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!
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!
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!
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