February forecast with BRUECKEN, FARSON, KABASSE and WHATEVER HAPPENS DON'T BE YOURSELF

A new month has begun and even though February is short there are probably more worthwhile releases coming up than any single listener could ever process. Here are a couple of those I'm aware of, starting with great Jazz Fusion coming up next week on my birthday:





KABASSE - About Sitting On Fences (release: February 13th 2026)

Kabasse from Munich are a sextet founded by Sigmund Perner from Carpet, whose addictive Prog Fusion is certainly also present on "About Sitting On Fences". With prominent brass at the forefront and a rhythm section including upright bass being subtly aided by hand percussion and vibraphone (or keys? I'm actually not sure...) Kabasse lean much stronger into Jazz territory though, exploring its dark Experimental regions as well as uplifting Swing and epic modern Fusion storytelling. If you like your instrumental Jazz Fusion as a cinematic experience, which takes you on huge journeys through strange countries and adventures, this germ - released by Kapitän Platte - will certainly make you happy.

Without background information I would probably wouldn't have guessed that this group is from Southern Germnay, but rather placed them in the rich Norwegian Jazz Rock scene. Which brings us to the next release...

WHATEVER HAPPENS DON'T BE YOURSELF - Tales Of No Consequences (release: February 27th 2026)

Whatever Happens Don't Be Yourself is indeed a Norwegian ensemble of nine both young and seasoned players from Bergen. Many of the eight mostly rather short tracks have a much stronger Rock influence than Kabasse, with a crunchy electric bass and wild loud drumming. Some stuff reminds me of a less mental version of Matt Gustafsson's The End, some maybe of Aksel Røed's Other Aspects? That would be plausible, since the saxophonoist is also a part of this group. But with "Stormy Nights" there's also time for a laid back Vocal Jazz interlude.

Yeah, these "Tales of No Consequences" cover quite a wild range. If you enjoyed Kronstad 23's "Sommermørket" on El Paraiso Records last year, you'll surely have fun with this Is It Jazz? Records as well.

FARSON - Ein Stumpfes Instrument (release: February 27th 2026)

If you're prepared to really look for it, you'll still find some fragments of Jazz Fusion on this album too, but let's not be delusional: "Ein Stumpfes Instrument" ("A Blunt Instrument"), the new album by Farson from Northern Germany, first and foremost is a brutal Technical Death Metal assault!

Tons of versatile shit are happening in a relatively short amount of time, but you're not left missing anything, since the manic Progressive madness with lots of sick twin guitar action and exciting Blackened and Dissonant Avantgarde flavours will surely leave you as satisfied as exhausted. The thinking man's bludgeoning. Classy!

BRUECKEN - Years That Answer (released: February 27th 2026)

What is more common? Spëëd Metal bands with linguistically nonsensical Metal-Ümlauts oder Northern German Post Rock bands rejecting the umlaut in favour of spelling a vowel in two letters? Ok, the latter probably has no chance, but I know at least two of those.

However, last but not least in this little quadruple feature Moment Of Collapse Records brings us the new album by Bruecken. With influences from other Post genres (mainly Metal) "Years That Answer" presents a very fresh journey through numerous realms of what one could call Pelagic music, even though that's of course another label. Apart from the well-made flow between raw and heavy, delicately atmospheric and grand overwhelming passages, the most striking moments of this albums are delivered, when Bruecken add vocals to their mostly instrumental world. Especially the choir in the eighth and final track "Signs of Spring" are a nice variety.

Not that this work would even need such, because amidst a genre that doesn't make it easy to stand out with an original signature sound, these guys already give you a lot of just great riffs, melodies and arrangement ideas that never give boredom the slightest chance to arise. A wonderful album!

KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD - PetroDragonic Apocalypse Live

No, this certainly isn't an essential release, but after the disappointing live experience in Hamburg and two rather uninteresting Dad Rock albums (I couldn't even finish listening to one whole song of each) following the brilliant electronic "Silver Cord (Extended Cut)" it just has been an awfully long dry spell, which made me feel the need to reconnect with King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard again.

KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD - PetroDragonic Apocalypse Live (Bloody Metallic Buzz-Saw vinyl 2LP) (2026)

Of course there's a huge ever-growing catalogue of official Gizzard live bootlegs that surely offer more interesting content than just the live version of one studio album, but come on:  "PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation" is still cool as fuck and - to be completely honest - I was just spontanoulsy compelled to order this from Fuzz Club Records, simply because I didn't have a buzz-saw cut record in my collection yet. This shit just looks awesome.

The recording itself isn't from one single show, but a compilation of the seven album tracks from various stops of the Australians' 2024 North America tour.
The Thrash / Progressive / Psychedelic Metal epic sounds fuzzier and feels a bit looser and more Garage than the brutal precision of the studio recording, but ultimately it's of course the same material and the same fantastic energy and musicianship bringing it to life.

Again: This is not a record anyone desperately needs - and the ending with drums fading into the next track instead of the Electronic ending of "Flamethrower" is even a bit of a let-down. On the other hand however it's not a five-hundred-bucks twenty kilogram box you'll hardly listen to completely more than once in your life, it's fun and definitely nice to have.

So yeah: King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard in full metal mode, fuck yeah!

LA HERIDA - Dead in Devil's Paradise / WITNESS WOUNDS - Witness Wounds

Welcome to the first of a couple of upcoming posts from too late to even be considered for my TOP 25 territory with releases that either took their sweet time to be produced or which (like it's the case here) I just didn't order early enough to receive in 2025. This stuff of course still deserves its review treatment, so here are two lovingly packaged albums from the French DIY label Arsenic Solaris!

LA HERIDA - Dead in Devil's Paradise (CD) (2025)

The compact disc is such an underappreciated and often too carelesslesly presented medium. But especially for smaller artists and labels there are few safer ways to win my heart than with a hand-made, beautifully crafted CD edition. If I would be among the community of active musicians putting out physical releases on my own, this would definitely be my way to go! (So yeah, wish me luck that some far day I will find the time and like-minded partners to prove it. It's a shame that probably won't happen for a while, since I really feel that I have some of my best ideas in me right now...)

Well, in case of this album by the Experimental duo La Herida and their guest contributors, the cover photograph and its simple but loving presentation immediately made the artwork one of my favorites of the year. And then of course I hoped that the music would match it enough to purchase it. Luckily it did.

On "Dead in Devil's Paradise" atmosphere goes above everything else. But that doesn't mean Lorenzo Setti and Eugene Petrarca just half-ass some "moody" sounds into a big room. No, they are actually building very intricate and deep installations of modular synths, programming, percussive elements, occasional vocals and field recordings, which channel sensations of antiquity and modern age, of worldy and spiritual travel and ritualistic trance.

An immersive journey in electro-acoustic Ambient, Drone and (also a bit) Noise. Wonderful!

WITNESS WOUNDS - Witness Wounds (white vinyl LP + CD) (2025)

While once again this review will be unlikely to make anyone who just doesn't get the whole concept of the music genre Noise to finally understand it, I will nonetheless recommend the self-titled debut of Witness Wounds to anyone who's at least trying to explore the idea. Since there are enough quieter passages and obvious musicality at play on this double album, it might help to also digest the harsher parts.

The band is a collaborative project of Anton Ponomarev and Anton Obrazeena aka  P/O Massacre, whose storytelling and range of sounds always makes their Noise epics stand out, and Tomorrow I Feel Wrong, the experimental duo of Sara Trawöger and Kristin Gerwien, which is almost the complete extend of information I can extract about them from the internet.

Together they melt electronics, effects, guitars, drums, percussion, flutes, saxophone, trumpet and voices to an immersive improvisational tapestry, which rises up and recedes in three longtracks on the vinyl record and the final half-hour long "Music for Mouse" on the additional CD, which adds up to a total playing time of almost eighty minutes.

