...................

förövrigt tycker jag att...

2012-01-08T09:55:00.000-08:00

Sara Hanssons "El diablo blanco" i senaste Galago är bland det bästa jag läst på länge!!!

Läs här: http://hejasara.blogspot.com/2011/12/el-diablo-blanco.html

Lite skriverier om Ondo och Yrsel

2012-01-08T09:46:00.000-08:00

Crucial Blast skriver om Ondo - "Sol"

"Finding Ondo's releases hasn't been easy. I've been keeping an eye out for more of the band's limited discs after hearing their excellent offerings on the splits with Nekrasov and Austrasian Goat, but so far the only thing I've managed to pick up for C-Blast is this limited edition disc from 2010 that features one thirty-three minute track of lush chthonic ambience. It's pretty great, too. Ondo creates an immersive world of sinister ambient sound, a finely crafted mix of churning abyssal dronescapes and layers of digital glitchery, the sprawling piece moving through fields of metallic chiming and vast oceanic drift, vaguely defined electronic melodies spiraling through the ether. There are swells of rumbling machine noise and nebulous feedback, fragments of backwards sound and looped noise constantly breaking the surface, the tone shifting from dreamlike and surreal to menacing over the course of the disc as eerie music-box melodies and sheets of metallic whirr trail over gusts of dank subterranean air. Crashing metal and clanking rhythms echo in the distance, the industrial rumblings cut with high-pitched electronic scrapes and random computer noises. At times, this is comparable to Troum at their absolute darkest, but when Sol reaches the last ten minutes of the track, it becomes much darker and heavier, the clanking industrial rhythms and noises in the distance becoming more prominent, and a creepy minor key melody takes form, playing out over increasing layers of dark orchestral sound over the dimly lit world of machinery and raging black oceans, birdsong and the cawing of crows, rattling chains and crackling fires, closing with a twilight haze of industrial ambience.
Limited to one hundred copies, and packaged in a full-color folder sleeve."

och Norman Records skriver om Yrsel - "Sacrifice"...

"Do you like dark ambient droney type stuff? Well, you’ve come to the right place then, haven’t you? This one here’s got people from Ondo and The Austrasian Goat making ominous rumbles that sound like they should be on Utech. Weighty low- and mid-end drones that slowly melt into your subconscious and make you feel like you’re a character in some bleak futuristic sci-fi movie and you’re hiding out in an abandoned landfill site trying to figure out how to kill all the malfunctioning kill-bots before they destroy mankind forever. On the second side it gets a bit more melodic than the fairly flat first side, but this is still bleak and slow-moving stuff for people who want something dark to immerse themselves in when they’re alone at home late at night with their thoughts and they need something suitably creepy and sinister. Expertly crafted feel-bad music."

Bra skivor släppta 2011

2011-12-01T09:37:00.000-08:00

Wilco - "The Whole Love"
Grouper - "AIA:Alien Observer" & "AIA:Dream Loss"
Mogwai - "Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will"
Earth - "Angels of Darkness, demons of light"
Despise You / Agoraphopic Nosebleed - "And On and On..." (framför allt Despise You's sida)
Sonic Youth - "Simon Werner A Disparu"
Trap Them - "Darker Handcraft"
Oneohtrix Point Never - "Replica"
The Sea and Cake - "The Moonlight Butterfly"
Tim Hecker - "Ravedeath, 1972"
All Pigs Must Die - "God is War"
Kurt Vile - "Smoke Ring For MY Halo"
No Joy - "Ghost Blonde"

Besvikelser:
Low - C'mon (bra skiva men knappast i klass med t.ex "The things we lost in the fire" och "Secret name")
Thurston Moore - "Demolished Thougts" (också helt okej men jag hade förväntat mig mer)
Atlas Sound - "Parallax" (samma här, ok men ändå en besvikelse)

Ondo på P3

2011-10-17T12:01:00.000-07:00

I lördags spelade radioprogrammet P3 Rock en Ondo-låt.
Lyssna här (00:52:55)

Hepp!

Foxy Digitalis recenserar Nekrasov/Ondo

2011-10-06T11:01:00.000-07:00

Riktigt trevlig recension av Nekrasov/Ondo LP:n. Betyg 9 av 10!

"The unforgettable offerings from Peasant Magik are coming to an end as the label is closing its final chapter. What a great final chapter it is! It is one that is good to the very last period. You can think of this great split between two great dark noise acts as that period to conclude the narrative of PM’s history. This split has apparently been in the works for three years now and is a wonderful triumph in itself, but is a great way to honor the legacy of an amazing label.

The first side belongs to the likes of Nekrasov. He does two things and does them very well. First, he does some pretty ridiculously fast psychotic black metal jams that are some of the most ferocious, teeth-baring, tear your face off kind of tracks that could ever be produced. Second, he does some very black drone rumbles that seek to explore the void of your soul and expose the sunless blackness within. If you’re a bigger fan of his metal work then this won’t be up your alley. However, if you like his dark ambient stuff then it’s your lucky day! This is nineteen minutes of some pretty brooding stuff that will drag you down kicking and screaming into the deepest nether regions of our existence where there’s no light, no oxygen, no god. It is a confining, heavy, and suffocating experience. It makes me think of my final destination, yours too: a tight box in the ground. It’s like the outside sounds that you would hear if you still had a working brain that could process what it hears. Like the outer sounds of an airplane flying overhead, the rain that beats down, the wind that gusts over top, the footsteps that tramp over you, and the funeral fuss of those who will soon be your next door neighbor in the plot beside you. Serious stuff. Totally fitting for personal moments of isolation, depression, and the rollercoaster ride of fear and apathy.

The flip side comes from the likes of Ondo. Honestly, I had never heard of this artist before, but I’m surprised how they could be kept a secret. Killer sounds! It’s an extreme soundtrack of menace, desolation, and despair via tangled strings, intensely slicing and deeply penetrating droning loops, and industrial rustlings. A refreshing disclosure of an artist’s internal struggle. Three tracks that just nail it. They successfully accomplish their mission of fear and dread with the precision of a scalpel as opposed to Nekrasov’s messy and over concerted chainsaw approach. Yet, both artists are incredible and are mutually complementary to one another. I might venture to say that Ondo is a bit more gloom and doom than Nekrasov. Nekrasov is slightly drier in his approach to cloaking the tracks in bleakness, whereas Ondo is heavier handed in its black noise and horror approach. Very strong, very calculated, very anchored.

An essential chunk of wax for the coming dark days of winter. This is especially the case since the price has dropped to an irresistible $8 postage paid, due to the closing of the PM store. Go check out the store and pick up not only some great aural devastation but also some great visuals. I recognize one of the designs from Nekrasov on the glossy insert with his trademark complex and highly engineered graphics that almost look like a blueprint for an elaborate trap. Not to mention the vinyl is thick. I was surprised how weighty it felt. Don’t miss this!"

http://www.foxydigitalis.com/foxyd/?p=18567

OMG Vinyl om Nekrasov/Ondo splitten

2011-07-15T04:41:00.000-07:00

"Since it started, Sal Giorgi’s Peasant Magik label has been an amazing source for dark experimental music, often bringing attention to some of the scene’s most underrated acts. We were sad to hear that Sal will soon be closing up shop, his label will be greatly missed. It’s fitting that one of their last releases is the giant split from Nekrasov and Ondo, a record they’ve been working on for three years. Nekrasov’s half is a side-long helping of tumultuous, unsettling drone, the stuff nightmares are made of. On the flip, Ondo brings three tracks of pure blacked tones, as dark as it gets. If there’s ever been a label worth supporting, PM is it, especially on their way out the door."

http://www.omgvinyl.com/2011/07/14/nekrasov-ondo-split-lp/

jojo, nu händer det grejer

2011-06-30T13:27:00.001-07:00

Snart!

2011-05-28T10:36:00.000-07:00

Snart dags för släpp av Ondo/Nekrasov LP:n. Om jag inte minns helt fel så var det tänkt att den skulle släppas redan under 2009 men av många anledningar blev allt uppskjutet. Amerikanska hedersknyffel-bolaget Peasant Magik släpper den. Limiterad till 300 ex. 180 grams vinyl med urtjusigt omslag gjort av Industrie Chimère Noire. Jag är väldigt nöjd med min sida av LP:n (trots att låtarna som sagt har några år på nacken) och Nekrasov är precis lika bra som alltid.

Ute om en vecka eller två. Mer info senare.

Några av mina projekt...

