From Corners Unknown

The solo avant-garde black metal project, Murmuüre, is a sobriquet well-known in some underground circles of extreme metal. It was founded in 2006 by Felix, and in 2010, he debuted the project’s one (and supposedly only) self-titled release. This is an album I had the luck of stumbling upon whilst perusing Bandcamp in the dismal winter months of 2019 and since my discovery, Murmuüre has been in my weekly rotation ever since.

Not a whole lot is known about Felix save some morsels he divulged in an interview with Night Seminar in 2012, though I think his scantily detailed background enhances the aura permeating his self-titled work. We know in the early aughts that he played in a hardcore punk band and when he lost interest in that scene, he transitioned to producing electronic or glitch compositions. However, when he exhausted that creative outlet, he sought to tap an atavistic nerve that would convey him to his roots. Thus Murmuüre emerged.

I used the genre descriptor of black metal to illustrate, however vaguely, Murmuüre’s tone, but this album is an arguably boundless variant of it. Some could go as far as to say it doesn’t fit the archetype whatsoever, though I am not here to split hairs on the bevy of sentiments I’ve read. In its succinct thirty-minute runtime, Murmuüre journeys across arcane terrain. It’s rife with soothing ambient passages, splendid vistas of dilapidated castles nestled in between monumental crags, and radiant synthesizers that beckon the serenity of a setting sun as it gives way to the sweet breeze of dusk, all of which are blanketed in a psychedelic haze hued with royal purple and streams of marigold.

In a word, Murmuüre is cinematic. This illustrious quality is propagated by the litany of field recordings and samples enmeshed throughout its fabric. Felix describes his use of existing timeworn sounds as a form of artistic cannibalism, examples of which include the opening orchestral flourish from Carl Orff’s Carmina Bruana (“Veris Leta Facies”) or the haunting horn arrangement from Paul Giovanni’s score of “The Wicker Man” (“Sunset”). These, in addition to all other samples pocking the album’s expanse, steep its atmosphere in an elusive wash that blurs the plane splicing reality from fantasy. Furthermore, the instruments and their respective production keep this cinematic core aflame. Every guitar note heard on Murmuüre is sourced from a one-hour improvisational session Felix undertook in 2006 when his aforementioned musical frustration was blistering. Notes are cut up, rearranged, sutured together, and doused in fuzzy yet acerbic resonances so as to promulgate the incongruous nature of this amorphous realm. It’s unlike anything I’ve heard.

In this retrospective review, I am joined by Duncan Park (Return to Worm Mountain). We dive into the uncanny depths harbored within Murmuüre and endeavor to make sense of its innumerable timbres. Sound samples, riffs, and the haunting moods seeping through every mote of sound are topics covered, in addition to bundles of other insights I won’t detail here because it would be tedious to do so. We sincerely hope you enjoy our excursion into the past to make sense of this psychedelic gem. Thank you so much for tuning in.

In an unsuspected but welcome turn of events, you all voted for Connor and me to dissect the latest LP, There Existed an Addiction to Blood, from the Los Angeles-based experimental hip hop trio, clipping. If you’re new to our site, a quick perusal of past podcast episodes will reveal our inclinations toward rambling about extreme metal, despondent dark ambient, and a smorgasbord of disparate, outlandish timbres. Never have we endeavored to dissect a hip hop album during our tenure, until today.

The word experimental aptly embodies the tone, atmosphere, and vibe of clipping.; however, it does not fully brace you for the blood-curdling textures contained within their compositions. Scathing monoliths of harsh noise that vibrate with misanthropy or fearful howls from those drawing their last breath are but a couple of examples and it’s their seamless melding with Daveed Diggs’ biting poeticism that elevates the jagged arrangements to echelons most petrifying. No track sounds similar to the others as the trio galavant through a gamut of labyrinthian pathways, fortifying the album’s foundation with a thematic bedrock that pays homage to horror and mafia films of yore. As clipping. tear around the corners of their construction, they reveal, in pallid flickers, novel production techniques (“Run for Your Life, feat. La Chat”), colossal synth fissures (“Nothing is Safe”), and virulent beats (“Blood of the Fang”). Beyond these examples, however, there permeates an uncanny atmosphere that garrotes you with penumbral claws. In moments of trepidation, clipping. will grind the atmosphere to a stagnant limbo to beckon a piercing sense of confinement. In others, they relish in its claustrophobia by drenching us in caustic spasms of grisly frequencies.

