cassette craze chronicles XXXVI feat. CHAT PILE, MIDWIFE, MIDWIFE & VYVA MELINKOLYA, NADJA, RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON, TEMPLE FANG, TEUFELSKELLER, THE NAUSEA and TORU & CR3C3II3

I must admit that I procrastinated this edition of my tape series for a while, because my tape deck (a modified Sony from the 90's) has gotten a bit erratic, just refusing to play one cassette - or just one side of a cassette - while allowing others without any discernable logic behind it. And sometimes trying back and forth multiple times until the desired music finally plays takes me out of the mood to listen to it... so yeah, I'm caught between that annoyed frustration and not wanting to look for a replacement player yet again.

Meanwhile the new tapes are beginning to pile up and I don't want to wait until I have to review a double-digit number of reviews at a time, so here we go:

RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON - Vomitorium (2024)

Let's begin this with a raging banger! But wait, I already used the Rage Against The Machine comparison with the phrase "Radar Men Against The Machine" when I talked about the Dutch Psych/Drone/Noise/whatevertheywanttodonow collective RMFTM's previous album "The Bestial Light". "Vomitorium" pushes into a similar direction and reprises the line-up with two guitars, bass and two drummers, yet introducing a new vocalist with Niels Koster.

Radar Men From The Moon live

It's hard to ultinately pin down references which apply to all eight tracks, but most of them are definitely on the aggressive side, mixing influences from Industrial Metal, Heavy Psych and Post Punk, which in the case of the second track "Psychic Warfare Now!" can lead to some strong Voivod vibes or on the title track takes us back to Temple Ov BBV, the fantastic collaborative project with Gnod.
Overall however a lot of this album takes me back to classic Ministry. Especially "Altered States" with its shift to more Electronic sounds instead of guitar walls has some delicious "The Land Of Rape And Honey" flavours.

The whole album feels like Radar Men From The Moon have descended onto Earth and are rampaging through a dystopian scenery, aggressively waking people up and screaming into their faces. Undoubtly a proper soundtrack to our times!

The cassette edition comes in the familiar Tartarus Records cardboard sleeve.

THE NAUSEA - Requiem (2024)

This album I picked up after a show onboard the MS Stubnitz in September. The Nausea is a solo project of the Canadian violin/viola/cello player Anju Sing, who mixes powerful haunting Neoclassical string loops with Dark Ambient and Harsh Noise sounds and occasional evil vocals.

The Nausea live

Do you know Laibach's "Kinderreich"? If not: Drop everything right now, get your hands on the album "Kapital" and then return here! If yes: Well, you already know the general mood of "Requiem".

I called it "Pharmakon with violin" in my live review, and it's hard to come up with a better short description, even though the music feels more layered and nuanced in the studio recording. Most of all the atmosphere The Nausea is creating here is incredibly strong. If you want an album to reach its arm out of the morass, grab you and pull you down to be completely engulfed by a Dantean purgatory - this is for you!

NADJA - Querétaro (2024)

On the night I saw The Nausea I could have also grabbed this tape from the merch table. Unfortunately I had already ordered it from Zona Watusa before, so that meant waiting a couple of weeks longer.

Nadja live

There isn't much to say about this one. "Querétaro" is a recent live recording (February 2024 in Mexico) of the Doomgaze / Drone Metal duo Nadja. Four songs including the "Luminous Rot" title track and "Blurred" from "Labyrithine", all in completely instrumental rendititions. A crushing wall of rumbling bass, distortion and levitating feedback, driven by a surprisingly elaborate drum machine. The special kind of Godflesh/Jesu worship we know and love from Aidan Baker and Leah Bukareff. Over fifty minutes of hypnotic slow heaviness. What's not to like?

Maybe that the tape misses a clear indication of side A and B side, yeah. On the other hand I really dig the photo on the front, which might really be one of my favorite cover artworks of this year. 

TEMPLE FANG - Live at Krach am Bach (2024)

We're staying in the realm of live music with a tape I bought at the Lazy Bones Festival in October. And it's a really good one. How can it not be, when it's coming from the Dutch premium epic long format Psychedelic Rock masters Temple Fang. The two track setlist of their performance at the rainy Krach am Bach Festival looks pretty familiar, because it consists of the two pieces "Gemini" and "Not The Skull" from their 2020 debut "Live at Merleyn". 