2011-05-21T03:21:00.001-07:00

Latest tracks by Tuguska

.

2011-03-13T05:58:00.000-07:00

YRSEL live 01. Dijon

2011-02-10T10:39:00.001-08:00

YRSEL live 03. Liège

2011-02-10T10:39:00.000-08:00

YRSEL live 02. Metz

2011-02-10T10:38:00.000-08:00

Yrsel

2011-02-09T10:15:00.000-08:00

Bra skivor 2010

2010-11-25T10:36:00.000-08:00

Herätys - Herätys
Beach Fossils - Beach Fossils
Supersilent - 11
Noveller - Desert Fires
Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky
Barn Owl – The Conjurer
Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
Giuseppe Ielasi – (third) Stunt
Four Tet - There Is Love In You
Emeralds - Does It Look Like I'm Here
Superchunk - Majesty Shredding
The Ex - Catch My Shoe
Shannon Wright - Secret Blood
Autechre - Oversteps
I'm Kingfisher – Arctic
Stereolab - Not Music
Philip Jeck - An Ark for the Listener
The Books - The Way Out
Menace Ruine - Union Of Irreconcilables
Sayyadina - The Great Northern Revisited
Expo '70 - Where Does Your Mind Go
Beach House. Teen Dream
ARP - The Soft Wave

Diverse klipp från Yrsels spelning i Metz

2010-10-11T12:47:00.000-07:00

Back to reality

2010-10-11T12:13:00.000-07:00

Åter tillbaka i den gråa verkligheten. Frankrike-turnéen var verkligen en riktig pärla. Alla spelningar gick bra och det franska turnésälskapet var mycket trevligt. Mycket god mat och en och annan öl gled ner. Många fina minnen!

och en hel del udda minnen, bland annat:

* Den aspackade punkgubben som dansade med sin hund i Dijon
* Låten Uncle Albert av Paul McCartney som oväntat blev resans "hit" mycket på grund av Joels magnifika dans och sång.
* Det faktum att en snubbe menade att Yrsels spelning i Metz var något av en erotisk upplevelse (!?!)
* Skitiga toaletter (ofta utan fungerande handfat)
* Ljudteknikern i Metz som gjorde uppmickningen av Thomas orgel till sitt livs stora uppgift (han lyckades sådär men ska ha en stor eloge för sitt minst sagt ivriga engagemang)
* Övernattningen i ett gammalt bankvalv i Liege.

APF, YRSEL och 14:13

Julien, C-J, Eric, Joel, Thomas

Liege

2010-09-25T08:41:00.000-07:00

Yrsel - Skiva + T-Shirt

2010-09-21T10:56:00.000-07:00

Inte mycket att glädjas åt i dessa tider när rasistiska SD kommer in i riksdagen och Alliansen vinner valet. Sällan har väl högervinden piskat en så hårt i ansiktet.
Men men, något kul är i alla fall på G...

Ny Yrsel skiva (endast på Vinyl!) ute i oktober....troligtvis i slutet av oktober (som vanligtvis brukar innebära i november)

Smakprov finns här: http://www.aurora-b.com/band_pages/YRSEL

Vi har även styrt upp lite T-shirts till den stundande rundresan i Frankrike/Belgien. Kolla här.

Valtider...

2010-09-16T21:06:00.000-07:00

Lyon...

2010-09-07T12:42:00.000-07:00

Frankriketurnén närmar sig...

2010-08-23T09:18:00.000-07:00

A PERFECT FRIEND / YRSEL / 14:13 PM

30 Sep Les Trinitaires Metz
01 Okt ? (Strasbourg?)
02 Okt Les Tanneries Dijon
03 Okt Grrrnd Zero Lyon
04 Okt Carlo Levi Liège, Belgien

Aquarius Records om Yrsel-skivan...

2010-06-05T01:01:00.000-07:00

"What do you get when you mix one part Swedish ultra dronelord Ondo, and one part French funereal doom sludge merchant The Austrasian Goat? Pretty much exactly what you might expect. And were probably hoping for. A sprawling expanse of abject sonic miserablism, huge heaving slabs of crumbling distortion and Teutonic rumble, thick swaths of buzz and rumble, tangled spidery minor key melodies, harsh hellish howls, extreme black ambience, or near glacial ultra doom, from the first track (of three) on, beginning with the above mentioned grim black crawl, the track seems to gradually ooze into something more drone than metal, the guitar chugs are blurred into long stretches of pitch black shimmer, eventually the track grows hushed, and ominous, a delicate drift of garbled voices and crystalline melody, all over a darkly swirling black sea of layered low end and slow shifting thrum. Eventually, things build back up with pounded reverbed piano, floating atop, ever escalating guitar drone incandescence, heavy and noisy, but weirdly pretty.

The second track, shortest of the three at a still impressive 16 minutes, starts off a billowing black cloud of sound, nightmarish ambience, laced with crackle and glitch, but mostly tranquil, if slightly malefic, the track explodes in a frenzy of almost black metal sounding fury, before slipping back into the blackened tranquility that preceded it, deep thick tones, slow motion melodies, echoing and filling the speakers with blackness, almost liturgical sounding, but some primitive black mass, some lost ritual, whispered voices lead the blackness, to a final climax of grinding crunch, lethargic riffage and chordal buzz, that gain manages to be lovely and heavy simultaneously.

Finally, the record closes with a soundtrack like sprawl of haunting otherworldly whisper and drift, tranquil, but foreboding, the piano returns, this time offering up haunting minimal melodies, while underneath, black winds whip and whirl, strings shimmer, all wrapped in a gauzey cloak of washed out buzz and distant low end rumble, like some strange hellish chamber music, or the soundtrack to some lost Italian horror film, gorgeously creepy and fiendishly evocative.

This one not so much for the doom metallers and sludgelords as much as for those who enjoy sounds both bleak and forlorn, miserable and depressingly beautiful, a creeping, soul stirring black ambient dronemusic, that is definitely heavy, but whose heaviness is tempered by the atmosphere, a soundworld grim and sinister, each of these sonic rituals a heavy black shroud for the dark of spirit.
Cool silver on black folded origami style sleeves, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!"

Två nya recensioner av gamla skivor...

2010-05-03T07:47:00.000-07:00

HH recenserar två gamla Ondo-släpp....

Ondo - "Mahavishnu" (Paradigms)

"The early releases Paradigms Recordings did were absolutely phenomenal. TAP's stunning Coma Waering, Hjarniaudi, Wraiths, and this. I forget what their wonderfully fruity description of this was, but whatever the case they were onto something with this release, as it's some of the most sublime music I own.

There seems to be three different elements of music here that've just been thrown together and left to wander around and interact with each other as they may. There's a lot of earth style drone-to-infinity guitars (although they could well just be distorted synths), lighter-than-air fragments of fennesz/hecker guitar processing, and a whole bunch of bubbling, spacey synths. I generally find the more space-heavy parts to be the best; Forrest in particular with these wild, transcendent flute lines hovering over the churning buzz and the epic that's 1920 builds, ebbs and generally drains you of everything; a truly fantastic mix of high, skittering synths and deep, mysterious rumble. All in all these elements make for some interesting contrasting elements and add up to way more then the sum of their parts.

It's also one of, if not the spaciest record I have in my collection. Everything about it just screams empty, inky infinity. It's definitely the production that makes this; the synths pulsing and winking nervously like alien signals or a neutron star, the massive low end adding a truly remarkable amount of space to it, reverberating and making the whole thing as cavernous and deep as possible. Indeed, I'd say this is some of the finest representation of space in any genre, and medium of art, even, that I've ever heard.

There's a few weak points where Mr.Ondo attempts to get a bit noisier and experimental (the shortest track comes instantly to mind) but for the most part this is just an extremely fine piece of ambient music. I like how it's unique, yet still very accessible, that it's one of the most evocative bits of music I've heard, ...and that it sounds great and I really enjoy listening to it. I think it's up there with Endless Summer, Talk Amongst the Trees and Harmony in Ultraviolet (though it's certainly far, far darker than those three albums) in terms of "best ambient of the last decade". Go and buy it while it's still available."

Ondo / The Austrasian Goat (Burning Emptiness)

"This is neat stuff; I definitely like splits where dudes that play different genres (not to say that the songs on here are polar opposites) come together and release something that's coherent. Two twists on something heavy, dark and mysterious. It's quality stuff.

