A Pair Of New Releases

As part of the URSK series from Utech Records, Runhild Gammelsæter has released her first solo album. The former vocalist of Thorr's Hammer and contributor to Sunn O))) and Khlyst, Runhild shows off her vocal range throughout the album. Musically it's much mellower than her other work and she has a much different approach as the sole musician. There's a good variety of songs throughout which keeps the listener interested.

20 Buck Spin has released yet another album from Black Boned Angel, this time a hour plus single track that starts very minimal and builds and builds til the end. Campbell Kneale is apparently retiring the Birchville Cat Motel project so hopefully this will mean more BBA works for the future.

CDs From 20 Buck Spin

Put in an order to 20 Buck Spin since there was a distro sale and some new releases available. As a teaser for the full length album, the collaboration between Black Boned Angel and Nadja has produced an EP with a 21+ minute track. Can't wait to hear how the full length album will turn out for 20 Buck Spin. The lone new label release comes from Humanfly. They're one of the best bands from the Neurosis/Isis mold I've heard in awhile.

Other distro items include the debut double album from Monarch! and collaborations Fear Falls Burning did with Nadja and Birchville Cat Motel.

20 Buck Spin Sale

20 Buck Spin has a sale going on and I just had to take advantage of it. Since I have a good chunk of the label releases, I bought only distro items that I probably couldn't get cheaper anywhere else. I picked a couple of Acid Mothers Temple ('Wild Gals A Go-Go' reissue and 'Minstrel In The Galaxy') and Circle ('Panic' and 'Arkades') releases. Apparently the 'Arkades' jewel was broken, so Dave threw in a disc from Ryokuchi as a freebie. I have no idea who that is so it should be an interesting first listen.

Also coming in the mail from Robotic Empire was the first full length LP from Behold... The Arctopus. The LP comes with a pressed CD of the album which is something I hope more labels will be doing in the future. And since it took so long to ship, they threw in the disc of the Torche self-titled album. I already have that album, but it was a nice gesture.

20 Buck Lore

Couple of orders arriving in the mail on Monday from Profound Lore and 20 Buck Spin.

Profound Lore has recently released sophomore albums from Atavist and The Angelic Process. Atavist sounds very similar to earlier Sunn O))) but with more going on behind the subsonic riffage. The Angelic Process reminds me of a mix of Jesu, The Goslings and Nadja.

From 20 Buck Spin one of their new releases is a split CD from Grey Daturas and Monarch!. The former I've never heard before while the latter has a huge Thorr's Hammer/Khanate influence to them. Turns out Grey Daturas also have similar influences but go with instruments only. I also picked up some distro items like the debut EP from Zoroaster, the 3-way split from Discordance Axis, Corrupted and 324 and Deathspell Omega's 'Si Monvmentvm Reqvires, Circvmspice'.

A Pair From Slimm

After releasing three new albums on his Archive label, Scott Slimm has kept the distro stocked with some great releases. Suishou No Fune have put out two fantastic releases and they have a new album out called 'Writhing Underground Flowers'. Three lengthy tracks make up the release that was produced by Bardo Pond's Michael Gibbons. I haven't been able to give this a listen yet.

I do like to buy directly from the label, but Slimm has the new two disc set by Australia's Whitehorse on 20 Buck Spin. I've heard some great things about this band and the previous releases Slimm had in stock sold out very quickly. Now just need to find some time to listen to both of these.

Digitalis & 20 Buck Spin

Straight from Digitalis Industries came a couple of albums from Hush Arbors, a reissue/remaster of their/his self-titled album (originally available as a limited CD-R) and a double disc reissue/remaster of 'Under Bent Limb Trees' with the second disc being bonus tracks from other limited releases. Much thanks to Digitalis for bringing these back into print.

After a delay, 20 Buck Spin has released Rakhim's 'Crimson Umbrella' album. All I know is that's its somehow related to Finland's Circle. It's certainly different from the rest of the 20BS catalog but fits in nonetheless. I also ordered some other 20BS releases, Graves At Sea's debut EP 'Documents Of Grief' (thanks for the reissue) and a split CD Graves At Sea did with Asunder (20BS did the LP version of it). Having some excellent distro titles with good prices, I ordered up Monarch!'s recent double album (a CD version of two LPs) 'Dead Men Tell No Tales', Asunder's debut full-length 'A Calrion Call', a couple of Dead Raven Choir releases from last year, 'Selenoclast Wolves' and a double disc collection of rarities 'Cask Strength Black Metal'.