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    Posted: February 19 2023 at 23:20
Hi! Welcome to The Arcanum.

The Arcanum will act as a repository for my musical musings, mainly reviews, but may include other random related thoughts as relates to Prog. Will probably include some side quests off that though.

For those of you new to The Arcanum, or don't know my musical tastes, it tends towards the raw, unrefined, and underground side of things. Psych, RIO/Avant, Prog Electronic, Prog Folk are favorite subs, as well as the regional subs, Krautrock, Indo-Prog/Raga Rock, Zeuhl etc. However not averse to any genre (except maybe Neo Prog). If Genesis, Marillion, IQ etc.., proper, clean sounding Prog is what you seek here you will be disappointed. If it's Guru Guru, Current 93, Tangerine Dream, Amon Duul, Captain Beefheart, Acid Mothers Temple etc.. then you will probably find something to enjoy here.

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As a random little aside; it's been a literal decade since I've written a review on the site, and about 5-6 years since I've interacted on this site in any real, meaningful way. So uh, hello to all you people that remember me and to those who don't. I hope you find enjoyment in these ramblings.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Sheavy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 19 2023 at 23:25
The Arcanum review No.1


Davenport - At The Foot Of Zodiac Mountain











Davenport Family were a collective of freak folks and psychedelic noise(unmerry)markers that hail from the Madison, Wisconsin, USA areas’ underground noise/psych scene. Davenport Family (DF from now on) carry on in the tradition of the first Amon Duul, Ya Ho Wha 13, Siloah, Zendik Community, etc. That is to say, making loose, krautrock inflicted, improvised and primitive free folk/psych/rock of the utmost heathenistic variety and quality, minus the cult aspects of Father Yod and Zendik, and more of the ‘light up a campfire and start clunking and clogging away on whatever instrument you have on hand’. It’s safe to assume most DF releases were recorded outdoors, in barns or some such other place. This applies to the community gathering only however, don’t let my description of campfire gatherings and B.Y.O. instruments lead you into thinking this is going to be a summer of love, peace dude, hippie affair. DF’s brand of communal folk freakery often times doesn’t merely flirt and toy with undercurrents of darkness, but fully embrace them. Though DF aren’t as dark, think of the similarly minded collective from Belgium, Silvester Anfang and their self-styled ‘Funeral Folk’. This final offering from Davenport Family, before changing name to Second Family Band, and continuing on in the same manner, offers a magnificent send off.

 

The nearly 33 minute jam that is At the Foot of Zodiac Mountain starts out life slowly at first. Electronics, guitar and vocals queasily and darkly groan away, often drenched in reverb and various effects. While drums and various percussion freely thump and clang, sparse and distant, before gaining momentum and tribalistic rhythm, rising in intensity against the backdrop, which has turned into a frenzy of buzzing and thrumming, feedback and noise, before falling apart and re-congealing into the void-like morass. This presents itself as a cycle, that of lysergy, slowly building into uncouth paganist noise, but upon the feverish plateau being reached, the tribal percussives, cracked and moaning guitars and electronics, whooping and hollering, everything inevitably and slowly slides back into abyss of zonked out and evilly twinkling sparsity. By the time the final recorded cycle has spasmed out into the darkness, you’ll want to join in (or you stopped listening 5 minutes in cause you hated this wonderful mess, fair play).

 

I unashamedly love these communal groups who jam out wild, percussive, psych freak outs, and this dark and gloamy, paint spattered little cassette offering sits at the top of this niche pile.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Gordy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 19 2023 at 23:37
Subscribed and following! Great to have you back, Alex!
"Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Sheavy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 20 2023 at 01:13
Originally posted by Gordy Gordy wrote:

Subscribed and following! Great to have you back, Alex!


Thanks my friend
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Gordy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 21 2023 at 10:51
Since you posted your review, two people have downloaded that Davenport album - and only that Davenport album - from me on Soulseek. Geek

Gutter prog FTW!


Edited by Gordy - February 21 2023 at 10:51
"Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sheavy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 21 2023 at 11:59
Lol ^

Gutter Prog is an appropriate term (and great label name) to describe this stuff, I'll have to start using it now.



It's one of three DF releases I own physically, all on cassette cause obviously.


Edited by Sheavy - February 21 2023 at 19:22
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Gordy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 21 2023 at 18:24
I'll petition the collabs to codify GP as a sub-subgenre of krautrock, covering all the borderline-lobotomised percussive freakout groups you and I love so much. I still plan to force the team to listen to 6majik9 and the rest of the Music Your Mind Will Love You dudes. ;)

I only have one DF release, Rabbit's Foot Propeller, which I fortuitously stumbled onto while on tour in 2014. I remember you and PSIKE were posting some really exciting groups at the time, which I was following as I moved through the South up to NYC and the Northeast.

