photos by Greg Cristman

"On Saturday night the festival presented a commission: "Trinity," a collaboration by Lustmord, from Los Angeles, and Biosphere, from Norway. The West Park Presbyterian Church had been turned into a surround-sound environment.

Trinity was the name of the first test of the atomic bomb, in New Mexico, and the images on the video screen at the church were black-and-white film of desert landscapes, 1940s bomb technology and eventually the detonation. Lustmord and Biosphere are kindred spirits, masters of ominous ambience: enveloping, murky, ultra-slow-motion music. "Trinity" filled the room with tectonic rumbles and gradual whooshes, with tolling crashes followed by silences, with air-raid sirens, with claustrophobically thick cluster chords that were sometimes electronic and sometimes orchestral -- part Penderecki, part "A Day in the Life" -- and with spoken words from the era, wondering, "What have we done?" They embraced technology to question where technology can lead. -[NY Times]

The Unsound Festival came to a close after performances from Napszyklat and Maria Minerva, with DJ sets from Sun Araw vs. Heat Wave and Eltron John, Sunday night at Glasslands.

The Lustmord/Biosphere collaboration at West Park Presbyterian Church on Saturday (4/21) also featured a supporting slot from Jacaszek. More pictures and a video from that show, below...

Continue reading "Lustmord & Biosphere collaborated in a church (pics/video)"

by Andrew Frisicano

Julia Holter @ Le Poisson Rouge in March (more by by Amanda Hatfield)

Unsound Festival New York, the Poland-based series of avant-leaning, ambient and experimental music, kicks off five nights in NYC with two events tonight (4/18): instrumental Warsaw band Baaba scores animations at BAM, while Julia Holter, Julia Kent and Jenny Hval playing a sold-out show at Issue Project Room.

Check out the festival's full schedule, which includes several free shows such as LXMP and Peaking Lights at Lincoln Center's David Rubenstein Atrium on Thursday 19th (both have amazing songs on the comp below). Issue Project Room hosts free day sets Saturday and Sunday (though only tickets for Saturday appear to still be available).

Dark ambient musician and repeat Unsound artist Lustmord recently spoke with Resident Advisor about the experience of seeing someone play a laptop live...

If somebody said "an ambient musician" was playing live in town this evening, I wouldn't exactly rush out, you know? I'd rather stay home and read a book. [laughs]

[he then goes on to describe how seeing Kraftwerk live changed his mind]

I hadn't seen them live for a long time, and they played in LA--four middle aged guys on laptops, how boring is that? But, fucking hell, it was one of the best gigs I've ever seen. That's when I really thought, yeah, you can stand there with your laptop and do your thing as long as you got the fucking sound.

Lustmord collaborates with ambient musician Biosphere at an Upper West Side church on Saturday.

Inner Tube were set to play Le Poisson Rouge on Friday, but have been replaced by Mark McGuire (solo). And:

a visual program has been added to Bass Mutations on April 21, showing the ways in which visual artists have helped shape the way we imagine bass music. Curated by "Big Up Magazine" Editor-In-Chief Katya Guseva in collaboration with Dave Q from Dub War NYC, it will take place in a movie theatre adjacent to the dancefloor at the venue for the night, IndieScreen. Live audio from Bass Mutations performers such as 2562, Teeth, Sepalcure, Distal, Throwing Snow and Nguzunguzu will provide the soundtrack.

Stream an excellent playlist of Unsound artists below...

Continue reading "Unsound Festival (Lustmord, Demdike Stare, Actress, Julia Holter) begins; listen to a mix"

by Andrew Frisicano

Julia Holter @ Le Poisson Rouge in March (more by by Amanda Hatfield)

Unsound Festival New York, the Poland-based series of avant-leaning, ambient and experimental music, kicks off five nights in NYC with two events tonight (4/18): instrumental Warsaw band Baaba scores animations at BAM, while Julia Holter, Julia Kent and Jenny Hval playing a sold-out show at Issue Project Room.

Check out the festival's full schedule, which includes several free shows such as LXMP and Peaking Lights at Lincoln Center's David Rubenstein Atrium on Thursday 19th (both have amazing songs on the comp below). Issue Project Room hosts free day sets Saturday and Sunday (though only tickets for Saturday appear to still be available).

Dark ambient musician and repeat Unsound artist Lustmord recently spoke with Resident Advisor about the experience of seeing someone play a laptop live...

If somebody said "an ambient musician" was playing live in town this evening, I wouldn't exactly rush out, you know? I'd rather stay home and read a book. [laughs]

[he then goes on to describe how seeing Kraftwerk live changed his mind]

I hadn't seen them live for a long time, and they played in LA--four middle aged guys on laptops, how boring is that? But, fucking hell, it was one of the best gigs I've ever seen. That's when I really thought, yeah, you can stand there with your laptop and do your thing as long as you got the fucking sound.

