COLD SPRING NEWSLETTER

NEWS
+ SHIPPING UPDATES, SPECIAL NEWS ETC... +

R.I.P. JIM GIBSON (WICKED KING WICKER)

We are heartbroken to hear about the passing of Jim Gibson aka Wicked King Wicker / Noiseville Records. He was a true gent and we're so proud we could release his incredible albums. Our thoughts are with Eileen, his family and friends. Play it loud!

COLD SPRING RELEASES THIS AUTUMN:

After COIL (see opposite →), our next release will be JAGATH 'Devalaya' CD - ritual / industrial ambient from Perm, Russia. "We create our music at abandoned industrial locations - bottom of a moist underground sewer shaft and inside a huge hollow oil tanks without using digital synthesis" Watch the Promo Video.

We are extremely proud to release the official soundtrack to the cult Icelandic horror film 'I REMEMBER YOU' (Dir: Óskar Thór Axelsson). Heavy dark ambient / industrial soundscapes composed by Frank Hall, with a beautiful, solemn finale featuring Icelandic choirs. A must for fans of Graeme Revell, Steven Price, Lustmord, MZ.412. Watch the film trailer.

NYTT LAND 'Ballads Of Lost Times' CD marks a return to Cold Spring for the ritual dark folk act, and a return to their authentic Nordic Folk sounds. Watch the Watch the promo video for 'Black Raven'.

We are very excited to announce SHE SPREAD SORROW 'Huntress' CD - the new album from Italy's Death Industrial maestro. This album features outstanding production and is undoubtedly Alice's heaviest work to date.

Something unholy is coming... After many years of recording, we have received the brutally heavy debut album from DET KÄTTERSKA FÖRBUN (Nordvargr + Trepaneringsritualen), unleashed on CD/LP this winter on Cold Spring. A little preview.

COLD SPRING FACE MASK - LAST FEW!

We are down to a handful of our logo face masks. As soon as they sell out we will make our charitable donation. These masks will not be reprinted. Thanks for all your orders so far, we look forward to making the donation in time for winter!

**100% of profits on this item will be donated to food banks and animal rescue charities**

This is NOT certified medical PPE! Click for full info.

UK > USA SHIPPING HIKE

A friendly reminder for our U.S. customers that the majority of Cold Spring label titles (inc vinyl) are available at domestic prices from our U.S. distributor Forced Exposure.

FREE DOWNLOADS WHILE YOU WAIT

All orders for ANY Cold Spring physical release will receive a free digital download code while you wait for your order to arrive in the post - including ALL pre-order titles above. Cold Spring webstore / Discogs - please check your email / order page for your code. Bandcamp - automatic.

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE

ALL ORDERS ARE SHIPPING AS NORMAL!

• STAY HOME, STAY SAFE, LISTEN TO GOOD MUSIC! •

NEW IMPORTS
+ NEW ADDITIONS TO OUR MAILORDER CATALOGUE +

777 BABALON - 'Dosebazostúpenie' CD (Sonic Temple Records) - £11

777 Babalon is a dark apocalyptic ambient project with black metal, industrial and noise elements, consisting of two members from the marshes of Slovakia. Dosebazostúpenie is a path unto the abyss of your uttermost self. Massive, tortuously desolate soundscapes from the bottomless abyss, with a remarkable quality throughout. A must-have delicacy for fans of Gnaw Their Tongues and similar obscurities. The cover painting on the digipak symbolizes the shadow, the crippled qliphotic doppelganger. The deep descent to the self was depicted in a joined quadriptych inside the accompanying 8-panel booklet, with blackened art by Matús S. Durcík.

AINE O'DWYER - 'Gegenschein' LP (Penultimate Press) - £15

Many will know Irish artist Áine O'Dwyer for her acclaimed debut release "Music For Church Cleaners", and instrumentalist / vocalist with United Bible Studies. Whilst continuing to explore the church organ as the primary instrument, this release steers away from Church Cleaners in both sonic content and themes explored. "Gegenschein" was recorded at the Franciscan Friary in Limerick city. Áine gained access to the Friary in 2012 and explored both pipe organ and space in its disused state. What becomes of a sacred space after the dispersion of the spirit, after the light has been switched off, after the deconsecration? "Gegenschein is notable for the both prominent presence of her vocals on 12/12/12 and the length of its pieces, consisting of 25 minute and 15 minute works, respectively, which are both broader than anything on her acclaimed Music For Church Cleaners album or Locusts; documenting the multi-instrumentalist docked at the organ seat and rendering two billowing scapes painted in thick, lustrous waves of physical sonic pressure, and resulting a genuinely astonishing spectrum of coruscating, complex overtones" (Boomkat).

