Hailing from Grand Rapids, Michigan, here’s Glass Cathedral‘s debut physical release.
Limited to 100 hand-numbered cassettes on Chromatin Records.
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At first Veil of Light might come across as cold. It’s an easy mistake to make, their grand gothgaze is certainly steeped in melancholy and desolation. But as you become enveloped in the crystalline synth swaths, the mechanical rhythms, and the screeching guitar feedback, you feel a oddly at ease. Comforted. Like pulling your coat tighter as you walk down a empty, rain-wet autumn street. Beläten is honored to welcome Veil of Light back into the fold, and to present our first vinyl release. Ξ is pressed on heavy, white vinyl, housed in a sturdy cardboard outer sleeve and a printed inner sleeve, and limited to 350 copies.
“Babylon” is the twin-LP to last year’s “Hollywood”, the second and last part of the MODERN WITCH retrospective on TuT/RuR. The story of MODERN WITCH began 7 years ago in Denver, Colorado, when graphic artist Mario Zoots, singer Kristy Fenton and house veteran Kamran Khan started recording experimental music together on an old VHS camera. In the space of a few years, a couple of very limited tape and CD/R releases on labels such as Disaro and Clan Destine Records, and a series of spooky performances both in Europe and on the American continent, the trio has become a true underground reference for creepy, ritualistic dance music, in the muddy but oh so fascinating waters between Witchhouse and Minimal Synth. Drunk on 80s cold wave, bathed in suburbian occult decadence and haunted by dead celebrities, “Hollywood” and “Babylon” are a feast of thaumaturgic synth lines, nonchalant but captivating mpc 1000 – sequences, drugged-out spoken words and ghostly voices. American Angst or Minimal Doom electronics at their best!
Hyperactive musician and filmmaker TZII is no newcomer to the TuT/RuR roaster, since we already had the pleasure to release his much acclaimed BLACK MONOLITH SPACE QUEST soundtrack on Rectangle Astral, and to welcome him on JAW with his project SOLAR SKELETONS. TZII has been making music for almost two decades, and yet SAnd HAert RAge is a first in the artist’s career in several ways: amidst a long discography of CDs and tapes, it is his first solo appearance on vinyl; and more importantly perhaps, it is the first time that he chooses to tackle one of the most fundamental experiences of his life, his Saharian childhood. TZII spent his early years, until adolescence in fact, in Africa, confronted to a multitude of intense, deeply life-altering experiences, from Beninese Voodoo rituals to the endless landscapes of the Sahara desert. An extreme environment, provoking extreme and very divergent emotions, which find their musical expressions in the changing ambiances of the record’s four tracks. From mystery to simple beauty, from melancholy to pure joy, this is an intimate but exalting record, where meditative and festive moods rub shoulders in the most natural way. Best Oriental Chill-Wave for both the dance-floor and your inner eye.
Minimal Wave is pleased to present a fourth 12” single from our French favorites, In Aeternam Vale. This one features another monumental 14 minute techno masterpiece called Gnd Lift. On the flip side are two pure wave tracks, J’ai Mangé des Nerfs and Animals Don’t Mind. Gnd Lift is a slow building hazy hypnotic track with heavy atmosphere, fitting perfectly on a smoke filled dance floor. J’ai Mangé des Nerfs is a classic vocal driven synthpop track with the grit characteristic of In Aeternam Vale’s 80’s cassette works. The 12” closes with Animals Don’t Mind, a slow and deeply emotive smoldering darkwave track that speaks directly to the heart, this one feels the most personal thus far. The Gnd Lift 12” shows us all sides of In Aeternam Vale, his strengths lying in his ability to create both techno masterpieces and classic underground wave tracks, moving seamlessly from one to the next. None of these tracks have ever been released before although In Aeternam Vale has been performing them live recently with much acclaim. he pressing is limited to 999 copies, all pressed on 160 gram clear transparent deep purple vinyl, accompanied by a hand-numbered matte printed sleeve. |
