Zelienople - "Show Us The Fire" (2015)

Genre: Slowcore (with touches of drone and ambient)

Country: United States

From their bandcamp: Show Us The Fire is Zelienople’s first album for Chicago’s Immune Recordings and shows the band taking a more simplified approach to recording. These songs were written with live performance in mind, with each band member sticking to their primary instrument on every song. It is also the first release where Ha played an equal role in the band for every song. Zelienople, like Codeine before them, are masters of hushed anxiety, burying anger and discontent under layers of reverb and masking it with slow tempos. Many of the lyrics on Show Us The Fire focus on themes of wealth inequality and call for revolution, rooted in a call for social justice but also brimming with frustration. It is about the transcendence of hardships, not a wallowing in them. The effect is unsettling but beautiful.

Show Us The Fire

Show Us The Fire (bandcamp)

K (Ivan Kamaldinov) - Lumi (2015)

Genre: Minimal Ambient/ Drone/ Field Recordings

Country: Russia

Dreamy, Ethereal, Blissful, this album has everything you could want from minimal ambient. Ever so slow progressions and layer upon layer of lo-fi ambience build up a rich atmosphere, and a cloud of easygoing ambient synths. Small amounts of distortion and static are implemented behind these layers of silky ambience, creating a more personal relationship with the listener, but still keeping that dream-like atmosphere that makes this album so beautiful. Overall solid album, I highly recommend this album to fans of William Baskinski and Datavis. 

https://kamaldinov.bandcamp.com/album/lumi

Planning For Burial - Desideratum (2014)

Genre: Drone, Shoegaze
Country: United States

Planning For Burial subdues the more metal aspects of his music from his debut Leaving back in 2009 in exchange for more emotive and soft drone-y shoegaze. This allows for a more focused listen rather than the all over place sound akin to his debut which was good regardless. The drone here is really engaging here despite how slow-paced the music here is. It really feels like being absorbed into nothingness which is most likely what Planning For Burial is going for.

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Black Cilice / Dead Procession (2013)

Genre: Black metal / Ambient / Drone
Country: Portugal

Interesting split with Black Cilice providing their usual brand of raw noisy black metal alongside fellow countrymen Dead Procession who provide a side of drone/ambient with distant haunting vocals. Two brilliant projects that both deserve attention.

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