NEW EUROPEAN RECORDINGS

CRISIS

Douglas P and Tony Wakeford of Sol Invictus have finally compiled a double CD of all the Crisis records plus live and unreleased material. The first three songs they ever wrote/recorded are also featured on it. It will be issued sometime in 1996. (Crisis was their first musical collaboration. Tony Wakeford was later in Death in June before founding Sol.)

SCORPION WIND

SCORPION WIND is a collaboration between Boyd Rice of Non, Douglas P. and John Murphy, a founding member of S.P.K. and Current 93. These are assisted by Timothy Jenn (guitar and keyboards), Campbell Finley (trumpet) and Richard Leviathan (percussion).

Their first release is Heaven Sent which has been issued on vinyl as a double LP, and on CD (1996 NERO XXXIX).

The album features Boyd in his characteristic spoken-poem style with very light if increasing musical accompaniment. Despite this understated and at times minimalist approach, the result is highly compelling. This is due, at least in part, to the very tuneful music, and I particularly liked 'In Vino Veritas' (track 3) in which Boyd asks someone to pour him a martini so he can toast the world's funeral pyre!

The words, written mainly by Boyd and Douglas, offer a suitably sardonic commentary on the end of the world, and will no doubt generate the usual questions about whether they really mean it. The music is disconcertingly soft for the apparent message. 'There Is No More Sleep' (track 7) characteristically places the theme of impending war against a lazy jazz background. It is the Apocalypse...but as seen from a cocktail lounge!

The ironic juxtapositioning of soft music with the gospel of Social Darwinism is echoed in the album's pictures of Boyd and Douglas in which they pose with cropped hair and shades...cuddling a koala bear! Hmm.

STRENGTH THROUGH JOY

The new album from Strength Through Joy was finished in Adelaide in October and Salute To Light should be out in late January '96. Douglas doesn't actually play on this one but he produced it. The double CD features two completely different mixes of each song.

TEHÖM

The Despiritualization of Nature (1996 NERO X) by TeHÔM is the very fine industrial-ambient work of Sinisa Ocurscak, a former front-line soldier in the Croatian army.

TeHÖM takes its name from the Hebrew word signifying the primeval flood, and this is an appropriate choice for a music which is panoramic in scale and addresses man's position in the cosmos.

The opening track, 'Palingenesia G.' , is expansive and atmospheric, 'Enantiodromia' (track 3) is a splendid Wagnerian piece, while the album's extended title track (track 8) brings to life the primeval swamp itself.

If you like industrial noises in an epic neo-classical context, this a CD to get!

Rik Updated: 3 November 1996

• DEATH IN JUNE
• NON