Anika – the project of Berlin-based musician Annika Henderson – shares the new single/video, “Rights,” from Change, her first new album in over a decade, out July 23rd on Sacred Bones and Invada. Following “Change” and “Finger Pies,” “Rights” drones with Anika’s beautifully plaintive voice and oscillating percussion. In her words, the song is about “turning the tables, giving power to those who normally feel disempowered. This song is about unification not division. This song is about female (/queer/non-binary/marginalised communities) empowerment – the joining of forces, not pitted against each other. This song is about wanting to escape reality but then we can never truly escape it, it will always be there to collect its dues. We can only ever achieve temporary escape. The better option is to bring whatever we want into reality.” During the song’s peak, Anika chants encouragingly: “Feel the power // feel the power // show me power.”
The accompanying video, directed by Anika and Sabrina Labis, features Anika and Mueran Humanos’s Carmen Burguess. The video toggles between the virtual and real worlds, playing with the ideas of dreams and displacement, and seeking places of empowerment. Anika elaborates: “At the end of the video, the memory of the feelings, the knowledge that it was possible, remained, that is enough to start bringing it into our own life. We all have rights.” Co-director Sabrina Labis adds: “Making videos is my way to feel power. The power of changing perspectives, escaping conservative structures and landing on a very close and free power-planet where everything is possible. Press play, take off and enjoy.”
2021 is shaping up to be the year of Alan Vega. Every year should be but, this year is definitely it. The announcement of the opening of the Alan Vega archives, which will be unleashing an untold amount of unreleased material dating back to 1971 via Sacred Bones, the release of Mutator (a lost album from the mid 90’s) which has gained rave reviews, a massive feature in the New York Times…Alan has been celebrated everywhere of late. In The Red is over the moon to participate in this celebration with the release of Alan Vega After Dark – an album that captures a late night rock n’ roll session with Alan backed by Ben Vaughn, Barb Dwyer and Palmyra Delran (all members of the incredible Pink Slip Daddy as well as countless other cool projects). This album serves as a reminder that Alan Vega was an incredible rock n’ roll/blues/rockabilly vocalist. He was one of the best.
From the desk of Jason P. Woodbury: I only spoke with Alan Vega once. It was over the phone and the topic of discussion was the 2015 reissue of Cubist Blues, the phenomenally out there album he’d originally released with collaborators Alex Chilton and Ben Vaughn in 1996. I was in a noisy stadium for reasons that no longer matter at all, on a cell phone, but even with all that extra noise considered, Alan was exceptionally difficult to understand. At first at least. He’d suffered a stroke a few years earlier, in 2012, which still had lingering effects on his speech. But even before that, his heavy East Coast accent had sometimes made him hard to decipher, lending his voice the character of “a cab driver describing fine art,” Vaughn says. If you weren’t from New York—specifically Alan’s New York, an older version of Gotham that may have died with him on July 16th, 2016, when he passed on his sleep—it could be hard to keep up. But after a few minutes, I adjusted to the rhythm. Suddenly, without warning, I found myself able to dance to the peculiar beat of Vega’s jutting back and forth, his Jewish mystic cadence, the kind you hear in gasps and yelps on the transgressively savagely conceptual records he made in the late ‘70s with Martin Rev as Suicide, or the solo records he made starting in the 80s and continuing through to his final studio album “IT” finished in early 2015 and released posthumously in 2017, collages of machoismo-powered rockabilly, space cadet hard rock, renegade cowboy soul, and neon-drenched pop art Americana. You acclimate and then boom: You’re immersed in the “one-man subculture,” to borrow Vaughn’s description, of Alan Vega.
Though his relationship to the mainstream was flirtatious but never a fully committed one, Vega’s sub rosa influence on a disparate but extensive list of punks, new wavers, industrial deconstructionists, garage rockers, and pop stars is clear. His admirers included Ric Ocasek of the Cars, a frequent collaborator, and Bruce Springsteen, whose 1982 album Nebraska, particularly the creeping song “State Trooper,” explored the same haunted backroads Vega sang about. “The bravery and passion he showed throughout his career was deeply influential to me,” Springsteen noted on his Facebook page, memorializing Vega. “There was simply no one else remotely like him.”
