I have to be honest, but I hadn’t heard of Jozef Van Wissem before. But actually, this guy did win an award in Cannes for the best soundtrack for the movie Only Lovers Left Alive (by James Roberto ‘Jim’ Jarmusch, known from the Coffee And Cigarettes motion pictures especially, I guess). Apparently, Jozef composed some material as well for some of the Sims video games, but with his lute, the guy did reach quite a bigger audience.
For quite some time Malmort, hailing from the Rhône-Alpes region in the East of France, are terrorizing the scene, but Vox In Excelso actually is the band’s first full length release despite about a decade of existence. Hass Weg Productions did send me over this 2012-release, as well as 2014’s Excerpta Funebris, so I will review both of them, of course.
Funeral Of God are an Italian act that were formed in 2010 by Paolo ‘Odio’ Cerretini, also involved with extreme acts such as Mincer, In League With Satan, Glioblastoma, G.N.C. or Red Bible Black. Soon Paolo (bass and lead guitars, drum programming) got joined by Ukrainian artist Mariya Popyk.
Death Carnival Records came up with a very limited split (edition of twenty copies only, minus mine…), a collaborative in between Russia’s Ashley Blues and American one-man army Joli. Both sonically adorn one side of the tape, which comes with mysteriously-attractive artwork.
The name K.F.R (mind the lack of an additional point after the ‘r’!) comes from the Arabic word for ‘käfir’; not the fungus, but a word that means ‘disbeliever’, which was tattooed on the Antichrist’s forehead in Islam. All hail the käfir!
This Story Happened Before… It’s the damn truth! It did happen before. Many times. In Europe, in Asia, in America. Centuries, many centuries ago it happened. Last year it happened in Paris. And now, Brussels… Leaders of Europe: pay attention! This story happened before and it might happen again!
Hailing from the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine, Mortalium did debut in very early 2011 with the EP On The Broken Wings (though it was available before in digital format too). Metal Renaissance did release this band’s debut full length in Spring 2013 (with one of the most fabulous covers I know!), and now, with a slightly adapted line-up, Mortalium return with the sophomore full length, Obligate Loneliness.
Acid Enema are quite an old outfit by Mr. Abhorrent, who also released material under monikers like Agape Christian Preschool in a very first era, and as Abhorrent, as well as Sangre, … Anyway, the first ones are related to Acid Enema. Under this moniker, he was active during the second half on the nineties especially, as well as the very early 2000’s, but then everything faded away into oblivion… Until now.
Stefan Weisser, the human being behind Z’EV, began performing music when he was still a little child. He got his first drum set when he was just six years of age. In mean time he grew up to a conceptual artist, dancer, poet, composer and musician. In 1997 he moved over from California to the city of New York, and then he started acting under the Z’EV-moniker. During the first half of the eighties, he did release some works under that name, and then Z’EV went silent for a decade.
Gdansk (Poland) originated artists Piotr Cisak and Paweł Oleksiński have been working together a thousand times before, very often with other sonic experimentators (like violinist Tomasz Mrenca or Dorota Mortek).
