotively intense instrumental exploration, the album is a fascinating and at times breath-taking encounter. Creating a haunting and proposition for ears and thoughts, not forgetting emotions, cast in a weave of sound seeded in dark wave /post black metal ambiences, the release is as intimidating as it is seductive and perpetually a compelling flight for thoughts to ruminate and get lost in.

Each track upon Nato per ragioni ignote is fuelled by repetition and tides of melancholia, yet at no point from opener Dissolvenza della ragione onwards does it become a doom clad drone or lack a light kissed tempering to the brooding darkness explored. The first track looms with an urgency which is never quite repeated throughout the song and release again. It is a hectic sonic and almost bedlamic start which provides the springboard for a slowly turning sonic and emotional contemplation with a just as swiftly emerging nag of heavy restrained beats and smouldering shards of acidic guitar expression that engulfs senses and imagination with equally strong persuasion. Already though there are numerous levels and textures to the piece, a great bass prowl tempering the sharp touch of the guitars but enhancing the heavy intimidating air of the track.

Its sink into cavernous darkness cultured emotions is given a new shade of colour and angst by the similarly languid yet stirring embrace of Onde psichiche di coscienza. For almost twelve minutes the track permeates every thought and emotion with its psyche challenging sonic and rhythmic iteration and for the same time it enthrals and lures the listener into their own cornered off shadows. Sonically lighter in tone but no less a potently simmering trespass, the track bewitches and intrudes before Miraggio attraverso i ricordi steps up with its arguably calmer emotional distress. As in all pieces of music, you feel yourself floating across or falling into the jaws and clutches of places you maybe wish to avoid with rewards which only invigorate and fascinate. Carrying a greater noir clad danger and threat than its predecessors, the track is wonderfully cinematic and gloriously epic in its breath, Mirg creating smog of absorbing invention and emotional provocation over a surprisingly understanding drum machine spawned bait of rhythms.

The album’s title track seduces next, its brief presence, in comparison to other songs, a radiant soar across more gentle and eerily romantic terrains before drifting away into the following and scintillating Grigiore a cielo aperto and its heavier, darker, more unearthly scenery of blackened musings. The most suffocating track on the album, it is equally the most invigorating physically and emotionally, its every imposing twitch and scorching tendril a transfixing narrative to explore and interpret.

The release closes with the morose drift of Lungo l’orizzonte dell’addio, a piece which seemingly floats across the senses but leaves barbed hooks and startling abrasions to linger in ears and thoughts long after its departure. It is an immense end to a ravishing sonic incitement, a release which leaves scars as it ignites every aspect of the listener.

In some ways the album is easier to listen to as individual tracks or in stages but this does lose the towering impact and effect of the encounter, so be brave and let Nato per ragioni ignote take you to places inside even angels fear to tread.

Nato per ragioni ignote is available now via Avantgarde Music digitally and on CD @ http://avantgardemusic.bandcamp.com/album/nato-per-ragioni-ignote

https://www.facebook.com/vulturiummemoriae

RingMaster 27/01/2015

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

Listen to the best independent music and artists on The RingMaster Review Radio Show and The Bone Orchard from

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RxGF – Any Other Way

Not exactly an album of two halves but one with a certain shift in its manner well into its body, Any Other Way from US electronic explorers RxGF, is an exhilarating and transfixing adventure for ears and imagination. Consisting of thirteen tracks which bind the listener in flirtatious and provocative dark wave intrigue, the album is a creative emprise of rhythmic and electronic ingenuity honed into individual provocations which ignite thoughts and emotions as forcibly as they seduce ears. The third album from the band and the first with vocalist Angeline Schaaf, Any Other Way is one of those glorious inventive blazes you unknowingly hanker all year for.

The Seattle bred RxGF is the brainchild of and driven by multi-instrumentalist John Morgan Reilly who linked up in 2005 with producer Jonathan Plum who had worked with one of Reilly’s previous bands, to experiment on fresh songs and sounds. Under the name Radioactive X Girlfriend, this revamped in reflection of the band’s new twist of sound for the new album, the pair uncaged the albums, The Art of Splitting in 2011 and the following year All Blade No Handle. Enlisting contributions from the likes of Daniel Bedingfield, Dave Rosser (Twilight Singers, Afghan Whigs), Matthew Burgess, and Davey Brozowski (Cathaters), the acclaimed releases explored guitar-heavy indie rock and electro-folk respectively, each offering a dramatic departure in sound to the other, a diverse shift which is again emulated by Any Other Way.