No one else like him. That was certainly the case in 2015, when Vega decamped to Renegade Studio in New York City’s West Village with Vaughn on guitar, bassist and keyboardist Barb Dwyer, drummer (and Sirius XM DJ) Palmyra Delran, and engineer Geoff Sanoff. Sporting sunglasses, a knit cap and long rider coat, Vega looked tough as nails in his 78th year, and as always he was dedicated to the moment, to capturing the ghosts for what would prove to be his final live band recording.
Years before, the stroke had slowed Vega down, but he’d recovered and continued making music, often remotely, vocalizing over pre-recorded tracks by electronic musicians. He wanted a different feel for this project, wanted “to feel connected,” Vaughn says, to the musicians in the room, the way it had worked when they made Cubist Blues with Chilton, a music industry rebel in his own right. That record had taken two frenzied, off-the-cuff nights, this album required only one. “We got better at it,” Vaughn says with a chuckle, his velvet voice—the one I’ve so often heard on his essential and always joyous radio program and podcast The Many Moods of Ben Vaughn —underserved by my cellular telephone (once again).
Vega was obsessed with the enormity of any given moment, and to that end, he insisted the band be assembled with absolutely no preparation. They would be responsible for creating, ears tuned to each other and Vega’s incantations, a spontaneous space for his magical recitations. “It’s the only way I’ve ever worked with him,” Vaughn says. “We would start playing, and Alan would wait a little bit,” drawing in a notepad the entire time, working on his “zillions of sketches” — potential self-portraits, though he’d be loathe to indulge you asking if they were — or reading his copy of the New York Post. Eventually he’d rise to the microphone. “Some of the stuff he comes up with, it’s really unbelievable,” Vaughn says, citing the elementally profound lyrics for “River of No Shame,” delivered for the first time as the band churned on. “The animals are hunting, the animals are hunting/Making a break for the river/Making a break for the river/The river of no shame,” Vega riffs, over a motorik groove that’s somehow equal parts Neu! and John Lee Hooker.
Vega didn’t consider the marketplace at all, never considered what would become of his art after he made it, living like the embodiment of what visionary director David Lynch would describe as “the art life.” For Vega creating was the sacred act. Creations? He could take them or leave them. “Liz, Alan’s wife, has told me that when he would finish a painting, he’d immediately paint over the canvas — she’d have to snatch them away from him,” Vaughn says.
Luckily, Vaughn and company have been able to do something like that with Alan Vega After Dark, a set of songs that exist fully in their genesis, realized and recorded one night in New York City. They snatched one away from Alan, so we can pore over it. Listening to it, Vega’s words sometimes slip past me, like they did early in our single phone call. Wait, what was that he just said? It might have been the secret of the world! But I have the luxury of knowing that even as I can return to the LP over and over again, I’ll never hear the same thing twice. “Alan was writing from the future,” Vaughn says. I think back to 2015 when, during my interview for Aquarium Drunkard, Vega swatted away my inquiries about where his visions originated: “I don’t know where it comes from. People ask, ‘Why?’…There is no why. Who gives a shit? It’s not supposed to be why. It’s supposed to be the world. The mystery.”
London-based label Def Pressé is thrilled to announce its exclusive partnership with KPM/EMI to officially open KPM’s iconic music and sound design library for the first time ever. A production music label dating back to 1956, the KPM library contains over 30,000 original recordings of non-commercial music made for licensed use in television, film, radio, or any other media outlet. Ranging from cinematic symphonic themes to bizarre sound effects, elaborate environmental landscapes of computer-synth orchestras to film scores, these licensed recordings, commissioned without the pressure of generating commercial hits, have long been a treasure trove for producers digging for samples. This adventurous undertaking, initiated by Def Pressé in affiliation with EMI Production Music’s hip-hop outfit The Real Fifth, will see a handful of carefully selected composers and sound-excavationists creating all-new records alongside an array of featured singers, rappers, and instrumentalists, to be released by Def Pressé in two forthcoming series: KPM Crate Diggers and KPM Originals.
The KPM Crate Diggers series will consist of new albums by select producers made entirely of samples from the KPM archives, as well as other renowned library music labels including Coloursound, SelectedSound, ThemesInternational, ConroyRecordedMusicLibrary, and Francis, Day& Hunter, all of which Def Pressé artists also have exclusive access to. These releases will be entered into the KPM archives for future use as “library music,” making these producers “KPM Artists” in their own right. The KPM Crate Diggers series will kick off with Damu The Fudgemunk, and see forthcoming releases from JazzyJeff, StroElliot (of TheRoots), J-Live, ChrisDave and many others to be announced in the coming months.