Temple Fang live

But already the latter being ten minutes longer tells you that this is far from being a mere rehash. The new drummer, reworked arrangement and the band's general approach of making each show its own unique beast with all the space for varying improvisations make sure of this.

I've seen them from up close five times now and from that experience alone I can assure you that Temple Fang are one of the most amazing pure, all centered around the music itself Rock'n'Roll experiences out there today. And this is a recording of a show which felt special even to their standards. I've already said it: It's a really good one!

MIDWIFE - No Depression In Heaven (2024)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

I could be lazy and just point to my previous review in my last Veil of Stuff roundup about the last four albums I have reviewed over on Veil of Sound. Unfortunaly I had already been lazy there and pointed to the next issue of cassette craze chronicles. Damn. Well, I could still just tell you to read my VoS review, right?

Midwife live

Once again Madeline Johnston brings us a mesmerizing collection of minimalist Ambient Shoegaze. Slow clean guitars, subtle noises, far-away washed-out ethereal vocals. Beautiful songs from the road, watching America pass by through a Lynchian haze of melancholic longing. Despite being made of simple parts Midwife's Heaven Metal, as she calls it herself, occupies a unique sonic space. And it's a place you want to linger and float in for eternity. Eery, peaceful, sad and dreamy at the same time. A sound like clouds of breath forming on a cold winter day.

The artwork suits the cassette format, so it's a nice companion to "Luminol". 

MIDWIFE & VYVA MELINKOLYA - Orbweaving (2023)

On the occasion of ordering the new Midwife album I also finally caught up with her last release from the previous year, which is a collaboration with Shoegaze artist Angel Diaz aka Vyva Melinkolya. Since both artists are on very similar musical wavelengths, "Orbweaving" actually doesn't sound radically different than regular Midwife albums, especially the first two songs, which were written by Madeline Johnston. The spare quiete arrangements and dreamy atmosphere are both definitely there. There are a couple more soft layers of synths, guitar and vocals though. And of course there is the title track, which stands out as a twelve minutes long excercise in pure textural Ambient music.

All in all this doesn't feel as different as I would have expected, but it still is a beautiful, soothing and captivating mini album. The artwork / layout of the tape is also a plus.

TEUFELSKELLER  / TORU & CR3C3II3 - Split (2024)

But now let's get to some good old - or rather new - senseless destruction!

"Tour de Force" is quiet an apt title for the ride the exile Russian trio Teufelskeller has us saddling up for. Demon-excercising drums, relentlessly pumping bass, rumbling electronic Noise and one of the glitchiest saxophone performances in the history of instrument abuse give us thirteen minutes of raw improvisation. It's actually not as harsh as Anton Ponomarev's other project P/O Massacre, yet a bit more naturalistic somehow. Ultimately however it plays in a similar ballpark of cathartic aural assault.

Side B of this beautiful split EP belongs to the French experimental trio Toru in collaboration with Noise artist CR3C3II3. And their two tracks "Rattles Are Out" and "Rattles Are Back" are actually even wilder and more erratic, giving us their own spin of Mr. Bungle's "Disco Volante" mindset. Or they just tapped into the overheating brain of a robot on a psychotropics overdose. Very sick shit, and astonishingly rewarding, especially on headphones. 

CHAT PILE - Cool World (2024)

And last but probably biggest and most-awaited... Chat Pile! This new heap of bleak misery and frustration is definetly hard to judge in comparison to its predecessor "God's Country", since the new album certainly cannot have a second "Why" or another insane bad trip like "grimace_smoking_weed.jpeg".
But then "Cool World" is exclusively made out of bangers, too. Beginning with the opener "I Am Dog Now", "Camcorder", "Tape", "Masc", "Milk Of Human Kindness"... so much killers, I already know that I'll have to miss great tracks for a lack of time when I'll hopefully see them live again.

Chat Pile live

I also think that on this album it's even more appearant that probably no other band has internalized the raw sound and brutal precision of Godflesh's rhythm section as much as Chat Pile - with a very real drummer instead of a machine, mind you. Yet while the Oklahomans carry this influence openly on their sleeves, it never comes of as a copy, because it's applied too creatively and always combined with all those Post Punk, Hardcore, Grunge and Noise Rock influences which form Chat Pile's distinct sound.
And on top of that there's of course Raygun Busch's no fuck's given narrative vocal performance, which pulls it off to be so resigned yet fascinating at the same time.

