Veil of Stuff feat. EDENA GARDENS, EFFLUENCE, E.U.E.R.P.I. and SLEEPBOMB

Wow, that took some time again! But at last here are the latest four releases I've reviewed over at Veil of Sound:

EFFLUENCE - Anticholinergic Derangement (2026)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

Let's start with what will easily be one of the most batshit crazy Extreme Metal albums of the year - the over seventy minutes long magnum opus of Matt Stevens' "Free Death" project Effluence.

Prepare yourself for a gloriously annoying snare drum sound being hammered into your brain forever - alongside an incomprenhesible overflow of completely over the top, but also just downright fantastically creative Dissonant and Technical Death Metal with ultra guttural growls!

At least on par with the brilliant chaos of bands like Qrixkuor or Esoctrilihum "Anticholigergenic Derangements" pairs its relentless highspeed Brutal Death assault with Free Jazz attitude, swirling pianos, shredding lead guitars, flutes, Folk choir chants and more in an outright unhinged attack on the listener's sanity.

[Don't remind me of the costs - I'd like to forget that part with US imports like this -, but I couldn't be content with only owning this ground- and mindbreaking release in digital form. I don't know if the CD has been shipped yet or whenever it will arrive, but when it does, I'll update this post with one or two pictures.]

SLEEPBOMB - Songs In The Key Of Conan (2026)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

An American band with a comparably ambitious attitude, yet in a significantly less sick in the head - and musically completely different - way are Sleepbomb, who have specialized in creating alternative soundtracks to movie classics - in this case John Milius' famous fantasy flick "Conan The Barbarian" featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger in his legendary minimal-acting breakthrough role.

As bold as even the suggestion that you might need a replacement for Basil Poledouris' bombastic original score feels: Sleepbomb deliver an epic, totally independent take on the subject in the language of sludgy (Tulsa) Doom Metal and Post Rock with Classical and Arabic influences, seasoned with ethereal female vocalizations, atmospheric Ambient keyboards, Tribal percussions and jazzy parts featuring clarinet and saxophone.

It's an almost seventy-seven minutes long album, but its sixteen chapters don't even offer a single weak moment. Crom!  

EDENA GARDENS - Quintessence (2LP) (2026)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

After delivering four studio recordings and one live album since 2022 the Danish Stoner Psych Fusion Jam super group of Nicklas Sørensen, Martin Rude and Jakob Skøtt strikes again with their first double album and probably most ambituous work to date.

In six masterfully morphing longtracks the trio once again demonstrates musicianship, taste and the common cosmic wavelength of its members coming together in perfect alchemy. Edena Gardens' improvisations are captured so intimately that it feels as if you were right there in a room with the band.

It's an amazing album presented accordingly. The gatefold cover with Rude's drawings colourized by Skøtt is an eyecatcher even by the high standards of El Paraiso Records. And if you order your copy directly from the label, you even get a couple of stickers of the figure on the front cover. Very nice!

E.U.E.R.P.I. - Microworlds (2026)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

The four albums in this bunch are all examples of very different concepts and their respective execution. This work of Bulgarian composer and Experimental musician Mirian Kolev might actually be the most unorthodox one, because it is based on contact microphone field recordings shrinking us down to the size of ants or (on the last of the three tracks) crickets, so we can experience their mystical world beyond our usual perception as a fascinating, strangely satisfying ASMR experience.

The combination with the sounds of obscure touch-based synthesizers ultimately turns these recordings into - still very minimal and Ambient - music. So don't expect catchy melodies and choruses, but enjoy this as the highly Experimental, but in its own special way very capticating project it is! Headphones strictly recommended.

EFFLUENCE - Destructive Transfixed Incorporeality

Here's my first review of a 2024 release. And I guess both sonically and visually the year couldn't have started with a bigger bang.

EFFLUENCE - Destructive Transfixed Incorporeality (2024)

One of the definitely most how does it get even more extreme? among recent Avantgarde Metal projects just dropped a digital EP consisting of recordings from 2021 and 2022.

Among the core concepts of Effluence is the logical  escalation of Death Metal to a point of hilarious exaggeration. And the first two rather short tracks "Projected Hostility" and "Frozen Boiler" are both complete embodiments of that premise. Constant high speed blasts with a nerve-racking metal bucket drum sound, layers and layers of chugging and riffing rhythm guitars and sick howling leads. Other indistinguishable noises between synth textures and skteches of Free Jazz are mixed into the hellish chaos, which is glued together by the slimy ooze of the gargling guttural Death Metal vocals. In an alternative mix you could probably have made twenty minutes worth of Extreme Metal with what was recorded, but Effluence appearantly just stapled everything on top of each other, so the combined running time is only five minutes.