There Existed an Addiction to Blood is an album that surprised both Connor and me. Its dreary milieus, the ghastly word-smithing, and its litany of artist features made for a thoroughly tumultuous and invigorating engagement. We sincerely hope you enjoy our exchange as we stumble and fumble for words that accurately capture how this album struck us. Thank you so much for tuning in.

Good morning, afternoon, or night everyone. I hope you are all doing as well you can given the current circumstances. It’s been a while since my inaugural Lost Transmissions episode dropped, but I wanted to welcome you back to the fold with some fresh reviews of albums the From Corners Unknown staff has not yet covered. If this is your first encounter with my fledgling solo endeavor, it can be aptly summarized as me, all by my lonesome, reviewing three releases in a succinct five to ten minutes apiece. Actually, I’m pretty sure I already broke this “succinct” rule of mine as I went pretty in-depth with some of the reviews in this episode; regardless, the goal here is to share with you some gems that have been in my constant rotation for several weeks.

In order of discussion for this episode, we have three EPs from the Newark-based cybergrind trio, Quantum Zoology. This is followed by a discussion of Adaptive Emotional Use, the latest LP from the harsh noise/industrial/ambient project Death Kneel (of Tomb Mold kin). Lastly, we have Golden Horde, the second brutish offering from the hardcore-infused death metal quartet, Phalanx.

Below you will find the text of each review featured in this iteration. Included also are links to where you can support each of these artists if their sound strikes your fancy. Thank you so much for tuning in.

We’ve been on a decent black metal here kick as of late, but now that the biting winter weather is giving way to spring’s warm embrace, we thought it’d be appropriate to shift gears into some other timbres. Though we cannot call the album of today’s episode “warm”, it vastly differs from what we have discussed over the last couple of months. This is the second EP, Remove Your Skin Please, from the sludgy, Oklahoma City noise rock quartet, Chat Pile.

The date of Chat Pile’s genesis is not known to us but their debut EP, This Dungeon Earth, dropped in May 2019. Their tone is that of a trash compactor (I mean this in the best possible way), one that churns with disheveled cadence and sputters dissonant detritus. Bass notes, dripping with grease, slither through noxious bile and fumes of car exhaust, often worming its way to salvation by writhing in infectious grooves—sometimes a la The Jesus Lizard. Drums, cavernous and laden in slop, resonate like mangled mounds of rusted scrap metal. Infrequently double kicks fester. Riffs cycle between gloom-soaked atmospheres and entrail-glazed sludge. However, the coagulation of the instruments is rendered most repulsive by Chat Pile’s vocalist. Deranged is his deluge of unkempt rambling as he slurs words under his breath. Off-kilter barks, sneers, grunts, and wails spatter from his throat, leaving us in the lurch as to what psychotic utterances will be disgorged next.

These descriptions may be leaving the impression that Chat Pile sounds like heaps of trash being dumped on nameless country roadways. In a way, it kind of is, at least insofar that that is what their name means, but the lyrics and their maniacal delivery propel this noise rock vehicle of sardonic individuals forward. In this episode, we give some our “best” vocal impressions while dissecting the zany lyrics and endeavoring to make sense of their sound. We sincerely hope you enjoy our exchange; thank you so much for tuning in.

In the dead of 2019’s winter, the progressive black metal quintet, In Human Form, released their third album, aptly titled III. Published by I, Voidhanger Records, this latest effort marks their second return to the label after their 2017 opus, Opening of the Eye by the Death of the I. For both Connor and myself, this is our foray into the troupe’s work. Unfortunately, we cannot opine on how their sound has evolved from their second album to their third; however, based on the description tied to III, we can cobble together a vague semblance of their tonal mutation, but before delving into that, let’s piece together a loose chronology of their existence thus far.

Hailing from Lowell, Massachusetts, In Human Form was borne into existence sometime in 2006. Since then, they have unfurled three LPs, two EPs, as well as a couple of splits. For much of their tenure, the group consisted of three core members: Patrick Dupras on vocals, Rich Dixon on drums, and Nicholas Clark on a bevy of instruments including guitars, bass, alto saxophone, keys, and back-up vocals. This detail gets a bit murky as their debut LP, Earthen Urn, harbored an additional guitarist, but on their aforementioned second LP, Opening of the Eye, the outfit condensed back down to the primary triumvirate. Between its release and III, however, In Human Form’s ranks swelled to five, adding Shalhin Shah on bass and Dave Kaminsky on guitars, engineering, and mixing duties. And embedded within the album’s sonic tapestry are featured appearances from Evan Crandell on alto, tenor, and baritone sax, and Hannah Pitkin, who imbues the quintet’s progressive luster with angelic croons.