The new album thrusts the listener into a dark wave terrain bulging with rhythmic incitement and electronic tenacity. Equally there are thick essences of techno, trip hop, and industrial trespasses which infuse and colour the shadows with greater experimentation and expression. It all makes for a wonderfully imposing and unpredictable proposition, one given even greater drama and imaginative espionage by the gorgeous sultry tones of Schaaf. There is a futuristic bordering on dystopian edge to many songs and with the broody noir lit beauty and tonal majesty of her voice, as instantly evidenced on the first two songs, it makes for dark times presented with compelling seduction.

The album’s title track opens up the theatre of creative operations, the encounter an immediate wall of sonic and electro baiting lit by the voice of Schaaf. It is not long before punchy and gripping rhythms are knocking on the door of the passions, their insatiable baiting potent within the expanding warmth and melodic expression of the synths. As lively and electronically radiant as the track is there is an intimidating shadow to its presence, a dark breath which also lies on the syllables flowing from the throat of Schaaf, the lady from track one revealing the depth and rich expression of her tones. It is a striking flame to start things off but soon surpassed by the brilliant How To Make It. With the opening intimidating rumble of rhythms and subsequent designs which emerge, the band shares a comparable skill and imagination to The Creatures, Schaaf herself finding that gothic elegance and exploration which makes Siouxsie Sioux so distinct and revered. The track from its hypnotic start continues to prowl the dark corners of its depths and the senses, its honest appraisal of music a defiance to the doom laded climate presented.

From one pinnacle another is soon caressing ears, the melodic guitar crafted entrance of We Will Not Be Denied the gateway into fiery and caustic scenery. Again Siouxsie comes to mind but with more Banshees bred essences merging with the lighter melodic revelry of a Morningwood this time though the song is soon establishing its own identity and unique persuasion as it ebbs and flows in voracious enterprise, a trait raging in all songs as shown by the funkier electro dance of Flesh And Bone. Breathtakingly vivacious in energy and bubbling sounds, the track is a smouldering riot which almost explodes when it breaks from the dance floor for a punkish challenge led by the vocal challenge of Reilly. It soon returns into its hot summer of festivity though, leaving feet and emotions exhausted.

Antidote looks back into the shadows next, from its first second the song soaked in a menacing sizzle of sound amidst sinister colouring. This is tempered by the increasingly impressive vocal hues of Schaaf and again eagerly simmering melodies as another dark tale for the imagination is cast before the outstanding Tombstone Soirée takes over. A rhythmic and vocal swagger lurks from the first beat and mischievous syllable cast, fiery electronics again the lead protagonist before Schaaf unveils a compelling temptress posing as her voice. She flirts and seduces with every dramatic note, matched along the way by the maelstrom of adventure around her where sounds are as salaciously predatory as they are diversely magnetic. The track is an inescapable tempting providing another major peak which is matched by the ridiculously tantalising Never Felt So Good. As celestial as it is darkly beckoning, song and climate is another which intrigues and hints without revealing its full intent, dark and light colluding for a delicious mystery for thoughts and ears to immerse in.

It is at this point where the album seems to make another shift of direction, The Dying Grace Of Machines diving into a heavy industrial landscape with Reilly taking lead vocals where every word and tone expelled seems to have an axe to grind. It is an unexpected twist but one which soon grips with compelling weight and drama, its EBM lures pungent suggestiveness to match the potency of the weave of samples and creative enterprise fuelling the track. The following provocation of The Hit is spawned from the same mix, its dark but less threatening body equally enthralling and unexpected and warmly welcomed before making way for the False Flag Mix of Things That Go Bang, the fall of liberty and the beckoning of 1984 in one unrelenting and mouth-watering slab of electro/industrial predation. As the two before it, the track is exceptional but whether they fit with the previous fiery romance of the earlier songs is a still running mental debate. The following ears and thoughts stalking of Kontrollier Die Kontrollierenden is another which slips into that uncertainly, though the song with a great Bowie-esque lilt to Reilly’s vocals certainly continues the immense pleasure gained from the album.

The album closes with firstly Flow, an electro shuffle which delights and has feet subservient but lacks the spark of other songs and lastly the Verax Mix of Belladonna Dream which sees Schaaf returning to seduce the senses. The song is a delicious croon to leave a lingering kiss on ears and emotions and bring Any Other Way to a mystique coated and bewitching end.

     Any Other Way is an engrossing and virulently thrilling encounter which teases, seduces, and challenges throughout for all the right reasons. It rivals all other electronic releases this year for the right to be called the best whilst RxGF shows again their extraordinary ability to explore new realms with every release.

Any Other Way is available now @ https://rxgf.bandcamp.com/album/any-other-way

http://www.rxgf.co.uk/

RingMaster 16/11/2014

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

Listen to the best independent music and artists on The RingMaster Review Radio Show and The Bone Orchard from

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