WV Sorcerer spells with JAYDAWN & WUKIR SURYADI, LI DAIGUO, SUM OF R, SUNDIALLL, WUKIR SURYADI and ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI / LI JIANHONG / TORTURING NURSE

Ok, this is it! The last bunch of reviews of albums released in 2025! Or at least of albums released in 2025, of which I own a physical copy. And this copy has already arrived! Because there are still a couple of late ones, overdue to the usual pressing plant problems... Well, but you get the idea!

And hey! Finally it's a WV Sorcerer Productions special again! 

JAYDAWN & WUKIR SURYADI - Pucung, Pangkur Jeung Hujan Bedog (Sanguine vinyl LP) (2025)

"This album is not a soundtrack. It is a piece borrowed from the city wounds. Each track an echo of a shattered home. Each sound a ghost of a market razed."

Undoubtly "Songs of Death, Retreat, and Rain of Machetes" is an album dedicated to the great global war of our times - the perversly rich against the 99+ percent of the rest of the world's population, focussing on one battleground, the radical gentrification of the megapolis of Badung in Java, Indonesia.

Local producer Jaydawn teamed up with Wukir Suryadi, the instrumental half of the Experimental duo Senyawa to create an intensly pulsating clash of hard-hitting beats, samples, field recordings, Ambient and Industrial sounds. Weaponizing old and new culture and subculture against the crushing capitalist powers that be, the duo unleashes a flaming firestorm of explosive Trip Hop that flies by much faster than the forty minutes it appearantly actually lasts.

Few albums of 2025 feel more energetic and boldly in your face than this urgent and passionate collaboration. The artwork and presentation couldn't be better - a close to perfect record.

WUKIR SURYADI - Nginguk & Sopo Ingsun (CD) (2019/2025)

Very different to the urban sound of his work with Jaydawn, here's also a new solo release by Wukir Suryadi, which feels much more spiritual and elemental.

Presented as a CD in a seven inch sleeve "Nginguk & Ingsun" combines a 2018 live performance previously released on cassette with several new recordings from 2023.

Once again it's fascinating how many variations of droning and dripping, textural and percussive sounds between wind and water, aerial flute and metallic clank, synth and guitar Suryadi extracts from his self-built instruments, and what an equally wide range of gripping atmospheric arrangements he puts together with them. This is highly immerse Experimental music mastery!

SUNDIALLL - HUB (CD) (2025)

Sundialll is the Taiwanese-Javanese duo of singer / experimental sound artist Alica Han and producer / electronic artist Rama Saputra, extended to a live quartet with drummer / percussionist Dutch E Germ and guitar player / wind instrumentalist Hong-Yu Chen.

In January 2024, together with several dancers, they performed a fictional ritual of guidance through urban life in eight improvised movements, recorded on this album. It's a fascinating clash of past, present and future, in which sophisticated traditional rhythms collide with droning electronic sounds, where mystical Avantgarde vocalizations fly over Ambient glitches, while clarinets and Chinese flutes rise from a background of Noise and snarling synth basslines.

All in all this a well-produced exciting live album with a fascinating richness of sonic textures, defying categorization somewhere between the musical equivalents of man and machine, human nature and civilization.

ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI / LI JIANHONG 李劍鴻 / TORTURING NURSE - Noise In Shadow City (CD) (2025)

The third and final of the CDs in 7" packaging here is without a doubt the most extreme one. It's a 2009 live performance of Polish composer and experimental musician Zbigniew Karkowski, who was specialized in computer-based radical sounds, with Chinese guitarist Li Jianhong and Harsh Noise project Torturing Nurse.

The result is three-quarters of an hour of unbroken - who would have thought? - Harsh Noise. Even though constantly shifting layers of sound provide the listener some room for exploration, this room is still a claustrophobic chamber filled with dystopian Industrial nightmares. Absolute cryptonite for the this is not music anymore crowd. Demanding, exhausting, yes. But somehow... you know. How to explain horse racing to a shellfish? When you know you know.

This "Noise In Shadow City" is not for every day, not for every mood, but if you expose yourself to it at the right time it's some pretty awesome sick shit. 

李帶菓 LI DAIGUO - 笑功 Xiao Gong (CD) (2021)

For the sake of completeness here's also one release, which is already a couple of years older. On this golden CD (packed very similar to the CD edition of Otay:onii's "Ming Ming" WV Sorcerer Productions introduces us to the American-Chinese/Taiwanese Experimental musician Li Daiguo.