Edited by Gordy - February 21 2023 at 18:25
"Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sheavy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 21 2023 at 18:41
Instantly my new favorite sub lol

Originally posted by Gordy Gordy wrote:


on tour in 2014

I didn't know you were in a band/played any instruments! Can I get nosey and ask about that?Big smile
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Gordy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 22 2023 at 10:58
^I'll shoot you a PM, I'm long overdue in responding to you as it is!

EDIT: And a third person has downloaded Zodiac Mountain from me. Your review must've caused a minor wave in the underground!


Edited by Gordy - February 22 2023 at 12:02
"Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Gordy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 12 2023 at 23:07
Your review must have caused galactic waves, because the Davenport Family released three posthumous recordings onto Gutter Prog in the past few days, one of which being their unissued final album!



"Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Sheavy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 21 2024 at 19:55
It's been a little over a year, almost on time for annual visit to this site Clown. What better time than now for a second review?



The Arcanum review No.2

 

Harold Budd – Abandoned Cities


 


(this is a rewrite of an old and terribly written review from 2011)



While pianist Harold Budd is probably best known to the general music fan for his collaborations with Brian Eno (Ambient 2 and The Pearl), his catalog is deep. Various solo albums in the realms of piano driven Ambient and Classical, along with a slew of collaborations and work done for various films, tv series, and art installations, which is what Abandoned Cities seems to have been originally created for, “ABHASA: Image-Bearing Light by Lita Albuquerque, Harold Budd, and Robert Kramer”, but I cannot find much of anything online about this installation.




 

On Abandoned Cities, Budd turns in two slow moving side long tracks of hypnotic, etheric, brooding, and ultimately bleak and depressive Dark Ambient, before that was even a genre proper. The A side, Dark Star, slowly sweeps along on a bed of mournful, layered, undulating synth drones, some darker and brooding, others a bit lighter and melancholic. It’s like weaving your way through a dead, rubble strewn city. This is aided by some occasional guitar textures, slow and dour, almost abrasive, but not noisy. The B side, Abandoned Cities, takes things even slower, more minimal and more melancholic, but not quite as dark, like looking at the sun through grey clouds. If side A was a more intimate, personal look at the city, side B is a bird’s eye view of everything, slowly drifting and wafting above the streets and buildings rooves, it’s all depressive and introspective, but at arm’s length. The bed of layered synth work is still present here, but instead of guitar we have somber, quiet, and extremely minimal piano work as our aid. Neither track really goes anywhere, but that’s the point, simply wanting to show this place in your mind’s eye for a while.





The album title “Abandoned Cities” could not have been a more perfect choice for this incredible release, same with the artwork, a B&W photo of the upper façade of a building, a teaser for all that is inside. One of the coolest musical experiences I’ve had comes with this album. Two of my hobbies, that are intertwined with each other, photography and urban exploration, lead me to a great deal of abandoned and interesting places. One of those places was the now demolished Saint Nicholas coal breaker nestled in the hills of Pennsylvania. A towering 6-7 story or higher hulking, industrial behemoth left to rot. Me and my pals had entered and were having a blast exploring and photographing the place. As often happens we tend to separate and wander around on our own. I decided to put the camera and tripod aside for a bit, put some earbuds in and just take a walk around listening to this album. It was an absolutely incredible experience to walk around this grey ironclad, rust flaked site, among old control panels and crunchy, sketchy catwalks. It sounds utterly insane to say but that was one of the most peaceful experiences I’ve had, either with music or exploring.



I really sucked at photography back in 2011, so I don't have many pictures that are worth sharing from the Saint Nicholas coal breaker, but here's a couple (all the pictures above are from different unrelated places, they just kinda fit the mood).


Untitled by Abandoned Alabama, on Flickr


Untitled by Abandoned Alabama, on Flickr



Edited by Sheavy - April 21 2024 at 19:57
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Sheavy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 01 2024 at 23:41
Two reviews in a year? Is this insanity?



The Arcanum review No.3



Guru Guru – Ufo

 




 

If listening to bands jamming makes you break out in small, red, itchy bumps you’re going to want to look toward some later mid 70s work for satisfaction, say the jazzy psych rock of Dance In Flames or full on Fusion oriented Guru Guru of the late 70s on Globetrotter. This is not that however. This, Guru Guru’s 1970 debut album Ufo, is a wonderful and heavily acidic mess.

