Nucleus Torn - Travellers and Andromeda Awaiting

Travellers

Early morning mist lingers over the calm oceans as we push our handmade wooden boat into the icy depths. We softly drag our oars through the placid aquatic field, pushing the water and the land behind us. We leave our homeland knowing full well that we may never see her again, that the families we leave behind may never lay eyes, lips, flesh to their husbands, brothers, and fathers again. Yet we steer our craft through the vast seas in search of trade partners in our material goods and our cultural ideas, and we are at peace with our decision to leave the comforts of home firmly nestled amongst the bosom of our Earth Mother. If we return to these shores, then it was meant to be.

I have no idea if that imagery was the intention of Nucleus Torn when they crafted the four-part acoustic epic “Krähenkönigin I – IV”, but that’s the feeling I got as I sat back in my office spinning the first part of the Travellers album. I’ve come to find out that the song title roughly translates to “Crows Queen” in English. The songs are seamlessly strung together and come across as if they were treatments or exercises for the classical guitar, and then they got morphed into a romantic acoustic instrumental piece of music. Coming from Prophecy Productions, I somewhat expected Travellers to be on the ambient side of the musical spectrum, but I also expected it to dip a big, gnarled ugly toe into the miasma of black metal. Those tendencies arise, but for the most part, this album is sparse of superfluous sounds and instrumentation. Amazingly, I never find the music of the first four songs tedious or boring . . . in actuality; I’ve often found myself leaning forward, on the edge of my chair waiting for the drama to explode before my ears. Alas, Nucleus Torn never jump all over your face like an enraged monkey, it’s more like they infuse tons of emotional drama through carefully thought out notes and exquisite tones. One minute, it’s easy to get lost paddling across the great plains of the oceanic landscape, the next minute find yourself trudging through some overgrown hillside, and through it all, you’re embracing nature, feeling the wind blowing across the skin, the sun pulling the moisture from your flesh, the rain dowsing the fires of hope that once roared within you. Bleak, but never depressing.

The opening four-part track is laden with so much imagery and emotion that I can’t help but want to load up my backpack and hike to Bakersfield (it’s not the end of the world, but I hear you can see it from there.) These tracks have more to do with classical and folk music than any black metal that I’ve ever heard, and I’m perfectly fine with that. As Travellers continues on, more hope and uplifting moments creep into the music. “Silver” is a beautiful quasi-classical romantic piece, also played on acoustic guitars . . . sounds like nylon string . . . and in its short, abbreviated manner, ushers us listeners into the next part of the musical journey . . . the darker, electric, and narrated portion of the program! “Witness” is a beautiful track that starts off mellow and somber, acoustic guitars accompany the morose vocals, and then the song ultimately opens up in volume and electric tension. This is a truly fine execution of song craft!

For the most part, Travellers is a Spartan and barren album. But that’s not to say that there isn’t tension built in the songs. It’s more of an organic and natural tension, though . . . made more impressive and imposing by the lack of studio effects. Almost like there’s something inherently spooky about that twisted tree outside your window that you’ve been begging Dad to chop down coz’ it casts those freakish shadows on your wall during a full moon. Rather than chop that sucker down, embrace its natural and creepy beauty, regale in its frightening aspects, and sleep fitfully through the night. Unless you starred in Poltergeist, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

Buy here: Travellers
Buy here mp3: Travellers

Andromeda Awaiting

After listening to Travellers over and over and over again, I found myself spinning the follow up album, Andromeda Awaiting. This is where things get strange. I was somewhat expecting to hear a continuation of Travellers, and in some way, I guess you could say that’s what I got. But it’s not a continuation in the sense of lack of bombastic emotion, it’s more like a linear continuation . . . where the musical ideas are given more instrumentation, more texture to convey even greater breadth of emotion. Where Travellers is sparse in sound, Andromeda Awaiting is lush in sonic richness.

Broken up into six parts or chapters, Andromeda Awaiting is a strikingly gorgeous record. It gets a little proggy in a symphonic nature, and I find that to be perfectly perfect. The incorporation of the various woodwinds, horns, strings, voices . . . it all builds on top of one another to create a sparkling tower of sonic splendor. As for the underlying meaning of the album . . . no clue. I haven’t the foggiest notion as to what this album is about, and I don’t care. With this particular album, I’ve found myself listening purely for the emotion of sound, not keying in on any lyrics or potentially hidden meaning within the words. Throughout the record, I’ve found myself uplifted; other moments, I’m hunched over preparing myself to weep.

The “bookends” of the album, part I and VI, are the most dramatic, and also the longest portions of the program. Part I clocks in at over fifteen minutes and is like sitting in the cockpit of some interstellar spacecraft as it’s hurtling through the depths of the cosmos. Brilliant lights shows exploding into the visions, streaking stars criss-crossing the crafts path, all of the radiance from the heavenly bodies surrounding us acting as an exclamation as to how insignificantly small the human race truly is. The female vocals leading the first track feel so vulnerable and fragile, ready to crack at the slightest bump . . . and conveying an emotion of sad loneliness. The song weaves through some ethereal passages, ultimately falling into the lap of what I can only describe as choir music without the choir. The male voice that enters the song makes me feel like I’m sitting in a pew during a Catholic mass. It’s gorgeous and engaging, and oddly enough, makes me want to go to church once in awhile. The final chapter of the album is much like the first, sprawling and elegant in its instrumentation, always drawing some emotion from deep within. And sandwiched between these two songs are four tracks that take the listener on a journey that won’t be forgotten. In particular, I’m a big fan of the Middle Eastern modes that these guys use in the latter half of the album . . . every time I hear these tones, these particular scales, I get lost in the romantic world of my minds design.

Pope

Buy here: Andromeda Waiting

http://www.nucleustorn.ch/

http://www.prophecyproductions.de/front_content.php

My Own Private Alaska - Free CD Give-Away on The Ripple Effect Radio Show!

We have a special give-away scheduled on The Ripple Effect Radio Show on Wednesday, January 12^th at 8:00pm (PST). As the first show of the 2011, we wanted to try something new, so we’ve invited Yohan Hennequin, the drummer from French avant-garde art rockers My Own Private Alaska to join us and give us the latest and greatest on the band. We aim to find out what these guys have been up to since the release of Amen, find out if they're gonna' make it back to the U.S. anytime soon, and find out what makes these tortured souls so gloriously tortured!

On top of that, we have five copies of the bands critically-acclaimed album, Amen, that will be given away (Hey! We’re covering the shipping coz’ we love you that much!)

Details for the give-away will be given on the air . . . it’s really simple. Tune in by following the attached link, listen carefully to the instructions given on the air, and if you’re fleet of finger, you get a free CD! 

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/the-ripple-effect/2011/01/13/the-ripple-effect-1

Black Elk - Always A Six, Never A Nine

Since Racer and I have been doing this whole Ripple Effect blog thing and reviewing all of this great music that we’ve been discovering, there’s been this weird phenomenon going on where we’ll both receive a piece of music that we listen to once . . . twice . . . three hundred times and we know somehow, in some whacky way, said piece of music is one of the most important pieces of music that we’ve stumbled on. The problem is . . . we just don’t know what to say about it.

Sure, we could throw together a bunch of clever words that highlight our faux intelligence and have the reader reaching for a dictionary (faux means not real,) but that doesn’t necessarily tell you what the music is all about. We want you, oh dear reader, to go out and pick up these albums that we write about coz’ we want to share the excitement that we still find in music. So . . . enter Black Elk.

Black Elk’s album Always A Six, Never A Nine has been in and out of my player for something like two years. I feel a little bad because I’ve wanted to write this thing up all this time, but I knew that whatever I wrote wouldn’t be quite correct, wouldn’t be adequate enough. Always A Six, Never A Nine is an album that takes time to understand, even though I’m still not totally sure I do. But, I do finally feel that I’m in a place where I can at least throw together the right combination of words that best describes the music contained within to give you the best possible understanding of what you’re gonna get into when you buy this beasty-beast.