In ten tracks adding up to one hour total playing time he's using various obscure analogue synths and noise boxes with names likes Cacophonous II, Double Knot or Mengqi's Eggsmash, percussions, a variety of European and Chinese classical instruments from strings and clarinet to Eastern lutes, flutes and zithers, but also the African mbira. And not to forget: just random things.

The result is an interesting kaleidoscope of also seemingly random things. "Xiao Gong" feels like moving through landscapes and cities, and just taking in the varying environments, mentally translating them into music. And while the totality of impressions we're taking in is staggering, it all happens at a mostly rather slow pace, which allows every element to breathe. You won't necessarily understand every single thing happening here, but it's actually still pretty easy to follow the overall flow on this journey through worlds and times.

SUM OF R - Spectral (Ghost Amber vinyl LP) (2025)

I've already talked about five albums far from mainstream appeal, so one could think I'd be sufficently warmed up to write about any kind of experimental stuff. But now this. After the last time I saw Sum Of R live at A Colossal Weekend 2023 I said that "I still don't exactly understand what this special brand of Doom is and what it wants, but for sure it was something and I would watch it again."

My confusion is still strong, but at least I'm not solely depending on my memory of a live show of the Swiss-Finnish trio now, but can listen to "Spectral" while I'm writing this. It doesn't help to answer even fragments of the question Why? - but at least I can confidently say that this music is horrifying and heavy, sick and twisted, dreamy and traumatic, hypnotizing and disturbing, Kraut und Rüben, Black Death and foul rebirth.

Sum Of R 's combination of Avantgarde, Doom and Drone Metal, electronics, effects, samples and Psychedelic Rock with vocal performances from ethereal to excessively extreme draws parallels to Oranssi Pazuzu and the intentional blatancy of Igorrr - and especially when it dips into Oriental sounds it feels like a hellish mirror of the works of Wyatt E.. "Spectral" however finds its very own, perfectly executed yet deeply disturbing flavour of uncategorizable madness.

Whatever that nightmarish hellspawn on the great cover artwork is - it matches the brilliant content.

a digital quad feat. BORIS, BRUTUS, CHURCHLICKERS and EMMA RUTH RUNDLE

Yeah. Fittingly on the day after Bandcamp Friday here's a quartet of my recent digital purchases.




CHURCHLICKERS - Live at MS Stubnitz - 2025/07/17 (2025)

At this point the MS Stubnitz, an event ship moored close to bridges over the Elbe, is hands down my favorite live music location in Hamburg. The only thing which sucks about it is that the booking is so good, that there are just too many worthwhile shows to visit.

One night I missed was the latest performance of Hamburg's own Churchlickers there back in July. Thankfully the trio is giving us this live EP from that show now. Two tracks of great instrumental Post Rock with some Punk vibes and Metal intensity, played without bass on guitar, drums and keys, which gives their sound a distinct note.

Great stuff for paywhatyouwant bucks - so what are you even waiting for?

BRUTUS - 2015 Collected (2015/2025)

The Belgian Post Hardcore Punk Metal and whatnot trio Brutus takes us back to the beginning of their discography with a compilation of their first four 7" singles, which were originally released in 2015 - plus one short new bonus track - with new mix and mastering.

And what do you think? Yes, of course it's unmistakably Brutus - and it's great. Stijn's creative guitar, Peter's rumbling bass and as always front and center Stefanie's wild and emotional performance on drums and vocals already come together in their very regognizable unique way, which they have only perfected further in the following decade.

These seven tracks however already kick ass as if there's no tomorrow.

BORIS - Japanese Heavy Rock Hits (Re-Master) (2021/2025)

An actually very similar kind of reissue is this remastered compilation of Boris's four 2021 singles, also extended with bonus tracks. I already own three of those singles - each of them in Kiss fashion presenting one band member on the cover - while the fourth one just was too expensive on the second-hand market.

Stylistically these nine tracks, which add up to fifty minutes playing time, are all over the place in the best way, from pure Noise celebrations and Drone Metal crunch to silly party bangers and what's probably the band's own twisted version of Glam Rock to a stunningly beautiful piece with Wata on vocals.

A great, positively weird collection of Japanese Rock hit heaviness.