The KPM Originals series will see new albums composed of entirely new, sample-free compositions, released by Def Pressé and added into the KPM catalogue, also for future use as “library music.” Artists confirmed to participate in the KPM Originals series include BastienKeb, CoreyKing, and ChrisDave, with more to be announced in the coming months.
Kicking off the KPM Crate Diggers series is Conversation Peace (out September 3rd), a new album from Damu The Fudgemunk, the Washington, DC-based musician and producer known for his many collaborations with RawPoetic, ArchieShepp, Blu, and others, in addition to his own acclaimed solo work. “The music that would become Conversation Peace began with a trip to KPM’s London HQ in late January of 2020,” says EarlDavis (aka Damu the Fudgemunk). “I had just finished wrapping up post production on my album Ocean Bridges with Archie Shepp and Raw Poetic. As a record collector, I’m very familiar with the legacy of the KPM brand. Listening to the entire catalogue was a history lesson and the amount of great composers and compositions in the recordings was endless. As a producer looking for textures, inspiration and grooves, the abundance of those things made it extremely difficult to narrow down what I wanted to use. From drums to sound FX to orchestras to small rhythm sections to ambient noises, I heard a wide variety of things and they were all so well produced and recorded. The history of KPM and the opportunity to collaborate with the prestigious lineage made the stakes very high for me and I knew I needed to deliver a quality product. It’s an honor to be the first artist to release a KPM Crate Diggers title.”
“Damu the Fudgemunk came to our studio in London to carefully dig his way through the whole KPM 1000 series,” says Peter Clarke of EMI Production Music. “If anyone is in doubt about sampling being an artform, they just need to watch him work! It’s great to breathe new life into all these old recordings, too. And then place it straight back into library music for use in media. Exactly how it was originally intended.” Listen to “Four Better Or Worse (Pt. 1)” Feat. Nitty Scott by Damu The Fudgemunk
Developed in the mid-’60s, the now-iconic KPM 1000 series launched the golden years for KPM, with the birth of the “Greensleeves” albums (named after their consistently plain-green record covers). Currently, the classic KPM archives boast over 30,000 original recordings by acclaimed library composers such as KeithMansfield, JohnCameron, TheMohawksfounderAlanHawkshaw, TheShadowsdrummerBrianBennett, DavidBowie and The Beatles’ collaborator, Alan Parker, and ExoticapioneerLesBaxter. KPM has extensively recorded at studios such as London’s Angel and AbbeyRoad (The Beatles recorded most of their albums here during the KPM 1000 recording era).
A massive amount of work has gone into taking care of these aged reel-to-reels, vinyl records, and DATs. They have been painstakingly digitized and made available to Def Pressé and the selected artists working on these projects.
“For years, all of these old archive tracks have sat dormant on the LPs—undigitized and only discoverable by those that had copies or had enough money to get them via Discogs or Ebay,” says Paul Sandell, Senior Content and Distribution Manager at EMI Production Music. “There’s a huge amount of pride here at EMI PM about KPM, and the other archive libraries. Not only is this music an important document of television music from the time, but it has a far wider cultural impact – whether from the theme music to a cult TV show, the sleazy funk of an erotic exploitation flick or as music sampled by the likes of Jay-Z, Drake, Florence and The Machine, and many more.”
“KPM has always been there with us for as long as I collected records,” says Def Pressé founder Matt Moat. “While digging for records, it would always be a straight pick-up, no need to listen. Their records were collectibles and coveted as such. It was always a dream to somehow be connected with this library in a fuller way. The moment I met Pete and we discussed what EMI Production Music had been doing with the catalogue, I had to dream up a way Def Pressé and our friends could take this stuff, flip it, and end up as ‘Library Musicians’ ourselves. To be able to contribute to the KPM Library means the world to all of us.”
“The relationship between hip-hop and library music has always been strong,” adds Sandell. “But this project really unifies the process between the library and the creative input of the producers. It’s a high five between the two to say ‘look what’s possible’.”
Following last single ‘Better Late Than Never’ (video here), a song about self-discovery, the ever intriguing Wings Of Desire share new single ‘Choose A Life’, plus announce their new EP Amun-Ra to be released Friday 13th August 2021 on WMD Recordings.
Filmed in 8mm pre-covid, the video for ‘Choose A Life’ is meant to feel freeing from responsibility and life in general. Somehow that feels even more poignant now.
