Music / Wolves in the Throne Room
Deep in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a dark force dwells. Wolves in the Throne Room are one of the most inspired and original black metal bands in America (and in the world, for that matter). They, along with Portland duo Velvet Cacoon, are the forefront of what they call ‘eco black metal’ – both bands claim to live in nearly self-sustaining communes in the woods, raising their own livestock and crops while making wrathful, human-destroying, nature-worshipping hymns to the Apocalypse. For anyone who is put off by the silly themes and theatricality of European metal, Wolves in the Throne Room offer serious, atmospheric, and mournful slabs of heavy-ass USBM, complete with ethereal female vocals.
Tagged: black metal
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[audio:http://invisibleoranges.com/audio/MENACERUINE_KILL.MP3]
Darkestrah are a kind of perfect storm of everything I look for in music. They’re a German-based black metal band from Kyrgyzstan with a female singer, and they incorporate Central Asian folk elements like throat-singing into their frighteningly harsh yet majestically beautiful and epic songs. When I’m having a crappy day, I go away to a special place with marauding Mongols, wide-open spaces, star-filled skies, and wrathful demons bent on destroying civilization — that’s what Darkestrah sounds like.
Also by GERRY MAK
Back in the ’90s, just as the gangsta rap phenomenon was winding down and hip-hop was fragmenting into its own subgenres, Prince Paul and RZA kicked off the short-lived horrorcore fad with their group Gravediggaz. At the time, the melding of dark, gothic themes with hardboiled rap seemed gimmicky and awkward, a strange extension of the early and awful attempts to bridge hip-hop and metal, but on closer listen, the now defunct supergroup was way more innovative than they were given credit for. Using horror imagery, crazed and off-kilter rapping styles, and genuinely creepy beats to describe life on the streets, Gravediggaz created innovative, complex, expressive music that was macabre yet socially conscious.
As Internet-savvy as President-Elect Obama is, I wonder if he’s played the hilarious flash game, Super Obama World, a Super Mario-esque spoof in which Obama must defeat lipstick-sporting pigs and money-hungry lobbyists roaming around the icy tundras of Alaska while collecting flag pins.
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If gold fronts are just a little too flashy for you, head over to Salt Lake City where Steve Heward at Heward Dental Lab will give you a ‘dental tattoo‘, which is actually a crown onto which he or another one of his artists can paint an image of your choice.
Dan Hiller mixes a gothic sensibility with a tribal roughness in his haunting watercolors and ink drawings of skulls and tree-headed figures. His mash-up of old Victorian engravings are simple but eerie, and have an almost logographic quality about them — they’re great tattoo ideas.
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DJ Spooky — That Subliminal Kid — is just about the deepest crate digger around, trawling the barrels of long-lost record stores for choice vinyl to spin in his wickedly dubby sets. He gave us the inside word last week on his eight favourite songs right now via our sister website, My Secret Playlist. This is what he had to say about Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s Panic in Babylon: ‘If there’s anything that the twenty-first century has told us, it’s that dub is the real original hip-hop. Lee Scratch even had to make it clear in 1965 by adding “Scratch” to his middle name. Take that, Grandmaster Flash!’ Read the rest of DJ Spooky’s Secret Playlist.
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The Sound of Animals Fighting again unleash their experimental blend of progressive electronic hardcore rock. Known only by their animal names — Nightingale, Walrus, Lynx, and Skunk — and wearing masks for their rare live appearances, TSOAF have released two albums. Their latest, The Ocean and The Sun, offers an intense mix of genres, as delicate Brazilian-inflected melodies careen into shattering guitar workouts.
[audio:http://www.above-thefold.com/The%20Heraldic%20Beak%20of%20the%20Manufacturer's%20Medallion%201.mp3]
Dutch designer Daniel Schipper, the man behind the awesome, oragami-like folding shelter, has just unveiled a frameless, foldable greenhouse that is aimed at the growing urban gardening and farming market.
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