This album is defies categorization, however, it has elements of post-hardcore, noise, drone, doom, and several avant elements to boot. If you can imagine, Always A Six, Never A Nine would fall somewhere in the no man’s land between the primordial droning sludge riffery of Neurosis and the wildly eclectic avant garde sounds of We Insist! Black Elk has this way of lulling the listener into a state of complacency, carving out our existence and leaving a hollowed out husk, devoid of emotion and then . . . suddenly shoving all of the human elements and emotions into that mesmerized form, shocking our systems into a overly heightened sensitivity, and bringing us back to the immediate futility of our reality. The music has these great metallic moments, but is far from any metal I’ve ever heard. The music also has this great anti-everything attitude to it, but it’s not like any punk music I’ve ever heard. The music has a free form ambience and emotion to it, but it’s unlike any jazz that I’ve laid ears upon. Black Elk simply defy any standard musical categorization.

There are a few songs that I gravitate towards more than others, but the album as a whole is still a stunning experience. “Hospital” is downright killer! The songs opens with a bizarre guitar intro that is quickly accompanied by vocals that sound like they belong to someone strapped to a table with a leather strap shoved in their mouth. Maniacal and laced with paranoia, the vocals have an edge of all sorts of creepy . . . and the way they burst from dude’s mouth in time with the power and aggression of the music is a thing of cryptic beauty. The song has a deranged quality to it, but it’s not out of control. As the songs roils through a chaotic frenzy of heaviness, note the subtle bass lines juke and the warden of inmates. There’s an underlying melody that stands in striking contrast to the darkened lunatic outbursts. By the time the song fades into unconsciousness, odds are you’ll be a little winded and wondering what the hell just happened.

“Pig Crazy” follows along the same lines as “Hospital,” driven by throbbing and pulsating rhythms and highlighted by layers of feedback that creates an eerie texture to the overall sound. The vocals are tortured and frightening, almost like having a conversation with a schizophrenic . . . never knowing if this person is going to turn on us and use violence as some means to an end. The music on this one shifts between heavily distorted guitar riffing to quasi-psychedelic soundscapes, lending an even eerier element to the paranoid visions of the vocalist. This is one of those songs that acts like a sharpened instrument to carve out our being and quickly replaces everything for maximum emotional shock. I love the breakdown towards the end of the track when the guitars completely drop out of the mix and we’re left rumbling along with the bass and drums. That bass tone is thunderous and imposing, giving the listener the impression that something terrifying was lurking around the corner of the next time change. And, for certain, you want to walk down that darkened hallway with both eyes wide open!

“She Pulled Machete” is a drunken narrative about a chick with a machete. Plain and simple. But only Black Elk could pull off a song like this. I love the imagery in this one . . . it doesn’t take much to imagine a guy at some desert truck stop in New Mexico or Arizona, sitting in a Dodge Dart with a fifth of whiskey, sober enough to question what’s going on, but just drunk enough to sit in the dark trying to piece together the puzzle . . . and this all may not be how it plays out, but in my mind, dude’s gonna get chopped up into itsy-bitsy bits and left as coyote chum. Gotta’ love music that let’s your imagination run crazy like that! And damn . . . she sure is sexy!

Always A Six, Never A Nine is the hairy chest on a super model. It’s bizarre and beautiful, it’s unreal and fascinating . . . it’s art! Black Elk have created a monstrous epic of an album that’s haunting and horrifying, a mind fuck in so many ways . . . kind of like David Lynch at his freaky best. It defies logic, it defies reality, yet . . . at the same time, it captures reality in all of its imperfection. It’s an album of serene madness and chaotic elegance, a contrast in every conventional thought. It’s a nightmare choreographed to sound and custom made for each individual listener. I can’t listen to it at night in fear that it will awaken some ancient evil buried deep within my psyche. I must have more!  -  Pope  

buy here:  Always a Six, Never a Nine
Always A Six, Never A Nine (mp3)

www.blackelk.net

www.crucialblast.net/blackelk_alwaysasix.html