The Industrial Twilight: Estonia

Showing posts with label Estonia. Show all posts

Friday, January 29, 2016

Ultima Thule (EST) - s/t [1988]

Artist: Ultima Thule

Title: Ultima Thule

Genre: Hard Rock, Blues Rock, Folk-Rock

Country: Estonian SSR

Release date: 1988

Track List:

Turbatuli
Vägev Vähk
Hingan
Aed
Muusea
Hallaöö
Tuulemeelne
Laulev Jögi

...No, it's not that infamous "viking rock" band from Sweden you probably have immediately thought after seeing "Ultima Thule" in the title. This Ultima Thule was formed in Tallin in 1986 by professional musicians that have played in many locally known bands before, and their style is quite accurately described as "a blend of blues rock with witty lyrics and influences of Estonian folk music", comparable to another well-known Estonian blues rock band, Gunnar Grapps' Magnetic Band. The vocalist on this album is Tõnis Mägi, who's much better known for his solo career. Nice album cover with petroglyphs, BTW :)

Download

(if the link above doesn't work, try downloading it track-by-track from this site)

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Messier - "Rõõmurikkuja" [1998]

Artist: Messier

Title: Rõõmurikkuja

Genre: Neofolk

Country: Estonia

Release date: 1998

Track List:

Rõõmurikkuja
Hani
Keskaja kaitseks
Vahepala
Enne hommikut
Hoge jage
Kui nad olid...
Lõpu lugu

A really obscure neofolk oddity from the 1990's Estonia. This is a cassette demo which I found in this blog (a very good one, by the way). The music is quite nice to my ears even despite the low production quiality, but I don't even know what to think about these vocals... Anyway, if you're interested, you can find the download links in the blog that I mentioned above.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Suicidal Romance - "Love Beyond Reach" [2007]

Artist: Suicidal Romance
Title: Love Beyond Reach
Label: Infacted Rec.
Genre: Darkwave, Electrogoth
Country: Estonia
Release date: 2007

Track List:

Love Beyond Reach
Not Alone
Will It Be (For Us)
Call Me
Angel Of Love
White Snow
Poisoned Kiss
Lonely Tears
Prince Of The Darkness
Star
In This Night (Lullaby)
Not Alone (Blutengel Remix)
Star (Lost Area Remix)

I discovered this band in 2007, when I was a big fan of L'ame Immortelle and wanted to find something similar to them, but from the ex-USSR. Suicide Romance are a Russian/Estonian project based out of Tallin, consisting of composer Dmitry D. (also in Freakangel) and two female vocalists (Viktoria and Maarja). "Love Beyond Reach" is their first release, sounding a bit naive and simplistic, but that's what is good about it. I for one don't like their consequent releases at all (especially "Memories Behind Closed Curtains"), despite much more professional production - they're just too boring for me. It also should be noted that "Love Beyond Reach" is their most melodic and least "aggressive" release, which I think goes well with the lyrical content. The lyrics on this album are mostly about love and sexual relationships, which aren't my favourite subjects in general, but in this particular case I found the lyrics quite touching. Overall I'd compare SR with Blutengel, in terms of both music and band's image:

P.S. Don't know if their label is OK with this album being available for download, so I won't post the direct link... but anyway you can search for it on filestube, if you wish.

About this blog

I created this blog mostly because I wanted to practise my English skills, and to showcase the industrial, gothic, punk, metal, neofolk and progressive rock scene of Russia/ex-USSR and Eastern Europe (especially Hungary) in the meanwhile.

As you can see, this blog doesn't take itself seriously enough, but I hope I'm doing good enough with my reviews even if my proficiency in English is limited. Along with the aforementioned stuff from Eastern Europe, I occasionally post some classic and rare albums that aren't to be missed, and generally whatever I want. Other categories of note:

* finno-ugric rarities - various music (including pop) in minor Finno-Ugric languages which I'm interested in because of my heritage. The music from Hungary, Finland and Estonia can be found under the respective categories;

* lo-fi - various poorly recorded demos from before 2000 that are of historical importance. Most of these demos come from the USSR era, so you might want to check out the USSR category as well.

As of now, I try to post only music that has already been made free by the artists themselves, or the rare old releases that are out of print. But if you're an artist and would like me to remove the download links of your work, just contact me using the form below.

Sorry, I don't do reviews by request, I don't have the time. Moreover, I think the bands that feel the need to advertise themselves by sending their demos to as many blogs as possible are usually just plain boring. If you want to contact me for any other reason, use the contact form below.

It should be obvious enough that reviewing anything on here doesn't equals endorsement of artists' personal views. This especially concerns neofolk and martial industrial. It'd be fair enough to say that I have the same approach to the political and religious topics in these genres as Laibach do.

Many of the female musicians featured on my blog are amateur models, and in many cases their modelling work is no less interesting than their music. Right now I'm working on giving it a separate section of the blog (just in case if anyone wants my review to be only about their music and not their looks). The work is in progress, check back later if you're interested.

The title of my blog comes from a song by The Kovenant (album "SETI", 2003).