Black River – SIDE-LINE

London experimental electronic trio Decommissioned Forests release third album ‘Chemistry’ – Out now

Bernard - Side-Line Staff — Fri, 03 Nov 2023 12:32:46 +0000

Released today, 3 November 2023, is the new album “Chemistry” from Decommissioned Forests. The album is available now from Bandcamp, Spotify, and all major streaming platforms. This is the third full-length album for the London-based experimental electronic trio and follows their dank atmospheric debut, “Forestry” (2019), and the post-industrial modernist sophomore album, “Industry” (2022).

Musically the trio (Howard Gardner, Daniel Vincent, and Max Rael) have been taking a broad range of influences by outsider artists such as Coil, Current 93, Cluster, Nine Inch Nails, Nurse With Wound and Throbbing Gristle to merge it into their own sound.

As the “Chemistry” album’s 10 tracks took shape, it became clear that the collection of songs had started to take a conceptual form. Daniel explains: “We started to plot the curve of the album musically as we recorded Max’s vocals, so the album loosely follows a day in the life, as day dreams, existential angst, and some kind of trauma surface.”

Max expands: “In terms of lyrical themes for the album, we start with Goodbye to the Cloud People which for me, is at least in part, about coming off antidepressants, leaving a world where nothing feels quite real, a not unpleasant dreamlike numbness, so the narrator of the album is taking a look at the world around him and in many ways, seeing it for the first time. Medication then plays into the wider them of chemistry which is explored further in the title track, and All is Vanity. Eel Tank and Bread to the Ducks describe alien attempts to capture something of the human condition, but there’s always something inherently lost in translation. Eel Tank reflects the existential horror of being trapped in unfulfilling meaningless work, whereas Bread to the Ducks tries to capture something of scarcity economics, capitalism and the factory farming of animals. I’m the kind of person who has a drawer full of old notepads going back over the years so I tend to bring a mixture of fresh new ideas and improvisation, as well as old words and ideas that I still like and that still resonate with me now. Lyrically, Black River Falls is pretty untouched from 2002, and The Dust is a rewritten version of a song that goes right back to the very first band I was in as a teenager at school. I guess some of us never really fully grow out of that teenage angst. ‘We were always easy prey’. We were then, as we are now.”

The Howard Gardner video for the album’s lead-single ‘Black River Falls’, which premiered on Side-Line.com in September, continues the narrative from “A Comforting Uncertainty” video from the band’s previous album.

You can download the album below from Bandcamp or order a physical copy.

Chemistry by Decommissioned Forests

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

London trio Decommissioned Forests share sci-fi-inspired video ‘Black River Falls’

Bernard - Side-Line Staff — Mon, 04 Sep 2023 10:03:00 +0000

The London-based ‘outsider’ electronic trio Decommissioned Forests return with a new video for “Black River Falls” which is the first track to be shared from their forthcoming third album, “Chemistry”. The presales for the “Chemistry” album are available from Bandcamp now.

As with the rest of the Chemistry album, the song was arranged, engineered, and produced by the group’s primary instrumentalist, Daniel Vincent.

Chemistry by Decommissioned Forests

Vocalist Max Rael, who also stars as the video’s protagonist, says: “One of the themes of the album is this kind of non-linear journey or exploration that’s going forwards as well as backwards. The original idea for the ‘Black River Falls’ lyric was inspired by the 1999 film Wisconsin Death Trip directed by James Marsh. It’s a song that’s looking for answers in a world where solutions are scarce and seldom to be relied upon. Could acceptance of ourselves and our history, without collapse, be a way backwards to go
forwards?”

The video was directed by electronics wizard and visual artist, Howard Gardner and acts as a sequel to his earlier award-winning short film for the track “A Comforting Uncertainty”. Howard describes the original idea for the video as being about: “… the unnamed protagonist from the first film, returning to face a series of cruel challenges, and this eventually morphed into a bleak tale of him being tormented by robotic prison guards. ‘Black River Falls’ is a much shorter, faster paced song than its predecessor, and I had to tell the visual story in a somewhat different pace in order to fit around that, but in the end, we arrived at a video that I’m especially proud of.”

