Silence swimming in a pool of dreams
Beneath its depths the forgotten streams

#TheTeaParty #TheBazaar #Tangents

Oh man--I'm listening to #KALW and their #Tangents program and they just played a song of our times: "Innocent Blood" by #LagosThugs --just the kind of music we need right now.

kalw.org/

1/2 More #Tangents to other Discussions- One of the big challenges we face in testing putative theories of #AdvancedPropulsion systems is manufacture of #Metamaterials that have hybrid or composite properties required for #hypercontrol of field generation modes.You might need topologies that carry supercurrents at the edges that are also fast switchably…

Via PhysOrg and University of St Andrew’s :
Dramatic Stretch in Quantum Materials Confirms 100 Year Old Predictions
https://phys.org/news/2025-06-quantum-materials-year.html

Tangents, Drainstar, Compactor, Paresis @ L'Hemisphere Gauche - July 16th, 2025

Hemisphere Gauche, Wednesday, July 16 at 07:00 PM EDT

Viridian Cult Productions presents:

Come down to L'Hemisphere Gauche on Wednesday, July 16th, 2025 for a night full of abrasive sounds that know no bounds. Ontario mathcore wizards Tangents will be joined by New York industrial noise insurgent Compactor, supported by local hardcore and post-hardcore from Drainstar and Paresis respectively!

Tangents:
https://tangents1.bandcamp.com/album/molt-2025

Compactor:
https://compactor.bandcamp.com/album/institutionalized-genocide

Paresis:
https://paresisnoise.bandcamp.com/album/demo2k50

Wednesday, July 16th, 2025
@ L'Hemisphere Gauche
221 Rue Beaubien Est
Doors @ 7:00 PM
Show @ 8:00 PM
$15 / PWYC
18+

https://montreal.askapunk.net/event/tangents-drainstar-compactor-paresis-lhemisphere-gauche-july-16th-2025

Black Aleph – Apsides Review

By Dear Hollow

Black Aleph is a sonic experiment devoted to ritual. Debut Apsides, while short, is nothing short of perplexing in its evasion of genre trappings, ultimately making some form of drone metal with folk instruments, imbued with post-metal’s metamorphic crescendos. However, the value lies behind these descriptors, with a distinct ritualistic heart beating beneath as its Middle Eastern modal traditions guide the movements—a divine and otherworldly experience. Don’t misunderstand, Apsides will still crush you, but just as much in its serenity as its dense guitar riffs—the weight it conjures is a suggestion and anticipation of punishment rather than a rod brandished. The result is haunting and unique, but brimming with more potential than it capitalizes upon.

Black Aleph is a trio from Australia, its Sydney- and Melbourne-based members comprised other acts from the country’s weirder underground offerings. Aside from respective solo offerings, guitar and effects wizard Lachlan Dale hails from maqam-centric acts like Hashshashin and the Arya Ensemble,1 cellist Peter Hollo lends his eerie drones in post-rock/electronic collectives like Tangents, Haunts, and FourPlay String Quartet, and dar player/setarist Timothy Johannessen plays in the folk-inclined Mehr Ensemble. Johannessen and Dale’s respective roots in Arabic, Iranian, and Persian folk music pronounce the motifs that Black Aleph utilizes. The trio has been compared to renowned experimental acts like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Justin Broadrick, and Jesu, while associated with members of We Lost the Sea and Sunn O))). However, Black Aleph plays more in line with Hashshashin or countrymates Omahara in the blurring of drone and folk, ever-punishing and ever-organic.

Black Aleph deals in a style that balances weight, tension, and melody. Just as in Godspeed’s Lift Your Skinny Fists…, chord progressions throughout Apsides are layered with tension, bated breath between dissonance and harmony. While layered with ominous droning doom riffs (“Descent,” “Precession”), the crescendos within its micro-movements prove the most intriguing. Whether it be its dancing and complex rhythms (“Return”), climbing arpeggios (the “Ambit” duo), or gradual uses of volume and curious motifs (“Separation,” “Return”) the best uses of the percussive daf are utilized in quieter moments, creating a pulsing undercurrent of mystery and frailty rather than the punishing drums they pretend to be in the more droning cuts. These more gentle movements gradually increase in girth with post-rock intention, erupting in satisfying droning climaxes (“Ambit II (Aphelion),” “Return”). While droning guitars are relatively straightforward, their acoustic instruments—setar, daf, cello, and violin2—provide Black Aleph an easy and effective bridge between droning metal and folk motifs, as the songs are constructed safely and neatly.

Black Aleph’s voiceless music creates a greater impetus to focus on the songwriting, and unfortunately, Apsides suffers from moments of directionless meandering and awkwardly curtailed movements. In general, the lack of vocals is a critique depending on the listener. In a manner of songwriting, however, the best crescendo occurs in “Ambit II (Aphelion)” and no track following lives up to this peak, although others attempt to scale it (“Separation,” “Return”). While noodling occurs throughout (i.e. “Ambit I (Ascension)”), it overwhelms the moments of climax, leading tracks plummeting to the ground, especially in the limp closer “Occultation,” whose wonky rhythms and skronky setar rob the guitars of needed weight. Most frustrating with Black Aleph is that, although each track is neatly composed and competently executed, the album at large feels too short and abrupt. Apisdes’ thirty-minute runtime feels too short like Black Aleph missed the chance to adequately flesh out their ideas when eschewing drone metal’s tendency towards lengthy offerings.

Apsides offers a unique sound, hindered by its own ambition. Although the songs are too short and performances can be shortsighted, Black Aleph has an endlessly intriguing premise and unique execution. Ritualistic rhythms, Middle Eastern motifs, droning riffs, and otherworldly drive collide in an album that largely succeeds. It’s good that I want to hear more of Black Aleph, because I think their next album will be better than Apsides.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Self-Released
Websites: blackaleph.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/blackaleph
Releases Worldwide: October 25th, 2024

#2024 #30 #Apsides #AryaEnsemble #AustralianMetal #BlackAleph #DoomMetal #Drone #DroneMetal #Folk #FourPlayStringQuartet #GodspeedYouBlackEmperor #Hashshashin #Haunts #Jesu #JustinBroadrick #MehrEnsemble #Noise #Oct24 #Omahara #PostRock #PostMetal #Review #Reviews #SelfReleased #SunnO_ #Tangents #WeLostTheSea

• fridge compressor kicks in (for the nth time in the last hour or two)
• I should put the energy monitoring socket on that fridge. I reckon it would show up a lot of power waste, which might increase my motivation to replace it
• hmm that energy monitoring socket is in the lab, running mini⭐︎
• I am so proud of the low energy result on that server. I should post that screenshot of the power usage to that guy I was talking to ages back
• to find that post, I need to set up elasticsearch for Mastodon. But I've just tweaked php-fpm for NextCloud and it's finally running smoothly. I don't want it to tax the RAM again.
• hmmm... I wonder if I could have elasticsearch running on the on-demand server and schedule it to wake up and index and stuff every so often. It's only running Jellyfin and some other minor stuff
• oooh I want to show dad how Jellyfin works on his new TV...hmmm maybe later. I wanted to get some things done while there is some daylight remaining

This is not an isolated occurrence.

⭐︎ - my main apps server

#mybrain
#tangents
#adhd
#yakshaving