EMMA RUTH RUNDLE - Music From The Bella Vista (2025)

Finally it's time for something more mellow. This has been out there over half a year and even been released on vinyl. Yet that pressing was quite limited and is recently offered for 425 Euro on Discogs. No thanks, I'm content with the download then.

"Music From The Bella Vista" is a companion piece to interdisciplinary artist Emma Ruth Rundle's first poetry collection. Its two each twenty minutes long tracks are calm collages of improvised piano music, ambient field recordings and spoken poems.

Dipping her toes into Contemporary Classical music Rundle has created an in comparison to "EG2: Dowsing Voice" completely different and for many listeners probably far more accessible full-on Experimental album here, which radiates peacefulness and quiet contemplation. Subtle and beautiful!

WV Sorcery with DOPE PURPLE, KAWAGUCHI MASAMI / MIKE VEST / DAVE SNEDDON and SENYAWA

Is it time to praise one of my favorite underground labels (and one of only two with their own section in my record collection) again?

Duh, It's always time for that!

SENYAWA - Membaladakan Keselamatan (Ballads for the Survivors) (Rainforest Ether vinyl LP) (2021/2025)

2021, the same year in which the Javanese Experimental Folk/Drone duo released their masterpiece "Alkisah" (still one of my very favorite albums of that year), also saw a seemingly smaller work from Senyawa. Only released digitally "Membaladakan Keselamatan (Ballads for the Survivors)" featured unplugged live session versions, showcasing that even performed on acoustic guitar instead of Wukir Suryadi's usual self-built electric noise devices their songs are just incredibly strong.
In this context Rully Shabara probably only shines even more as one of the most unique, versatile, expressing, just outstanding vocalists imaginable.

Now WV Sorcerer Productions has finally not only made this gem available in a physical format, but also added four previously unreleased tracks. So now we get a total of sixteen amazing tracks presented with all the love you'd expect from the label with great atmospheric photographs, OBI strip, a lyrics sheet and - if you're lucky enough to get one - in a beautiful blue-greenish vinyl colour.

No, this work really doesn't miss anything. Perfectly wholesome magic from another world.
    

KAWAGUCHI MASAMI / MIKE VEST / DAVE SNEDDON - To Be True, Then The Loop Will Run Forever (Phantom Flame vinyl LP) (2025)

But now let's turn on the amps - for some loud crunchy Noise Rock!

Beyond that there's not really much to say about "To Be True, Then The Loop Will Run Forever", which features three figures from the British and Japanese underground scene just spontanously rocking it out - dirty, distorted, trippy and ecstatic.

The name which pulled me in was Doom/Drone/Heavy Psych master Mike Vest, who plays a lively pumping and always very song-serving bass here.
Drummer Dave Sneddon has cooperated with him on multiple occasions before, so even though they are improvising the rhythm section is sticking together very safely.
Judging from the long and winding album title one could expect Keiji Haino to be a part of this trio, but front and center of the group Kawaguchi Masami has at least worked with the Experimental Noise legend in the past - and it shows that there are some similarities.

So there you have it: Raw Psychedelic Garage Rock with Japanese (I guess) vocals that not only pushes forward, but at times also shows some remarkable depth. Yeah, this half of an hour passes very quickly.

The LP is a joint release by WV Sorcerer and Echodelick Records.

DOPE PURPLE - Children In The Darkness (Purple Galaxy vinyl LP) (2025)

Last but not least, presented by WV Sorcerer and Riot Season Records, we have a new album by the Taiwanese band that's so much better than their cheekily derivated name might suggest. Recorded during a midnight live session the five Psych freaks of Dope Purple, including Mong Tong member Hung Jiun Chi teamed up with two guest musicians (Darren Moore on percussions and voice, Yong Yandsen on tenor sax) to create three splendid epic, loud and trippy Psych excesses.

"New Psyche & Beyond The Body" really milks its steadily growing crescendo, building a wall of crunching bass, noisy shredding and screeching saxophone on a repetitive guitar idea that gets wilder and wilder, always adding yet another level of escalation every time you think they've reached the maximum of batshit crazy. Beware: These guys want to burst your speakers!

The B side of this purple-coloured record begins comparatively laid back with "Night Flying 夜間飛行". Clean guitar and cosmic synths set the mood before the saxophone passionately screams into the relaxed mood, signaling that once again Dope Purple will masterfully build this up to a delicious full Acid Mothers Temple Kraut inferno.

