A Fragile Geography

Insomnia, anxiety, loneliness and depression have been kicking my ass RELENTLESSLY for the past month and a half. Seems like all I can do is keep on keeping on and hopefully eventually stagger my way to the other side of whatever brain-chemical coolatta is causing my current distress.

Seriously though, it sucks when you wake up one morning and realize you’re middle aged, 9/10 of your friends are gone, and the rest are people you email once every four to six months.

Oh well, on the upside we picked up one of those Elektron Model: Cycles things and it sounds fucking rad.

-

Keukhot - Truly bizarre electronic whatthefuck from Finland. This may or may not wind up being "your thing" but I guarantee you've never heard anything quite like it.

-

Kriminaaliset Metsanhaltijat - Ferocious scrap metal scraping anarcho power-electronics from Finland.

-

Goatpsalm - Spaced-out tribal/ ambient/ black/ doom that I picked up at random because the CD was two bucks and it's on a label I tend to really enjoy. Gotta be honest and say I always get a bit sketched out when bands lean into the "pagan" thing, but musically this is great.

-

Rafael Anton Irisarri - Hard to call but I think this dude might be my current favorite ambient artist. His music makes me wish it was night time, and raining, and that I was sitting next to a fireplace/ campfire with my wife by a river somewhere.

-

Mourning Dawn - I like Mourning Dawn in general but this loooong "EP" might be my favorite thing they've done. Suicidal black/ doom with clank-crunching monotone Godflesh style rhythms.

-

Judas Priest - Another tough call but "All Guns Blazing" might be my pound for pound favorite metal tune of all time, certainly as far as the more "traditional" side of metal goes. Definitely gives the morning coffee that extra kick that is required when insomnia is absolutely kicking one's ass.

-

Mordor - Weirdo doom band from Switzerland circa 95-ish? Absolutely terrible use of keyboards, but the track "In Search of the Pure Negation" has been getting stuck in my head on and off since I first heard it on some college radio metal show 20 something years ago.

-

Lonesummer - Noisy/ droning black metal from PA... Was listening to their split with Planning for Burial the other day and decided to throw this one on today. Real quick warning: This album seems to be mastered insanely fucking LOUD so watch your speakers and your ears.

-

Glaciial - Blown out, bedroom-recorded, "unblack" metal circa 2006. I remember ordering a lot of stuff on this label from aQuarius back in the day. The religious aspect of this stuff is honestly pretty dumb but I feel that was about a lot of satanic bands too.

-

Antimatter - "Some may pass away, but some die screaming."