One the track, the duo say: “Choose A Life is about our automated programming which convinced us that once we get ‘there’ we will be happy. That once we’ve acquired the material check list we will be fulfilled, but this is never the case. The song explores finding joy in the smaller moments of the everyday, the mundane, those micro expressions that we take for granted. And realising that you don’t have to bend the world to make your mark. That it’s better to just enjoy it.“
Amun-Ra which is released on 13th August, moves on from the observant nature of debut EP End Of An Age and into a more inwardly focused journey of self-discovery. It is named after the ancient Egyptian deity, the transcendental creator of the universe and the god of light. It represents unlimited and boundless freedom. It explores the trappings of time, ageing, and looks back with a nostalgic glow on past misdealings and successes. Amun-Ra leaves breadcrumbs for anyone growing up and asking the big existential questions on life, lighting the way for the disenfranchised.
Sonically the EP continues the exploration of 60s pop songwriting, noise rock, and euphoric atmospherics, and lifts it into new horizons. Produced by the band and mixed by kindred spirit Vincent Cacchione (Caged Animals). It will include both ‘Choose A Life’, and ‘Better Late Than Never’.
The new EP Amun-Ra is out 13th August 2021 via WMD Recordings
Visual artist and singer-songwriter Morly (aka Katy Morley) announces her debut album ‘Til I Start Speaking, out August 20th on Cascine, and shares new single/video “Dance to You.” Morley’s soft, swooning strain of storyteller pop has distilled across the past half decade into an increasingly hushed and heartfelt private language, as lived in as it is lyrical. Her debut full-length took shape slowly during stints in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and London, stripping back the melodies to their essence, driven by a yearning to “reach ‘the other side,’ to live in and be art and music.” The songs that emerged are time-worn, aching, and acoustically rich, like hymns or traditionals, traced in piano, voice, and percussion. She describes the creation process as almost a “subconscious exorcism,” casting out old ghosts and outgrown loves.
After establishing her singular style with a series of EPs — In Defense of My Muse (2015), Something More Holy (2016) and Sleeping In My Own Bed (2017) — Morley took some necessary time away from the public eye as she battled chronic illness. She returns now with newfound strength and focused sound. Much of ‘Til I Start Speaking revealed itself as she found herself falling in love with someone across the Atlantic. The Minneapolis-born artist relocated from her homebase in Los Angeles to London this year, joining her partner, who was “a beam of light irrupting into the darkness” of her deteriorating health. The album paints a portrait of realizing you’re in love. It’s also the result of Morley finding herself at the crossroads of graduate school and considering pursuing music full time. Morley felt adrift and estranged from herself, but year by year she’s closed that gap in incremental ways: studying piano, pursuing painting (her artwork adorns the sleeves of her entire discography), unlearning self-doubt, trusting one’s inner voice.
Working with frequent collaborator Christopher Stracey, Morley followed a muse of stillness and naturalism, allowing each composition to flower in its own fluid, elegant way – arriving finally at a sequence he quipped as “nine sleep bangers and a bop.” There is indeed a sensuous, low-lidded mood to this music, as though sung at a quiet hour in an intimate setting, a quality she ascribes to her affinity for conscious listening: “It’s in my own silence that the world really comes alive, and I see the deep connections.” Morley’s voice moves in reflective pools, spotlit but subdued, full of lilts and breathy pauses. The effect is one of patience and hidden wisdom, transmuting sorrow into strength, inspired by her hero Nina Simone’s ability to “take the saddest feeling and alchemize it into joy.”
‘Til I Start Speaking represents a stylistic movement towards organic sounds that was hinted towards in Morley’s previous works, blending her love of classic acoustic songwriting and minimal electronic music. This manifests in new single “Dance to You,” the follow-up to previously released single “Twain Harte.” “Dance to You” opens with piano before expanding with Morley’s soothing voice and a velvety bass line and a mellow beat. Morley elaborates: “‘Dance to You’ is about the need for–and is the vehicle for–a benevolent exorcism. It sprang from an encounter with someone so radiant to me that they helped light my way, but that I had to outgrow in order to see my own brilliance: I can’t grow/inside your glow.”