The album ends with the title track. "Children in the Darkness 被遺忘的孩子" is hands down one of my favorite tunes of the year so far - and the main reason I featured this record among my Midyear TOP 15. That beautifully yearning guitar chord progression just goes to all the right heartfelt places, while the other sounds swirl around it so gently like magical winds and butterflies.

Of course Dope Purple cannot help themselves and ultimately shovel a good amount of noisy guitar over this dream. However its aching beauty persists until the end.

And just to end this review by throwing in the odd unexpected reference, the vibe actually reminds me of both "Pleasuredome" and "Sunday Mood" from Austrian Death Metal innovators Disharmonic Orchestra. Yeah seriously, look those up, if you doubt me!

new sonic spells from the WV Sorcerer feat. DOLPO, FEN, HYPNODRONE ENSEMBLE, IFFERNET, OTAY:ONII and P/O MASSACRE

No, I don't see these particular label specials disappearing as a returning segment on this blog anytime soon! Over the last months I've gathered three pre-orders from WV Sorcerer Productions again and now received a package containing five out of the total of six items. And when the last one is due in several weeks I might have already added something else... Who knows? But for now let's take a listen to what was in the current magick box:

P/O MASSACRE - Sonic Oblivion (2CD) (2024)

There cannot be enough Russian anti-war music right now!

The expatriates Anton Ponomarev and Anton Obrazena thought so too and destilled even more material from the sessions which formed their massive 2023 statement "Aural Corrosion" into another release. And this is not just an EP of leftovers as one might expect, but a double album too inconveniently ginormous to be released on vinyl, as the first of the four tracks alone already endures for forty minutes and the whole thing has a total playing time of two hours. Two hours mostly filled with pure apocalypse created by Obrazeena's scratching, screeching, serrating guitar, by crumbling walls of electronic noises, found sounds, synths and Ponomarev's doomsday saxophone on top.

It's always hard to determine what makes Harsh Noise like this listenable, what makes it good, especially when there are no completely outlandish ingredients like on the aforementioned opener "Progressive Collapse", which is just an endless havoc of pure destruction. The key may be that there's actually always something interesting and headphone-worthy bulding up and going on throughout this whole relentless assault. It's not just an alienating hostile statement you somehow have to live or die with, but it allows you to immerse into it.

"Love Waves", which is not a schmaltzy or sexual, but a scientific term in seismology, takes a similarly patient approach of slowly evolving its soundscape without straying from its main idea, as a minimalist Earth-like guitar lick gets more and more cornered by swarm of sharp Noise glitches, until after twenty minutes (which is two two thirds of the track) in my favorite dramatic moment of the album a very bold brötzmannish Jazz sax enters the crumbling building. In the end, just like finishing one round of a natural cycle, the debris settles close to where the track began.

"Nonslaught" certainly is less noisy than the rest, since it is mainly made by clean guitar and modified pocket trumpet. This is very frantic and unsettling though. The guitar plays in a completely chaotic Free Jazz fashion which I have come to expect in contexts like Jörg Schneider collaborations or the more aggressive side of Dirk Serries' body of work. The trumpet on the other hand seems to emulate a small warplane. And that is only before the atmospherically thick second half of the track...

But speaking of planes: The final track "Kirkenes-Tromsø" is actually based on one continuous sample of a propeller aircraft - while Obrazeena himself was flying it over Northern Norway, fleeing from Russia to escape being drafted for Putin's war in Ukraine.
No, nothing on "Sonic Oblivion" is just noise. This is art - evocative and powerful!

The double CD is a collaborative release of WV Sorcerer with Utech Records.

HYPNODRONE ENSEMBLE - The Problem Is In The Sender — Do Not Tamper With The Receiver (CD) (2024)

Still a long album with over seventy minutes playing time, but surely easier to access and digest than the P/O Massacre we just barely survived is this new recording by Hypnodrone Ensemble.

As you would expect from a band centered around the two prolific Canadian guitarists Aidan Baker and Eric Quach the group stays true to the premise of its name with a wall of Shoegaze, Ambient, Drone and Doom packed in indeed hypnotic, psychedelic, slowly developing long tracks.

