live at LFH montreal 2009

Ghäst/Rape-X - Split
Review by Nick DeMarino (StonerRock. com)
Obskure Sombre Records
Release Date: 2008

Noisiness is next to godliness. That is to say, being noisy, much like being cleanly (as in the ancient Jewish proverb) is a virtue and thus a royal pain in the ass. Here’s the problem: if you know what’s coming next and can discern a pattern, it’s not noise, it’s music. That being said, both Montreal, Quebec’s Ghäst and Quakertown, Pennsylvania’s Rape-X do a magnificent job making noise.

Ghäst’s contribution begins with soft, unassuming feedback and slow keyboards swells. The high end is reminiscent of power lines; indeed, this is the sound of suburban depression. “Le Noye,” the twenty-one minute song in question, threatens to turn into a song at any moment, but manages to keep things actively ambient. The sound of breathing and footsteps add a human element, but the purposeful lack of singing or even talking serve to alienate the listener from the would-be vocalist. They extra kudos for ending of the track, which I shan’t reveal here, lest I ruin the effect. “Tetanos,” their other offering, is more typical fare: slow, scratchy doom. The drumming is primal, albeit overly simple. It sounds a bit like an ambient Aldebaran.

Rape-X is a power electronics and voice oriented band. Amidst feedback, the singer rants and raves he wants to “cut your fuckin’ face” on all three movements of the “Civil Servant” series. It’s violent, then comically violent, and then just funny by the end. It’s a bit like White House, although the noise is more feedback oriented. The last movement, “The Mayor,” is a bit of an endurance test, but that doesn’t make it bad.

The new disgusting creature was born on OBSKURE SOMBRE RECORDS - the new split release with GHAST's ominous appearance. GHAST / RAPE-X, total five tracks for almost 70(!) minutes total playing time.

Side A of the Split consists of GHAST's two monsters: "Le Noye" - 21+ minutes torturous noise epic & "Tetanos" - ultra sick and ascetic doom mutilation. Honestly, after this release i'm already not sure what kind of a band GHAST is - doom or noise. "Le Noye" is a horrifying grotesque sketch of withering life and madness! Utter dark ambient wave on the background sounds like a harbinger of your heartbeating stop. On this sombre foundation GHAST mercilessly put a layers of blasting horror. Almost immutable droning noise hindrance like a pollution of radioconnection channel along the whole track... A certain similarity of human voices somewhere for thousand miles away reach your brain by awful ugly distorted echo. Don't even try to be saved. Evil and darkness will saturate your flesh and you will ceaselessly rot. This stuff reminds me SHAMAN's album "Rituals in the Rainforest". Really, a lot of same moments, and same feelings.
In the end of "Le Noye" suddenly appearing a bleating of goats... Damn!

The next GHAST's monster is about almost 12 minutes. "Tetanos" has extremely simple drumset, but gigantic disgusting influence on brains.
A short prelude of noise irritants mixture and then torturous filthy doom oppression. Damn! This band becames uglier with every new release and i'm afraid even to imagine what will be the next embodiment of GHAST. Recommended only for those freaks who love an extreme mutationed alloy of ascetic doom and dangerous noise. For real sick freaks!

So GHAST will crush a half of your head. Another half will be crushed by the opponent of canadians on this Split.

Side B is a territory of RAPE-X. Three tracks are united by one title 'Civil Servant'. Chapter one named "The Cop", chapter two named "The Commissioner", chapter three named "The Mayor". Well what can i say? Much more agressive noise attack than canadians had. A powerful constant noise beam oriented into infinity along with awful mutant harsh voices will wreck an each molecule of your person. Of course "The Mayor" is the apogee of this noise violence. I am almost sure that you will not stand this twenty-minutes-punishment. Because a psyche of the most humans is not prepared for this kind of mockery. Definitely your mind will grow turbid after this sadistic stuff.

The Split comes in standard box with good printed covers. All artwork mostly of dark red/black colours. I think the dead and stained with blood hand on the front cover hints at consequences of listening the Split...

So this ominous CD recommended only for sadomasochists, music maniacs with mutilated brains and for those who steadily degrades. Now you're warned.

8/10

Yanick Klimbo Tremblay

TDS Records / Chocking Hazard Records (2008)

Personne ne m'avait jamais parlé de ce groupe, Ghäst… Comment ça? Ils sont de Montréal. J'ai comme l'impression d'en avoir manqué une bonne. Présentation visuelle qui fait sourire les collectionneurs de formats irréguliers car la couverture est particulièrement originale avec son carton à rabats. Sur ce split CD, extrêmement limité à 150 copies, la formation montréalaise offre deux pièces d'une profondeur nocturne ténébreuse, un pur délice cauchemardesque digne des meilleurs rêves machiavéliques offerts par une bambochade à l'absinthe hausgemacht. Un drone minimaliste certes, mais aussi un doom lourd et huileux à la couleur vocale black métallique. Seul problème, on en veut plus! Pour ce qui est de la formation américaine Yoga, elle est dans la même lignée de tir musicalement quoique plus axée vers l'ambiance. Yoga offre huit pièces, ce qui nous permet d'apprécier encore plus le groupe. Maintenant accro, il ne me reste plus qu'à compléter ma discographie! (YKT)