Lustmord collaborates with ambient musician Biosphere at an Upper West Side church on Saturday.

Inner Tube were set to play Le Poisson Rouge on Friday, but have been replaced by Mark McGuire (solo). And:

a visual program has been added to Bass Mutations on April 21, showing the ways in which visual artists have helped shape the way we imagine bass music. Curated by "Big Up Magazine" Editor-In-Chief Katya Guseva in collaboration with Dave Q from Dub War NYC, it will take place in a movie theatre adjacent to the dancefloor at the venue for the night, IndieScreen. Live audio from Bass Mutations performers such as 2562, Teeth, Sepalcure, Distal, Throwing Snow and Nguzunguzu will provide the soundtrack.

Stream an excellent playlist of Unsound artists below...

Continue reading "Unsound Festival (Lustmord, Demdike Stare, Actress, Julia Holter) begins; listen to a mix"

by Andrew Sacher

Julia Holter at LPR last week (more by Amanda Hatfield)

Unsound Fest, which goes down from April 18 - 22 across multiple NYC venues, has announced its schedule for 2012. The schedule is listed in full below, and here are some of its highlights:

Julia Holter, who has been making a ton of buzz lately with her excellent new album, Ekstasis, and her NYC live debut, which you can now watch in full at NPR, will be playing the first day of the fest on Wednesday, April 18 at Issue Project Room with Julia Kent and Jenny Hval.

On Thursday, April 19, psych/dub duo Peaking Lights and LXMP will play a free show at David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center at 7:30 PM. That show will be followed by live sets by Actress, Next Life, and Hype Williams at Le Poisson Rouge at 11 PM.

Friday's (April 20) shows include Sun Araw, pole, and Inner Tube at Le Poisson Rouge at 6 PM and live sets by Laurel Halo, Ital, Demdike Stare, Hieroglyphic Being, Zemi17 and Monolake at Warsaw at 10 PM.

On Saturday, April 21, Biosphere and Lustmord's special TRINITY piece will be performed at West Park Presbyterian Church at 7 PM with an opening set by Jacaszek. After that show, at a venue TBA we'll get Sepalcure (live A/V set), Nguzunguzu (DJ), 2562 (DJ), Teeth (live), Throwing Snow (DJ), DaveQ (DJ), and Distal (DJ).

The festival wraps up on Sunday, April 22 with mostly Unsound LABS, including a talk with Biosphere & Lustmord on 'TRINITY' at the Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building at 4 PM. Glasslands will then hosting the Unsound Festival closing party at 9 PM with live sets by Napszyklat and Maria Minerva (who will be making her US debut) and DJ sets by Sun Araw vs Heat Wave and Eltron John.

Ticket info for all of the paid shows is available.

Full schedule including Unsound LABS below...

Continue reading "Unsound Fest posts schedule; tickets on sale"

Lustmord at Unsound 2011 (more by Greg Cristman)

Set aside April 18 - 22 which is when the annual Unsound Festival will make its way back to NYC at various venues across the city including BAMcinématek, The Bunker, Lincoln Center, ISSUE Project Room and Le Poisson Rouge.

So far amongst the confirmed are Baaba, Hype Williams, Berliner POLE, Jacaszek, Demdike Stare, ITAL, Hieroglyphic Being, Sun Araw, and a special set from Biosphere with Lustmord:

The worldwide debut of a special commission by Unsound and The Royal Norwegian Consulate General in New York and San Francisco: TRINITY features two legendary pioneers of ambient music Biosphere and Lustmord joining forces for the first time. Though both hail from very different worlds - Los Angeles based Lustmord is shrouded in darkness, whilst Biosphere's equally mysterious persona is deeply connected with the Arctic Circle - together they will create a work inspired by the first testing and development of atomic weapons in the Nevada desert.

This project is just one in a series of works related to the new Nordic scene - with a special focus on Norway. Unsound Festival New York's 2012 program will also include the blistering live show of Oslo-based digimetal band KILLL.

Lustmord also played Unsound 2011. Stay tuned for more details on the 2012 fest.

photos by Greg Cristman

Lustmord

"Rumbles, thunderclaps and a baleful reading from the Old Testament prophet Amos -- "I will slay the last of them with my sword" -- opened the set by Lustmord on Sunday night at the Abrons Arts Center, the finale of the Unsound Festival of electronic and contemporary music and video. It was an extraordinarily rare live performance by the British musician Brian Williams, who has been recording as Lustmord since 1980 but has given only a handful of public concerts during his career, emerging for the Unsound Festival in Krakow, Poland, last year.