But then we still have the eleven minutes of the title track "Destructive Transfixed Incorporeality" to come, which in the beginning promises to be the same unfathomable madness, only longer - until after only two minutes there's a breakdown introducing actually discernable Jazz and Dark Ambient horror soundtrack ideas, which quickly shift into Drone Metal and experimental Noise with (of course) chaotic vocal samples... It's a nightmare beyond something as insignificant as genre definitions or the question whether this is actually still music. Which isn't of any concern to Effluence anyway.
The main chunk of the track is just a pure stream of subconscious terror, with bombs of Free Death exploding here and there, but ultimately just leaving you in unresolved discomfort. Of the good kind. It's awesome.

Is this EP as great as the total embrace of Jazz Death on "Sarmat" or the genius take on the concept on concept records on "Liquified"? Nah, probably not. But it isn't terribly far away.

While I'll gladly allow you not to want a fine art print of the cover hanging above your kitchen table ("Liquified" would be more appropriate for that anyway.) there's still no reasonable argument why not all Earth's people should unconditionally love Effluence.  

cassette craze chronicles XXIX feat. ANTON RIPATTI & ASTERMIR MARSHENKULOV, EFFLUENCE, NICK HUDSON, REVEREND KRISTIN MICHAEL HAYTER and WHERE MERMAIDS DROWN

Omg, he's playing with that kaleidoscoping lense again! Sorry notsorry, can I have a little fun with my phone, now that my Digital Harinzemi toy camera is gone? And let's also focus on the actually important things = more tapes in my collection! And believe me, this edition of the cassette craze chronicles contains some really big, important (as in album of the year contender) and rare new treasures!

EFFLUENCE - Sarmat (2022/2023)

Déjà vu, Mesdames et Messieurs! I have been writing about this beautifully chaotically apocalyptic Deathjazz atrocity before. So if you're interested in my thoughts about this abhorrently lovely mammoth track, let me kindly reroute you to my digital Bandcamp Friday haul of last April!

The cassette edition, which has been released in the meantime is nothing spectacular, but it's what you'd except. And it's nice to have a real item with the great artwork now. To make purchase, shipping and taxes more worthwhile I bought "Sarmat" together with other stuff including one more tape. So we'll return to this amazing batshit crazy band later in this post!

REVEREND KRISTIN MICHAEL HAYTER - Saved! (2023)

Hallelujah! While the cancellation of her final continental European tour as Lingua Ignota still hurts a little, I'm glad that Kristin Hayter is at least back with a new album, now under her - extended - real name. [Yes, I wrote this paragraph before the surprise release of the final Lingua Ignota live album yesterday.]
And oh boy am I glad that I listened to the album online before I spun the tape, because otherwise I would have been furious about my player devouring it, as tempo and volume of the opening track "I'm Getting Out While I Can" are glitching horribly - and do so on purpose.

"Saved!" is a very minimal and low-fi album, almost exclusively performed with vocals and prepared piano (meaning chains and bells being placed inside) and recorded in high-fidelity actually, but then run through various degrees of copying on tape recorders of uneven functionality and further manipulation to emulate age and decay.

Contentwise the newly anointed Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter presents us with both a continuation of "Sinner Get Ready" and a radical change of perspectice at the same time. Interestingly she still maintains the moving, chilling, shocking effect of her music. It just doesn't come from the weight of her processing deeply traumatic personal experiences anymore, but from a more ambiguous place.
And while the concept is simple - performing traditional and original worship songs in a seemingly historical sonic setting as fervently and intensly as possible to find out if they will eventually work - it isn't that easy to pin down what it actually means. My personal view as an average Northern German atheist is already unable to cope with the creepy intensity of standard American religiousness. Which makes it hard to determine where realistic Appalachian practice ends and artistic exaltation begins - or the other way around.

"Saved!" is a play. If it was a completely earnest display of Kristin actually turning to Jesus, the dissasociation through the low-fi production wouldn't have been necessary. Or is this really her completly serious special way of trying? It is a weird experiment.
In any case the album is no mocking or critique of religion per se. Even though a lot of its content is heavily uncomfortable - especially her speaking in tongues is downright horrifying to behold -, all this still is just a presentation without judgement. There are even some passages which reflect a rather beautiful healing process - at least if you imagine them outside of the eery indoctrinated gospel of the whole and understand the album as an allegoric vehicle, as the translation of an actual experience into the language of hardcore Christianity.

