From Gothronic, reviewed by Bauke Vanderval of The Law-Rah Collective (not sure about the Wiccan reference):
Before me is a whole stash of releases by the Italian label Afe Records. An independent label run by Andrea Marutti for the incrowd of the ambient, experimental drone scene better known as Amon or Never Known.

One of the new releases is from his hand, but at this moment the CD "Helchemy" by New Zealand artist Gydja is playing. Gydja is a one-woman project from Abby Helasdottir. An Icelandic name hailing from New Zealand, that can only mean extreme isolationism and that is exactly what fits the release - albeit with loads of ritual aspects. Next to that Abby is also active as Clear Stream Temple who released the CD "XVI" on Cold Spring Records.

The two tracks which are both around 25 minutes bear the illustrous titles "The Spirit of the Earth With Venom Intoxicate" and "The Black Sea, the Black Lune, the Black Soll". Hearing these titles you already know there will be poetic, magickal and ritualistic sounds. And that turns out to be quite fitting: ambient soundscapes with sudden moments of harmony, disharmonic atonal miniatures and meditative structures for inner peace.

This album is a perfect auditive guidance for rituals of witchcraft or magick. Limited to 100 copies and as there are way more Wiccans and Thelemites in this world, it would be wise not to wait too long with your purchase.
 

From Chain DLK (psychedelic crepuscular trips are us):
In a scene mostly crowded of male artists, Abby Helasdottir shows the basic idea that dark ambient/experimental music is exclusively male oriented is a bullshit, and this release also demonstrates the concept female musicians may have this or that characteristics is false.

As we've already said, this musician from New Zeland deals with dark ambient from the music to the layout and if you're looking for some supplementary hints I'd say this doesn't belong to the category of "I'll scare the shit out of you" dark-ambient releases, it's an heave trip for sure but it's a psychedelic crepuscular trip that presents some really melodic interventions that change the whole atmosphere of the two long tracks here included.

It looks like some sound source of this release comes from some old tape experiment she did during the late nineties and someway the global feel of the most obscure passages could suggest it, but if that puts forward the equation: "old sounds equals retro music"... forget it.

The interesting game of heavy passages and melancholic quasi-sacral movements is mainteined also in the second track of this work, here you've more outspoken keyboards sounds that twist the shape of the scenario but the style is really similar to the music of the opening suite.

I know you may not agree with me but I think Gydja's music fits really well with definitions such as "ecstatic", yes, "dark and esthetic" and considering she's far from those mono-drone recordings where you feel like bored to death after a few minutes, I'm sure you'll appreciate the way she maintained her composition dynamical by moving different elements and atmospheres during the length of every track.

anotherGIZYA: ten artists colonise Liquid Sphere's Gizya 

At the end of 2003 and the beginning of 2004, ten artists were sent a copy of liquid sphere's Liquid Sphere's GIZYA and/or the sounds and field recordings used in the creation of that album. During the following months, each of these artists sent back one or more remixes or new tracks created using the source material they had been provided with. The result is anotherGIZYA, a collection of tracks demonstrating how original and dedicated to their craft their creators are.

The artists:
a.k.a_bondage. aidan baker. cdrik croll & friends. final cut. j.frede. goose. gydja. cordell klier. liquid sphere. planetaldol. wilt.

The disc is packaged in a 4-page A5 cardboard cover tied by a brass fastener.

For more info and ordering details, see Liquid Sphere Industries.

A short review, from Frans de Waard's Vital Weekly newsletter, of the Hidden Landscape: Lake Vostok compilation released by Dreamland Recordings.  

Bokor is also present on 'Hidden Landscape: Lake Vostok', together with a few other acts from the ever expanding CDR scene, such as Ellende, Aidan Baker, Wilt and Liquid Sphere aswell as some new names for me, such as Undecisive God, Siren and Gydja. All eight of these musicians operate in the field of dark ambient music, some with a touch industrial music, such as Wilt. Particular standout track is by Gydja, who offer a nice smooth, maybe somewhat slick ambient piece, but actually there is no weak brother around here. (FdW)

Dreamland Recordings

This week is jury service week, which means something of a holding pattern as i wait to find out if i'm needed during the week. Yesterday was the selection for two 3-day trials with a 70 person pool with a goth population of one. I figure that with the amount of times i seem to get called up for jury service, the odds would be equally good for the occassional other goth to spring up, but no. So anyway, selected for one trial pool, but challenged by the defence lawyer just as i declined a free Bible from the bailiff and stepped into the jury box. Grateful i am though, as the case in question wasn't something i wanted to have to deal with.

The other holding pattern at the moment is a technical one, with a new computer coming my way in a week or two meaning that it's pointless to start, or resume, any major musical projects. So i find myself defaulting to the often neglected writing feather in my bow. This is where the necessary train journey into town for jury service comes in handy, because it gives me a chance to pick up research material at the central library. If only i'd remember that, if i'm going to the big library, i'll inevitably get more books than i can safely carry on my own, and it'd be so much easier to bring my own bag than waste 50 precious cents on one with the library's logo on it. So newly-aquired plastic bag bulging at the seams, i leave the library having picked more books than i had expected, and exceeding the bounds of my current writing topic.

*Ida Rubinstein by Michael de Cossart (My main reason for the visit; my secondary reason, The Queer Encyclopedia of Visual Arts, was undetectable, no matter how much i stared at the shelf where dewey said it would be. At the moment, i'm trying to decide who my favourite early 20th century Salome dancer is, Rubinstein or Maud Allan [Mata Hari is so out of the running she may as well be... ummm... well something not in the running and a long way back]. I fear Maud may lose out to Ida, simply because Rubinstein did both Salome and Sebastian.)

*Music of the Spheres and the Dance of Death: Studies in Musical Iconology by Kathi Meyer-Baer (With a title that sounds like i should have found it in a dusty book shop that then mysteriously disappeared once i had left, this wasn't part of the research brief, but anything dealing with the totentanz and music as a symbol of death in antiquity does relate to other things i'm writing.)

*The Dark Reign of Gothic Rock by Dave Thompson (Published in 2002, i'd never heard of it before. The writing style is quite arch and chatty, where you notice the author's voice, rather than just absorb the information, and i'm rather looking forward to reading it. This is unrelated to the aforementioned totentanz or any research, it was just "ooh, cool, another goth book, must read now".)

*Fatboy Slim: Funk Soul Brother by Martin James (Not reseach related obviously, though goth related as Martin James went out of his way with a whole paragraph to explain who Susan Ballion was when describing Norman Cook's suburb of birth: Bromley. Most un-proof-read book i've seen in ages, with glaring mistypes and mispellings, including calling Jason Nevin's 1998 resurrection of Run DMC "It ain't like that", and yet using the correct title [sans the negative] later in the book.)

*Dancing the Darkness by Sondra Horton Fraleigh (A book about Butoh, which might tie in with what i'm writing, depending on what Fraleigh says in it; i've barely skimmed through it. Otherwise i might see if can write a separate, and totally dilletantish, article about Butoh.)

*Knees Up Mother Earth by Robert Rankin (Seems like ages since i've seen a new Robert Rankin book. Part seven in the Brentford trilogy, so should be some easily readible occult-tinged frippery; and on the full page artist photo on the back, he looks like an non-semitic version of Anton LaVey; or that guy from Ikon.)

current mood: quixotic