Ondo are a band that I've really liked for sometime; a real tasty blend of low, massive guitars crunching away, fragile, haunting processed guitars that bring to mind Hecker and Fennesz, and some synths ripped out of the deep space genre. "1920" is one of the best songs on "Mahavishnu", which i'd say is one of finest ambient releases of the last decade. It's not quite as accessible as the aforementioned artists, but it's still really good. Massive reverberating low end, brilliantly done synths bubbling away up to the foreground in places, a generally spacey and otherworldly vibe.

Compared to the quality of the space-loving swede, the man behind Austrasian Goat doesn't quite live up to it. I kind of think he's went for a very similar vibe here, that big, infinite chamber sort of spacey feel. The first two thirds of the song is decent and sort of good, but it's just competently executed funeral doom; big chords crushing away, a guitar playing a long, constant lead, nothing you haven't heard before. Having said that, things are really kicked up a notch when the doom fades, an acoustic drones away, while some toms, really cool synths and a one note guitar line repeat in a doomed jam that definitely befits the title of the song. This would sound amazing in a cathedral... it's actually really damn cool. Would be good if it went for longer, perhaps, but I think it's power is definitely because of how it fits into the overall structure of the song.

So all in all, this is a pretty nice little split, most of Austrasian's side isn't too fantastic, but overall a good percentage of the music here is of a solid quality and has an atmosphere that I really enjoy. If you enjoy the idea of soaring through the atmosphere of long forgotten worlds, of strange monoliths rising high above storm clouds, of Kirk and Skywalker gay fanfic, then you'll probably really like this."

Soundshock.co.uk om Yrsel

2010-04-13T03:54:00.000-07:00

Ytterligare en bra Yrsel-recension... betyg 8/10

"Perhaps for reasons of sheer boredom (the shortest track alone clocks in at just over 16 minutes), the duo who make up Yrsel have decided to broaden the pallet of drone a little. Billing itself as a crossover piece between drone and dark electronica, it’s the intellectual mourning of the loss of grace, beauty and creative impulses, interpreted through the medium of dissonant noise. For those of you who are educated in Greek mythology, you might recognise those as the three muses, or the titular Kharites, and if you listen to this trio of tracks, you’ll begin to understand just how deep that mourning is.

When drone is done right, whether through production techniques, choice of tone, or just plain black magic, it’s absolutely riveting. And Ysrel do have that spark of variety about them in comparison to the leaden earth-cracking footfalls of SunnO))); odd voices chant in the ether, while a tasty electronic sustain keeps the atmosphere coiling around your ankles like a sinister fog. When the guitar does come in, it’s for texture, with carefully graded sounds emerging from the immense overdriven downtuned strings. Together with the sparse piano throughout the final track, these little flourishes give a touch of variety to a genre that could all too easily to stagnate.

Although this is a bleak work, it’s clear a lot of love has gone into it; a hollow reminder of the pleasures the muses once embodied, like the whispers of past civilisation that come from the stones of Acropolis."

http://www.soundshock.co.uk/index.php/cd-reviews/1753-yrsel-requiem-for-the-three-kharites-cd-review-metal

musicohm.com om Yrsel

2010-04-01T09:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.musicomh.com/albums/yrsel_0310.htm

Betyg 4 av 5

"CJ Larsgarden (Ondo) and Julian Louvet (The Austrasian Goat) have appeared on CD together before - the split 3" CD on the Burning Emptiness label - but YRSEL finds the pair combining their own unique talents.

With Ondo exploring the ambient end of the electronic spectrum - usually found gracing numerous CD-R releases - and The Austrasian Goat lurking in the shadows of doom laden sloth metal, it is perhaps no surprise that YRSEL is a dark and mysterious work.

An apparent concept piece, Requiem For The Three Kharites mourns the loss of a trio of Greek Goddesses who represented beauty, grace, pleasure and mirth. Eschewing the notion that most people (and one would have to assume, Goddesses) would want to be remembered for what they stood for, there is little in the way of mirth lurking in the dark ambience of YRSEL's requiem. However, there is plenty of grace and beauty to be found in these creeping, unsettling drones.

The Last Visions Of Aglaea introduces itself with a thundering distorted guitar and rasping vocals which suggest that the following 50 minutes is going to follow a similar blueprint to those laid out by Sunn O)))'s collaborations with Mayhem vocalist Attila Csihar. However Larsgarden's influence is soon felt as the guitars drop away and electronic drone takes over. From this point it becomes an entirely successful collaboration, as it is almost impossible to discern which elements are courtesy of Larsgarden and which are Louvet's.

The guitars never again quite reach the same grinding ferocity of the album's opening first few minutes. Instead they add colour with feedback and become absorbed into the swirl of electrical mechanics and industrial tones. A two-note piano motif enters the fray around the mid-point like a lumbering giant. As the notes fade, they appear to feedback, increasing the eerie nature of what is unfolding. In YRSEL's world, even pianos feedback. The Gollumesque whispering that adorns the track adds yet another layer of unease to what is already uncomfortable listening.

The Tears Of Euphrosyne appears to have been recorded in a gong factory staffed by a terminally depraved astronaut. Although most of the ambience appears to be electronic and industrial once again, what guitar there is doesn't riff so much as drill its way into the psyche. Those creepy vocals ooze from beyond the thrum and pulse of the track - barely audible but full of impact - it's like being trapped in a speeding car with a particularly vicious imp constantly commenting about the wheel bearings being knackered.

Thaleia's Neurasthenia is a much calmer affair with little in the way of moody guitar interjections. The vocals wrap themselves around a clumsy piano riff like a demonic snake with asthma and an apple for sale - all threat and full of forbidden promise. If Andy Weatherall were to make an ambient Black Metal version of Haunted Dancehall, it'd sound a little like this.

Requiem For The Three Kharites is as dense as it is inventive, and plays to its composer's strengths wonderfully. While its funereal pace and tone appears to suggest a lack of hope, there are enough graceful moments here to suggest that the three Kharites won't need another requiem anytime soon."

Drownedinsounds.com om Yrsel

2010-03-31T10:20:00.000-07:00

drownedinsound.com recenserar Yrsel...

"Yrsel are a duo: C-J Larsgarden, a Swede who makes hyper-creepy ambient electronica as Ondo, and a Frenchman named Julian Louvet who is known (to keyboard-shackled CDR hoarders) as The Austrasian Goat, under which name he makes a gastropod-slow mixture of black metal and sludgy doom. It would be reductive in the extreme to suggest that Requiem For The Three Kharites, their first recording together, is a simple crossbreeding of Ondo and The Austrasian Goat. It is, however, reasonable to suggest that, to the extent these things are at all measurable, roughly equal amounts of each project can be heard in these three lengthy pieces (with the arguable exception of the final one). Matters are pretty much exclusively handled by guitar and electronics throughout the 50-minute duration, more often than not drone-based and intermittently swamped by such unruly fuzzstorms it’s hard to tell which instrument is contributing what.

Any acolytes of Greek mythology may have been piqued by the album title, and perhaps even figured out that this is (in its creators’ heads, at least) a concept album. The Kharites, or Charites, were three goddesses of nature, and positive human traits in general: charm, beauty, creativity and so forth. This could be seen as a curveball, insofar as it’s feasible to take a vibe of deep negativity away from this album – if only based on the fact that it’s slow, atonal and distorted. Perhaps the lesson is that thoughts and emotions, as expressed through wordless sonics, are less tangible than we sometimes think, and that ‘happy’ or ‘sad’-sounding music is a cultural construct. Another nail in the now extremely naily coffin of taking music writing seriously, then, but let’s press on anyway, what with Requiem... being a good album that’s worth your time.

‘The Last Visions Of Aglaea’ is the first of the three tracks, and the one most rooted in the primal thrill of overdriven rock guitar and leaking distortion. In other words, it leads you to believe Requiem... borrows more from Sunn 0))) than actually ends up being the case. Some ten and a half minutes in, someone – history does not record who – contributes some deranged, Gollum-ish vocals that vanish almost as swiftly as they appear. Three minutes later the first riff arrives, but even this is a deep, metronomic toll as opposed to anything... virtuosic.

Track two, ‘The Tears Of Euphrosyne’, is all about the slow build: low-key drones for the first few minutes swell to a grandiose peak of analogue (-sounding?) noise, dips back into haunting hum and reverbed whispers before things come to a head in roughly chord-based shapes. As with the opening track, it utilises ultra-reduced doom riffage – more akin to Earth than Sunn 0))), if we’re splitting hairs – albeit in a way that doesn’t define or dominate the track. We close with ‘Thaleia’s Neurasthenia’, which hams up the place in its Hammer Horror hat: all bluntly struck piano, windy creakage and bass tones for yer solar plexus, it’s the only time one of the members’ projects (Ondo) seems to control the sound more than the other. Again, it’s impressively controlled and measured, a recent comparison point being Half Makeshift – a chap from Maryland who stopped making music a couple of years back because he believed the world was going to end in 2011.

