cassette craze chronicles XXV feat. BRUIT ≤, JAKOB BATTICK & TONGUE DEPRESSOR, LANA DEL REY, URN and WHITE WARD

Only one brand-new item, but a very beautiful bunch - inside and outside - in today's edition of my tape appreciation series:

LANA DEL REY - Did You Know That There's A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (2023)

The new one, released on Friday, obviously is album no. 9 by Lana Del Rey. It's pretty huge and deep and diverse - and haven't really made my mind up about it enough to write a proper review. Yet since I've half-accidentily bought two versions of it anyway, I will just postpone my (hopefully) deeper insights and devote another post to my vinyl copy it later.

Lana and photographer Neil Krug never seem short of material, so there are several versions not only with alternative covers, but completely different layouts out there. I'm honestly not even sure if one is supposed to be the standard artwork. All I know is that I think the one I chose here in my mind leans best to the tape format. Once again it's a beautiful item with a long fold-out J-card. And of course, because Warner is such a poor little start-up, you won't get a download with the cassette. Greedy vultures. 

WHITE WARD - Love Exchange Failure (2019)

Let's continue with the band which needs your support the most right now! I was looking forward to watching White Ward perform their latest album "False Light" at Roadburn one month from now, but unfortunately the Ukrainians had to cancel their complete European tour due to growing restrictions caused by Putin's war. So no matter which release or t-shirt or whatever of the Black Metal / Doomjazz fusionists you'll purchase - your money goes into the right hands.

The blending of contrary styles between blasting evil, epic Blackgaze and smooth saxophones and pianos is already amazingly seamless and flawless on this album from 2019. Especially the B side with various clean guest singers is a fantastic genre-transcending experience. The cover artwork works great for tape and the transparent blue shell surely is the most beautiful in this selection. Phenomenal stuff!

BRUIT ≤ - The Machine Is Burning and Now Everyone Knows It Could Happen Again (2021)

My fellow writers over at Veil of Sound, who put this on several of their top 5 album of the year lists for 2021 will probably be shocked that it took me so long to finally get a copy of it. Well, I had put it in many shopping carts, but somehow the grass was always greener and I couldn't really decide which format I wanted - until I discovered that these golden tapes were still out there for a very decent price.

In a spirit quite akin to White Ward the voice-sample-loving instrumentalists of Bruit ≤ fully commit to a concept which sets naturalism in contrast to civilisation angst. Their musical tools are mainly Post Rock with a lot of very strong Classical influences, expressed in strings and horns, as well as Ambient and Trip-Hop elements. But just breaking the album down by its genre and instrumentation doesn't do it justice, since it's really the powerful narration and emotion which especially makes the second half pieces "Amazing Old Tree" and "The Machine Is Burning" stand out. The title track undoubtly is a huge composition for the ages. Yeah, a part of me now wishes I had stayed at their live show last year, which really hit me at the wrong time and mood, a little longer.

URN - Recitál (2019)

Finally I bought some stuff from Stoned To Death Records again, among it two tapes. With two long tracks just called "A" and "B" and the very pastel-coloured cover it's obvious that Urn isn't the Black Metal band of the same name, but something different. Indeed the Danish (I guess?) artist has recorded an interesting moody mixture of Jazz, Western and experimental elements both acoustic and electronic. I cannot bring the totality of this album down to one specific formula, there's guitar-centric Jazz Fusion, Earth and sometimes even a little bit of The Comet Is Coming. As if that would help you, I know... But trust me, this is a worthwhile little atmospheric gem of relaxing and inspiring Future jazz.

JAKOB BATTICK & TONGUE DEPRESSOR - Raise The Dead (2022)

My second Stoned To Death tape of this haul is best described starting with the instruments used by the duo Tongue Depressor: bells, cello, double bass, microtonal organ, pedal steel guitar, tapes, violin. Nope, this is no upbeat Rock'n'Roll extravaganza. In two almost-twenty-minutes tracks with the light-hearted titles "Reek of Resurection" and "Under the Wormwood Star" they team up with singer / almost-narrator Jakob Battick, who uses their crawling oscillating soundscapes as a fitting backdrop for dark poetry sung in a mostly very warm and calm way. If you're looking for an occult Drone experience somewhere between Coil, Hypnopazuzu, Swans and a detuned Anna von Hausswolff with a pinch of Black Metal-ish atmosphere this isn't exactly that, but it surely comes close. An album which requires attention and a certain mood, but knows how to reward both.
The artwork is cool and the layout proves that cassettes and readabilty of lyrics don't actually exclude each other. Commendable! 

WHITE WARD - False Light

Ok, I hear you! It feels long overdue to dedicate a couple of words to the Ukranian band White Ward and their new, almost seventy minutes long album "False Light" here!

They had already established a unique style which mixes harsh black metal directly with smooth saxophone doomjazz several releases ago, and it still doesn't cease to impress how seamless this unlikely combination works.

So if the band just did more of the same - with the usual little increase in skill and experience - every fan would already be happy, right?

Well, White Ward did a couple of steps more.

WHITE WARD - False Light (Digibook CD) (2022)

While they didn't heave a similarly long break between releases, the easiest point of reference to describe White Ward's evolution is the step which the Romanians Dordeduh took on their phenomenal 2021 album "Har".
"False Light" also is an album which presents the unique sound of its artists in a powerful perfectionist production, huge and accessible at the same time. It sees the band expanding their musical language without sacrificing their core sound of ferocious black metal, smooth Bohren & der Club of Gore saxophone darkjazz and the floating blackgaze between these polarities.

But the long running time offers them a lot of space to dip their toes into other currents, often only briefly, but always very purposeful. Aided by several guest singers and additional guest musicians on trumpet, keys and double bass White Ward aren't afraid to incorporate anything they deem fitting into their already wide sonic palette. So you get glimpses into more hymnic metal, even some guitar hero affectations, gothic rock and other neon pink sprinkles from the 1980s as well as as 1990s grooves. Most of the time it's already over once you realize it happens, but it's all great and adds to the phantastically big and broad, majestic feeling this album exudes.

The transcendently overarching musical approach is mirrored by a very wide and serious concept, both visually and lyrically. Indeed one of the very few little problems I have with "False Light" are the sometimes very unintelligible harsh vocals. It's not at all that they sound bad - even if there are a couple of verses, where the arrangement could be a little more complex to match the level of the instrumentals -, but it's a bit pointless to spend so much effort in creating a meaningful narration, when you sometimes can't even follow it while you're reading along. Can we please call this the Bell Witch paradox?

Consequently I'm not going to dive too deep into the lyrical content, which is explained quite thoroughly in the liner notes of the beautiful digibook CD edition. It spans around themes of alienation, environmental destruction, power abuse, the whole human condition in a very ambitious manner. Who would expect a song like "Silence Circles", which seeks to empower victims of domestic abuse on a black metal album? That's not your usual howling to the frost moon.

From the epic opener, which already previews all the defining qualities of the album - appropriately called "Leviathan" -, to the solemm outro "Downfall" White Ward created a masterpiece here.
"False Light" should rightfully propel them into higher spheres of recognition. But as their home country is invaded by that asshole from Moscow that's of course not on the top of the wishes I have for the future of this band.

"It will never be so quiet here again

Unless we all fall

Unless the last tear drops down

The last drop of human blood disappears"

("Phoenix")