Look at this beauty! And listen to four fine historical documents of industrial music.
Four projects - Henrik Nordvargr Björkk, Megapetra, Morthound and Raison d’être - pivotal for the 90’s Swedish Industrial sound of Cold Meat Industry are brought together with vinyl re-issues of their early works for the iconic label, more precisely the CMI tape-offshoot Sound Source.
Crematorius' self-titled album is - according to the information, given by the label - the first recordings ever made by Henrik Nordvargr Björkk, known to many as the mastermind behind MZ412, Nordvargr, Resignation and many other projects. Crematorius anticipates Nordvargr’s bleak, cinematic sound aesthetics but here the rather acoustically muffled sound layers convey in combination with tape and vocal manipulations a claustrophobic feeling; meditative when played at moderate volumes - but overwhelming in full blast.
Henrik Nordvargr Björkk: Soundcloud / bandcamp / Instagram / Facebook
Another project which had a determining influence on the “CMI sound” was Raison d’être. The beautiful Doret cover, illustrating the album title, is housing a surprise - at least for those who are not familiar with “Après nous, le déluge”, the first-ever tape by the project. The ethereal ambient soundscapes and choir samples, which became the projects distinguishing feature and dominant element for many years are indeed already present on “Après nous, le déluge” but here still embedded in an rhythmic-oldschool-drumcomputer framework (“Moribound”, “Memento Mori”).
Raison d’être: SoundCloud / bandcamp / Facebook / YouTube
Morthound’s “Death Time”, likewise released on the CMI tape offshoot Sound Source, is both a seamless link to the first CMI album “This Crying Age” but the even starker contrast to the comparatively polished successor “Spindrift” (both remastered and made available via Raubbau). „Death Time“ oscillates between somber meditations and practical exercises in obscure sampling riutals, it creates cold and empty spaces for the mind’s lurking position.
Morthound: SoundCloud / bandcamp
Much to the collector’s joy Megaptera’s “Near Death” made it on the vinyl, while conserving the warm tape sound which pairs up with the dazing sound collages to an abyss to snuggle down in. Old-school industrial euphoria comes full circle.
Megaptera: SoundCloud / bandcamp
Loyal followers of Urashima are aware, their beautiful wooden box editions are taken quickly.
Urashima - Italian harsh noise label: SoundCloud / bandcamp / Instagram
Hurry!
Essential industrial history.
