wrapping up 2021... with DEAD NEANDERTHALS & AARON TURNER and SENYAWA

Ok, so here's the last post of the year for you.

Just like last year I don't have any look back on my photographic activities to offer. I did some fine stuff though, but I'm just way behind with the scanning and cleaning of my negatives again. So basically I'm continuing collecting pictures yet to be presented, while I just don't have the drive to determine what are my favorites now. And like every year a part of me hopes that at some point I will shift the focus of this blog a little bit back towards the photographic topics at some point. Probably still not too realistic, since I'm also writing reviews for / sharing reviews with a new webzine now...

Right here and now I'll just cover one little musical "leftover" and a new release. There are of course still more than a handful of 2021 releases, which I will probably cover in 2022, once I receive their physical copies.

But before that let me not answer the question whatever was up with my own band DruturuM this year:

After we started the year with "Druturum VII: enigmAoFrelativitY", we where pretty sure to finish "Druturum VIII" in April or May. But then we just didn't rehearse anymore for some reason. Yeah, I don't know. Just like I said: I can't really answer the question.

But now let's see what less lazy musicians have done for us:

Already mentioned as supplement in my albums of the year post, the Indonesian experimental duo Senyawa has not ony released the phenomenal "Alkisah" in 2021, but also a digital album called "Membaladakan Keselamatan (Ballads for the Survivors)", which features acoustic renditions of twelve songs from "Alkisah" and previous releases, performed only with guitar and voice - yet still astonishingly full and heavy. There is just a primal beauty and energy about this mystically anachronistic music. Together with the insane vocal skills of Rully Shabara it's a completely unique experience like nothing else.  And even without self-build electronic instruments this collection of ballads is a powerful masterpiece.
 

And of course today is the day to feature my deranged Dutch darlings Dead Neanderthals, who once again released a monstrous one-track EP for New Year's Eve. The twenty-five-minute mammoth "Corporeal Flux" sees Otto Kokke and René Aquarius teaming up with none other than Sumac/Old Man Gloom throat and guitar punisher Aaron B. Turner. And it's fucking mean, sick and glorious!
However I'll leave it at this here, because I've already promised to deliver a fresh review about it to Veil Of Sound tomorrow and don't want to write shit twice.

[EDIT: Here it is!]



Fuck yeah.


See you on the other side.