Hi All,

We have loads of new merch items for you to buy: -

Atavist/Nadja - 12012291920 / 1414101 LP on Kreation Records
                        - £11 inc P+P

Atavist - Logo Shirts
             - S, M, L & XL Shirts (Silver Logo on a Black or White Shirt)
             - £6 inc P+P

Nadja / Atavist / Satori - Infernal Procession... And Then Everything Dies 
             - Split CD on Cold Spring Records
             - £6 inc P+P

All the new items have paypal links / images on the front page, or you can send the amount + Item description to megatronmusic@yahoo.com (PayPal Email)

Cheers for reading, all the best
Chris

Nadja / Atavist / Satori - 'Infernal Procession... And Then Everything Dies' CD
(Cold Spring Records)

As the cold and dark winter nights draw in, the ominous pull of the season tugs hard at our minds, bodies and souls. The majority of us have an instinctive reaction to try to fight and turn our back on it, although we know full well it's a battle against the forces of nature we can't win. Instead it slowly drags us down, and the bitter winds chill us to the bone. But of course it doesn't have to be like this. Out of the darkness there is beauty, rebirth and something to relish if you look hard enough, whether it be the climatic changing of the seasons, the insanity of the seasonal shopping that always follows suit, or the awe-inspiring presence of winter as it envelops everything in its path.

And from this season comes something to relish that takes away the bite of the cold, but which, if nothing else, will draw you deeper into the darker recesses of nature with an imposing force and presence that is, for those with a love of powerfully bleak music at least, impossible to ignore, the UK tour of Nadja, Atavist and Satori.

To coincide and commemorate this coming together of this trio of superbly powerful projects, Cold Spring have released 'Infernal Procession', an album presenting one track from each of the three bands which shows why there is such an air of excitement and trepidation surrounding this tour, not only from dark ambient and industrial fans, but also from those with a passion for metal, doom and noise.

'Infernal Procession' opens with Canada's drone / guitar noise duet Nadja and their epic 13-minute plus behemoth 'Time Is Our Disease', which sees Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff producing gigantic swathes of dense, fuzzed-out walls of guitars, bass and drums. The pace is slow and sludgy but immensely powerful to almost overwhelming proportions. It sticks to your skin as the intensity of the track encases your senses whilst it engulfs you. With a phenomenal amalgamation of drones, noise, melted sounds and a subtle wash of melancholic pop sensibilities, influences are littered throughout - early Swans, My Bloody Valentine, Sunn O))) and even post-rock icons Godspeed You Black Emperor! and ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Japan's Mono are all there, but only as brief reference points that Nadja strip down and remould into a powerfully moving cacophony of sound of their very own. With the addition of almost whispered vocals and the increase in pace, the track appears to constantly evolve, whilst keeping its grip on the
listener steadfast. It personifies the sound that Nadja have become renowned for over an impressive array of releases perfectly, and demonstrates why, with every release, the duo constantly build a larger fanbase and an ever-increasing wave of excitement. If this is your first taste of Nadja and this shoegazing / doom / dark ambient epic has whetted your appetite sufficiently to want more of this pair, then a recommended next step is the 'Skin Turns to Glass' album, and after that anything the band have touched, as a dark brooding thread of quality ties them all inextricably together.

Atavist's 'Certitude' follows, and after a slow-paced instrumental introduction that lulls the listener into a false sense of calm, it explodes with a cacophony of screamed death metal styled vocals and a bombardment of drums and guitars which are delivered with a venomous
ferocity, as bleak and unnerving, certainly, as some of the music which can be found within the black and death metal genres. However, whilst there may be slight similarities to these genres, Atavist manage to keep outside of pigeonholing themselves as such by the use of more ambient-esque passages separating the tirade of instruments and vocals. It's an odd combination, and certainly not the most accessible, even for those with a love of extreme noise and industrial, as it certainly leans more to the metal edge of things and after its 13-odd minute assault, the final group of this trio are certainly a sight for sore eyes, or even ears!