Every movement would be worthy of its own dissection, but instead I just want to point out the special ingredients which run through the whole work as a golden thread, no matter if the surroundings are glitchy Ambient noises in the silence or an attack of brutally grinding chaos; It's the interplay between the squeaking and screeching voices of Gerwien / Trawöger and the trumpet and saxophone of Ponomarev. Especially their interplay is responsible for a lot of both beautiful and shrill moments on "Witness Wounds".

All tracks are great in their own right, but obviously "Music for Mouse" could easily stand alone as its own release, an atmospherically brooding Ambient masterpiece that injects patient Swans monumentalism with flavours of Avantgarde and Free Jazz.

A paramount statement of sonic art!

ANNA VON HAUSSWOLFF und HINAKO OMORI live im Knust, Hamburg (21. Januar 2026)

Am Mittwoch begann Anna von Hausswolff in Hamburg, wo man sie zuletzt vor knapp acht Jahren erleben konnte. den zweiten Teil ihrer "Iconoclasts"-Tour und ließ keinen Zweifel daran aufkommen, dass es sich dabei aus gutem Grund um einen Triumphzug voller prall gefüllter bis ausverkaufter Shows handelt.

Dafür friert man sich als trotz Lahmacun-Stopp frühzeitiger Ankömmling am Knust auch gerne vor dem Einlass um acht die Fingerkuppen ab. Zumindest gab's ja keinen Niederschlag. Und die Belohnung hatte es natürlich in sich...

HINAKO OMORI

Zunächst einmal begab sich aber als Support eine Solokünstlerin hinters Keyboard am vorderen Bühnenrand. Die in London lebende Japanerin Hinako Omori sang zauberhaft ätherisch entrückt zu experimentellen elektronischen Ambient-Kompositionen, die mir - egal ob im kristallisch funkelnden Sonnenlicht nahe der Oberfläche oder aus diffus unheimlicher Tiefe dröhnend - immer irgendwie das Gefühl gaben, durch einen Unterwassertraum zu gleiten. Sehr schön!

ANNA VON HAUSSWOLFF

Nach dieser Geburt unter den Wellen folgte dann gefühlt ein ganzes Leben mit allen Empfindungen von existenziellem Schrecken bis zu ekstatischer Verzückung.

Mich hat ja ohnehin seit langer Zeit kein Album mehr so hartnäckig permanent im Kopf begleitet wie "Iconoclasts", das ich folglich ohne auch nur einen Moment nachdenken zu müssen zu meinem Album des Jahres 2025 gekürt habe. Das mag dazu beigetragen haben, dass die lange, beinahe das komplette Werk beinhaltende Show auch zwei Tage danach immer noch zum Greifen nah durch meine Sinne geistert.

Die Setlist war aus guter Erfahrung tatsächlich eins zu eins von den vorigen Konzerten im Dezember übernommen worden. Die einzigen der insgesamt zwölf "Iconoclasts"-Stücke, die hier fehlten waren das Album-Intro "The Beast", an dessen Position live eine Kurzform des späteren Instrumentals "Consensual Neglect" zu "Facing Atlas" einleitete, das Duett mit ihrer Schwester Maria "Unconditional Love", welches sich Anna von Hausswolff vielleicht für besondere Gelgenheiten aufspart und schließlich "Rising Legends", das als Epilog aber immerhin nach Ende der Show vom Band kam.