Requiem For The Three Kharites exploits textures and atmospheres that have a clear lineage in black metal. Yet compared to some of the recent manglers with a foot each in BM and droney noise (Gnaw Their Tongues; Wold; The Austrasian Goat themselves), Yrsel scarcely attempt consuming, sadistic punishment. They don’t so much loathe the listener, you feel, as wish to disquiet and unsettle him, and in this respect they compare favourably to Coil or Nurse With Wound – outfits that cast a pretty big shadow over any bands attempting this kind of magickal ambience. Packaged in one of those sweet-like-tooth decay foldout card sleeves that a lot of Aurora Borealis releases come in, this is limited to 500 copies as it stands, so if everyone who reads this review buys one, that will mean that this CD will be largely owned by Drowned In Sound readers, which would be pretty funny. I might have to include people who click on it for five seconds and then decide they can’t be arsed, and spambots, but still". (7/10)
by Noel Gardner

judaskissmagazine.co.uk recenserar Yrsel....

2010-03-30T21:27:00.000-07:00

judaskissmagazine.co.uk recenserar Yrsel....

"Yrsel is a collaboration involving the French musician Julien Louvet, best known for his experimental black metal project The Austrasian Goat, and the Swedish dark ambient musician C-J Larsgarden, a.k.a. Ondo. These two artists have some shared history already, having released a split CD-R on Burning Emptiness in 2007, but Requiem For The Three Kharites, recorded in 2007-2008, is the first fruit of this new collaboration. Before discussing Yrsel’s music, some explanation of that title seems called for. The Three Kharites are better known as the Three Graces, the ancient Greek goddesses of grace, beauty, pleasure, and human creativity, associated above all with the arts. As such, their ‘Requiem’ implies a valediction for the death of culture and art – as the label description puts it, a ‘requiem for the loss of culture in an ever spiralling material world’. It doesn’t feel to me like art is quite dead yet – at least, not to judge by the pile of review CDs I’m constantly buried under – but this message of cultural pessimism and decline sets the tone for a very dark work.

Requiem For The Three Kharites contains three long tracks, each one referring to one of the three Graces, who are Aglaea (‘beauty’), Euphrosyne (‘mirth’), and Thaleia (‘cheerfulness’). The 20-minute ‘The Last Visions Of Aglaea’ opens with several minutes of massive waves of rumbling downtuned guitar, shot through with sinister black metal whispers, something like Attila’s or Malefic’s work with Sunn O))), and distant fragments of discordant tremolo guitar fading into the brooding dronescape. At this point, the track is dominated by Julien Louvet’s vocals and guitar, with a bleak, grey, ambient black metal feel quite similar to SunnO))), TenHornedBeast, or some of Hail’s or L’Acéphale long ambient compositions, but C-J Larsgarden’s contribution of ambient electronica assumes greater prominence as the track progresses, with the guitar dying away to leave only a low synth pulse overlaid with sibilant whispers. The guitar is reintroduced around the halfway point, as a series of disjointed atonal scrapes and squeals of feedback, then it joins forces with a repetitive two-note minor-key piano phrase, with faintly echoing traces of eerie ritual chanting and muffled ambient beats just discernible in the background. The guitar and synth drone structure has something in common with bands like Locrian or Keplers Odd, and the morose, dejected atmosphere of the track has affinities with depressive black metal and funeral doom, though Yrsel’s music is neither straightforward metal nor completely ambient, but really a scorched-earth fusion of the two.

As the title would suggest, the second track ‘The Tears Of Euphrosyne’ features little of the mirth that that goddess is associated with – it’s another pitch-black journey into desolation, opening with smoothly implacable, cavernous reverberations, like stretched singing-bowl tones, cold metallic notes frozen in endless decline, with a dense minimalist buzz of guitar gliding over the top after several minutes, and a middle section of hissing whispers over a siren-like wailing tone. Overall, this track is colder and more ambient than the first one, though the closing minutes fade out with a slow, desultory funeral doom riff. ‘Thaleia's Neurasthenia’ rounds out the album with drawn-out hissing tones and mournful piano notes over wan washes of suspenseful orchestral strings and delicate jangles of chiming percussion, something like Beyond Sensory Experience, and closing with a stark section of coldly shimmering frequencies in cyclical waves. For me, this is less successful than the first track, which manages to blend elements of dark ambient and drone metal in a more innovative way. ‘Thaleia's Neurasthenia’ is still resolutely bleak and gloomy, but it’s a more orthodox piece of dark ambient, with no discernible guitar work.

The Austrasian Goat has been garnering a cult reputation in the last couple of years, in particular for his series of split singles, the most recent of which was shared with L’Acéphale (it’s reviewed elsewhere on Judas Kiss). The Yrsel album reveals an intriguingly different, more drone-oriented, aspect to TAG’s music, and this collaboration will have crossover appeal for fans of a number of different dark music genres, ranging from black and doom metal to dark ambient and industrial drone." (Simon Collins)

Musicfix om Yrsel

2010-03-24T03:43:00.000-07:00

"The excellent Aurora Borealis once again release some genre-splicing extreme music, this time in the form of Requiem for the Three Kharites by Yrsel, a collaboration between The Austrasian Goat and Ondo. Doomy atmospherics and dark ambience are on the menu for today, with three meaty tracks that span over 50 minutes. Taking in funereal piano, and swathes of dark synths, each track takes the listener on a journey of haunting yet blissful electronic music. Tracks such as 'The Tears of Euphrosyne' are punctuated by echoey, whispered vocals and all manner of soul quivering sounds, making this record truly scary at times, but emotionally provoking at others. If you like both the drone-doom of Sunn O))) and the electonic ambience of Fennesz then this could be just what you need. Snap this one up quickly though, as it's limited to just 500 copies! 7/10"

musicfix.co.uk

FoxyDigitalis ger Lunar Miasma / Ondo betyg 7/10

2010-02-24T08:16:00.000-08:00

"This split CD from Sweden's Tuguska label finds C-J Larsgarden's long-running project Ondo paired up with Lunar Miasma, who hail from Greece. Lunar Miasma's "Backlit Display" leads off the disc with a solid display of creepy synth work; the track begins strongly, but levels off early in its nineteen-minute running time, not offering much in the way of surprises after establishing its early mood. Panos Alexiadis layers sounds in clever ways, though, and his mixing work on "Backlit Display" is outstanding.

Ondo's "Return to the New Age" is an altogether different story, however--a shifting, twisting, and subtle animal that constantly contorts and reshapes itself. An oddly spacious sort of claustrophobia is manifested here, as Larsgarden uses guitars, synths, and various other forms of clutter and scrape to conjure up a bleak and forlorn sound world. "Return" is a killer listen from start to finish; its rapidly fissuring surface is like melting ice over a lake, opening up to reveal shadowy glimpses of underwater landscapes. Equal parts bliss and menace, this piece alone is worth the ticket price, if you can get a hold of it before it disappears. 7/10"

HH om Larsgarden/Rowenta - "Electromagnetic Spheres"

2010-02-01T13:06:00.000-08:00

HH om Larsgarden/Rowenta - "Electromagnetic Spheres" (CDr)

"C-J Larsgarden and Frank Rowenta are both experimentalists, and they’ve been creating strange sonic worlds for decades. No surprise, then, that Electromagnetic Spheres displays a rare depth and maturity. Trying to capture the character of this album in a review is a tricky challenge because it evades most conventional categories and forms.

In general the production is marked by a lo-fi feel; the tonal palette a little thin, slightly washed out, imparting a strange kind of authenticity, as though this release were produced in the 1970’s and only recently remastered. I daresay no one was making music like this in the 70s though.

In a sense the meat of the album is drone arrangements – sometimes in the form of strings, sometimes what seems to be a mellotron, other times blatantly synthesised. Woven through the drones are both atmospheric and textual electric guitars, and some emotive piano strains, love-lorn and resonant.

Studded across the tracks are a battery of sometimes quite menacing thuds and clatters, beeps and whirs, abstract sounds that take on living breath. These elements are reminiscent of mechanical insects, biding their time for the execution of some calamity.

