Cult – The Fun One
Neurocult have yet to release an EP or album at this point, so to review them, I'm reviewing their body of work so far.
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Back to the Once Was
Assisted Living have subtly oozed into my awareness with their album Is Coming. The band have stripped their sound to the core of what it means to be alternative. The straight edge razor has been used to slash it enough to make it gush blood and make mainstreamers nervous about the alternative label again. Raw is the new polished.
Destinations Unimagined
Ishaq Fahim created a beautiful cover for this album, a mix of geometric hardness and delicate tones to gently beckon you into it. Oh, I was always going follow this Siren to my doom. All India Radio's album Tranquil Motion is monumental as it is graceful.
The Tranquil Motion is far more than the self-described “retro future ambient space pop” the band has penned on their Ampwall page. This is ambience and delight all the way through. From the digital version of an A Side, the tracks are smoothness, gentle caressing and soul-satisfying to a degree that is mind-blowing. Majestic synths that almost hum and murmur to you overlay a deep undercurrent of soft energy. There is nothing grotesque or brutal about this section of the album. Some of the tracks introduce a feed of more energetic, decidedly un-drone-like sounds, but they never shatter the carefully crafted bubble of the tracks preceding them. This dreamy, gossamer vision building and it is addictive. My favourite track from the A Side is “A3 Gong & Electronics 2”, but only just. All of the tracks here are wonders of craftsmanship and skill.
Means of Production and AI
The use of generative large language models (AI, henceforth, as flawed as the term is) has become a veritable flood. Using AI to make primitive, ugly images was the beginning. AI now can write your Facebook posts, if you are too lazy to do them yourself. AI is also now used in search, even those search functions embedded in social apps. Almost weekly, I find a new and surprising place where AI has been inserted. The use of AI in art creation and, more relevantly to myself and Nasal Bleed, music creation raises some concerning philosophical issues, not exclusively ethical concerns. This article will discuss a couple of these, after a disclaimer. With the deluge of Noahic proportions AI has become, it is vital we as a society take stock.
The Dregs of Creativity
You may not have heard about a dude calling himself Jack Righteous, but quite a few have. Jack is a big proponent of AI music and even has a petition out there on Change.org calling for AI music to be kept available as a response to lawsuits that have been levelled at companies like Suno. I have chosen to respond to Righteous because he is one of the few people with enough passion to actually speak out in defence of AI music. He wrote a post on his blog entitled Defend AI Music Creation, in which he lays out a few arguments. It is these I am going to be responding to in this article.
There has been a development arch of new technologies in music, and it is that which Righteous addresses in classing AI music generators as just another tool for musicians. In arguing this, he attempts to categorise AI generators in the group as Digital Audio Workstations, MIDI technology and even synthesisers. This argument is fundamentally flawed and I am surprised anyone would attempt to make such claims about AI in music.
Wyrms, Not Worms
I have a confession to make. I had never figured French people to be much into fantasy. I always thought the French were too cultured to bother with the scribblings of two-bit hacks like Tolkien, or even worse, George R.R. Martin. Not only was I wrong, I was spectacularly off the mark with this assumption. Yes, you may call me a donkey's douche now.
Three Wyrms over on Ampwall is a release by the band Chalice of Wyrms. It is an instrumental piece harking back to middle age romances of the type of King Arthur and others. And it is done exceptionally well.
Psychedelic Goblins on Mushrooms
If you're like me, you have this mental image of dungeon synth mixing dark ambience of Dracula's armpit with a seedy hobgoblin tavern in the bowels of a long forgotten, ruined city. Spaceseer have done away with that on their Feral Moon album.
The band has brought some deep, warped out psychedelia to the dungeons and you can bet your bum Gary Gygax never saw this coming. Heavily sombre, dark, warped and out there, Feral Moon is perhaps the best intro to a wildly variant sub-genre as can be had.
Rock with Brains?
I had my doubts. Then I started in on the soft, delicate first track and just eased into it. Then it made me fill my pants with a sudden jump in tempo, volume and urgency. In less than five minutes, The Uncertainty Principle by Hats Off Gentlemen It's Adequate had achieved one aim. Making the uncertainty principle concretely real.
Get Rust Resistant
Scotland is sure doing some thing right and the musicians there are creating some of the best sounds to be had anywhere. Adding to the growing portfolio of synth sounds by Exit Chamber, A Sudden Burst of Colour (ASBOC) take the whole smooth ambience in a post rock direction. It has been some time since I last waxed lyrical about a post rock band, and longer since I have found a new sound to do so about. ASBOC's Galvanise is just that new sound.
Voratore – Razor Blades on Edge
When it comes to death metal, I am something of a snob. The production and the vocals are what makes or breaks a band for me. Few death metal bands cut it outside the studio, as far as I am concerned. Amon Amarth are one band that has their crap together and produce wickedly awesome sounds. Mortification, infinitely less famed than Amon Amarth, were another band with an awesome grinder. In the indie scene, I have not been wowed, to be frank. That was until now.
Voratore by Italian grinders Continuum of Xul (Xul from now on) are, without doubt, up there with the best. Just on thirty-nine minutes is enough for this trio to concuss you into a comatose stupor. In that time, you get through the standard ten tracks. There are no epic attempts to create mega-long tracks or other gimmicks. Xul keep it at the roots of death metal and they promise nothing they don't deliver.