Earlier this year, Decommissioned Forests also released a retrospective promo-sampler titled “Dream Technicians”, free to download from Bandcamp: a great introduction for listeners new to the project.

Dream Technicians 2023 Promo by Decommissioned Forests

Forthcoming Decommissioned Forests UK live dates:

9 October 2023 – Skronktronic, New River Studios, North London, UK
13 October 2023 – Post-Plague, Poco Loco, Chatham, UK
More tbc

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

side-line.com

Russian post-punk trio Черная речка (Russian for ‘Black River’) lands on Artoffact Records

Bernard - Side-Line Staff — Mon, 13 Sep 2021 12:27:15 +0000

Today Toronto-based Artoffact Records has announced the signing of the Russian post-punk trio Черная речка (Russian for ‘Black River’). Черная речка formed in Kirov in 2013 and emerged from the ashes of the garage punk band Debauch.

Since 2021, the band has fully relocated to St. Petersburg, where they are in the process of recording a new album, slated for release in 2022 on Artoffact Records. In the meantime, the band’s entire back catalogue, a collection of 7 EP-length recordings, is now available digitally.

Their discography:

Сторона А (2014)
Сторона Б (2014)
Праздник (2015)
Часть 2: Свои (2016)
Часть 1: Чужие ‎(2016)
В Этом Северном, Снежном, Холодном Краю ‎(2018)
О (Sierpien Records – 2019)

Below is the band’s most recent output.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

side-line.com

Australian post-punk / dark-wave duo The Cold Field offers full length ‘Hollows’ – check video for ‘Endless Ending’

Bernard - Side-Line Staff — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 16:16:23 +0000

Out now on Cold Transmission Music is the new full-length album, “Hollows”, by the Australian post-punk dark-wave duo The Cold Field.

The Cold Field consists of the duo Ian Messenger and Heath Newberry, and formed in 2019. They released “Black River” as their full-length debut album in 2020 and are now back with 10 new songs. The new material is available on CD, vinyl LP and digital formats from Cold Transmission Music.

Built on the sonic foundations of drum machines, bass guitar, synthesizers, electric guitars and distorted vocals, The Cold Field’s sound mixes early 80’s and Joy Division with contemporary bands such as Lebanon Hanover and Soft Kill.

Here’s already the video for the album track “Endless Ending”. Good to know the band is already working on a third album.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

side-line.com

Long Night – Barren Land (CD Album – Swiss Dark Night Records)

Inferno Sound Diaries — Wed, 17 Apr 2019 18:30:55 +0000

Genre/Influences: Dark-rock, goth-rock.

Background/Info: Norwegian formation Long Night has already been active for a few years now. There was a first work released in 2016, but “Barren Land” is the band’s official debut album featuring nine songs.

Content: Long Night is clearly driven by dark-rock music, but also by 80s cold-wave influences and other more psychedelic-rock music. I sometimes get the impression of hearing an offspring between The Cult and Pink Floyd. The guitar playing is a very important element from the album and especially because it injects a truly spirit in the songs.

+ + + : The guitar parts have something elevating, even transcendental. The song “Black River” is a fully accomplished dark song with such a great hypnotic feeling. It’s maybe somewhat different from the other songs, but it’s a brilliant composition. Long Night also reflects such an impressive maturity in the songwriting. The songs are well crafted and all influences together create an efficient and homogenous result. There also is a noticeable psychedelic touch emerging from some songs, which will definitely please guitar freaks. Last, but not least I also want to say a word about the great artwork (digipak) of the album.

– – – : From a very personal point of view I would have liked to hear more darker influences running through the songs or to hear more songs in the style of “Black River”. The title track is definitely not my favorite one, being maybe too psychedelic-like.

Conclusion: “Barren Land” is a delicious crossover between different influences resulting in something personal and promising.

Best songs: “Black River”, “It’s All Gone”, “The Rain Still Falls”, “The Night’s Ablaze”.

Rate: (8).

Artist: https ://longnight .no / www .facebook .com /Long .Night .Tau

Label: www .facebook .com /SwissDarkNights

Inferno Sound Diaries

I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.