Bringing up the rear, metaphorically speaking of course, is the UK's dark ambient / Fortean electronics group Satori, who seem to have come out of relative hibernation over the last year or so with a number of new releases and live appearances to boot. With low-end rumbling and a distorted spoken word sample, Satori draw you straight into their malevolent world of the 'Abyss', a track just shy of ten minutes, overflowing with hypnotic and suffocating dark ambient soundscapes that pulse and breath like a living creature. With a brooding presence and an intense nature, they create a subtle amalgamation of aural textures, immensely deep with fragile layers and washes of sounds that help create the pitch-black atmosphere and intensity which fills this track. Sitting rather nicely within the more chillingly ominous recesses of the dark ambient genre, it's easy to see why Satori are creating such an air of
interest around their current activities. On the strength of this track alone, it certainly ensures that more investigation is warranted of their output, both live and in the studio.

Housed in a bleak six-panel foldout sleeve and with a running time of just 35 minutes, this split release will not only act as a brilliant jumping-on point for those who want an introduction to any of the bands, but also a very welcome addition to those who have a love of one or all of them already, and is as such a very welcome and enjoyable, if immensely dark,
addition to the wonderfully depressing nature of the winter season.

A fantastically compelling release indeed, and just what's needed in order to help embrace the long, dark winter nights!

Lee Powell

ATAVIST / NADJA   II: Points At Infinity

Document number two in the ongoing collaboration and joint low-frequency brain massage between the uber-prolific ambient sludge duo Nadja and minimalist UK doom architects Atavist, released by the consistently amazing underground metal label Profound Lore. This disc features two twenty-two minute pieces, titled "Projective Plane" and "Closed Curve" respectively, and if you didn't get a chance to hear the first collaborative album that these cats put together last year, well, this isn't exactly the bonecrushing slugfuck you might expect.

Both of the tracks are sprawling and spacious, and the first opens with a plaintive guitar melody hovering above a field of whistling drones and deep tectonic rumblings, the muffled guitar and downcast minor key melody resonating across the softly roiling dronescape and eventually joined by a chorus of male vocals chanting in harmony. Once these vocals emerge, the sound becomes a bit darker and more ominous and the guitar melodies begin to unravel and break apart and float across the darkening plane of subsonic rumblings and swelling low end drone, beautiful and mysterious sounding but becoming more and more abstracted until it fades into an elongated feedback drone that disappears into nothingness.

And the the second track suddenly appears amidst a swell of metallic shimmer and feedback, exploding into the big riff, a huge crumbling minor key dirge that definitely sounds like what we were expecting from these two bands combining their sounds together, a massive grinding riff, simple but pulverizing, and encrusted with overdriven feedback and distortion, repeating over and over atop huge pounding drums, and joined by a constant panic siren of feedback. The metallic crush only lasts for about seven minutes though, a brief avalanche of bottom heavy sludge that slides to a halt and becomes a sprawl of nebulous atmospheric feedback and humming amplifiers. Clean guitars come back in, along with waves of feedback and freeform, almost jazzy drumming, swells of cymbal shimmer and cello-like strains as the song becomes an eerie dronescape that stretches out for more than twelve minutes. This last half of the song is super abstract and mysterious sounding, filled with deformed sludge riffs and surges of Sunn O)))-esque amp drone, that quasi-jazzy percussion that reminds me of those recent discs from Pentemple and Burial Chamber Trio, reverberating notes suspended in blackness, and horrific blackened shrieks that scuttle over the blasted landscape of drone and guitar noise.

The album is more abstract and intangible than what I'm used to hearing from either band, but together they make some amazing far-out ambience that on this album manages to channel some serious heaviness. Cool packaging, a six panel digipack with strange mystical artwork that adds to the esoteric dimesion-tripping vibe. Recommended.