The other tool that the album uses to good effect is sampling – both of eerie choruses that seem to reach out from shores of forgotten memory, and some dramatically deployed Indian vocal and sitar fragments that evoke a strong sense of space-time collapsing. Some disturbingly intimate German spoken word completes the skilful deployment of samples. These elements are used sparingly, which serves to sharpen the blow of their impact.

Repetition and delay create a sense of pulsing caverns and woods, hypnotic and otherworldly and alive. The music moves through fog-drenched forests, clad in show and wistful memory, though to harsh, almost lunar landscapes, barren and cruel. In general throughout the album there is an impeccable sense of arrangement and timing to extract the maximum degree of eeriness and atmosphere from the music.

At times the compositions reach into the gentler domains of noise music, and at times they become dreamy and almost pastoral. As a whole, Electromagnetic Spheres picks out the path of its journey in ways that are surprising and inventive. Predictable it is not, and the breadth of instrumentation (and its restrained, tasteful usage) is very impressive.

I did feel the last couple of tracks were a little weaker than the rest of the release and consequently dragged a bit, but this is by no means a fatal flaw. In all, this release is like a streaming current of mood and evocation that flows seamlessly from colour to colour, decking the imagination with illusions spun from pure sound."

Sydsvenska Dagbladet ger Yrsel 4 av 5....

2010-01-27T08:14:00.000-08:00

Sydvenskan recenserar Yrsel...

Länk

"Det finns inget dåligt väder, bara dåliga kläder och olämpliga ljudspår. Om du pinas av snön och kylan som inte verkar vilja ge med sig, behöver du antingen ett extra par långkalsonger och/eller sällskap av svensk-franska droneprojektet Yrsel i hörlurarna utomhus.

Carl-Johan Larsgården (mannen bakom black metal-inspirerade ambientbruset Ondo och ena halvan av finstämda folktronicaduon A Perfect Friend) och Julien Louvet (från kolsvarta The Austrasian Goat) har skickat filer fram och tillbaka. Samlat brus, drones, förvrängda gitarrfigurer, fältinspelningar och viskande röster och byggt upp lager på lager av ljudsediment.

Det första intrycket är dovt och hotfullt – ”The Last Visions of Aglaea”, det första spåret av tre, låter som ett tjugo minuter långt intro till valfritt släpp från Southern Lord – men efter hand spricker ljuden upp, bli lättare och porösare. Att lyssna noggrant på det finkorniga bruset och bullret är som att titta riktigt nära på snökristaller eller studera islossning precis när temperaturen kikar över nollan. Ibland virvlar ljudpartiklarna runt som snöflingor, ofta sträcker de ut sig som oändliga gråvita fält mot fjärran.

Allt rör sig långsamt och lite stelfruset, utan mycket till rytm eller melodi. Precis som världen utanför mitt fönster ser lite mer stiliserad ut under ett lager snö, har Yrsels kompositioner en abstrakt yta som döljer detaljerna och livet. Liksom all bra drone fungerar ”Requiem For the Three Kharites” lika bra knappt hörbart i bakgrunden, som med disten i ”The Tears of Euphorysne” skallrande i öronen.

Det är djupt personlig musik, samtidigt som den med genrens diskreta form låter sig anpassas till de mest skilda scenarion. Vintern råkar kännas rätt nu; om sex månader kan det vara årets mest svalkande semesterskiva."

HH om Ondo - "Regression".

2010-01-02T08:02:00.000-08:00

HH om Ondo - "Regression" (CDr)

"This is dark, symphonic yet droney music from deepest Sweden. Ondo bend guitar tones to produce beautiful soundscapes and atmospheric constructions. It’s all the work of one C.J. Larsgarden, whose command of drone and reverb is not far short of genius.

We begin with ‘Regret’, which initially sounds like a whole orchestra languorously tuning up, but slowly resolves to a few, more identifiable sound-sources. This is relentlessly noirish, building like some throbbing spy-movie score from the 40s. Clammering piano and cello (or is it all guitar?) shimmer and judder against one another, like a black satin dress over fishnet stockings in a haze of cigarette smoke. Or something equally noir. It’s all quite atmospheric.

‘Recipe for sadness’ builds a sinister bassy synth line behind slowly-strummed acoustic guitar for a while. This is quite neat in itself, as the delicacy of the guitar is highlighted by the dark electronic drone. But the track builds into something quite different. The menacing bass synth continues, but the guitar ceases to be strummed and is bowed like a violin as echo builds up… The overall effect is one of mournful sadness with a hint of bleak menace simmering away in the background.

‘Immat K’ is a more abstract piece, as clarity of sound is stretched to the limit and reverb rules. Whooshing, noisy drones build and roll over one another, and are eventually pierced by more shrill, but no less reverberating, sounds. Intensity and noise buildup, and fade away; I’m reminded of driving down a concreted road. It’s lovely and hypnotic but a little juddering and noisy.

‘Lömsk’ is also noirish, but decidedly more modern-sounding than ‘Regret’ with its slow, fuzzy analogue synth loop and its distant strings that sound like a ray of hope. This track again has a filmic feel, like you can imagine its place in the soundtrack of a non-existent movie. Then again, as the track progresses and the bassline becomes a little faster and more insistent, it begins to sound like a soundtrack to something else. Perhaps a more aggressive, less ‘cool’ moment in the same movie…

‘UV’ closes the album in a drench of echo and reverberation. It’s a really long piece which allows everything to get swallowed up in layers and layers of reverb. It’s essentially another darkly filmic guitar piece, slow and bass-led, using reverb and electronic layering to mimic – or at least to imply – an orchestra, or some kind of orchestral arrangement. Sadly this piece is too heavy on the effects for me, and loses a lot of what it tries to do in bubbling clouds of artificial echo. It’s a shame because the rest of the album is so well-balanced between effects and clarity.

In all this is a very nice release, only let down by a slightly-too-wooly closing track. The sound quality is excellent throughout and lends a necessary depth to the cinematic air of this music. And I can’t finish this review without mentioning the packaging – an ingenious origami sleeve in black card, which holds the disc in when closed and pops it out when opened, with a neat window for the single sheet of artwork. A decent album and a very nice way to present it".

Yrsel - Requiem For The Three Kharites ute i januari

2009-12-14T11:12:00.000-08:00

Yrsel (mitt band tillsammans med Julien Louvet) släpper sitt debut album i januari på brittiska bolaget Aurora Borealis. Jag är sjukt peppad!

Så här beskiver bolaget oss och skivan...

"YRSEL is a collaboration between The Austrasian Goat, primarily an experimental Doom/Black Metal project, and ONDO, an equally prolific dark electronica project. Though hailing from different musical genres and from France and Sweden respectively, the two artists bonded following a split release on DIY label Burning Emptiness.

YRSEL create complex, multi-layered and highly atmospheric music that fully explodes the genres of drone, doom and electronica resulting in a glorious glacial melt of sound and texture.

Conceptually, Requiem For The Three Kharites deals with the Three Graces (Kharites) of Greek mythology; symbols of grace, beauty, pleasure and the creative impulse. A requiem for the loss of culture in an ever spiralling material world, a twilight ode to the mythic manifestation of our higher facilities. In this context the drones, glitches and whispers form the perfect soundtrack to such dark materials. The album dissolves slowly from its thunderous opening, finally leaving the listener in a deep void of palpable loss."

* TRACKLIST:
1.The Last Visions Of Aglaea
2.The Tears of Euphrosyne
3.Thaleia's Neurasthenia
Total Running Time: 53:08

APF recension i Groove

2009-11-19T10:25:00.000-08:00

A PERFECT FRIEND

2009-10-06T11:35:00.000-07:00

TIMBER AND MODERN WAYS NYTT ALBUM MED A PERFECT FRIEND UTE VIA KNOPPAR PÅ I-TUNES, SPOTIFY och LIMITERAD CD FRE 6:E NOVEMBER 2009
Finns dock redan nu att köpa (digitalt) här.

Bokade APF-spelningar:

24 oktober, Zebra Bar, Bryssel. Yellow6 från England spelar också.
14 november, Debaser, Malmö. Vi agerar förband åt Kristoffer Åström.

Förhoppningsvis blir det fler spelningar i vår...

2009-06-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

Foxydigitalis.com recenserar Ondo - "Regression". Recensenten svamlar något om röd/vita omslag. Några sådana finns ej. Antar att han blandar ihop med Larsgarden/Rowenta skivan (som är vit/orange)...

