RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://doublemute.bandcamp.com/album/corporate-culture-final-v2 One of the most unique entities out there today is undoubtedly the deeply intriguing Double Mute and their highly eclectic and delightfully twisted on all things progressive. Also, for the sake of clarity, let there be no doubt that main man Jake Rosenberg is a musical genius whose ideas and visions…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://antinoe.bandcamp.com/ Far removed from the world of metal music yet infinitely darker, more haunting, and relentlessly bleaker is this mesmerizing output titled The Fold by the Spanish artist known as Antinoë, which is the solo vehicle of the immensely talented neo-classical pianist and vocalist Teresa Marraco. Although she does have black metal…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://robec.bandcamp.com/album/the-forest-is-too-loud This one did not entirely come out of the blue as I was fortunate enough to get to listen to a few snippets and extracts from it when stopping by for coffee and a chat at Gymnocal Industries’ headquarters on two or three occasions, and I was immediately hooked and started…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://orcd.co/picture-ann-whispers The villainous purveyors of all things weirdly dark and strangely melancholy are at it again; their “The Law of Whispers and Low Voices” single was released on September 12 by the consistently brilliant Gymnocal Industries and is available in all the relevant digital music stores out there. In addition to the…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://floodgatemoodsproductions.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-dying-rooms-of-london The rather short and concise 3-track digital single intriguingly titled In the Dying Rooms of London sees the deviant post-rockers / lo-fi ambient explorers known as Picture Ann carve a musical love letter to the grandeur and squalor of the great city of London. As J.N. says, “In the Dying Rooms…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://whispersofgranite.bandcamp.com/album/liquid-stone What a marvelous musical treat Liquid Stone is. Whispers of Granite consists of two immensely skilled individuals, namely Norwegian vocalist and vocal composer Trude Eidtang and German keyboardist and composer Andreas Hack, and this debut offering of theirs is a superb example of how to weave art rock, prog, brooding folk…
Up from the ashes comes a most unwelcome specter of the past, namely a 10-track compilation containing re-mixed and re-mastered songs dating from 2008-2010 by the now-defunct ambient/post-rock entity known as Sagntid, which was released on June 26. Consisting of the entire debut album titled The Slipstream World of Sagntid and three additional compositions lifted from…
Inspired by a handful of trips to Newcastle upon Tyne and Tynemouth these past few years and more specifically the rich history surrounding those parts of England and the whole cultural landscape in the Northeast, a morose and reverb-drenched collection of tunes collectively known as From the Windswept Shore of Tynemouth has presented itself. In…
The 2-track EP titled Descending Upon Ruins Again by the musically deviant post-rockers/ambient experimentalists Picture Ann is out now via Floodgate Moods Productions and is guaranteed to leave you in either a foul or reflective mood. The overall theme revolves around the notion of failing in every sense of the cursed word, and whereas the…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://floodgatemoodsproductions.bandcamp.com/ To Leave One Living Thing, the latest 2-track EP by Danish/Norwegian post-rockers Picture Ann, is out now via all the usual digital shops and retailers including Bandcamp and Spotify. The two tracks that constitute this hypnotic gem explore the notion of legacy and what each one of us leaves behind, be…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://open.spotify.com/track/4yfVuKGz6GMOvt2mU4sEap?si=5cc3fbcbf3104db1 The droning 28-minute composition titled This Wretched Shore by experimentalists Picture Ann is out now. The bleak and windswept suite is essentially an exploration of what can only be termed permanent loneliness in various guises, and it can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be,…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://doublemute.bandcamp.com/album/corporate-culture I can honestly say that I have never come across anything that sounds quite like Double Mute does, and I am absolutely loving that! How to even explain or describe such a unique sound as that of this Norwegian-based entity whose sonic experiments take in noise rock, electronica, avantgarde music,…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://open.spotify.com/album/77WTLOCAmi8iysa1VuxNuX?si=FU3Huoz3TfaFebp8TSdHwA Udenfor, the latest 2-track EP by Danish/Norwegain post-rockers Picture Ann, is out December 18. The title track came about one late afternoon when walking through a wintry cityscape, pondering the impact of Don DeLillo’s The Body Artist on yours truly and how that overlooked literary gem eloquently and elegantly thematizes…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://floodgatemoodsproductions.bandcamp.com/album/disquiet-2024-remaster-2 Although laid to rest many years to go, the murky lo-fi ambient entity known as Vornoff has occasionally made its presence felt in the charcoal-stained underground by means of unearthing various previously songs and recordings from the vault – one of which is the bleak twelve-minute musical odyssey through a…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://open.spotify.com/album/0yLSPVbADe1jMVUWjebilM?si=1jfRgj-NROe6ddzsqJwGaw Unfortunately, there is just no stopping the annoyingly productive purveyors of all things dark and melancholy known as Picture Ann, i.e. the exponents of lo-fi post-rock and dark ambient drones of the rather dense variety. The latest output titled Promising Oddities is essentially an odds-and-sods collection of tracks and ideas…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://oleteigen.bandcamp.com/album/skjebnev-ven Leave it to Gymnocal Industries (Norway) to release hauntingly evocative records such as this one, which sees the skilled composer Ole Teigen (Superlynx, ex-Den Saakaldte, ex-Dødheimsgard) weaving gentle and reflective piano motifs together to great effect. As with his introspective and somber Aske and Jord LP from 2021, Skjebnevæven is…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://floodgatemoodsproductions.bandcamp.com/album/solemn-traits Late August sees the digital release of the full-length opus titled Solemn Traits, which is a brand-new sonic curse that is firmly rooted in dark ambient drone experiments and disquieting textures – the kind that require and reward patience on the part of the listener. Spawned by thoughts and notions…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://open.spotify.com/album/5MZaV1Opk9UlcmhFV83z3H?si=U7jKhEl9SVmQsxt_vwiGEg Somewhere between the strangely uplifting and the deeply morose is where you will find the latest musical endeavor by ambient drone rockers Picture Ann, namely the one-track digital single sporting the exquisitely brooding moniker that is A Dark Stretch Between There and Home. Inspired by the notion of searching for…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://shadowknell.bandcamp.com/album/shadow-knell They rarely make records like these anymore, i.e. dark medieval ambient-esque works that pay homage to dungeon synth linchpins such as Mortiis and Penitent while also weaving influences from Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze into their richly textured and evocative soundscapes in such a confident and pleasantly assured manner. Sure,…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://floodgatemoodsproductions.bandcamp.com/album/museum The sparkling new EP by dark drone rockers Picture Ann sporting the evocative title Museum is a musical exploration of the lives of peasants and fishermen between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries in Northern Jutland. In the words of J.N., “The two lengthy sequences that make up this release essentially…
