New Nonsense From Rraapcek, Ryker and ugEXPLODE!

A lot of latter day doom descendents have been cropping up recently in Sheffield, England. Some of it is pretty typical. Dukkha just released a record whose values seem to be influenced more by Earth and Sunn than by its namesake, what Buddhists often translate as suffering. Released a little less recently, however, Rraapcek's Promo 0407 is a nice surprise. Totally blown out blast beats, varied screams and all sorts of noisy low fi textures swirl around.

Rraapcek - Adept Edit

Even a little less recently, Sheffield's Ice Bound Majesty came out with an even broader and wittier blend of sounds. Book of Kalends, for instance, tosses around eerie drones, heaviosity reminiscent of Hydrahead bands, phased-out black grind, warped power metal, SLOOOOOOWW Sabbathy stuff et cetera et cetera et cetera...  Speaking as a home recorder, my guess is one of these Sheffield kids has a home studio and sits behind the table editing for hours and hours.

Ice Bound Majesty - Book Of Kalends

But I must say nothing coming from Sheffield does as much to grind as has already been done by Flying Luttenbachers, who seem to have only a remaster and DVD left to go in life. Busy as usual, ugEXPLODE! just released that remaster of Trauma along with like 30 other new CDs. Especially awesome is a live duo recorded at The Stone with Weasel Walter and the lovely Mary Halvorson.

Mary Halvorson and Weasel Walter - Lapis Lazuli Nights

Flying Luttenbachers - Trauma 11 (edit)

The heaviest stuff I've ever heard from Halvorson, Opulence kinda reminds me of Oxes – detuned, punky differential calculus rock with clever use of repetition and feaux-naïve quirks.

Mary Halvorson will perform with WFMU's own Bethany Ryker on the 30^th at Barbes. Whoa – I just made a startling insight – new and news are etymologically related! News, as in events that are new! Fascinating!