Feral Child Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Incredibly powerful stuff, Blazing Worlds - AKA Justin Wright & Grant Corum - recorded their self-titled latest album over a long summer in the US Midwest. Evidently inspired by what conditions were like, the official release information here opens with a reference to J.G. Ballard's landmark science fiction, The Drowned World, which, for all intents and purposes, could become a reality in the next few centuries. A planet so scorched lagoon waters that have flooded cities seem to burn by midday, there's a sense of rising temperatures about this truly hallucinatory album. Drone, ambient, use whatever label you prefer, this feels like you're either orbiting the sun itself, or looking out on lands that have long since succumbed to desertification, wondering when the scorching dunes might give way to some place more liveable. Atmospheric, futuristic, and deeply effective.

Review: Opening on the grinding powerhouse of 'I', Kosmik Sun present three tracks of epic, cinematic heavy rock-metal which gives a nod to the likes of Mogwai and Explosions In the Sky. Albeit here things seem to have taken more of an influence from darker places, with each part of the triptych casting an eerie spell over the listener, transporting them to psychedelic, doom-laden otherworldly places. The side project of German aficionado Eugen Kohl, best known for the Crypt Witch project, Kosmik Sun also features members of Coven Spell and Devil Leaf, which, if nothing else, should let any newbies know exactly what they're in for. Steeped in deep stoner atmosphere, not to mention exceptional, gritty musicality, this is intensity for thinking people and it never lets up.

Review: .As the release notes here explain, countless greats have attempted to create their own score of the cult 1980 movie Lucifer Rising, Kenneth Anger's 29-minute meditation on faith, belief, and the corruption of minds through ritualistic practices. According to Studio Kosmische "some, including myself, will see this new rescore as an act of sacrilege; all I can say is that it was created in awe of, and with great respect to, everyone involved in the original work(s)." Thanks to the spontaneous recording process, which reflects the non-linear and waking-dream nature of the film, the music here genuinely feels as though it has a life of its own, existing only in the space in which it was created. So all we're actually hearing are distant echoes of that. An otherworldly, ambient, spiritual, beautiful, tense, building, singular movement that proves inescapable in the end.

Review: "This LP is a compilation of songs from five different digital-only demo collections I released on Bandcamp between 2021 and 2023. I relied on the ears and judgment of my old friend Dom at Feral Child to curate this comp, allowing him to choose his favorites from over 60 songs," James Toth says of Demon Stations. "While I might have chosen an entirely different batch of tunes, I was happy to defer to Dom, as I've never had much perspective when it comes to assessing my own material." With every track recorded at home, many on the same day they were written, and mostly first takes used, there's an audible quality to this collection of archive material that's every bit as honest as the artist's own explanation as to how the final package came about. An atmosphere entirely befitting the open-hearted folk and Americana dominating the release.