On the first side we get three songs, all teetering on the edge of the unstructured abyss; flirting with uncontrolled free fall into an ocean of acid so thick and fuzzy there is no swimming out of. Stone In and Girl Call both start out a little sleepy. Some tremendously fuzzed out guitar moaning and groaning here, and some freely wandering drums and bass there (and some AUAUghghauauGhhhHh ‘vocals’ dribbled out on Stone In! Always love to hear). Both songs start to coagulate into the nearly gone, hectic and frenzied, point of no return, freak outs discussed earlier, but ending just before free fall, or at least Stone In fades out and Girl Call is rather abruptly, but kinda, effectively cut off. Also have to stop and mention how much I love the guitar distortion on Girl Call, some truly deranged, heavy, and fuzzed out wah wahs. Next Time See You At The Dalai Lama starts off sounding a bit more structured than anything else on the album, and seemingly more deliberately paced. The structure and pace does start to falter and waver, Ax, Mani, and Uli all rambling and coasting off into the cosmic brain, then coalescing for a slight time, before succumbing to the drift again.

Now, to flip this f**ker over, and here we find that the inevitable has happened. You dance and prance for so long on the edge of psychedelic insanity, that falling into the vastness of kosmische sea will occur. The first of the two songs, sharing the album name, Ufo; sees our intrepid oceanic trawlers completely immersed into nebulous and hypnotic soundscapes. Guitars, electronics, percussion, and effects all dither and scratch around and about, occasionally swarming together into a truly wild proto industrial/noise piece here. A musical rendition of a grimy, old piece of space junk limping through the cosmos. While plenty of classical composeurs ;) were fiddling around with long and exploratory pieces of music, I find they never seem to actually be all that enjoyable, or reach the depths that more amateur works do. When you fiddle with the unknown the known ain’t going to cut it. The final track Der LSD/Marsch is more grounded, but no less prescient. The first half, Der LSD I guess, sees some strung out guitar calling out over foggy, sunken graveyard, while some plodding bass and wispy and haunting, electronically treated flute(?) (Kraftwerk!?) slowly flow around. This all mends together into possibly the most cohesive our intrepid group have sounded, or it just seems so after the past 12 minutes. Marsch is appropriately titled, because after making it out of vast cosmic, oceanic, expanse it’s a long walk back. Guitar, bass, and drums all have moments of cohesive, buoyant, forward drive, but fall into a tired and languid sounding plod on occasion.

 

Proclaims the group on return “Soon the ufos will land and mankind will meet much stronger brains and habits, lets get ready for that.”

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Sheavy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 08 2025 at 22:02
Uh hi again, ANYWAY here's some sh*t to peruse.




The Arcanum Review No.4

Maurizio Bianchi – Symphony For A Genocide











What is likely the Italian industrialist/noise-maker/ambient minimalist Maurizio Bianchi’s most well-known work is also a very weighted one. Symphony For A Genocide is a conceptual album dealing with the holocaust and the concentration camps where this took place, all of the tracks being named after a concentration camp. But there is more here conceptually. From the 2015 vinyl reissue from Rotorelief MB draws parallels between these death camps, the processes behind them, and the destruction of “the will of the individual, and to create industrialization of death”, and what he charges the modern world with, that of destroying “individual human choice with mass marketing and media, those being synonymous with mass destruction, establishing a city of death.”. The conclusion is that this album is a “pathetic symphony for both”. Often M.B. ascribes his releases with some philosophical, conceptual or theological (TBH usually reading like a word salad of philosophical pessimism) influence or ideation, and my reaction to these is to google what the hell half the words mean and go ‘Okay anyway!’. Don’t get me wrong, I love the liner notes for M.B.’s releases.

For all the philosophical musings and wordy waxing M.B. tends to, this album, and all his early 80’s output is a bit yin and yang. This is the definition of early raw unpolished industrial music, forget TG, Skinny Puppy, Chrome. Nothing harmonious or melodic to be found here, only scratchy, ugly, rhythmic mechanical pulsations and degraded layers of warbling, off kilter synth stabs and whines, often crammed through hissing cassette recorders and transistor radios (snatches of radio can be heard on Belzec) for extra ugliness. Synths dopily groaning in agony, while the production line heaves and reverberates underneath the mess of keyboards and synths. It’s a soundscape of machines, factories, and industrial complexes bashing and groaning ever onward slathered in heaps of decomposing tape muck and fuzzy radio static, much like the machine of mass consumption in parallel. This 45 minute “pathetic symphony” is, whether tenuous parallels or not, a masterpiece of early ‘true’ industrial work.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Gordy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 09 2025 at 17:01
Always a pleasure to see you around, Sheavy! MB's liner notes are indeed a trip to read; "a word salad of philosophical pessimism" hits the nail on the head.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Sheavy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 09 2025 at 18:00
Originally posted by Gordy Gordy wrote:

Always a pleasure to see you around, Sheavy! MB's liner notes are indeed a trip to read; "a word salad of philosophical pessimism" hits the nail on the head.





