Genre/Influences: Dark-Ambient, Industrial, Cinematic.

Format: CD, Digital.

Background/Info: Manabu Hiramoto started making music twenty years ago. The Japanese artist released an impressive number of works by multiple labels like Athanor, Ant-Zen, SSSM, Zhelozebeton ao. He this year released his first album by the leading Dark-Ambient label Cyclic Law.

Content: The work takes off with impressive, overwhelming, soundwaves leading the listener into an icy, frightening sound experience. We next visit imaginary, abyssal, sound depths creating reverie and achieved with subtle sound treatments. The work is progressively evolving featuring metallic- and other Industrial noises plus an impressive canvas of effects.

+ + + : The work is diversified and not always that easy to catch but the opening- and penultimate cut -which are quite different from each other, reveal the strength and creativity of the project. Shinkiro has used a true sonic arsenal to achieve this production appealing for a wider audience and not just Dark-Ambient fans.

– – – : The diversity of the work has something confusing.

Conclusion: I have mixed feelings with this opus but I prefer emphasizing the crushing passages which are just great. 

Best songs: “The Wind”, “Mountains”, “Fire”.

Rate: 7.

Artist: www.facebook.com/ShinkiroOfficial

Label: www.cycliclaw.com / www.facebook.com/cycliclaw

Listen to “The Birth Of The Gods”:

About Shinkiro

Shinkiro is the dark ambient/industrial project of Japanese artist Manabu Hiramoto, who started making music twenty years before this release with credits on labels including Athanor, Ant-Zen, SSSM and Zhelozebeton.

“The Birth Of The Gods” marked Hiramoto’s first album for Cyclic Law.

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.

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Genre/Influences: Experimental, IDM, industrial.

Background/Info: This album resulted from a meaningful collaboration between Italian musician Eraldo Bernocchi (who got fame and recognition with the legendary Italian formation Sigillum S) and Manabu Hiramoto aka Shinkiro (who’s a Japanese artist active in the wider fields of dark-ambient music and who collaborated with numerous famous artists).

Content: “In Praise Of Shadows” is a surprising album, which mixes multiple influences. It’s a rather complex creation revealing great sound treatments and a real sonic intelligence resulting in a few tracks with a real IDM approach. It sounds industrial as well and even trip-hop like a surreal, but fascinating symbiosis between Portishead and Autechre.

Some passages are pretty dreamy while others are dark and sophisticated. There’s a great progression running throughout the tracks accomplished with subtle noise treatments.

+ + + : This album reveals a visionary approach in electronics. The work has been accomplished by an impressive sonic canvas and a truly passion for sound creation and manipulation. There also is a meticulous progression in the writing reaching a climax on “Hikari”. The opening cut “Fluorescent Memories” and the IDM-like “Shadow Ghosts” both are other attention grabbers. There also is a kind of transcendental feeling emerging from the final cut (cf. “Black Magic Train”).

– – – : This is the kind of album where you will not find any minus point except if you were expecting a more ambient and or experimental style.

Conclusion: Eraldo Bernocchi and Shinkiro are pure chemistry! They achieved a creative album, which I can only, but call a masterpiece!

Best songs: “Hikari”, “Black Magic Train”, “Fluorescent Memories”, “Shadow Ghosts”, “City Vultures”.

Rate: (8½).

Bands: www.facebook.com/eraldo.bernocchi /  www.facebook.com/ShinkiroOfficial

Label: www.geocities.jp/coolanatomy / www.facebook.com/sssmrec

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.

www.side-line.com

The french label Athanor, known for releasing occult and/or ritual ambient and industrial music, has returned.

Available in a strictly limited edition of 300 copies in digipak and 20 pages booklet is the newest release by Les Jumeaux Discordants: “Les Chimères” (you can order one of the 300 copies right here).

The album is the first all new release in quite some time from Athanor, the cult label that counts releases in its catalogue from such bands as Les Joyaux De La Princesse, Ain Soph, Zero Kama, Blood Axis, Golgatha, Shinkiro, Mental Measuretech and many more.

You can expect the use of heavy percussions reminding of Les Joyaux de la Princesse, Camerata Mediolanense, Les Sentiers Conflictuels, Blood Axis, early Laibach or Dead Can Dance. This is the second album based on Gérard de Nerval’s poems “Les Chimères”, Charles Baudelaire, Empedocle and Angelo Tonelli.​

Les Jumeaux Discordants is a ritual project born in 2005 by the union of Roberto Del Vecchio’s music and Aima. Roberto Del Vecchio (The Last Hour / ex Gothica) is a composer since 1994 while Aima started her project in 1996 working around poetry, photography, music and multimedia.

Here’s how they sound:

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!

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