Futiliteit Orchestra - The Devil's Stars Burn Cold
Stellar Descent - Vernal
Катакомбная Культура - Костры Огней
Majdanek Waltz - Ночная Птица (Night Bird)
I already have introduced the Heliophagia netlabel and their series of compilations to you a couple of months ago. Here's their latest compilation up to date, titled "Dipaka I: Igniting Ictus" and dedicated to the Day of the Ignition (Imbolc 2017). Compared to what they were releasing 10 years ago, this one is definitely a step forward: this compilation is international and features such well-known projects as Majdanek Waltz (which is probably the most successful Russian neofolk act so far). Definitely would recommend it to everyone whose musical tastes range from neofolk and dark ambient to black and doom metal.
Darkwood is undoubtedly a well-known name in the German neofolk scene, but this particular 7'' isn't that well-known. Surely these two songs aren't very representative of the whole Darkwood discography because it's neoclassical music with female vocals in Russian - but that's the exact reason why I chose to post this 7'' over other, better known stuff from Darkwood like this song:
+The first song on "Talons" is based on a poem originally written by Henryk Vogel in German, and later translated to Russian because he thought it'd sound better if accompanied with a Russian folk-inspired melody. It's sang with a thick accent, yet I think it only adds some particular charm to this song. The B-side of this 7'' is mostly instrumental piano piece with a short a capella version of "Moscow Nights" close to its end. I couldn't find this 7'' on Darkwood's Bandcamp page, yet it looks like all its 299 copies were sold out long time ago, so posting a download link here hopefully wouldn't be a problem.
Another really odd and unusual release coming from Finland. Jukka Ammondt, an University of Jyvaskyla lecturer on literature and an Elvis Presley fan, has recorded cover versions of Elvis' famous hits with lyrics translated to Latin and Sumerian. While modern music with lyrics in Latin isn't particularly rare (heck, even Krypteria and MDB have songs in Latin), I haven't heard about any attempts to sing in Sumerian before I found out about this EP.
A brief info on this release can be found here. As for the pronunciation problems, which Dr. Ammondt has correctly pointed out, I can say that "his" Sumerian indeed sounds too similar to Finnish for me, but we'd never know how the "true" spoken Sumerian sounded like anyway - so, as he put it, we can only hope that "we are not terribly far from the original pronunciation
in our reconstructions". Out of 3 songs featured on this EP, the first one is based on the authentic verses from the Epic of Gilgamesh, the second is an Elvis Presley cover, and the last one is a "Sumerian" version of a popular Finnish tango.
Bottom note: Finland, Hungary and especially Estonia apparently have their fair share of crackpots claiming their languages to be descended from Sumerian, Etruscan, or other "prestigious" ancient languages that don't have apparent modern descendants. Same problem with the FU minorities in Russia - ordinary people just don't have much interest in their cultures, and those who do have such interest quite often are crackpots who believe they've descended from ancient aliens or something like that. Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to accuse Dr. Ammondt of holding any unscientific beliefs, yet there are people who genuinely believe that Finno-Ugric languages are related to Sumerian. While I can see an appeal of claiming oneselves to be descendants of (arguably) the very first civilization on Earth, so far I don't see any scientific reasons to believe Sumerian being related to any living language.
From what I know about Sumerian, it was an ergative language with a rather complex verb morphology, thus being similar to some other ancient non-Semitic languages of the Middle East (Hattic, Hurrite, Elamite) that have no apparent relatives as well. The only language isolate in Europe - Basque - also shows these traits. The two language families of North Caucasus have these properties too (and they probably have originated somewhere near Mesopotamia as well). However, even those most likely candidates haven't shown to be related to Sumerian so far, let alone the FU languages that are much more distant (both geographically and typologically) from Sumerian.
Found this in the same blog where I found that 7'' by Zeitlich Vergelter. It caught my attention not only by being a recording of Finno-Ugric folk music, but also because it had a cat on its cover :) While I initially expected it to be tradtional folk, some tracks (but by no means all) indeed turned out to be like this. For the most part, however, this compilation sounds really weird, rather close to percussion industrial/noise than folk. Then I decided to read the release notes and found out that it's a collection of field recordings, some of which indeed were supposed to sound like white noise:
"CD Feature/ "Finnish Snow-Walks and Dances" Captures the "poetic universe of snow". I bet you didn’t know that there is a Finish
tradition called "Snow Walking", intended to calm the mind. It harks all
the way back to the national epos, the Kalevala, which speaks
explicitely of "scooping rhe songs out of the frost" and of "unlocking
the box of tales". But don’t worry – not many other people have heard of
it, either. The very informative text, which accompanies this release,
which can either be bought as a regular CD or a luxuriously packaged,
truly beautiful LP (have I made amply clear, which one I prefer?),
therefore serves to outline the aims of the project: To present the
entire spectrum of snow music, from its folk roots to its present forms,
to capture the "poetic universe of snow" and to "mark its entry into
the 21st Century". Based on the field recordings made by the famous
Sisukas Poronainen from the renowned "Kansanmusiikin Instituutti"(which,
I am sure, I need not explain any further), Gabi Schaffner (who has
already held publich lectures on the subject) has taken on the task of
sifting through the material, selecting the most representative cuts and
of researching the scene for assorted genres, such as "Lumi Core" (Snow
Core) and acts from the experimental scene, who are carrying on the
traditions. She has found some wonderful music and a fair amount of
equally fascinating stories...
Japanese influences have led to a widespread enthusiasm for metal and
noise music in Finland, resulting in specifically Finnish forms of white
noise music, known as Lumi Core (Snow Core) and it’s twin-music Lumi
Noise (Snow Noise) L-Core tracks must contain more than fifty percent of
original snow recordings. This quota is often surmounted, as the
musicians dedicate long hours of work to sampling, collecting and
editing of white noises. Additional samples should be as authentic and
raw as the conditions allow for. L-Core and -Noise artists share a vivid
interest in ethno-type field recordings and bio-acoustics which link
their music back to the older traditions of snow music. At the same
time, a new type of performance art has evolved, which clearly refers to
the shamanistic rituals of the old Finnish tribes..."
Since I have a lot of things to do beside posting here, don't expect me to review more than 1-2 albums per month in the next half an year or so. However, while I'm at it, let's post a forgotten classic of the Japanese industrial scene - the one and only 7'' single of Chu Ishikawa's first band named Zeitlich Vergelter. Their line-up consisted of Chu Ishikawa (of Der Eisenrost, who later became known for his OST for Shinya Tsukamoto's "Tetsuo" movie), Maki Fuji (Soft Ballet) and Neu! Rosen Von Verderber (Neurotic Doll), and their sound was strongly influenced by Einstürzende Neubauten.
More than 30 years later, the significance of this release is mostly historical, but fans of early EN and other industrial/noise bands of the same period would likely find it quite enjoyable. Thanks to this blog (a very interesting one, by the way) for posting it! Beside these two tracks, ZV have released two more ones: "Shauder" on the DEAD TECH compilation and "The Third System of Transit" on the first NG compilation from Trans Records.