Whatever the whole truth may be, one thing is for sure: This album is utterly intriguing. On paper I shouldn't even have much motivation to even listen to this. But in reality it's of course fueled by the magnetic mind, musicality and presencee of Kristin Hayter, thus transcending my capabilities of written explanation. And just being executed so goddamn good! There's no chance to resist.

You may have guessed from the way "Saved!" was produced that I'm very happy with choosing its tape version instead of vinyl or CD, because I think this is actually the most fitting and authentic media to represent this work of art. And for the Reverend's and the Perpetual Flame Ministries' benefit I want to assume that the writing on the back cover, which is too tiny even for ants, was never actually meant to be readable.

WHERE MERMAIDS DROWN - Live Reminisce Tour 2023 (2023)

This tape surely will be a lot easier to digest for most people - at least if you can live without sung vocals. It's also yet another déjà vu, since I've already seen the Post Rock band twice and reviewed two of their studio releases this year. So concerning this particular genre Where Mermaids Drown have really become the main actors of 2023 for me. And I'm not complaining about that. But of course there's really nothing new for me to add about their majestic instrumental music at this point.

So what about this release? The title of the tape, which is limited to twenty-five handnumbered copies, says it all: These are recordings from the first European tour of the French quartet. The sound quality is flawless and successfully captures the spirit of their live presentation.

One special thing the band did was that they involved the audience by holding short interviews with visitors before the show, which even the band members themselves would hear for the first time during the ambient fade-out of the final track "Statues Learn To Weep".

NICK HUDSON - That Falconetti Stare (2023) /
ANTON RIPATTI & ASTERMIR MARSHENKULOV - Son#11 (2023)

But now let's get to something rarer! Not only do even fewer copies of this cassette exist, but half of its content hasn't been released in any other form at all yet, so other than Nick Hudson himself only one or two handful of people have heard "The Falconetti Stare", a collection of thirteen songs recorded between 2014 and 2021. Piano, acoustic guitar and occasional strings are the favored instruments, the vibe could be called Baroque Poetic Sunglasses in the Night Singer/Songwriter Contemporary Timeless Gothic - unless that's a little bit too long for you. But then you cannot fact-check my review properly for the time being anyway.

This is very beautiful material however, with delicate instrumental performances and smooth vocals, probably my favorite quieter album with male lead vocals of the year. So I'm glad that the multidisciplinary English artist residing in Georgia (the European Georgia that is) now could send me one of those precious tapes - even though getting my personal digital copy means a little bit more work than usually in this case. I'll even have to redo it, because I fucked up the volume on the first try. Now look how I am so privileged and yet such a whining crybaby!

Those forty minutes of unreleased songs are also only the first half of this split tape. The B side contains seven more tracks of the Georgian collaboration of guitarist / singer Anton Ripatti and multi-instrumentalist Astermir Marshenkulov on keys, strings, winds, guitars... well everything except drums I guess. And the couple of instances where we get programmed drums indeed fall a bit flatter than the rest of this album. They are still listenable though.

Not the same, but in undeniable spiritual brotherhood to Nick Hudson, whose art also graces the tape's cover, the duo refuses easy categorization, but moves somewhere between almost-Folk ballads, Eighties Art Rock, Electronic Wave and Neoclassical influences. And in this case you can also check this out - and buy digitally - for yourself on Bandcamp.

Even though I don't fully understand what this album wants (the language barrier might be a part of that), it's a good listen. I especially recommend the last track, which mainly consists of eleven minutes of slowly growing, beautifully sad and hopeful piano and guitar meandering.

EFFLUENCE - Liquefied (2022/2023)

And now we're completing the circle! While being in the hot honeymoon phase with newly discovered music it's an almost impossible task to determine whether the current butterflies will last and if the work will actually proof to a classic on regular rotation. But even with the competition of Reverend Hayter - if there is one album among these cassettes which will undoubtly be as artistically valuable in decades as it is right now, it must be this latest release by Effluence.

"Liquified" is one of the best concept albums of all time. Yes, I said it and I'm not joking!

Of course I didn't say it is an exceptionally deep or complex concept. The cover artwork, song titles like "Mix", "Blend", "Chop", "Dice", "Mince" and pseudonyms like Ice Crush, Nikki Mix or Kitchenaid G are already explaining the whole thing completely: What happens when you put humans into a giant blender and use all programs of the kitchen machine to liquefy them?