"Ondo is the work of Sweden’s C-J Larsgarden. This latest release on Tuguska is CD-R in some pretty neat packaging (which, I believe, is either black with a black and white insert or red with red and black insert). The insert has a pretty neat overlay image of a sort of hooded figure over a sort of wooded background. It gets the gist of this album across. ‘Regression’ is typified by down-tempo drones and acoustics like from echoing caves—very blackened but not harsh, moody but not pathetically so. ‘Regression’, at its core, trys out various ways of getting this darkness across, which makes it both captivating and listless in one go. But Regression presents itself with a lot awesome directions in which future releases might go, all of which any fan of the dark and churning would certainly want to get their hands on.

The opener ‘Regret’ focuses itself pretty heavily on Ondo’s clear metal influences, it is (almost, and in a flattering way) like a chopped and screwed version of some first-wave black metal track, with the blast-beats removed of course. Deep subdued screeching drones with churning, de-tuned electric guitar synths, along with some piano and organs thrown in for good measure. The electronics and underlying noise is pretty cool, but I wish it were a bit more focused. As well, buried deep, are vocal-like noises that are really fucking cool.

Perhaps the best work on ‘Regression’ is the acoustic track ‘Recipe For Sadness’—some excellent, down-temp, folksy guitar work with a very subdued droning background that slowly overtakes the track and leads into some string-type instruments, etc. This is Ondo at his most focused—clear progression and attention to detail make ‘Recipe For Sadness’ winningly meditative. Lord knows if you’re a sucker for the foreboding, Ondo has some very satisfying stuff. ‘Lomsk’ even explores some interesting electronics, making good use of an Autechre influence, as it sounds as though some almost-dance-music was brutally mutilated and slowed down.

I suppose it all depends on what kind of (dark, blackened, et al.) drones your looking for. Ondo isn’t as bone-crushingly brutal as some other dark drone stuff out there, but I think that’s in some sense the point as the focus is on experimentation and multi-instrumentation, which certainly sets this outfit apart from perhaps some of the stuff that otherwise bleeds together in an ocean of slow-churning, burnt-out blackness. It’s a nice listen, and, for the record, I’d opt for the white with the red and black insert."

Nya släpp

2009-05-06T10:29:00.001-07:00

dax att klippa sig...

2009-04-19T05:45:00.001-07:00

Påskgodis

2009-04-09T02:31:00.001-07:00

Så här...

2009-02-01T23:08:00.001-08:00

...kunde det se ut ut när Kane spelade med Denver på August i helgen...

Ondo - "654 65 - 694 33"....

2009-01-12T08:43:00.000-08:00

...kassett (!) ute nu. Släppt på amerikanska Peasant Magik. 100 ex.

Kane spelar....

2009-01-05T05:05:00.000-08:00

Några av årets bästa skivor....

2008-12-23T10:13:00.000-08:00

Några av årets bästa skivor (ej rangordnade)

Machinefabriek - "Dauw" (Dekorder)

Hush Arbors - "Hush Arbors" (Estatic Peace)

Ursula Bogner - "Recordings 1969-1988" (Faitiche)

Cloudland Canyon - "Lie in the Light" (Kranky)

Endless Blockade - "Primitive" (20 Buck Spin)

Earth - "The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull" (Southern Lord)

Zomes - "Zomes" (Holy Mountain)

Mogwai - "The Hawk is Howling" (Matador)

Fennesz - "Black Sea" (Touch)

Andra bra släpp i år:

Brainbombs - "Fucking Mess" (Lystring)

Avskum - "Uppror Underifrån" (Prank)

Bill Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra - "S/T" (Thrill Jockey)

Fire on Fire - "The Orchard" (Young God)

Autechre - "Quaristice" (Warp)

Austrasian Goat - "Pieces of Oblivion" (Blinddate)

Juana Molina - "Un dia" (Domino)

Deerhoof - "Offend Maggie" (ATP)
Nekrasov - "Into the No-Mans-Sphere of the Ancient Days" (Exotic Corpse)

David Grubbs - "An Optimist Notes The Dusk" (Drag City)

Recension från Vital Weekly

2008-12-23T02:50:00.000-08:00

PACTA - FRAGMENTS (3"CDR by Tuguska Label)
In the past I reviewed various releases by C-J Larsgarden, but never (I believe) hisside project Pacta. He also works as Ondo and has ongoing collaborations with FrankRowenta, with Julien Louvet (as Yrsel) and A Perfect Friend (with Thomas DenverJonsson). As Pacta he walks the melancholiac path, armed with a guitar and a laptop,filled with some field recordings. The seven pieces here are indeed 'fragments' asthe title implies. Larsgarden tinkles away, there are sustaining sounds, bits ofoutdoor recordings, which never seem to be traced back to anything, and there isthroughout a pleasant, atmospheric mood on this release. An easy, quick approach tomusic however its not a 'lazy' approach. What he does, he does with great care andstyle. Not a rushed job. Nice. (FdW)

Dagens bild

2008-12-22T03:00:00.000-08:00

Snart ovanför min säng....

2008-12-18T10:40:00.001-08:00

Ute nu...

2008-12-13T07:53:00.001-08:00

Helgens köp...

2008-12-07T23:07:00.001-08:00

Demonstrera mot marknadshyror

2008-12-05T03:39:00.001-08:00

www.hallapolitiker.se

lgh 1

2008-11-28T01:09:00.000-08:00

Combort

2008-11-24T04:58:00.000-08:00

Det som skulle ta 10 minuter (max 24 timmar) har snart tagit 20 dagar. Fortfarande ingen telefon och inget bredband därhemma. Jag börjar verkligen misströsta. Man börjar ju verkligen undra vad Comhem håller på med. Bra service är i alla fall en sak dom inte pysslar med....

comhem

2008-11-17T01:27:00.000-08:00

Comhem måste vara det sämsta jävla skitföretaget som finns!
Dom tycks inte vara speciellt angelägna om att hålla sina löften. Jag blir så jävla förbannad!

Helgens aktivitet

2008-11-09T22:45:00.000-08:00

På väg hem från jobbet (igår)

2008-10-30T12:31:00.000-07:00

fika på jobbet

2008-10-28T10:12:00.000-07:00

Jailbreak

2008-10-21T11:27:00.000-07:00

grymt band! grym låt! grym (nåja) video

Dagens rätt

2008-10-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

Ser ut som äckel-päckel men smakade bra.

mintgrönt hus

2008-10-17T05:37:00.000-07:00

Karlstad kommun gillar inte mintgröna hus...
http://nwt.se/karlstad/article68760.ece

Jösses!

Zlatan

2008-10-16T07:35:00.000-07:00

JESUS RAVE!

2008-10-14T10:02:00.000-07:00

I Hallsberg kan man gå på Jesus Rave!!!

Å vad jag gillar...

2008-10-09T07:57:00.000-07:00

Low

Recension

2008-10-09T02:03:00.000-07:00

Ny recension från sonomu.net. Rätt trevlig recension bortsett från några faktafel (Rowenta är från Tyskland och inget annat, låtarna är inte två år gamla utan inspelade 2008. ...)

Larsgarden & Rowenta (3" CDR Tuguska)
"Presenting the first collaboration between well-known Austrian field recordist Frank Rowenta and relative newcomer C.J. Larsgården from Sweden.

This piece recorded two years ago smears Swedish and English in its titles to indicate its beginning, middle and end, book-ended between which are two parts of "Alisons Garden" (sic). A plodding beat sets the pace for a simple acoustic guitar being strummed over a quiet wash of noise, before breaking off to reveal a more pastoral vista, an audio guided tour of a garden I can only assume is Alison´s. Her voice is played with electronically and blends into the birdsong and other ambient sounds of the garden until it in turn becomes replaced with a sythesizer interlude, itself sort of miming the chirping of birds over the drone of the everyday.

Alison´s voice returns after a while and she and her birds are given a pretty, lazy electronic guitar accompaniment as the piece comes to a close. A "middle" section features a far distant female voice singing wordlessly to the strummings of a guitar much closer to the mic, as static disturbances lurk in the middle ground. Again, Alison returns, leading us through a gate to the steps and deeper into what is sounding increasingly like a tropical garden, before a new electronic interlude overtakes the tour, this one ever more spacey, before landing back in the garden again. In contrast, the coda track features what sounds like a female talking head nattering in German on a television set in the other room and after a little musical flourish, the proceedings close. A lovely record of shifting character; I´d probably also enjoy listening to a whole hour of of stuff like this while walking through an actual green and humid garden.