III is comprised of only three tracks, yet its bookend compositions are gargantuan in length, scope, and complexity. Glacial are their sheets of trem-picked riffs as clouds of frost billow from cleaving blastbeats. Ominous they ensnare us in a crystalline azure. Patrick’s vocals lacerate the titanic bergs, carving into them profane soliloquies for those who dare to schlepp across the frost-bitten expanse in an effort to make sense of their long-forgotten meaning. Though not all is dour. Between these monoliths of gnashing ferocity there radiates beams of sunlight that gild the white shelves in streams of gold. These moments take the form of saxophone flourishes and blissful gallivants through 70s-tinged progressive riffs. Often they pockmark the journey, typically peering between the shadows cast by the moving mountains. Though it’s within the album’s second track, “Weeping Stones”, where In Human Form completely shatter the impenetrable permafrost with soulful melodies that grieve in cathartic throes. There is much more I could say here about III, but I will turn your attention toward the exchange between Connor and myself as we had heaps to say about this record. Thank you so much for tuning in.

Adorned with septic flesh and rusted chainmail, the doom goliath known as Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean emerged from the utmost penumbral depths in the summer of 2017. The quartet, birthed from the rich riverbeds of well-established friendships tracing years back, churned their then fledgling aural revulsion at a rapid clip, producing a new track on a near weekly basis. And as the elusive summer months gave way to autumnal winds, the outfit recorded their debut album, Decay and Other Hopes Against Progress, which dropped in September 2017. Though this monolith was constructed in mere months, it exhibits a diverse tonal breadth that strikes at the core of the leviathan’s essence: wandering where a good riff takes them, irrespective of genre. Be it a stoner-tinged expanse, a blackened hardcore cudgel, or a brooding post-metal reflection, the gamut of tones brimming from Decay was but a nascent embodiment of the despondent terrains Chained would continue to flesh out in subsequent albums.

A little over one year later unfurled their sophomore effort, I Carry My Awareness of Defeat like a Banner of Victory, and with it flourished a marked evolution. The vocals became most callous and acrid. The production towered like a Stygian obelisk. The artwork from Blial Cabal sliced into the marrow of the quartet’s essence and channeled the timeworn aura permeating their compositions. Above all, however, there percolated a keen sense of craft honing. The bevy of influences continued to gush as they were intricately woven and etched—more so than their debut—into the fabric of their tracks. But the metastasizing of their sound and aesthetic did not dissolve there.

Ten months forward from I Carry‘s release, Chained would unshackle yet another cluster of three tracks under the title of Tell Me What You See Vanishing and I Will Tell You Who You Are. Their lyricism drifted from the oft trodden soil of corrupt monarchal rulers and peasant revolts, and instead, a most potent inward gaze took hold. The goliath’s tone billowed with asphyxiating repugnance amidst dismal depths. Tendrils of feedback laced the crag-strewn trenches and the riffs obliterated with primordial gnashing. But not all is bleak. In the latter minutes of the album’s second track “Out, Brief Candle”, a melodic dirge soaked in agony weeps, heightened by the crooning from David F. Bello of The World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die. It’s a fervent flash of unbridled grief yet it manages, at least for me, to soar into a channel of uncanny bliss. As the guitarist describes, this illustrious moment is the most fully-realized melodic flourish the band has tinkered with to date. And he assures that this tonal progression is only the beginning.

We are now, more or less, brought us up to speed with Chained’s development as a band thus far. Some liberties had to be taken in this write-up for brevity’s sake, but the lengthy podcast interview accompanying it will fill in a cavalcade of details. Chief among them are some forward-looking insights into where the band will wander next. Sometime this year, likely mid-to-late 2020, a tri-fold vinyl containing Chained’s three albums to date will be released with all new artwork from Blial Cabal. Moreover, the guitarist provides some vague morsels about the band’s next effort and chisels out some of the new timbres we can look forward to when it all culminates. There is a bunch more to discover in the conversation lying ahead, so I’ll truncate my thoughts here. Thank you so much for tuning in.