That's really all it is. But boy, the execution is so incredible perfect! It's a quick twenty minute inferno of Free Jazz, Grindcore and Death Metal (the Bandcamp tags also read annoying and blendcore), which somehow has all the right bubbling, whisking, chopping, pulverizing sounds to graphically sell each and every step of the process.
"Liquified" may seem like a fun silly hyper-brutal short album. And yes, that's still the most fitting classification for what I would normally call an EP - just given the genre and how overwhelmingly much is happening here in the time. So it will surely be easy to underestimate it for many listeners. But come on, the skill and sonic imagination behind this is just incredible!

This is the kind of mind-bending yet still easily understandable Avant-Garde you can justify putting close to Naked City's "Torture Garden" in your collection. Über-delicious ultra-addictive whatthefuckery. One should film a cooking tutorial with this as the soundtrack.

Bandcamp Friday Haul April 2023 feat. EFFLUENCE, GHOSTMEAT, ТДК and TINCTURES

Ok, ok! One of these technically isn't a Bandcamp Friday purchase from yesterday, but a digital promo, which was given away in a psych-friendly Facebook group. But do you even care? Thought so. What you should always care about however is great music! And if you just happen to be looking for some, hallelujah, here's yet another bunch of recommendations:

EFFLUENCE - Sarmat (2022)

This has already been out there a while, and the only reason I didn't buy it yet, was that I was consindering the physical CD copy for a while. But since that one only seems available overseas, I now settled with the 1s and 0s to finally own this twenty-six and a half minutes monster track. And speaking of monsters: The most recent user review on Bandcamp is probably more on point than my little write-up here could ever be, using a nod to the great late Pharoah Sanders: "The Creator Has A Monster Truck".

The EP is a true culmination of Jazzcore, in which the most chaotic abyssal Death Metal assault collides with Free Jazz piano, screeching saxophones and ghoulish vocals in a relentless avant-garde avalanche, which only takes brief breaks to pillage from a multitude of of other genres.

Already over fifty-five years ago Peter Brötzmann pulverized Jazz as it was known with his "Machine Gun". On Effluence's "Sarmat" the weapons are still rattling - within a scenery of full-blown nuclear warfare. And for once I'm not going to be a pacifist.

TDK / ТДК - Nemesta (2023)

In comparison to Effluence this Bulgarian group is probably tame. But who isn't? In truth this album still provides a completely bonkers clusterfuck madness of mike pattonish proportions. Hardcore, Punk, Jazz, Extreme Metal, Electronic, all swirling around and kicking each other, accompanied by a native vocal performance between spoken words, rap, Pop, Dillinger Escape Plan and whatever the fuck I forgot right now. Plus weird sample shit. System of a Daaang! Definitely feel a kinship to Nokti's "Cockschmerzen" here. In short: It's a perfect storm of avant-garde insanity. Zorn core acolytes assemble! Fuckyeah.

TINCTURES - moments, remote (2023)

And now for something equally as, or probably even more experimental than the above, but otherwise completely different. Tinctures are an Indo-German Contemporary Classical piano / guitar duo, who (as so many others, and it will still be very long until we'll stop hearing these stories) found themselves constrained by the Corona pandemic. This album is a collection of various remote improvisations in different modi operandi. Some are tests of their internet connection, others improvisations recorded by one musician and then sent to the other one, who had to come up with something upon first listen. Another method was using a film to establish a timeline. Plus a couple of other ideas and variations in that spirit...

In the final result it's hardly possible to tell, what way led to the destination of each track. They are all beautiful and/or intriguing little pieces of experimental Chamber Music halfway between Classical and Jazz vibes, forming a very cohesive entirety.

This mini album provides a contemplative deep listening experience, equally suited to wrap your mind around every sound, as well as just to peacefully unwind.

GHOSTMEAT - Witch's Familiar (2023)

And finally here's some Space Rock! Ghostmeat bow down to early epic post-Syd Barrett Pink Floyd, including the harmonic vocals plus some stronger Eastern sounds, which you'd expect from bands like Kikagaku Moyo or the we-put-in-everything Psych of Goat. They however make it chuff a little heavier with occasional Grunge / Stoner Rock riffs. Which means that a song like "Kisse Manitou Wayo" could easily be labeled as Shamanistsic Ambient Space Doom. Or you just leave those kind of categorizations to people who can't just enjoy the music. Or have to come up with something, because they write about it.

Can I see this EP - or album? Already the third release in a row here with this particular length which could be both... - become a classic?
No, not really, not yet at least. Maybe if all tracks had the calibre of the magnificient finale "Gulls (Torrid Youth)", which somehow evokes feelings, which seem familiar from Forlesen's "Black Terrain" - who knows? This is still very good, highly compelling blend of Kraut with atmospheric substance. Available digitally and on cassette, shipping from Canada.