The first ever release from the Hototogisu duo of Matthew Bower (Skullflower/Total/Sunroof) and Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards) that even approaches being ‘generally available', Green is a real CD - not a CD-R - pressed up for the group by the sainted Ed Hardy of Eclipse records and available in an edition of 1000 copies complete with a suave full-colour booklet reproducing a bunch of the duo's art. Anyone whose mind was blown by the vision of this pair powering their way through one of the most magical/unforgiving sets of Subcurrent 2005 will find plenty to drown in here. Tracks are shorter than on previous releases, though even more obsessively detailed. There are points where the cacophony is so insanely oversaturated that the noise starts to sound as if it's spontaneously giving birth to language: you start hallucinating words and sentences, almost as if the film protecting you from a constant bombardment of information-heavy environmental radiation has been blown apart. Green also features some of Hototogisu's most straight-ahead death/doom metal moves. Although they're not quite Skullflower, the first track features snatches of classic death metal riffs alongside the stomach-punch of a cheap drum machine and on their theme song, the beautifully ferocious “Heavy Blossom”, Mick Flower of Vibracathedral Orchestra plays drums. Alongside all the iron first action, there are some beautiful moments where Marcia and Matthew's voices melt into ribbons of pure white light and the whole thing floats to the ceiling. A modern classic, and possibly the best Hototogisu album to date. Highest recommendation.

Brand new full-length recording from the duo of Matthew Bower (Skullflower/Total/Sunroof et al) and Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards/Zaimph/GHQ) features a more rock-reverent take on the kind of vertical screens of impossibly detailed overtone that defined their earlier albums, with Marcia's viola slow-burning fluttering afterimages of neon spirals deep into the air while Bower's guitar/microphone worship generates repeat-ascensions of overloaded ecstasy tone. Something grittier, more immediately tactile, that makes this their most dramatically meat-based orbit of hallucinated space/time vectors to date. Highly recommended.

Split LP of 333 copies with two tracks from Matthew Bower’s Skullflower – one long, inchoate feedback ritual and a shorter martial drums/guitar tattoo – paired with new material from Limepit, a black noise/vocal/drone group with connections to Heavy Blossom recording artists Sarah’s Charity.  Silkscreened covers with insert.

Edition of only 250 copies reissue of what was originally a limited cassette release (BF3) on the legendary Broken Flag label. Kleistwahr is the solo project of BF head Gary Mundy (Ramleh/S.P.I.T.E./Skullflower/Consumer Electronics et al). One of the earliest releases on the label, Myth more than fulfils the promise of the UK’s power electronics scene to fully deliver on punk’s failure to fully liberate rock/roll from the service of generic form. The first track is massively psychedelic – Ramleh always were the most ‘psych’ focussed of the BF groups, as their later ‘rock’ albums underline – with a churning miasmic appeal that sounds like it’s devouring several decades of outlaw sound with alla the triumphal Non of the first Faust album. Later tracks are a little more pugilistic, with electronics that double all over themselves again and again, generating hypnotic matrices of pulse-based melodies and whooshing outer space F/X. Indeed, the degree of obsessive repeat here makes this a minimalist Industrial classic, doing more with a simple set up of electronics and vocals than your favourite goddamn avant orchestra. Parts of this inexplicably remind me of Alan Silva’s electronics on the Celestrial Communication Orchestra’s classic The Seasons triple LP – go figure! Either way this is another major BF unearthing and highly recommended. 

Edition of only 250 copies reissue of what was originally a limited 1983 cassette release (BF15) on the legendary Broken Flag label. Kleistwahr is the solo project of BF head Gary Mundy (Ramleh/S.P.I.T.E./Skullflower/Consumer Electronics et al) and Arsonicide matches the early hysterical Whitehouse sound with harsh oscillating feedback, electronics and wild vocal assaults. Some amazing bloody-minded noise on this, with the epic second track that combines arcing cracked synth tones and sudden explosions of voice matching the best of Maurizio Bianchi’s ‘symphonic’ work but with a supremely crude UK DIY edge that is particularly satisfying. On the flip the electronics get even more alienated and extreme, with minimal morse code patterns dancing beneath flat-line feedback drones and waves of minimal tone threat. Spectacularly great and highly recommended!

