Journal
Started when the first pandemic confinement hit, this is content that celebrates my past and informs a fresh vision forward. I have a fascination for subcultures, specially those with a close-knit relationship with leftfield and challenging music, so music does take center stage here. Glad if it resonates with you in some way and you discover something new here, in which case you should explore more and support the artists. Moving between London and Porto. Curated by Jorge Sampaio.
Band: HJARNIDAUDI
Album: Pain:Noise:March (2006)
Track: March (15:55)
Absolutely addictive doom drone project from Norway. Some 15 years ago I was working on material for a release of a mix of apocalyptic doom/drone music, mostly of the instrumental kind, featuring Sunn O))), Black Boned Angel, Nadja, Burning Star Core, Earth... and discovered this. I got in touch with all the artists involved and got to interview some of them. Voidar, the man behind Hjarnidaudi was one of them. He was kind enough to share some amazing insight into how he came to start Hjarnidaudi and the concept behind it... I have lost all that material since but I never lost my interest for his music. I just wished there was newer material.
Band: NADJA
Album: Dagdrom (2012)
Track: Falling out of your Head (12:44)
Nadja's "rock" album, featuring live drums courtesy of Mac McNeilly from The Jesus Lizard. Mastered by James Plotkin - this is taken from the album's bandcamp page. While it is one of the most "accessible" recordings by the ever prolific Nadja (and Aidan Baker, one of its founders as solo) - and one of my favourites alongside 'Guilted by the Sun' and 'Touched' - it's so much more than "rock": a more spacious, sludgey rock collection of songs, taking its time... somewhere in between 5ive and Boris (around that time).
Band: SUNN O)))
Album: Life Metal (2019)
Track: Trouble Air (11:45)
Band: SUNN O)))
Album: Kannon (2015)
Track: Kannon 1 (12:50)
Band: NADJA
Album: The Sun is not hit by the Sun, nor... (2016)
Track: The Stone (10:21)
Black Boned Angel
THE END
Black Boned Angel’s sound is stripped of all extraneous detail right down to its core, stretched out and nailed to the ceiling. Melding heavy slabs of downtuned guitar, molten riffs, dark comatose vocal gabbering and low end rumbling, they are capable of pulling you down into the same sonic tar pit as Sunn O))), but where each of those acts appear to birth their conceptions in the fostering shadows, Black Boned Angel fuse them in the sun, with buzzing sheets of corrosive, ethereal guitars pulling towards some of the most gratifying apocalyptic moves you’re likely to witness.
This project by New Zealand musician Campbell Knealer was named after a Godflesh song. Campbell is also the mastermind behind Birchville Cat Motel, a one-man experimental band with a very different message. The featured track 'Part 3' is the last track from the last album ever from BBA. This project may have stopped but the music lives on.
“Transcendence can only be achieved at maximum volume,” it says on the back of their CDs, and it’s a warning as much as a statement of intent.
Band: BLACK BONED ANGEL
Album: The End (2013)
Track: Part 3 (16:23)
Band: SUNN O)))
Album: Black One (2005)
Track: It took the night to believe (05:56)
Band: EARTH
Album: Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I (2011)
Track: Old Black (08:49)
Band: YOGA
Album: Megafauna (2009)
Track: Seventh Mind (05:03)