Larsgården also pursues a passion for darker ambient under the monicker Ondo, also released on his label Tuguska. "Slow" is a, well, slow-burning outing of darkly, excruciating tormented electric guitar, while "Waiting for Shields" is much more varied and circular with a narrative in three distinct movements, not unlike the three-inch CDR messages Machinefabriek likes to send out monthly from his Netherlands studio. "

Så bra

2008-09-25T12:23:00.000-07:00

Idag (och alla årets dagar) gillar jag LUNGFISH

Fragmentarism

2008-09-23T12:18:00.000-07:00

Har laddat upp en ny Pacta låt på myspace. Lyssna vetja.

I "studion" med Morgan Kane...

2008-09-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

Dagens rätt

2008-09-17T09:53:00.001-07:00

ROBE. - "Fragile Construct" 3"-CDr ute nu

2008-09-10T13:42:00.000-07:00

Ö-R-E-B-R-O.... JAJJEBRAJJE

2008-09-08T13:02:00.000-07:00

Foxy Digitalis om "Mahavishnu" (halvtölig recension)

2008-09-03T02:54:00.000-07:00

"Ondo are single-minded. “Mahavishnu” is a dark and brooding ride. Though the eight songs vary in tone from drone to electronica to a bit of doom-y guitar, the overall feel is of relentless heaviness, but with an airy space beneath. The cinematic scale and length of the tracks allows a dream world in which it is possible for the listener to find some comfort.

The band relies on sustained power chords, electronic washes, the occasional vocal grumble. This is most effective on the title track and on “Second,” which manages to work to a peak of impressive dissonant power. Yet, often there is thin line between hypnotic and repetitive, and songs like “First” and “1920” seem like exercises in doom rather than inspired contributions to it.

Still, “Mahavisnhu” appeals because the band risks walking that thin line, and more often than not, Ondo deliver evocative drone with the right spice note of menace. These are dreamy tunes that will not linger long in your ear, but while they are boucing around in there they will sting and echo. 6/10 "

Duvungar

2008-08-31T01:06:00.000-07:00

Vi har fått tillökning på balkongen…

Ny låt med A Perfect Friend

2008-08-29T05:00:00.000-07:00

Förra helgen spenderade jag och Thomas i en liten stuga i Borgvik. Vi spelade hela 5 nya låtar.

Två smakprov från den sessionen finns att höra på vår myspace. Vi har lagt upp två låtar som heter Artificial Lung och Inside the Walls. Lyssna gärna.

En gris... en ko... en hallsbergsbo...

2008-07-30T06:16:00.000-07:00

Sista dagen i lägenheten på Färjestad. Känns märkligt....

Morgan Kane

2008-07-20T02:01:00.000-07:00

Jag spelar i ett rockband.... Morgan Kane. Vi har lagt upp två halvsunkiga replokalsinspelningar på myspace. Lyssna gärna här.

Aquariusrecords.org om "Mahavishnu"

2008-07-11T04:27:00.000-07:00

"The second of two new releases on the always kick ass Paradigms label from the UK. The first being the reviewed-elsewhere- on-this-list latest release from 4AD ethereal drifters The Victims Shudder, the other, being this, the latest slab of crushing black ambience and deep dark dronemusic from Sweden's Ondo. Weirdly enough, we were already fans having dug heavily the cd-r released on 200mg a short while back, and were already pining for more, and voila. Whereas that cd-r was a single looooong song, this disc is split into distinct movements, each a bleak and caustic chunk of truly ominous ambience. Actually, there is so much stuff going on, and this is so dark and heavy, it's almost disingenuous to call it ambient music. This is cinematic abstract free noise drone music. Heavy enough to worm its way inside the ears of drone inclined metalheads, but dark and blissed out enough to keep the drone obsessed in downtuned druggy nirvana.

The label mentions early Earth, Raison D'Etre and Fennesz, and damn if all three of those don't definitely apply. Pretty melodies are buried under slabs of grinding buzz, chords are woven into undulating sheets of fuzzy sound, everything is hissy and glitchy, with a gauzy sheen. Imagine Earth 2 as reimagined by Christian Fennesz and you might be getting close. Chords and notes, churn and throb, blackened sounds pulse ominously enveloping crystalline shimmers and music box like melodies, voices and samples are chopped up and distorted, riffs are pulled apart into washed out smears of sound. Some of the tracks definitely border on serious doom territory, while others are blurred distorted dreamscapes, all skittery and smeared, dark pianos, radio distortion and amp buzz, distant melodic whir, all tangled into something creepy and beautiful, strings draped over crumbling industrial crunch, all woven around heaving heaviness, rendered in slow moving swells. Way recommended for fans of things slow and low, dark and doomy, murky and mysterious."

Boktips: Det grymma svärdet # 2

2008-06-25T04:28:00.000-07:00

Boktips!
För ett tag sedan införskaffade jag mig andra numret av Det grymma svärdet. Mycket bra tidning/bok. Jag ser redan fram emot nästa nummer….

Köp ert ex redan idag här (passa på att köpa första numret också. Bra det med).

Första Larsgarden/Rowenta-recensionen (Vital Weekly)

2008-06-17T06:34:00.000-07:00

Frank Rowenta's musical history goes back to the 80s when he recorded various albums with one Kahn and with Grillhaus. In more recent years he's more concerned with field recordings and has had a release on Gruenrekorder. Here he teams with C.J.Larsgarden, who sometimes works as Ondo, A Perfect Friend and Pacta. Together they recorded a bunch of pieces since 2006, of which five found there way to this 3" on Larsgarden's own Tuguska label. It's an interesting, intimate piece of work where field recordings and acoustic guitars meet half way through - in a garden perhaps - where each of them holds a small sampler to give some very basic sound treatments to the events at hand. Intimate, like recorded in a garden, or inbar, minimal and cleverly mixing microsound and outsider music. Nice one. (FdW)

LARSGARDEN/ROWENTA

2008-06-14T04:34:00.000-07:00

Trevlig Ondo-recension i Close-Up

2008-05-21T02:12:00.000-07:00

Svenska Close-Up Magazine recenserar “Mahavishnu” i sitt senaste nummer. Trevligt!

”Karlstadssonen C-J Larsgården plockar fram fältinspelningar, dronegitarrer och allsköns fulmeditativ elektronik. Som ONDO tagerar han LUSTMORD, STARS OF THE LID och FENNESZ med bakgrundbrus att försvinna djupt, djupt in i.”
(Jonn Jeppsson)
Betyg 7 / 10

Att Fennesz är en inspirationskälla är klart men jag har knappt hört dom andra två artisterna som nämns i recensionen. Stars of the Lid har stått på min ”musik-jag-måste-kolla-upp-lista” i flera år och nu kanske det är dags att ta tag i det. Lustmord har jag bara hört i samarbete med Melvins och deras gemensamma skiva gillar jag mycket (även om det kanske är mest Melvins förtjänst).

Ondo - "Slow" (3"-CDr) UTE NU!

2008-05-16T07:05:00.000-07:00

Köp här

Good stuff...

2008-05-13T23:21:00.000-07:00

Mat

Min vegetariska röra som jag åt till lunch igår (bättre smak än utseende):

Böcker

Jens Lapidus – ”Snabba Cash”. Jag läser inte så mycket skönlitterära böcker nu men den här kunde jag bara inte släppa ifrån mig. Bra!

Sam Harris – ”Brev till en kristen nation”. Har bara lästa halva än men jag kan väl säga att den har sina poänger.

Bra grejer i MP3-spelaren:

Free kitten – "Inherit". Låter ungefär som tidigare men kanske lite mer ”Sonic Youth-igt” på sina ställen. Helt i min smak.

No Age – ”Nouns”. Sällan har väl ett så hypat band låtit så bra.

Swans – “Great Annihilator”. Ojojoj va många år det tog för mig att upptäcka Swans. Trogna fans tycker säkert bättre om tidiga plattor men jag tycker att det här är deras bästa.

Miles Davis – ”In a silent way”. En helt fantastisk skiva!

Dropdead – "Discography". Klassiskt hardcoremangel.

Senaste inköpet...

2008-04-30T09:23:00.000-07:00

BONTEMPI JUNIOR 4
Fläktorgel från 70-talet. Orange hårdplast. 150:-
Låter grymt!!!

I media...

2008-04-16T22:43:00.000-07:00

Itsatrap.com skriver lite om Ondo...