Lustmord has been a pioneer of what is generally called dark ambient music. It is textural rather than melodic, ultra-slow and submerged in bass and sub-bass frequencies, merging natural reverberations -- Lustmord has recorded in crypts -- with electronic ones. It opens abysses and lingers in them. When Lustmord got started it was associated with post-punk industrial music. Mr. Williams was a member in the 1980s of the Australian industrial group SPK and more recently has collaborated with the Melvins and Tool. While recording prolifically as Lustmord he has worked extensively as a sound designer in Hollywood, bringing ominous resonances to movie soundtracks."
[NY Times]

Lustmord played two Unsound Festival shows in a row, both presented by the Blackened Music Series, at the Abrons Arts Center in NYC on Sunday (4/10). Polish experimental musician Robert Piotrowicz and Void Ov Voices (aka Attila of Mayhem) also played both shows. More pictures from the late one (Lustmord's second USA show in 25 years), below...

Continue reading "Lustmord played rare US shows @ Abrons Arts Center w/ Robert Piotrowicz & Void Ov Voices (pics)"

by BBG

Harvey Milk at LPR (more by Meghan McInnis)

Harvey Milk will play shows at Brooklyn's Union Pool on March 13th, 14th, & 15th, their only announced dates at the moment. Tickets for both 3/13 and 3/14 go on sale on Monday (2/7) at 9AM, but tickets aren't listed for 3/15 yet.

The Harvey Milk dates are presented by The Blackened Music Series, who also curated the previously mentioned Lustmord/Void Ov Voices/Robert Piotrowicz show on April 10th at The Abrons Arts Center as part of Unsound 2011. Tickets for that show also go on sale at 9AM on Monday.

Ben Frost at Brooklyn Masonic Temple (more by Greg Cristman)

After a successful inaugural year, Unsound returns in 2011. As discussed, the ten day festival will take place from April 1st - 10th at multiple venues across New York City with the musical program taking place from April 6th - 10th.

Kicking off April 6th at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, as also discussed Unsound will host Music For Solaris, a multimedia experience that incorporates the Tarkovsky film, Lem's written source material, and music "written for twenty-nine string players, two percussionists, prepared piano, guitars and electronics by Ben Frost (Australia / Iceland) and Daníel Bjarnason (Iceland) in collaboration with one of Poland's leading orchestras, Sinfonietta Cracovia." Brian Eno and Nick Robertson will be on hand for "film manipulations" of the Tarkovsky film.

The next three days will see events with Morton Subotnick, Atom, Lone, Badawi, Kontext, Alan Howarth, Harald Grosskopf, Emeralds, the previously mentioned debut of the new incarnation of Skull Defekts with Daniel Higgs (April 3rd at Littlefield), and so much more.

On April 10th, the festival will close up shop with with three events, one of which will feature the NYC live and dark debut of Lustmord with Void Ov Voices (aka Attila of Mayhem) and Robert Piotrowicz at Abrons Art Center.

More details on Unsound NYC are below.

Continue reading "Unsound 2011 lineup updates (Ben Frost, Brian Eno, Emeralds, Lustmord, Void Ov Voices, Morton Subotnick, Atom & more)"

by Klaus Kinski

As a young mullet-headed headbanger growing up in the pre-internet late 80's and early 90's Cape Cod, my only resource for expanding my metal horizons was Metal Maniacs. Sure, I enjoyed the titans of that era (Metallica, Slayer, Iron Maiden, etc) but what I craved was the most vile, lightning fast death metal in the world. Thanks to Metal Maniacs, I was exposed to the likes of Deicide, Napalm Death, Carcass, Entombed, Morbid Angel, Repulsion, Gorguts, Cathedral, Morgoth, and many many more. The one album from that era that immediately blew my mind, and has stayed an important part of my life, is Godflesh's Streetcleaner. To this day the bassy-death-rattle-feedback intro for the lead-off track "Like Rats" still gets me amped.

For the past 19 years I've been avidly following the brains behind Godflesh, Justin K. Broadrick, and his incredibly diverse career. Starting in 1982 with band called Final, a project that is still creating music to this day, Broadrick has released dozens of records and EPs under a variety of pseudonyms and monikers. He's remixed boat loads of tunes by other bands and has dabbled in many different genres including industrial, grindcore, and hip hop. With his latest project Greymachine (listen to a stream here) and many more projects on the horizon, it seemed like a great time for BV to catch up with Justin and discuss his past, present, and future.

Continue reading "an interview with Justin K. Broadrick"