The incredible accompanying video, directed by Lawrence Pumfrey and choreographed by Katya Bourviski, explores the sort of dream state and rush of inspiring infatuation, but also its malleability and destabilizing effect. “Katya and I talked about my experiences as a young artist finding my feet in a difficult industry, especially with flagging health, and the constant pressure to define and sell yourself which helped to inform the structure of the piece,” says Morley. “It’s also partially inspired by Pina Bausch’s dance, Kontakthof.” Watch “Dance to You” Video
Stream “Twain Harte”‘Til I Start Speaking Tracklist 1. Til I Start Speaking (I & II) 2. Dance to You 3. Sleeping in My Own Bed 4. Wasted5. Twain Harte 6. Up Above 7. Jazz Angel (Bill) 8. Savior Mind Tattoo 9. Superlunar 10. Eliogy 11. Feels (Bonus Track)
Keep your mind open.
[Dance on over to the subscription box while you’re here.]
After releasing his 2018 debut Darlène, the Quebecois musician Hubert Lenoir made a name for himself by ruffling a few feathers. The breakout album earned Lenoir icon status in his native Quebec, and was the rare French-language Quebec album to find international acclaim, landing Lenoir in publications like i-D, VICE, SSENSE and FADER who declared him “a pop star in any language,” on late night shows in France, where he also landed on the front page of the national newspaper Le Monde, a spot on the Polaris Prize shortlist (the first French-language record to get the nod in seven years), and even, in a bizarre turn of events, on stage at the Barclay Center opening for The Strokes at their New Years Eve show in 2019. All the while he has been a controversial and in some ways transformative figure in his home province, where his antics and transgressive attitude (his initial rise was in part catalyzed by some improvised nudity during a guest appearance on Quebec’s version of The Voice) have both upset many in the traditional media establishment and made him something of a standard bearer for a new kind of youth identity in Quebec. Now, Lenoir has returned to announce his second album, Musique directe, with a track called “SECRET” that features drums from Mac DeMarco and contributions from Kirin J Callinan and is premiering today as part of an interview with FADER.
WATCH: the video for Hubert Lenoir’s “SECRET” on THE FADER
READ: an English translation of the “SECRET” lyrics HERE
WATCH: album trailer “uber lenoir, c’est confirmé” HERE
Lenoir’s rapid rise around the release of his debut album resulted in some blowback, particularly in Quebec where he’s become quite a controversial figure, and his new album is in part an attempt to portray the strangeness of his life over the last few years and the way his sudden notoriety has affected him, particularly with regards to the way the backlash he has faced has given rise to a recurrence of some of the feelings he had as an ostracized adolescent in the suburbs of Quebec City. On “SECRET,” which arrives with a video in which he assumes the role of a skunk trying to win the favor of a popular boy in his high school, Lenoir takes these feelings on directly, with a chorus in which he sends his condolences to everyone who is different like him.
“This is a song about the feeling of unshared love and being rejected when you know that it’s only because you’re different,” Lenoir explains. “It talks about social rejection and keeping those feelings for yourself because “what’s the point” and anyway you don’t stand a chance. Not necessarily feeling bitterness or blaming the others but still finding the situation extremely sad and sending condolences to everyone that is like me, everyone that could live with the same ostracization in silence. A way of saying: I’m sorry, it won’t be easy.”
Part-krautrock, post-house, part-funk, part-art rock, part…I don’t know what, Museum of Love‘s Life of Mammals is weird and wild.
“Your Nails Have Grown,” for instance, starts the album with Pat Mahoney and Dennis McNany‘s mechaniker krautrock synths for beats and lyrics about someone lost to time, and the extended, haunting saxophone solo by Peter Gordon is outstanding. The title track brings in ambient synths to blend with funky bass and hand percussion beats. It’s a song about facing reality and casting out illusions (“It’s a shocking truth. You were raised by wolves, but never told that rabbits eat their youth.”).
“Marching Orders” is a highly danceable track (those killer beats!), with a whistled chorus and lyrics about retreating into stability and walking away from chaos and the rat race. “Hotel at Home” could be a song about touring or living in quarantine with lyrics like “Everything you’ve done is washed away. This room wasn’t really yours anyway. Curl up and watch. Lockup extended stay.”
“Cluttered World” is a sauntering, sexy track about cutting away attachments in hopes of filling up the space in our homes and heads with better pleasures. “Ridiculous Body,” with its swaying bass and tense drums, is a witty take on toxic beauty and the ravages of time. “Flat Side” has dark-wave elements in its synths and lyrics about patience in love. The guitar on it soars like a robot hawk.