MySpace.com | rss | sign in IN_DiRT Last Updated: Aug 21, 2008 Send Message Instant Message Email to a Friend Subscribe Gender: Male Status: Single Age: 23 Sign: Sagittarius Country: RU Signup Date: Dec 12, 2006 Blog Archive [Older Newer] / / Sponsored Links Create Your Own Layout Layouts, Backgrounds & Generators Download Free to Pimp Your Profile! Backgroundsglitter.net Thursday, August 21, 2008 GHAST / YOGA "Split" review Respect till death to Stephazard/CHOKING HAZARD RECORDS for the copy of cd!!! Thank you man!!! This is one of the most interesting releases that i heard last monthes. Quebec [Canada] VS. Los Angeles [United States]. Oppressive nihilistic doom dirge VS. strange noise irritant of unknown nature. Ghast VS. Yoga. Ten tracks for 58 minutes total playing time. First comes mighty GHAST with two killer compositions. Track number one "La Noche Del Terror Ciego" is an ambient super monotonous doooooom with simple as fuck drumset, filthy frenzied vokkils and a wall of dense guitar riffing. Somewhere till the fifth minute the guitars are more or less 'affable', then the riffing turns to its another side and becomes much more heavier and sombre. On the whole, fifteen minutes of rotting and burning in flame of your poor soul shrouded in gloom. As i said before a very monotonous doom, the only variety here is an ambient layer on the background which getting 'higher' or 'falls down'. The track ends with the withering noise hindrance. Track number two "Malleus Maleficarum" of these dismal canadians is completely ambient. No rhythm, no guitars, no voices... Only dark dreadful noise atmosphere that gives birth a strange anxiety in your heart and the foreboding of evil. Grim disgusting stuff in the vein of CRAWE, STUMM and FUNERALIUM with a more than pertinent addition of noise elements. A doom world has worthy new-born sick sons. Then comes YOGA with eight tracks previously released on their cassette. Completely unknown to me band turns a real discovery! When i listen YOGA one thought persistently comes to my mind. Maybe these guys have a special scientific apparatus at home, one night they were lucky to record a signals from UFO's cosmic ships. So they put these signals on the disc and sent it to record label. Sounds unreal, but listen YOGA's tracks and you will understand that it is more than possible! Composition like "Deep With-in The Cave Of Sesame" perfectly could be a soundtrack to the horror movie based on necrophilia, awful monsters from the beyond and a never-ceasing torrent of human pain and fear. And the track "The Necromancer's Goblin Ha" with its gloomy ritual darkness and sharp hindrances? After listening i'm not sure i will want to enter a black room alone before switch on the light... My favourite and the best on the disc YOGA's track is seventh "Cosmic Safari". Awesome composition, simply amazing relax tunes when you swing on the waves of space wind or race one other with your exultant soul under the open elbow-room. They almost don't have a rhythm section, but if there's a rhythm it's very muffled and unobtrusive. The main instruments of influence (layers of noise ambient) is not burdened seriously by anything. Sorcery, refinement, originality, some kind of singularity, aloofness, the tinges of special beauty - all these gather together and named YOGA. Amazing band!! You will lose a lot if you will not hear them. So i actually must tell this CD is almost completely a 'noise' record. I mean only one (first GHAST's) track is 'serious' with 'all instruments included'. Other nine tracks are caused by various displays of noise. Of course i highly advise to buy this release. But there's no certainty that you'll put your hands on this great CD - the Split is strictly limited to 300 copies! Comes in standard box with four page booklet, quality printed artworks of dark red/black colour. So move your ass and hurry up and maybe you will be a lucky possessor of this amazing stuff.

Yoga is a pretty unlikely name for a black metal band. But then Yoga from Portland, Oregon are a pretty unlikely sounding black metal band. So much so that we're not even sure they really are black metal. Or metal. But they are. Sort of.
The sound of Yoga takes the lo-fi practice space recordings of grimmest of the BM outfits, and combines it with the murky muddy noise drenched blur of bands like Wold. But then take it even further rendering their sound so muted and lo fidelity that even when they're blasting furiously, it still sounds like a busted music box or an old black metal 78. And then there's the fact that Yoga spend a good amount of their time not blasting blackly, but instead, crafting synth heavy Goblin style film music, all throbbing bass and buzzing synths, creepy minor key melodies and tons of haunting ambience. Those songs too are wreathed in a foggy night-on-the-moors sort of murk, which ties those songs closely to the more blackened ones.
The strange combination of grim and Goblin, the tripped out fucked up recording quality, the damaged arrangements, the looped hypnotic quality, turn Yoga into something totally out there, most likely way to abstract and psychedelic and deliriously lo-fi to appeal to folks looking for grim buzzing blackness, but for the rest of you, if you can try to imagine some impossible mix of Philip Jeck, Wold, Goblin, the Skaters and some of the super weird EEE unblack bands, all produced by John Maus and Ariel Pink, then you will flip for this.
The other band on this split, Ghast, are also not at all typical black metal, although they are much more distinctly metal than Yoga. Their sound is a super spare, slow motion blackened doom, still plenty lo-fi, the drums murky and down in the mix, the guitars more of a distant moan, sometimes soaring to the forefront, before drifting off again, the vocals super distorted and effected and harsh. All around this plodding blackness, creepy drones soar and shimmer, wail and keen, offering up a mournful abstract backdrop for Ghast's miserablist blackdoom. There's also a live track, where Ghast's sound is transformed into a crumbling blown out blackened drone, sounding almost like a metal band playing from behind a brick wall, the whole thing captured using a mic in a bucket of dirty water. The result is pretty fantastic, only the drums are at all identifiable, and then just barely, all the other instruments have been transformed into a mesmerizingly damaged, murky, muddy, sludgey pulsing drone. Awesome.
We got these direct from the band, and got the last copies, so once we run out, we might not be able to get more...