ANTOINE CHESSEX - 'Subjectivation' LP (Fragment Factory / Rekem Records) - £16.50

Subjectivation is the new solo album from Swiss artist Antoine Chessex and features some of his most direct and developed work to date. Using material from solo live performances in San Francisco, Berlin, Zurich and London 2010-2015, the record distils the touchstones of Antoine's sonic language into two sharp and forceful statements. The first side opens with a formidable tour-de-force, a developing field of distortion in which tenor saxophone adds on a metal-tinged sludgy tonality, wedged through dense masses of sound. The second side features subtly executed sonics, documented at London's Café OTO, with Chessex's multiphonics taking centre stage - a rapid-fire of voices from the horn gets enveloped in a back-and-forth between electroacoustic structures, psychoacoustics, and pure tone. Connecting the two sides is a meticulous attention to the different levels that operate within sound, and a compositional hand that favours intensity and depth. Mastered by James Plotkin, lacquer cut by Flo Kaufmann. Ltd x 323 copies with artwork by Robert Schalinski.

ARDITI - 'Bloodtheism' CD (SkulllLine) - £13

True to their path, martial industrial heroes Arditi (aka Henry Möller of Puissance / Leidungr / Níundi, and Marten Björkman of Algaion) return with "Bloodtheism". Originally released in 2018 as a digital Bandcamp release only, the album is now presented remastered and fleshed out with two exclusive bonus tracks. Orchestrally, the Swedish duo partly emphasises the industrial dark ambient side of their music, with the extensive use of loops and recurring themes adding a semi-obsessed tone to the classic-militaristic sound sculptures. Ltd x 300 hand-numbered copies in a digipak with new artwork. ACT FAST!

EDGE OF DECAY - 'Riistettyjen Antologia' CD (Aussaat) - £12

Second album from Finland's own Harsh Noise destroyer. Sound violence from the darkest corners of the modern world. A little bit more nuanced than Edge Of Decay's older tape releases but still ugly and crushing like never before. 43 minutes of metal junk beating, violent vocals, some industrial flavour and Finnish noise chaos. "The full sound is created from lots of individual gritty components which for the first part of the album, is presented as a thick collage of abrasive sonic texture.. When things are pulled down to the point of strangulation, various individual components can rise and this has a massive impact, it shows impressive sonic control and discipline. The break downs in themselves are impressive as the simmering produces some good passages of low-level noise that rise into broken displays of Power Electronics. The broken becomes more cohesive towards the end of the album as noise is formed into broken rhythms to make for impressive finale to the work" (1208 North Fuller Ave Apt 1). Ltd x 200 copies in a Super Jewelcase.

EL ALTAR DEL HOLOCAUSTO - '-HE-' LP (Throne Records) - £16

The hooded templars are back! El Altar Del Holocausto's debut album (originally released 2013) for the first time ever on vinyl format, in a very limited pressing. EADH are Spain's most acclaimed atmospheric instrumental Post-Rock Doomers. Three souls from different cultures and countries, with dense compositions and many transitions... music that immerses you in a state of nostalgia, births, resurrections. Ltd x 150 copies on black vinyl.

ENVENOMIST & MURDEROUS VISION - 'Liminal Presence' CD (Live Bait Recording Foundation) - £11.50

Conceptualised and created throughout the 2019, "Liminal Presence" is not intended to be either a collaboration album, nor a split... rather a 70 minute journey into interstellar light drifts and sleep transformations. Floating and mystical dark ambient and underlying death industrial nightmares, where the whole is greater than the sum of its individual parts. 10 tracks (4 solo tracks apiece, with 2 collaborative tracks). Mastered for optimal drift by Derek Rush. Ltd x 300 copies in a digisleeve with collage work and graphic design by David Russell Stempowski.