I love it especially when it accompanies one of his albums where it sounds like he's turned some sequencers/synths on then left the room for 60 minutes.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Sheavy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 10 2025 at 18:16
The Arcanum review No.5

:$oviet:France: – :Garista:




Zoviet France (stylized as :$oviet:France: for this release) is a long running Industrial/Ambient group from England, various members have come and gone, the one constant being Ben Ponton. On :Garista: $F are Ben Ponton, Peter Jensen, and Robin Storey (who would later leave $F and carry on solo as Rapoon). We find our merry trio in full out hobgoblin mode for this release; no structured music here, no notion of normalcy, everything is indeterminant. Not content with just sounding like drunken heathens, this aesthete and esotericism extends even to the packaging of their releases. The original cassette release is a hand cut cloth J-card slathered in petrol or creosote. If you’d come across this while out for a walk in the woods you’d think the orcs from LOTR were about, doubly if you chose to listen to it.

The first side features a handful of short excursions, though really making distinctions is pointless I will still attempt some guidance, starting with Scrama Mdags (as far as I’m aware this and all the other song and album names don’t mean anything to humans). Odd synthetic, bouncing rubber band-like electronics rollick along to scratchy, tape mucked, background howling; abruptly we cut into Mosbas, a completely unstructured mess of random sounds. Something that sounds like an effects ladened horn whispers and blares away, odd echoed banging sounds, a cheap organ blurts randomly in the background; it’s all kept fairly sparse, allowing for lots of space. Vocals eventually butt in, groaning and moaning under some tape effects, sounding pitch shifted. At some point we’ve rolled into Mama Piss (okay I guess one song title does mean something to humans), vocals sounding like someone washing their mouth, gurgling some water. More voices join in, laughing and making random EEHHHH, AHHH, WAAHHOO and OOHHH sounds, going on far longer than I want to listen. If there was any question of how serious this group was at this point you’ve had that answered now.

We get our first semblance of articulate music, hobgoblins can evolve. A dirty, thunky, rubbery bass line barges in, syncing up with the treated vocals, while the rest continue to hoop and holler. We enter Nruknesh, even more unhinged treated vocal performances accompanied by bottomed out, bass heavy droning and thumping. Sounds like some tribal ritual performed next an industrial refrigerator or air conditioning unit. Caarcuraz continues the un-normalcy with some viscous, swirled electronics and voice, chanting incessantly along eeeEHHHHeeeeeEEHHHH. Layers of uncanny, deep chanting and chittery-chattery voices and chirping, cracked electronics are thrown into this tape degradation party.

The two longer ‘songs’ are quarantined on side two, starting with M1 M1 M1, this has no exits unlike the motorway, buckle up a****le. We’re back to Mosbas, drawn out soundscaping with random bangs, treated vocal ululations, horn and organ (if that’s what they are, idk I’m guessing folks). Tape hiss so loud it qualifies as a fourth participant. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the same session chopped into separate parcels. This meanders on with no conclusion or goal in sight, at some point the sound drops out WHO KNOCKED OVER THE FOUR TRACK GODDAMNIT. Of course we continue on in a couple seconds unabated. The lack of progression serves towards making it sound like you’re living in fairytale fantasyland, living in a mud hut clutching your sheepskin blanket while listening to a neighboring village being pillaged and razed by a band of trolls and goblins. While the gloam settles, you hope they don’t fancy a long night of destruction. Eventually the track simply ends.
We enter the final stretch with the longest offering Rangmabasm. Similar to Mosbas and M1 M1 M1 this session makes use of silence and space, even more so than the two aforementioned, making for an even more spaced out and nebulous listen, and plenty of silently, snakey hissing tape. Reverbed clangs of all manner of pots, pans, sticks, stones, buckets, buckets of kitchen utensils, trashcans; rubbery, stretchy electronics whump, warp, and warble heavily and loudly; forlorn callings of horns and inhuman wails from out of the tape hiss abyss. Occasionally an industrial rhythm of trashcan beating and synthetic humming will form, bottoming out in noisy cacophony before disseminating. Eventually we do settle and morph into some tribal, ritualistic groove of synth and various percussion. A dance around the firelight. It gathers and ends toward an upsurge into the abyss, I presume whatever universe this was recorded in apocalyptically ended. There is light however, we did get our first sign of human intelligence in the form of articulate words, ‘he’s bobogarista’! That’s only one articulate word actually, but a phrase to live by nonetheless, ‘he’s bobogarista’ cause aren’t we all?

In conclusion this is perfect for whatever next church function you’re attending that needs some music.

Edited by Sheavy - June 10 2025 at 18:29
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