Outer Music Diary

Averse Sefira - Battle’s Clarion

Went to the used store the other day to trade garbage for credit with the idea of grabbing a few DVDs. After looking through their selection and deciding there wasn’t anything I really wanted, I headed straight back to the used metal section and began skimming for evil. And then the new metal section, where I found a new version (with a video I haven’t watched yet) of this American (Texan I believe) black metal trio’s debut album. The concept lyrically is like someone blew up the kaballah (The Age of Geburah) and slapped a bunch of Enochian symbols over it. Two of the members look like they could have walked right out of Immortal. Musically they’re of great interest as they are one of the more purer black metal groups out there (especially in the bible belt) and created music with very dark and dissonant melodic lines, eschewing anything consonantly melodic in the same way a lot of avant rock and RIO does. While it doesn’t have the kind of roller coaster death metal energy I like, it’s still a pretty strong debut and I’m quite curious about their more recent material.

Odious Mortem - Cryptic Implosion

Probably one of the most intense and technical death metal albums I’ve ever heard in my life and as such almost impossible to comprehend in a first listen as this group spits riffs and blastbeats out like they were cramming two hours into 35 minutes. Amazingly enough, I also got the impression a lot of this was pretty well written in that through all this flying technicolor, certain riffs and patterns stood out as islands in the midst of chaos. The booklet reveals a bit more under its rather fantastic (especially for the genre) cover in the liner notes where the members list everything from all the usual death metal associates to bands like King Crimson, so you know where their hearts lie. Let’s hope a few more are in store before their ages get the best of them. Very impressive.

Pig Destroyer - Phantom Limb

Another new death metal (well death/grind really) album with a great cover, what is this world coming to? Pig Destroyer, however, are nearly sociopathic in terms of lyrical content, which is often as violent as their music. Perhaps the main thing about this group always stands out to me, they go by in such a fast blur that I’m usually left feeling that all the songs sound the same. But at the very least, this is at least as energetic and intense as anything they’ve put out so far.

Machin - Moi, Je Suis un Folkeux
Machin - Tout Folkant

In the 90s I wigged on both Gwendal and Malicorne and began a so-many-month jaunt trying to check out a bunch of French (usually Breton) folk. My experiences ended pretty quickly as most of what I turned up tended to be very straight folk, rather than folk-rock or something a little more experimental or genre-crunching like the two aforementioned bands could be. Every once in a while a gem would show up, such as the second Gwerz album. Machin was one of the bands I was undecided on and I don’t quite remember coming at them as a folk band, I seem to remember at least one musician overlap with the progressive rock group Wurtemburg.

These two albums actually are fairly different and I listened to them in reverse chronological order. Tout Folkant is a pretty jaunty and rather typical folk album, not something you’d be likely to find on a label like Hexagone or Ballon Noir. Sometimes it’s so goofy, I almost self consciously turned down the volume. Folkeux, on the other hand, would have made a perfect addition to Hexagone, as it’s much more of a folk/progressive rock crossover with lots of electronic accompaniment, particularly synthesizers. The jauntiness is still there on a couple tracks, but I was kind of surprised at how inventive some of this is in the style and raised it up a point or two to a 9. Not sure it’s any better than that.

Grateful Dead - Dick’s Picks Vol. 15  Englishtown, NJ 9/3/77

For some reason I’ve been listening to a lot of 77-78 Dead of late and this is probably the standout of those shows. I believe this was the tour after a break needed after one of the band members was in an accident or something, but it seems to follow quite closely on the magic of May and June. Looks Like Rain, Eyes of the World, Estimated Prophet, the big disc 3 suite and finale Terrapin Station are all very strong.