“Army of Children” is a song about regret, and not being able to fix bad habits (“When we met I was a picturesque wreck hanging around your neck…Why can I ever seem to stick to the plan?”). The addition of country guitars and Edwyn Collins-like vocals gives a cool, bluesy feel to the track, even when dance drums walk into the room. Bold horns and bouncing synth-beats propel “The Conversation,” which tells the tale of a talk going out of control in rapid time. The album closes with “Almost Certainly Not You,” in which we hear the tale of a relationship in which someone claims they’ve been telling the truth the whole time, not the other. The song is punctuated by finger snaps and synths that feel like sunlight breaking through cigarette smoke.
A lot of the album sounds like that image feels: Mysterious, yet bright. Angry, yet cheeky. Stealthy, yet bold. It’s a winner any way you slice it.
Mixing jazz, house, and some post-rock, Typical Sisters‘ new album, Love Beam, is a cool record that keeps you guessing as to where it will go next.
Opening track “Water Plants” samples some women singing about New Orleans and bouquets (I think it’s from a film, but I can’t place it if it is.) while drummer Matt Carroll seems to stumble around his kit but is actually setting you up for his funky chops on “Well Done.” Guitarist Gregory Uhlmann plays likes he’s out for a good time and in no hurry. Clark Sommers‘ bass is the real backbone of the tune, even as synth chords and bloops move to the forefront.
“OEO” samples train station sounds that fit in nicely with Carroll’s motor-like beats. The band’s love of experimentation is prevalent on “Owl,” in which they bang on a colander and play an out-of-tune zither. Trust me, it works. Uhlmann’s guitar on “Recurring Memory” bounces around like a baby goat. Sommers is in full funk mode on “King Flipper.”
After the weird tree talk of “Clairvoyant,” the band moves to “No Evil,” which opens with more warped synths and brings in a lot trippy drums. Speaking of trippy things, “Oregano” is a quick, odd instrumental, and “Uni Lunch” samples women talking about lunch and coffee for about twenty seconds.
Don’t worry, because “Clamata” brings in some hot grooves. “Grains” has Carroll’s wife singing Danish folk songs while the band puts down a weird sound behind her, and the sound even gets a little creepy on the closer, “Ephemeral,” which blends some Dick Dale-like guitar with jazz rhythms for a mind-bending effect.
Love Beam is a wild record. It doesn’t assault you like some free-form, loud jazz, but it does shake you out of the fog in your brain now and then and makes you pay attention to what Typical Sisters are creating. We all need to pay more attention, and this is a good record to hear with presence.
Great news from Angers, France – Levitation Francereturns this September.
It will be an open air event this year, and the initial lineup is already top-notch. Shame have released my favorite album of the year so far, The Limiñanas are among the elite of French psychedelia, Slift are a powerhouse, Anika‘s new album is beautiful, and Zombie Zombie put on a killer show.
I’d go to this if I weren’t already locked into plans for that weekend (and as long as travel is open to Europe). You should go in my stead and tell me how it went. Tickets are already available.
In case you’re unaware, Bordeaux, France’s Year of No Light has been churning out some of the heaviest post-metal rock for the last two decades. Their new album, Consolamentum, coincides with the release of the Mnemophobia – a box set that includes twelve LPs covering the earlier parts of their career.
Consolamentum is a double-album and it takes its time to pile riff upon riff on you. The shortest track on the album is over seven minutes long. The opener, “Objuration,” is nearly thirteen minutes in length and sounds like a summoning ritual being prepared in a dark tomb by men and women in black robes, but they’re interrupted by heavy guitar riffs that sound like they’re played by mystic time-traveling warriors from a post-apocalyptic wasteland. “Alèthia” is the “short” track at seven minutes-thirty-nine seconds, and the guitars on it soar like birds over a vast ocean…on another planet.
Want some doom? Well, “Interdit aux Vivants, aux Morts et aux Chiens” (“Forbidden to the Living, the Dead, and the Dogs”) fits the bill with the title and the heavy, sludgy bass and guitars, the monster-walk drums, and the synths that seem to be the sound of an inter-dimensional door opening.
The bass on “Réalgar” hits like a war hammer swung by a frost giant, while the synths and guitars are the avalanche caused by it and the drums are packs of polar bears descending upon your poor fourth-level Dungeons and Dragons party trying to find shelter in the blizzard. The closer, “Came,” has a cool darkwave feel to it with the echoing drums and synths that float between uplifting and menacing.
This is an album that can transport you to another plane, or at least make the one in which you’re sitting seem tenuous.