Chat Pile are bleak and bitter, but also just brutal fun. Their "Cool World" feels old school, but actually offers a sound of our time. And echo of rage and anger from the Eighties and Ninetines, still perservering and even amplified by the  ongoing shitshow of the present. The hype remains deserved!

NADJA und THE NAUSEA live auf der MS Stubnitz, Hamburg (25. September 2024)

Puh, ich weiß gar nicht, was ich mir als Einleitung aus den Fingern saugen soll... Gestern gab es edle dröhnende Töne auf meinem liebsten Konzertschiff. Das muss als guter Grund reichen, dass ich meinen Hintern nach Hamburg bewegt habe. Und auch wenn es an Bord nicht brechend voll war, sahen dies für einen Mittwoch Abend doch eine stattliche Anzahl mit exzellentem Musikgeschmack gesegnete Besucher ähnlich.

Und nun ist es auch schon halb neun, die erste Künstlerin wartet auf der Bühne.

THE NAUSEA

Anju Sing spielt in ihrem Soloprojekt The Nausea was man am einfachsten wohl als "Teufelsgeige" beschreiben könnte. Das bedeutet allerdings nicht, dass sie in Lichtgeschwindigkeit mit Bogen und Fingern über die Saiten ihrer Violine flitzt, sondern vielmehr, dass sie mit Loops und Effekten einen sowohl von Klassik als auch extremen Metalspielarten inspirierten Industrial/Drone/Harsh Noise-Koloss schmiedet, über den gelegentlich wenig lieblich stimmlich performt wird.

"Pharmakon mit Geige" wäre vielleicht auch eine treffende Beschreibung dieses ersten Auftritts der experimentellen Kanadierin in Europa gewesen. Das war mitunter ganz schon sperrig und zermalmend - aber so muss das ja auch. Ein mächtiger ununterbrochener Wumms mit Momenten cineastischer Pracht, der vom Publikum wohlwollend angenommen wurde und eine passende Einstimmung auf den Headliner darstellte.

NADJA

Zwar war das Pult der Supportkünstlerin von der Bühne verschwunden, Anju Sing jedoch setzte sich nur ein paar Meter nach hinten, denn Nadja spielen auf dieser Tour nicht als reines Duo aus Leah Bukareff am Bass und Aidan Baker an Gitarre und zumeist nur maximal erahnbarem Shoegaze-Gesang, sondern haben tatsächlich auch ein echtes Schlagzeug im Gepäck.

Nur eine Handvoll langer langsamer, im Schiffsbauch gewaltig dröhnender Doomstücke stand auf der Setlist der Band, die ich bisher nur mit oft weit in den Hintergrund gemischter Drummaschine erlebt hatte. (2022 mit My Disco im Hafenklang und zuvor 2019 mit Esben And The Witch im Molotow)
Der Effekt war beide Male gewesen, dass man aktiv in die unwirklich entrückt wirkende Musik eintauchen musste, um dann den Eindruck einer viel größeren Lautstärke als tatsächlich vorhanden zu gewinnen.

Diesmal war das Volumen von Anfang an zweifellos im großzügigen Maße, mit gröberer, organischerer Energie vorhanden. Bestimmt wurde Nadjas Sound nach wie vor vom in die Unendlichkeit wachsenden Berg aus zähflüssigen Zeitlupen-Godflesh- und -Postrockgitarren. Die diesmal etwas andere Note durch den menschlicheren Unterbau gefiel mir allerdings ausgesprochen gut.

Der Auftritt bot ein gelungenes Gleichgewicht zwischen Unmittelbarkeit und Transzendenz. Und da es auch in dieser Show keine wirkliche Pause gab, sondern alles miteinander verbunden war, hatte man bis ganz zum Ende auch viel Zeit sich innerlich in dieser magischen Dröhnmasse auszubreiten, ohne sich mit Anstrengungen wie Applaudieren abzulenken. Den finalen Jubel hatte sich die Band dann aber auch redlich verdient!

Ich freue mich jetzt schon darauf Aidan Baker (und viele andere Musiker) in einem Monat mit dem Hypnodrone Ensemble hier wiederzusehen. Und auf die MS Stubnitz geht es schon in einer Woche mit der nächsten meisterlichen Bebrummung weiter...