Album Review: Karg - Weltenasche

What Austrian J.J. (the artist formerly known as V. Wahntraum) does is a mouthful, but what the one-man Austrian band calls himself is not. He dabbles in ambient-oriented, post-atmospheric black metal but he simply calls his project KARG.

Weltenasche is his fifth full-length studio album and is the first to be completely performed in the dialect J.J. grew up with and which is spoken around the mountains of his hometown. Being gloomy and emotional, you’ll pick up subtle hints of Alcest and Lantlôs in here.

Take, “Crevasse”. It’s an 11-minute opener that lays bare his tonal calling card. Part-ambient, part-aggressive, the construction is detailed and invites introspection. It’s steady opening and resplendent chiming background is quickly obliterated by a viciously shrieked vocal that repeatedly drowns the softly-spoken underscore whilst the introduction of massively-distorted guitar scrawl kicks it fully into submission.

The rhythm bucks and shakes as the drum patterns shift constantly making it tough to grab a firm grip on proceedings. The juxtaposition of rough and smooth creates an antagonistic power play but the overall sense of drama is unerring. Melancholia envelops all – easy-listening this is not.

By the end of third track, “Le Couloir De Ombres”, we are already well over 30 minutes into this beast with the promise of at least another 45 minutes to go and already the abrupt key changes and panicky, affected nature of the song-writing is causing heart-palpitations. Grinding on as I must I find the shackles tightening and crave freedom. It becomes beyond oppressive, I start to writhe, burn, itch and fester. Not due to the extreme nature of the music, but the incessant, imposing structures that obliterate one another. It makes no sense.

It’s a tough one – these could all be special places to the right ear, but to mine the levels of perseverance required to fully engage the bronco requires me to strip my psyche to the bone. Each vast piece takes us careering into uncharted territory. Through NWOBHM, 80s kitsch, recordings of blazing rows and into incendiary spots of classical music.

Ultimately it is the dull, recycling chord structures that kill it. This is J.J.’s own all-consuming psychosis, not ours. It’s just too easy an album to walk away from. Without rules, there is only chaos and this is what miserably deliberate, self-absorbed chaos sounds like.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2017/01/karg-weltenasche-art-of-propaganda/

https://www.facebook.com/kargband
https://karg.bandcamp.com

Album Review: Bauda – Euphoria… Of Flesh, Men and The Great Escape

The moments when man places his own needs above those of the natural world might be described as blots on our historical landscape. César Marquez, a conceptual artist, master of multi-instrumentalism and the man behind Bauda from Santiago in Chile, seems fascinated by the subject and appears keen to sculpt his band’s music around these blots. Bauda’s 2009 debut album, Oniirica, attacked the generalized, nightmarish and “devastated contemporary life” we have created, using eclectic instrumentation such as flute, accordion and even didgeridoo. For Euphoria… the general theme remains but the band has honed in on a specific moment in time. Here, they attempt to whisk us back to the 40s, 50s and early 60s when Chile’s Quintay Whaling Station was active and killing up to 16 whales per day.

By aurally soaking us in the raw emotions of the place, they explore the depths and join hands with the workforce as they hunt, harpoon their targets and float the mighty beasts to the surface to be harvested; their carcasses left to rot. Naturally, the miasma of moods that they need to generate means you’d find it hard to pigeon-hole them and their music is quite happy genre-hopping about, even mid-song, so you’ll need to expect the unexpected.

From the off we are sunk beneath the surface to the “Ghosts Of Phantalassa” (a probable reference to the vast ocean of Panthalassa that once existed) where wood-splitting samples, oddly sounding like a rustling box of popcorn, tighten themselves up to form a crunched rhythm. Warbling keyboards and haunting vocals surround it to form a dreary, doom-laden kind of shoegaze that sadly ditches its talent all too early.

“Silhouettes”, the soul of the piece, portrays the whaler’s conflicted mind as first he sights the creatures and marvels at their beauty, the music pitching forth a catchy, uplifting lyrical sweep, then bails on us as thoughts turn to darker deeds. As you float through you’ll catch hints of Mastodon’s cosmic-prog interwoven with the darkly, shifting purpose of Lantlôs, the haunting cleans of Alcest and even the rimshots and palm-muted picking that is so evocative of instrumental post-rockers like Pelican and Russian Circles. There are even traits of Opeth in the acoustic guitar that marks out the wonderfully stripped-back “Crepuscular”.

Without doubt, the lack of shape or form is intentional, but this inevitably results in some confusing moments. You may find, like I did, that your own personal journey through the concept will delight and frustrate you in equal measure. The lack of clarity and an over-reliance on gimmicks (take the disorienting speaker-to-speaker shifting that lurks in “Acension”) over structure means the project feels all too flabby.

Despite their determination to give you the running-time to sink into their moods, they have a tendency to repeat the dullest of riffs and chord cycles which eventually result in the tracks overstaying their welcome. Some ham-fisted attempts to counteract this can be found as they opt for cringing key changes or sharp drops in pace; moments where spiked aggression suddenly morphs into twinkling dreampop. All these are vague attempts to break the blandness, but often result in confusion and a total abandonment of atmosphere. However, there are moments where it all clicks into place, demanding repeated plays. Moments like the sublimely chaotic, endorphin-loaded headrush of “Humanimals” climax, the murky trickery that lurks in “Oceania” or the uplifting wash of “The Great Escape”.

If you have the time and the patience, Bauda have the tools to shift your perceptions of what you thought possible. They refuse to choose the option to sit and fester, instead choosing to determinedly hunt down the sublime, minding not when they harpoon the ridiculous. My dull brain may struggle to keep up with all this motion in the ocean, but Bauda should still be roundly applauded for their efforts.


Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2012/05/bauda-euphoria-of-flesh-men-and-the-great-escape-a-sad-sadness-song/