Sunday 24 May 2020

Unveiled – Crudelis Et Invictus (1995)


Country: Denmark

Tracklist
1. Hammer Of The Underworld 07:07
2. Creaks And Thunder 06:13
3. Sailors Death 03:03
4. Mindbender 06:31
5. Nothingness 02:13
6. Ancient King 03:43
7. Arise 05:21
8. Creepshow 00:20
9. Invictus 06:46
10. Trancemorph 09:57

Unveiled was the project of Hansen (Hüebsch Originators, Cant, UFO).
In 1995 the project released the album "Crudelis Et Invictus" as a three-piece band,
(Hansen, Mikkel T.Ørnebjerg, Kris B. Prasada Rao), but dissolved shortly after.
The album featured more guitars, riffs and bombastic elements than the later releases.
In the end of the nineties Unveiled was brought back to life again by Hansen as a solo project.
In 2000, Unveiled's second album, "Silver" was released through World Serpent Distribution,
followed by a split album with Sol Invictus, Matt Howden and Sieben.
The split album featured one long and building track of ritual strength.
In 2003 the split album
"Chance Meeting Of Nurse With Wound And Unveiled On Charlottenborg"  
with Nurse With Wound was produced to commemorate an exhibition of Steven Stapleton's work in Denmark.
The Unveiled tracks for this split were made up of samples from the Nurse With Wound and Current 93 back catalogue.
The same year "Winter Songs" was released, with four tracks originally composed
for a public ritual performance that took place in Copenhagen with reverend Steven Leyba Johnson in 2001.
Unveiled also appeared on the 2006 5-cd set compilation "Not Alone" (with the track "Endless", 
featuring Kim Larsen of :Of The Wand & The Moon: on vocals), alongside such artists as Current 93,
Antony, Jarboe, The Angels Of Light, Aube, Coil, Hafler Trio and many others.
The band eventually dissolved and Hansen formed Slagskygge as a continuation of Unveiled,
with an updated sound and influences of post-black metal and dubstep, while maintaining the industrial core.

Saturday 16 May 2020

Toru Takemitsu – Kwaidan (1965)


Composer: Toru Takemitsu

Tracklist
1. Ki 06:00
2. Yuki 06:53
3. Biwa-Uta 11:06
4. Bunraku 03:14

"Kwaidan" (怪談, Kaidan, literally "ghost stories") is a 1965 Japanese anthology horror film
and the first color film of Masaki Kobayashi, known for "The Human Condition", "Harakiri" and "Samurai Rebellion".
It is based on stories from Lafcadio Hearn's collections of Japanese folk tales,
mainly "Kwaidan: Stories And Studies Of Strange Things", for which it is named.
The film consists of four separate and unrelated stories.
It won the Special Jury Prize at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival
and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.
Tōru Takemitsu (武満 徹, Takemitsu Tōru, October 8, 1930 – February 20, 1996)
was a Japanese composer and writer on aesthetics and music theory.
Largely self-taught, Takemitsu possessed consummate skill in the subtle manipulation of instrumental and orchestral timbre.
He is famed for combining elements of oriental and occidental philosophy to create a sound uniquely his own
and for fusing opposites together such as sound with silence and tradition with innovation.
He composed several hundred independent works of music, scored more than ninety films and published twenty books.
He was also a founding member of the Jikken Kobo (experimental workshop) in Japan,
a group of avant-garde artists who distanced themselves from academia
and whose collaborative work is often regarded among the most influential of the 20th century.
His 1957 Requiem for string orchestra attracted international attention, led to several commissions from across the world and established his reputation as one of the leading 20th-century Japanese composers.
He was the recipient of numerous awards and honours and the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award is named after him.
In under 40 years Takemitsu composed music for over 100 films, some of which were written for purely financial reasons.
However, as the composer attained financial independence, he grew more selective,
often reading whole scripts before agreeing to compose the music, and later surveying the action on set,
"breathing the atmosphere" whilst conceiving his musical ideas.
One notable consideration in Takemitsu's composition for film was his careful use of silence
(also important in many of his concert works), which often immediately intensifies the events on screen
and prevents any monotony through a continuous musical accompaniment.
Some of the films that he score are "Harakiri" (1962), "Woman In The Dunes" (1964), "The Face Of Another" (1966),
"Samurai Rebellion" (1967), "Ran" (1985) and the documentary "Antonio Gaudí" (1984).

Thursday 14 May 2020

Akhenaton – Divine Symphonies (1995)


Country: France

Tracklist
1. Raising (Intro) 00:33
2. Unutterable Verity 07:07
3. Remissions / The Sign Of Herou 08:05
4. In The Circle Of Wizards / Ritual 05:05
5. Chase With The Shadows 03:06
6. Cross The Styx (Dance With The Souls) 02:11
7. The Kingdom Of Wisdom 05:17
8. At The Gates Of Obscurity 03:10
9. Final Battle (Against Your Dark Side) 04:08
10. Pharao (The Karma Of The Hierophante) 03:41

Vincent Urbain aka Lord V. Akhenaton (ex-Amaymon, ex-Winds Of Sirius, ex-The Seven Gates)
released his first album in 1994 under the name Daemonium entitled "Dark Opera Of The Ancient War Spirit".
The album was released by Adipocere Records and was a mix of black metal, medieval and classical music.
In 1995, Vincent changed the name of the project to Akhenaton

and after the recording of the demo "Solar Forces", he released the album "Divine Symphonies".
The album received excellent reviews and remains one of the most sold French extreme metal albums of all time.
A video was also made for the track "The Kingdom Of Wisdom".
After a very long hiatus Vincent decided make his return in 2012 under the moniker Sandragon.
This time, he surrounded himself with musicians to deliver the third part of his trilogy.
In 2015 "Requiem For Apocalypse" was finally released by Wake Up Dead Records.
In July 2016 Adipocere Records released the "Daemonium-Akhenaton-Sandragon: Thy Mystic Trilogy"

vinyl compilation containing all the three albums.