In striking contrast to most releases of their respective main projects Nadja and thisquietarmy however this ensemble features real organic drums - and a lot of those. One, two, three drummers are working here in unison, there in polyrhythmic chaos under the long guitar notes and noises and the steadily pumping bass lines. As a whole you could file this slighty tribalistic, transcendent sound either in the Kraut or in the Post Rock folder. Is Space Gaze a genre? Wonderfully trippy escapist stuff.

But wait, that is not all! This session was recorded without an audience, but while Hypodrone Ensemble was on a European tour with special guest Chinese-American singer Otay:onii, who lends her special voice to all five tracks, adding an enigmatic mystical vibe and emotional resonance to the music, which makes it even (significantly) more special.

Besides classic digipaks it seems WV Sorcerer has found a new favourite packaging for CDs, as just like the last Zaäar live album "The Problem Is The Sender - Do Not Temper With The Receiver" comes in 7" vinyl single format with an Obi strip. (You choose if you prefer the black or white side of it.)

The multi-label release is also - more or less - available on vinyl and cassette, offered by Wolves and Vibrancy and Cruel Nature Records.

OTAY:ONII - 冥冥 Míng Míng (Sanguine vinyl LP) (2021/2024)

Speaking of Otay:onii: Here's a vinyl reissue of her amazing album "Ming Ming"! Yes, this is undoubtly the most unnecessary purchase of this bunch for me, because I already own it on CD.

But sorry, I just couldn't help it. After all this emotionally gripping Experimental Electro Folk Artpop Noise masterpiece is one of the most essential works on the label so far. Having seen the Elizabeth Colour Wheel singer dedicate the most breathtaking performance of Roadburn Festival 2023 to it elevated the deeply personal concept album about her two-world identity even further for me. Music seldom gets more powerful than here.

The transparent red vinyl comes in a completely new alternative artwork. And with "Enter The Wound" it also features an excellent six-minute bonus track.

FEN - 結構 Structure 1603 (CD) (2022)

And here's the long overdue purchase. I had saved this CD to get alongside with something else for a while and now finally the time had come. It's a thirty-five minute live performance of experimental improvisation inside a historical castle in Kyoto by a collective of four musicians from Japan, South Korea, China and Singapure, with the biggest name probably being Otomo Yoshihide.

Even though the performance of guitars and electronics starts and ends with a mean feedback which made even my half-deaf cat look up a little annoyed for a moment, the core of it actually is a very introspective and meditative experience.

Fuzzy warm, bubbling and buzzing frequencies and neuron-stimulating impulses in Ambient equilibrium. Entering Zen through Fen.

IFFERNET / DOLPO - Split (Dark Red vinyl LP) (2024)

And now some nasty dirty rancid low-fi, but somehow still pretty epic Black Metal! There's not really much I can say about the French Black Metal duo Iffernet, except that they are reminding me of a raw caveman version of Misþyrming - and fuck yeah I dig it. But their two tracks are only the first half of this split release.

The B side belongs to the Italian Drone Doom group Dolpo, whose previous album "Inner Himalayas" still has a special place in my heart and on my cassette shelf. Their new longtrack "The Gonzo Anthropologist: Advanced Techniques" takes a long while to fully embrace Metal territory. Most of the time the closest element to that is the Stoner Doom bass line, which could just as well be labelled as Psychedelic Rock. The rest is an interesting mix of traditional Tibetian wind and percussion instruments, a rather tribal, shamanic rhythm approach and a dynamic tapestry of layered guitar and Ambient sounds culminating in a beautiful Post Rock fashion. Great stuff!

The transparent red vinyl looks good, actually very similar to the Otay:onii record, and the packaging... is something. Nice cover artwork, obi strip, lyric sheet and postcard for Iffernet, so far so good. But then there's that booklet for Dolpo. WTF? Do you know that Erich von Däniken Space Jesus  conspiracy VHS tape weirdness item from the vinyl version of Blood Incantation's "Hidden History Of The Human Race"?

This thing, which absolutely cannot even be meant to be in any way conclusive or even readable (I'm not even showing the worst pages below), plays in the same ballpark. Absolutely bonkers, all over the places insanity? Enlightment? Whatever? Not exactly what I would have connected with the music, which just doesn't sound like Skeletor speaking in emojis at all, but it's a fun extra anyway.

And definitely a thing where some other underground labels would probably have stopped the artist to save money. But WV Sorcerer Productions is of course all about special stuff slightly outside of the norm.

Great split LP. And what a great haul as a whole!