Brand new trio moves from a new group that sees Matthew Bower (Skullflower/Total/Sunroof et al) joined by Justin Broadrick of Godflesh on guitar, bass and rhythm machine and Samantha Davies (Voltigeurs) on guitar: Valley Of Fear play martial drone rock with a weird/haunted a-temporal aspect that sounds like choirs of disembodied voices coming straight out of the void. The addition of the rhythm machine actually seems to free-up the music even more, with drifting walls of guitars that sound as if they are slowly being pulled apart, moving backwards and forwards in time, combining the kind of nod-out rhythms of Silence-era titans like International Harvester with the Industrial metal of Zeni Geva and a dramatic orchestral aspect that is truly epic. In a way it’s as balanced a pairing as you could imagine between Godflesh’s martial Industrial rock and Matthew Bower’s vision of endlessly levitating overtone damaged psychedelic drone. Edition of 500 copies and highly recommended. 

All-new recordings from the duo of Matthew Bower (Skullflower/Total et al) and Samantha Davies: Possession represents a further progression of the Voltigeurs sound, re-thinking droning European metal as a form of violent symphonic noise, with triumphal melodies sunk deep, deep in fields of barbarous fuzz. Bower’s guitar has always sounded more like buckling currents of electricity than six steel strings but here he really pushes it to the extreme with walls of curdling feedback and whiplashed amplifier violence with only the haziest hints of martial melody. Indeed, it really sounds like nothing else, fully delivering on Bower’s vision of the hum of vast Industrial plants or vibrating metropolises heard from a hundred miles away or the gravitational roar of planets in dead, dark space. Bower’s thought keeps evolving and this is a radical re-statement of symphonic guitar brutality. Highly recommended. 

Necessary culling/upgrading of a bunch of tracks from the mid-90s by this major UK underground outfit, the brainchild of Anthony Di Franco of Ramleh/JFK/Skullflower et al: Voyages presents devastatingly re-mastered tracks from OOP releases like 1997’s Astronomy, 1994’s Nova Feedback and 1995’s Ax II. Ax’s sound was extremely prescient, somehow tying together the kind of endlessly postponed cathartic metal of SunnO))) with thudding fists of electricity and bass heavy boombastics, birthing a thug-punk take on Butthole Surfers-play-Suicide that would appeal to fans of the most esoteric Zaimph sides as much as the early Zos Kia rituals. And the material has never sounded better, benefiting from a clarity and punch that is truly ear-lacerating.

Staggering new double disc set in a hand-numbered run of 500 copies from Matthew Bower’s (Skullflower/Total/Hototogisu et al) reverse incarnation of his Sunroof project: this is an incredible set that might just be the apex of Bower’s vision of overloaded endless vertical ascensions but this time cut with a propulsive beat/pulse/two chord aspect that would marry the production style of Nanjo Asahito and Kevin Shields to the monomania of Les Rallizes Denudes or even the looping dub-damaged style of Metal Box-era Public Image. Each track jump cuts to the next, functioning as endlessly accruing magnifications or exaggerations of what came before, with walls of inchoate fuzz exploding into organic mutant tones and throbbing miasmic beats that come over as Aphex Twin-plays-Suicide-plays-Mainliner. With 4 Black Suns... Bower runs a mainline into the ecstasy potential of obsessively repetitive overtone thick orchestral drone but with a black barbed wire aspect that is uniquely eviscerating. One of the hands-down highlights of Bower’s epic back catalogue to date, very highly recommended!

Split release between Matthew Bower’s Skullflower and Norway’s Utarm: Bower is at the absolute peak of his powers right now and Skullflower deliver three tracks of epic black symphonic noise that come over like a disembowelled fantasy of European metal w/screaming Valkyrie tones and massive dissolves of pure electricity that have a incredible sensual/erotic appeal. Bower describes Utarm as “very much in the vein of a less-mechanical, more (?) goth Ramleh” and that’s pretty much spot on, with a combination of dark vocal hysteria and organic metal/noise.