The H.P. Lovecraft dark ambient collaborative efforts have been a staple of the titanous Oregon-based Cryo Chamber label for six years now. It all began in the early fall of 2014 when Simon Heath, owner and operator of Cryo Chamber, debuted the eighty-minute behemoth Cthulhu, which featured thirteen artists from their ever-growing roster. This selection of Great Old One, Elder God, Eldritch horror, however you choose to describe the winged tentacle monstrosity from the sea, was an obvious if not essential starting point for the unearthly schlepp the label would undertake in years subsequent. Cthulhu trekked across terrain familiar to those long steeped in the arcane words of the early twentieth century’s weird fiction author. For the uninitiated, it towered like a lighthouse, rotating its beaming bulb to catch the eyes of those who have heard whispers of the name in passing but not yet gazed into its esoteric radiance.

Since Cthulhu‘s unfurling in 2014, Cryo Chamber’s tireless toil continued at an annual gait. Every fall or early winter tribal horns beckoned one of Lovecraft’s sleepless deities. Azathoth, the Blind Idiot God, was summoned in 2015. In 2016 stirred the Crawling Chaos known as Nyarlathotep, followed by the omniscient Yog-Sothoth in 2017. And during 2018 loomed The Black Goat of the Woods, Shub-Niggurath. Across these four years, each tale’s artist roster and run-time fluctuated. It reached an apex with Nyarlathotep, which boasted 25 composers and a hefty 3-hour, 10-minute journey; however, since its release, Cryo Chamber seems to have struck the ideal balance of artists-to-runtime: approximately 20 artists collaboratively crafting an approximate 2-hour harrowing epic.

As we approached the crest of yule in 2019, Hastur loomed on the horizon. The name originates from “Haita, The Shepherd” (1891), a short story/parable penned by Ambrose Bierce. In it, Hastur was described as the God of Shepherds and that was mostly it. Fast-forward four years and the name Hastur was adopted by Robert W. Chambers, who transmogrified the shepherd god into a nebulous entity in his collection of short stories, The King in Yellow (1895). Strewn in tattered robes with the mark of The Yellow Sign, the oblique descriptions of Hastur and the dilapidated kingdom of Carcosa—a timeworn city of Bierce’s creation (“An Inhabitant of Carosa” (1891))—went on to inspire Lovecraft, to which he makes vague references in his 1931 short story, “The Whisperer in Darkness.” And that is the extent of Lovecraft’s expanse.

Given Lovecraft’s cursory allusions to Hastur, Carcosa, and The Yellow Sign, we found this to be a fascinating selection of entity particularly because his references are scant. In this lengthier podcast discussion, I am joined by my long-time friend, Eric, who has read nearly every shred of literature tied to Lovecraft’s name. We focus a swathe of time on the web of weird fiction connecting the dots between the profaned kingdom and its forever withering ruler, though we also expend a slew of words regarding our favorite passages pockmarking the 2-hour, 20-minute odyssey. Many other terrains are trodden across during our exchange and we sincerely hope you enjoy it. Thank you so much for tuning in.

TEETH is a dissonant death metal band from the southern reaches of California. Though the exact time frame in which they formed is uncertain, they debuted their spew of repugnant misanthropy in November 2014 with their LP, Remittance. A couple of years later came their split with the sludgy doom trio, Fister; however, the quartet’s output seemed to slow after its release as their sophomore effort, The Curse of Entropy, did not drop until November 2019.

The Curse of Entropy is an aural bloodbath of cosmic proportions that severs, masticates, and dissolves every ligament, every iota of bone comprising your corporeal form. It’s the sound of secreting sores, of dripping necrotic flesh. Clocking in at a succinct 30 minutes, Entropy‘s ten incantations ravage veins. They inundate with dregs of pus, which, in spasms, degrade tempos to a doomy slog, though these wavering glimmers of grooving despondency are ephemeral. Unremitting blast beats and discordant riffs crown the astral array of gnashing incisors. In convulsions, the strings twitch in atmospheric ecstasy, reveling in starfields arcane like a hallucinatory vision of some inconceivable horror watching us from the vacuum of space. All the while, fiendish gurgles disgorge from the vocalist’s esophagus and glaze the cavalcade of mauling instrumentation in acrid plasma. Entropy is an utmost fetid affair and we sincerely hope you enjoy our dissection of it. Thank you so much for tuning in.