Es blieben also noch neun fantastische Stücke übrig, welche Anna - unterstützt durch eine fantastische Band aus Bass, Gitarre, Drums, ihrem langjährigen Kompositionspartner Filip Leyman an Synthesizer, Perkussion und Gedöns und dem absoluten Zugewinn zum ohnehin schon mächtigen Klangspektrum, Otis Sandsjö am Saxophon - zum Besten gab. Sie selbst begleitete ihre überweltlich emotionale Gesangspräsenz dazu noch wahlweise auf Keyboard, Gitarre oder dem speziellen Blickfang des Bühnen-Setups, einem Cantiga Organetto. Dabei handelt es sich um eine aus dem Mittelalter stammende, portable Miniaturform einer Pfeifenorgel, die wie ein Hybrid aus Orgel und Harmonium rechts auf der Klaviatur bespielt und links von einem Blasebalg mit Luft versorgt wird.

Erwartungsgemäß waren die epischen Longtracks wie der Titelsong, "The Mouth", das tanzbare "Stardust" oder das selbstbewusst an den Schluss der Zugabe gesetzte "Struggle With The Beast" auch live tiefgehende seelische Großereignisse, während die beiden kürzeren Balladen "The Whole Woman" und "Aging Young Women" auch ohne die Gesangspartner Iggy Pop und Ethel Cain hervorragend funktionierten und einen zwischendurch ein klein wenig durchatmen ließen.

Doch all die von Orgel, einem unglaublich geschmackvoll knarzendem Bass und endlos verwobenen Texturen aus Gitarre und atemlos zirkulierendem Saxophon getragene Herrlichkeit strahlte nicht nur im Material von "Iconoclasts". Mit eingestreut waren immerhin noch zwei gigantische Songs von "Dead Magic", ohne die man sich eine Anna von Hausswolff-Show wohl kaum noch vorstellen kann:
Sowohl der swansige Hit "The Mysterious Vanishing of Electra" als auch das von düsterem Drone zu transzendenter Anrufung und befreienden Ritual übergehende "Ugly and Vengeful" wurden in großartigen, das Saxophon exzellent integrierenden Versionen dargebracht.

Klein aber fein begann vor dem großen Finale außerdem noch die Zugabe mit dem "Ceremony"-Track "Funeral For My Future Children". Was will man mehr?

Technisch habe ich nun einen großen Teil des Konzerts beschrieben, aber welche dauerhaft wirkende Kraft tatsächlich in einer Anna von Hausswolff-Show steckt, das kann ich auch nach mehrfachem Versuch nach wie vor nicht adequat beschreiben.
Die Chance, dass dieser Auftritt in den kommenden elf Monaten nicht mehr von Platz eins meiner frisch begonnenen Liste liebster Clubshows 2026 verdrängt werden könnte, ist auf jeden Fall groß. Höher lässt sich die Messlatte kaum legen.

Das einzige, was mich an diesem Abend etwas enttäuscht hat, war dass meine leise Hoffnung, auf dem Merchtisch vielleicht Filip Leymans letztes Jahr veröffentlichtes Ambient-Soloalbum zu finden, nicht erfüllt wurde. Das Porto zu sparen, wäre schön gewesen. Also doch nur digital besorgen oder auf eine Luxuslaune warten? Ich überlege noch...

PHOTOGRAPHY 2024 / 2025 : 35 mm

Last post looking back on my photography of the previous two years! I didn't shoot more 35mm than medium format films, but because there are three times as many frames in the smaller format, this selection is still a bit larger than the previous one.

It features pictures taken with Cypréa 2-way Cam (recognizable by the cropped "pseudorama" format), Holga 135BC, La Sardina (Belle Starr, Sapphire Serpent and Sea Pride) on old and new Kodak Ektachrome P1600x, Lomography Earl Grey Black & White 100, Lomochrome Color '92, Purple XR 100-400 and Turquoise XR 100-400 and Svema Foto 65 films.

There's actually one more film, which is in the laboratory right now, which might feature a couple of double exposures partly made last year (I had to remove the film from a broken camera and used it again in another one), but I'm not going to wait for that one, since it probaly rather counts for January 2026 anyway.

PHOTOGRAPHY 2024 / 2025:

medium format   |   35 mm   |   harinezumi

b&w squarephone   |   harinemuzik