"In a feat of synchronicity, I received news albums from both Thomas Denver Jonsson and Ondo on the same day last week. The two are world's apart on the surface, but I know better as Ondo is the ambient/doom alias of C-J Larsgården from Pacta/Pacta Sunt Servanda and together with Jonsson, they perform as the duo A Perfect Friend. Considering how different their individual music is, it's amazing that they are able to find common ground, but certainly not unfathomable as I certainly enjoy both artists on their own. Ondo is easily the more difficult of the pair as his subterranean doom music lacks any sort of pop hooks. Instead, you get brooding darkness and evil; a beat-less, black cloud of ambiance. We've had some beautiful weather out here on the West Coast, especially here in SF where I'm situated this week, but Ondo sucks the light out of even the brightest day. To me, that's a high compliment. To conjure that level of heaviness with pure atmosphere is an intense achievement."

Vital Weekly recenserar Ondo..

ONDO - MAHAVISNU (CD on Paradigm Recordings)
Recently (Vital Weekly 617) we were introduced to the music of C-J Larsgarden, also known as Ondo, through a 3"CDR called ’Shields’, a piece for drone like guitars and a bit of drums. Now, on a real CD, released by Paradigms Recordings (not to be confused with Paradigm, I guess, UK’s home of improvised music) eight new tracks, which Ondo describes as a fusion between ’Earth, Raison D’Etre and a touch of Fennesz’, which is certainly nice found and also not much beside the point. Larsgarden’s music is quite dark, with lots of deep, atmospheric sounds, runninglike undercurrents underneath (let’s say the Earth influence), but on top there is always a small melody or small melodic touch to be found. Sometimes on piano, sometimes on guitar - that might be the Raison D’Etre influence (if anyone remembers this Cold Meat Industry band). Fennesz is a bit harder to spot but with a certain flair you find it through the some of the production, certainly when it starts to sound a bit more digital.

Quite a nice soundtrack to a horror film this one, to which I have one minor objection: the tracks sound a bit too similar at times. The heavy banging, the dark drone, the melodic touch, the built up of tracks and the noise bits - there is a bit too much uniformity in these pieces. But served in smaller portions: quite nice indeed".

Foxy Digitalis...

2008-03-18T02:26:00.000-07:00

Foxy Digitalis om "Shields"...

"Opening with what sounds like "Loveless" played backwards accompanied by some sparse piano Playing, Ondo’s "Waiting For Shields" 3" CDR seems to be making a bit of a tongue in cheek reference to the mythic perfectionist. Moving through various textures of darkly reverberant and gauzy bliss with an underlying pulsating throb that builds to a wash of whiteness and further piano exploration, finally to end with another assumed My Bloody Valentine reference, this is a pretty well paced 16 minutes. I would definitely love to hear what this guy does over the course of a full length release since I am left feeling that there is a lot of exploration left undone with this release. 6/10"

Aquarius records...

2008-03-09T00:03:00.000-08:00

aquariusrecords.org om "Alliansen".....

"This release, from an entity known simply as Ondo, comes to us from Sweden, and is one looooong 40 minute track, of deep metallic dronemusic, thick shimmering layers of distorted sound, reverberating buzz, and smeared streaks of electronics. The sound is creepy and ominous, very cinematic, it's not hard to imagine some long tracking shot of an old graveyard, huge black birds soaring overhead, a dilapidated old house, a rusted out car in the yard, a tire swing barely shifting in the afternoon breeze, the sort of sloooooow shot that builds the suspense, that readies you for whatever horror might lie in wait. That's what the music of Ondo sounds like. Long drawn out tones, deep resonant notes, thick crumbling corrosive rumbles, bits of feedback and snippets of voices, everything dripping in effects and oozing with menace. This is definitely dark ambient music, but it's not all that ambient, it's active, some strange lifeforce inhabits these sounds and propels it forward, along with the listener, drawing us ever closer to some inexorable doom. Awesome."

ONDO - "MAHAVISNU" (CD) UTE NU!!!!

2008-02-27T08:09:00.000-08:00

Äntligen är min första egna (solo) riktiga fullängdsskiva släppt. Jag känner ett enormt pepp!!!

Skivbolaget beskriver skivan så här:

"The majestic debut full length album from Sweden's Ondo. Intricate, textured doomed drone, blackened ambience and lush nocturnal electronica, delicately crafted into a dark cinematic vision. A shadow dreamscape of overpowering density, akin to an intoxicating fusion of early Earth, Raison D'Etre and a touch of the shimmering haze of Fennesz, perhaps?"

Presented as a limited edition of 500 copies only, in dvd presentation box with full colour art.

Finns att köpa här: http://www.paradigms-recordings.com/

ONDO - "SHIELDS" (3", TUGUSKA LABEL)

2008-02-22T00:42:00.000-08:00

UTE NU
TUGUSKA LABEL

MACHINIST VS ONDO CDR

2008-02-14T08:42:00.001-08:00

Splitten med Holländska industri/drone-artisten Machinist är ute nu. Två låtar (en låt var), 50 minuters speltid. Det rör sig om tämligen svävande ljudlanskap med en hel del oljud och bröt här och där. Upplaga: 50 ex. Den kostar 40 :- inklusive porto....

GRADUATION DAY - DEMOS & OUTTAKES CDR

2008-02-07T02:06:00.000-08:00

A Perfect Friend har ju spelat in sitt andra album, ”Timber and Modern Ways”, som förhoppningsvis kommer att släppas någon gång framöver. Men före det släpper vi nu en limiterad CDR kallad ”Graduation Day” med tre låtar som inte riktigt platsar på kommande albumet + en låt som vi spelade till första skivan men som inte kom med på den samt ett improviserat 15 minuters jam inspelat tidigt 2006 (innan vi ens hade kommit på att vi skulle heta A Perfect Friend).

Pris: 40 SEK inkl. porto. Intresserade kan kontakta: info@aperfectfriend.com

Senare i februari kommer Ondo att släppa tre olika skivor. Först kommer en CDR kallad "Alliansen", sedan en split-CDR tillsammans med holländska artisten Machinist och sist men inte minst släpps förhoppningsvis äntligen den "riktiga" skivan "Mahavishnu". Mer info senare....

Timber and Modern Ways

2008-01-21T02:46:00.000-08:00

I helgen har APF spelat in det sista till vårt andra album ”Timber and Modern Ways”. Det enda som är kvar nu är ett sångpålägg av en gästartist samt mixning. Albumet kommer att bestå av tio låtar och den totala längden blir 40 minuter. När skivan kommer att släppas är inte riktigt klart än men förhoppningsvis blir det någon gång under 2008.

Idag tog Ellinor körkort! Jag säger GRATTIS GRATTIS!!!

julträdet

2007-12-15T08:32:00.000-08:00

någon där hemma hade pyntat när jag kom hem. trevligt!

RSS

2007-12-11T02:48:00.000-08:00

Idag har jag lärt mig om det här mystiska RSS. Netvibes verkar vara värsta grymma prylen.

Film: APF @ Cimatics

2007-11-29T08:48:00.000-08:00

A Perfect Friend, Cimatics Festival, Bryssel

2007-11-26T05:14:00.000-08:00

Kvällens program

A perfect friend live @ cimatics

A perfect friend live @ cimatics

A perfect friend live @ cimatics

A perfect friend live @ cimatics

Thomas

C-J

Thomas

På lokal...

Flyget

Thomas i trappa

C-J och Jerome (från skivbolaget STILLL)

Stilll-bossarna Alain, Jerome och Alains fru kränger skivor...

Köp en skiva...

Ser lite smådeppiga ut men vi var glada, jag lovar...

Belgarna kan konsten att micka upp en Silvertone orgel på rätt sätt...

Blow-Up Magazine

2007-11-22T09:46:00.000-08:00

Italienska tidningen Blow-Up Magazine har en halv sida om A Perfect Friend i sitt senaste nummer...

På lördag bär det iväg till Belgien. Pepp!

APF vs Belgien

2007-10-12T01:26:00.000-07:00

24 Nov - Cimatic/AV07/Festival, Bryssel

APF vs EU

2007-09-28T03:08:00.001-07:00

Mer info snart....

Goon Mag om APF

2007-09-15T01:25:00.000-07:00

Tyska Goon Magazine om APF-skivan... här

Ondo - "Mahavishnu"

2007-09-06T09:48:00.000-07:00

Ondo-skivan är beräknad att släppas i slutet av oktober. Så här kommer framsidan att se ut (klicka på bilden för bättre upplösning)...

Mer info senare här, där eller där.

Filmklipp...

2007-08-31T00:02:00.000-07:00

APF:

Sail the Soil: