Jan 082018
 

 

In an effort to catch up with new music that appeared last week (or in some cases that I only discovered last week), I’ve resorted to a two-part OVERFLOWING STREAMS post. And for those who haven’t noticed the format of these posts, they’re a form of personal surrender to the flood of new music. I enjoy writing thoughts about what I want to recommend, but in posts such as this one I just let the music speak for itself because there’s so much to recommend that I don’t have time to blurt out my own reactions.

In the first part of this post I decided to collect only new split releases that I’ve recently found. To be sure, these aren’t the only splits that I’ve discovered recently — some I intend to listen to but haven’t heard yet. These, I’ve at least listened to once and have had positive reactions, and perhaps you will too. The first one is really hot off the presses, since it just appeared over the weekend. Continue reading »

Oct 202017
 

 

(We continue the rollout of Austin Weber’s series devoted to reviews of 2017 releases we haven’t previously covered. You can find Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, and Part 6 here.)

Jute GyteOviri

Jute Gyte is an intriguing project in the black metal world, one I’ve been covering here at NCS for several years now, even going as far as interviewing its mysterious architect Adam Kalmbach here at NCS in 2014. The dude is beyond prolific; there hasn’t been a year since the project started that a new Jute Gyte of some sort hasn’t come out. Most years end with multiple releases.

This year the new recording is Oviri, an album-length work, a weighty experience that sets before us another exercise in extreme discomfort, massive sprawling compositions, and unreal ferocity. Continue reading »

Sep 262014
 

(Austin Weber snagged a rare interview with Adam Kalmbach, the man behind Jute Gyte, and here it is.)

I’ve been a very big fan of the experimental microtonal black metal group Jute Gyte for a long time now, and recently reviewed his new album, Ressentiment, here at NCS. So I decided to try and set up an email interview with sole member Adam Kalmbach, and he was gracious enough to answer all of my questions. As you will see below, he is a very well-read, articulate, and intelligent artist.

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I remember reading an old interview with you somewhere on the internet where you said that you had a lot of music written before you ever recorded anything. I mention that because I noticed at the credits portion of the Ressentiment album page on Bandcamp that this music was written in 2011-2012. Do you still have a glut of music to record, or are you working mainly from fresh material now?

Though very occasionally I come across something I wrote down but never recorded, I think the situation you’re referring is actually that I had a lot of music recorded but not released. Ressentiment, like Vast Chains and Discontinuities, was put together over a two-year span ending in 2012, but it is only now being released. I am happy to say that I am working on fresh black metal material now. I have a lot of electronic material I’m sifting through and endlessly revising but I suspect that will always be the case.

 

Were you ever a part of any bands pre- Jute Gyte that involved other people?

Nothing pre-Jute Gyte, though I’ve occasionally tried playing music with others. About five years ago I was part of a group with a bassist and drummer I am friends with, but we never made it past the rehearsal stage. Playing music with other people can be fun and educational but I am so accustomed to my own way of working that quotidian band stuff, like playing the same material again and again and not having total control over the material, seems burdensome. Continue reading »

Sep 032014
 

 

(Austin Weber reviews the brand new album by the one-man wrecking machine from Missouri known as Jute Gyte.)

As it stands, this is the third time I have written about Jute Gyte here, the consistently crushing solo project of Missouri native, Adam Kalmbach. After writing up his previous album from this year, Vast Chains, my sense of curiosity led me to email the man behind the band and inquire as to his lack of social media presence. I was greeted with the answer that he, in so many words, has a disagreeable personality and does not play well with others, thus the lack of an official band Facebook page or other account.

I found this very interesting, as it speaks volumes about himself as an artist. If we are being honest, what musician doesn’t want to hear his work praised? Either as a form of validation or as an appeal to narcissism, or both?

It would seem to me that Adam Kalmbach’s desire to stay hidden in the shadows may show how much darker and cathartic of a release creating music must be for him. Further evidence for this suspicion may be found in his lack of press releases. The man drops several releases a year, but because there is no band page or other online presence, the music simply appears without a whisper. Continue reading »

Feb 282014
 


(Austin Weber returns with another collection of recommended music, this time featuring seven(!) bands.)

Some are of the opinion that the music of the present is on a perpetual downward slide, and if you’re in that group I probably can’t change your opinion because that’s what you believe and feel is true. But I feel the current musical landscape is healthy, and for metal at least, continues to be fertile ground for untapped potential, overflowing with an abundance of new genre crossover acts and developing ever more subgenres at an alarming rate.

This seems to bother purists and others who find such mergers distasteful or (and sometimes I agree) formless and often lacking in a uniquely constructed identity. In spite of that, there will always be that divide between those who intake influence and only create weaker copies of their idols, and those who create something of their own out of what influences them.

What follows below is a hodgepodge of music, equal parts instrumental, kvltdisco, deathqueef, and post-prog. That’s obviously sarcasm, but upon coming up with the joking term post-prog, I thought to check Google and see if anyone else had used it in a serious way. Sadly, Google proved that I was not alone in using the term, and led me to a Last.fm article informing the world about what its contributors deem “post-prog” . As usual, nonsense reigns supreme and reality remains a divided house ruled by individual perspective, as it’s always been. Continue reading »