EVAPORI - 'Dia-Logos I • Dia-Logos II • Dia-Logos I+II Conclusion • Imitation' LP (Fragment Factory) - £16.50

For nearly two decades Oliver Peters has been working as Evapori, with spordic releases. Following his highly acclaimed "Kárka" LP (Walter Ulbricht, 2018), "Dia-Logos..." marks Evapori's 4th full-length album, on which Peters explores and busts the boundaries between concrete music, sound poetry and contemporary classical music. Involved in the creation of this album were his fellow artists Martin Lau (voice), Peter Schlewinski (drums), Markus Wettstein (metal sheets), as well as his longtime co-conspirator Ditterich von Euler Donnersperg (voice). "There is an elegant wildness about this music that at the same time also has a lot of control." (Vital Weekly). Lacquer cut by Andreas Kauffelt, mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Ltd x 300 copies with photography by Nicolas Wiese.

HEART IN MOUTH - 'Nadir' CD (L'étourneur) - £11

Eleven years after the debut release for Paradigms Recordings, Heart in Mouth return with "Nadir". More than just electro, dark ambient, jazz noir or post-rock, it is "...an album which transports you away from the feeling of heaviness, the trivial selfishness of life, the dull anxiety... to the sea among the stars. "Nadir" weaves the invisible everything around you with an unparalleled nocturnal grace. Charged with powerful esoteric, made of Indian ink, silent vibrations and the smell of dead flowers. This power of evocation is remarkably open, ambiguous, elliptical, bringing to mind the black holes of Inade, science-fiction and the supernatural. It takes you by the hand to another galaxy, which stands there hidden, with all its radical strangeness". Gatefold digisleeve.

JEROME NOETINGER AND ANTHONY PATERAS - 'A Sunset For Walter' LP (Penultimate Press) - £15

A major durational work for Steinway piano and multiple Revox tape machines. The LP's opening moments immediately establish its distinctive sound-world: an austere sequence of octaves slowly sounded by the piano gradually develops into passages of fragmentary lyricism as Noetinger's tape manipulations dilate the sonic space with rumbling sub-bass, distant echoes, and hints of uncanny backmasking. A Sunset for Walter is calmly immovable in its overall texture but perpetually changing in detail. Noetinger's tape manipulations range from nearly imperceptible shadowing of the live piano to anarchic bursts of rewinding tape, floating wisps of feedback, and dreamlike concrète interjections of children's voices and splashing water. Pateras' piano performance moves from single pitches left hanging over a backdrop of silence to almost Messiaen-esque sequences of complex chords and arpeggios, all sounded within a temporal framework that seems to follow internal rhythms of breath and bodily movements. Like the sunset of the title, outlines blur into a crepuscular haze, as fleeting effects of light and shade catch our attention just as they disappear. Ltd x 300 copies.

LEIF ELGGREN - 'Motor For An Unknown Vehicle (Opening Of The Grave)' LP (Fragment Factory) - £16.50

The Motor started a long time ago with small basic fragments used for different steps (phases) like installations and performances. Those fragments were put together over the years into a longer piece presented on this LP. Motor is now a 32-minute long continuous piece of sound matter, autonomous and free in itself. Like an homunculus it can now leave its birthplace and head for the future, for something else. Active since the late 1970s, Leif Elggren is a writer, visual artist, stage performer and composer, residing in Stockholm. His music usually presents carefully selected sound sources over a long stretch of time and can range from quiet electronics to harsh noise. His wide-ranging and prolific body of art often involves dreams and subtle absurdities, social hierarchies turned upside-down, hidden actions and events taking on the quality of icons. Together with artist Carl Michael von Hausswolff, he is a founder of the Kingdoms of Elgaland-Vargaland (KREV) where he enjoys the title of king. Mastered by Henrik Rylander, lacquer cut by Kitaro. Ltd x 300 copies with artwork by LE, plus a signed and numbered insert "The Opening Of The Grave" drypoint engraving by LE from 1978.

