Oct 122024
 


Vidres a la Sang

(written by Islander)

Last week I came across the word “Alician” for the first time. Pronounced similarly to “elysian”, it means “Surreal, whimsical, or illogical.” Maybe you can guess by now that it’s based on the character Alice, the heroine of Lewis Carroll’s books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.

By coincidence the word came back to me as I was sifting through a big pile of music in order to make choices for this Saturday roundup. It came back to me because at some point I began to feel like I was tumbling farther and farther down a rabbit-hole, coming across one thing after another that really did sound “surreal, whimsical, or illogical”.

We’ll get to those songs, because I hung onto them, but not right away. Right away, we’ll get to something much more serious — unsettling in a different way. Continue reading »

Jan 132019
 

 

In this second Part of this Sunday’s SHADES OF BLACK column I’ve changed course away from the predominantly atmospheric and sometimes folk-inflected music that dominated Part 1 in moody, mystical, and magnificent strains of sound. The selections in this Part are less easily categorized with broad brush strokes, but I guess I’d venture to say they are mainly more “muscular” and savage than what you’ll find in Part 1.

BLODHEMN

I’ve been deplorably late in catching up to the third album by this one-man band based in the black metal hot-bed of Bergen, Norway, but under persistent prodding by my Norwegian friend eiterorm, I finally have. That third album, Mot Ein Evig Ruin, will be released on February 16th by the Dutch label Soulseller Records, and now there are two tracks out in the world — “Dra Te’ Helvete“, which surfaced in October, and more recently “Det Gjekk Ein Faen“. Continue reading »