Vladimir Hirsch – Katagenesis (Album – Zoharum)
Genre/Influences: Experimental, Neo-Classic & Industrial, Cinematographic.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: Czech artist Vladimir Hirsch has been involved with numerous projects and can be easily considered as one of the most prominent Industrial/Experimental artists from Czech Republic. He released an impressive number of works during the past twenty years and now joined hands together with Zoharum to unleash new work.
Content: The album has been conceived as a classical opus and that’s not a coincidence. Classical music definitely appears to be an important source of inspiration, but also an experiment to mix it with Industrial sound treatments and pure Experimental field recordings. Heavy and bombastic, sometimes into epic arrangements, but still revealing a few subtle elements, this work brings Neo-Classic and Industrial music together.
+ + + : I don’t know of many artists like Vladimir Hirsch. He brings different styles together and doesn’t hesitate to build up a bridge between Classical- and Industrial music. This is an imaginary Soundtrack or music for Experimental dance performances. The sound of Hirsch reminds me of Stravinsky for its complexity with Industrial sound treatments on top. This is pure drama and sonic extravaganza!
– – – : The originality of the work appears to be equal to its unique, Experimental format. This music isn’t always easily accessible and especially some of the longest cuts are hard to endure.
Conclusion: This is a superb album for a very restricted number of music lovers…
Best songs: “Encrypted”.
Rate: 7.
Artist: www.vladimirhirsch.com / www.facebook.com/vladimhirsch
Label: www.zoharum.com / www.facebook.com/zoharum
About Vladimír Hirsch
Vladimír Hirsch is a Czech composer, instrumentalist and sound designer, born on 3 July 1954 in Benešov u Prahy, then Czechoslovakia. He works across modern classical, industrial and dark ambient music, and his Discogs profile describes a compositional style built on polymodality and on electronic and electroacoustic treatment of sound. Between 1986 and 1995 he played in the experimental post-punk group Der Marabu.
Hirsch founded and leads the projects Aghiatrias, Skrol, Zygote, Tiria and Luminar Ax, and has also recorded as Subpop Squeeze. His solo catalogue runs from "Synthetics – Themes" in 1987 and "Organ Pieces" in 1991 through "Out Of Your Objects" in 1993, "Simplicity Of Heresy" in 1996, "Sense Geometry" in 1998, "Dreams Of Awakening" in 1999, "Underlying Scapes" in 2003, "Epidemic Mind" in 2007, "Contemplatio Per Nexus" in 2008, "Nonterra" in 2010, "The Sheep Barn Entertainment" in 2013 and "Scripta Soli" in 2017.
"Katagenesis" appeared in 2021 as a limited CD. The review above credits Zoharum; Discogs lists the release as a joint issue by Old Captain and Zoharum in Poland.
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