An Isolated Mind is the solo experimental extreme metal project of Eureka-denizen Kameron Bogges. Having produced music since about 2008 under the moniker of Four Hoove Death Pig—a banana bread-themed metal opera project (it sounds outlandish and it is, but trust me, it’s pretty neat)—Kameron decided to stray this path sometime in 2018 to embark on a new endeavor. As he describes, An Isolated Mind was birthed into existence as a result of an existential crisis he endured after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and spending a week in a psychiatric hospital. For a year following this tumultuous experience, Kameron says he “spent the following year walking the fine line between psychotic delusion and spiritual epiphany, systematically doubting and reconstructing my psyche to accommodate my newfound reality.” He then adds that his debut LP, I’m Losing Myself, serves as an auditory journal “documenting the terrors and bliss of losing oneself to the mystery beyond reason.” Given the album’s hefty and utmost personal subject matter, Kameron felt it would not gel too well with the zany compositions commonplace to Four Hoove Pig Death, hence the creation of a new odyssey, An Isolated Mind.

I’m Losing Myself released back in March 2019 (surprise surprise, both Connor and I are fashionably late to the party in dissecting this one). Since its publication, Kameron released in January 2020 an album called Self-Titled, which is comprised of two EPs that he deems as “prequels” to I’m Losing Myself. Though arguably not as gnashing as I’m Losing Myself, Self-Titled etches the fascinating blueprint that lays the groundwork for what would soon become the emotionally perplexing leviathan.

Much of what we find compelling about I’m Losing Myself is its non-adherence to extreme metal tropes. Song structures unfurl and wind in untraditional wanderings, often basking us in grainy veils of claustrophobia-inducing atmosphere. Creaks and skitters from unspecified metallic objects, either digital or corporeal, gnaw at the fabric of each composition, though behind these scrawling noises an uncanny vacuity suppresses. Drums cleave and bleed with barbarous fervor, rollicking through labyrinths of bewildering patterns as coils of guitar notes dissonant and melodic intertwine and collapse upon each other to create heart-rending turmoil. All the while, Kameron’s cathartic and, at times, desperate barks puncture the isolating knot bulging in our jugulars. Both Connor and I had heaps to say about this record and we sincerely hope you enjoy our discussion of it. I also read a couple of excerpts from some insightful interviews conducted by Invisible Oranges and Angry Metal Guy during this episode. I wanted to link them here in case you’re intrigued to learn more about the history of this project. Thank you so much for tuning in.

Liturgy is an experimental black metal outfit from Brooklyn, New York. The brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, Liturgy was established sometime in 2005. Three years later came the project’s debut EP, Immortal Life, which featured Hunter on every instrument. And one year later came his first LP, Renihilation. However, instead of going it alone, he enlisted three other musicians to help execute his vision. In years subsequent, the same troupe persisted through Liturgy’s follow-up LPs Aesthetica (2011) and The Ark Work (2015), with Hunter leading vocal duties and guitars. Then all seemed to fall silent for several years until “God of Love”, a single off of their latest endeavor, surfaced in September 2019. A mere two months later dropped their fourth album, H.A.Q.Q., to the surprise of most as no formal announcements or hype-building preceded its release. It also marked a line-up change in the quartet, now featuring Leo Didkovsky on drums and Tia Vincent-Clark on bass.

To be frank and upfront, I have known of Liturgy’s existence for many years, but I never delved into their discography until H.A.Q.Q.‘s out of nowhere unveiling. Connor is even more aloof (surprise surprise) to Liturgy’s music, having never heard of them until I shot him the address to where this album resides. Though after both he and I spent several weeks with this record, we are in agreement that this is one of our favorite releases of 2019.

Swarming with a cavalcade of glitch tears and aural aberrations, H.A.Q.Q. unfurls like a transcendental awakening. Double kicks gallop amok as shrill yet soaring guitar leads permeate our bloodstreams with revelatory ecstasy. All the while we are soaked in incandescence from instruments rather foreign to extreme metal paradigms. Glockenspiel, vibraphone, hichiriki, ryuteki, harp, and a string ensemble flourish atop the bedrock of various compositions, rendering the atmosphere alien and, at times, off-kilter. Though their infusion with the feverish surges of angelic melodicism makes for an enlightening journey. Both Connor and I had a bunch to say about H.A.Q.Q. and we sincerely hope you enjoy our discussion of it. Thank you so much for tuning in.