KOMARE - 'The Sense Of Hearing' LP (Penultimate Press) - £19

The debut full length from Komare (Dominic Goodman and Peter Blundell who also make up two thirds of Mosquitoes). Komare is a dub influenced exploration of the outer fringes of experimental electronics / no-wave, creating a thick vibrational delusion. Somehow like Zweistein mixing a Robert Ashley record, Komare is an exceptional space and time-stretching disorientator. In the process of rendering reality redundant, Komare lead the listener into a netherworld of holographic, hallucinatory audio. Shades of Monoton and Pyrolator may also be detected as can the impression of intoxicants wafting around the mixing console. This is a state where humans and machines, though present, are smeared of all traceable attributes. The depths of the journey moves further into a netherworld as the album progresses / disintegrates. Not necessarily one for the beauty seekers, Komare is an extremely deep trip concocted by two unbridled creative crusaders. Ltd x 400 copies on clear vinyl in a screen printed wrap around sleeve.

MURDEROUS VISION - 'Abscission (Expanded Edition)' CD (Live Bait Recording Foundation / Chthonic Streams) - £11.50

Expanded reissue of a 2019 tape from death industrial / dark ambient act Murderous Vision. Abscission is "the shedding of various parts of an organism, such as a plant dropping a leaf, fruit, flower, or seed. In zoology, abscission is the intentional shedding of a body part, such as the shedding of a claw, husk, or the autotomy of a tail to evade a predator". Danger is lurking, and the only way to survive it may be to lose a piece of yourself. The limited edition cassette "Abscission", (released last year in an edition of just 50 copies) has been remastered and expanded to 7 songs totaling 50 minutes of some of the best work of the project's 26-year existence. Includes contributions from Theologian, Telladictorian, and Derek Rush (Dream Into Dust). Ltd x 300 copies in a digisleeve.

PANCRACE - 'The Fluid Hammer' 2 x LP (Penultimate Press) - £23

A series of meetings and chance encounters resulted in the French quintet developing their own pipe organ which they named "Organous" (made with the help of organ makers Wolfram Stuetzle and Stefan Freisen). The organ projects sound like the musique concrète Acousmonium giving the listener a spatialised perception of a wide range of tones and harmonics. Pancrace have achieved a whole new cosmos of sounds focusing on sources rather than reverberation. "Fluid Hammer" is the result of the research and experiments undertaken with the Organous and a myriad of other instruments, unravelling new entrancing avenues of this unique outfits vision. It is a more rhythmic and percussive affair than its predecessor with a wide range of polyrhythmic patterns generating a constant tension between the machine and the human play. Eschewing the more melancholic end of today's 'organ playing' this is playful and bright with moments of mirth amongst the exotic new sound world Pancrace manifest. Throughout the tracks one is exposed to a wide variety of Pancrace potential along with the sprinkled conversation with the makers of water pumps. Playful, intriguing, surprising and warm, this is an exceptional sonic experience from one of today's most exceptional units. Gatefold sleeve.

STEFAN ROIGK - 'Suffering For The Promised' 12" SINGLE-SIDED (Fragment Factory) - £15

Being in the making - or un-making - for the past 14 years, Stefan Roigk's "Suffering For The Promised" has gone through many stages, from being finished, revoked, left untouched, reworked, discussed to finally getting banned onto vinyl in its ultimate and irrevocable form. An atmospherically intense but yet utterly fragile piece, combining concrete sounds, field recordings and devotional vocal fragments to an eclectic and highly intimate composition, consolidating Roigk's position as one of the top players in the game. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi, lacquer cut by Kitaro. Ltd x 316 copies including full-colour inner sleeve with text by Stefan Roigk.

TORBA - 'Musique Inconcrète' LP (Fragment Factory) - £16.50

This album by Italian experimental / noise artist Torba (Mauro Diciocia) is the follow-up to "Musica Conventionale" (2019) and marks the second installment in "Le Musiche" trilogy. "Musique Inconcrète" is a macro cut-up of sound-screens reorganised as quasi-organic narration: Fragments of unfinished compositions, roughly assembled according to a mere aesthetic criteria. Beyond the sporadic use of oscillators and 1/4" tape manipulations, the LP is made out of field recordings collected in the region of Salento in southern Italy. All environmental sounds were captured with a walkman or mobile phones in order to give back the domestic feeling of an abandoned opera. The concept behind the album revolves around the idea of the inconcrète. MD was strongly influenced by the work "Incompiuto - The Birth of a Style" by Italian contemporary art collective Alterazioni Video. They claim that "Incompiuto" (the unfinished) is the only Italian art style of significance in the past 50 years: publicly funded architecture or infrastructure which, for a variety of reasons have had their construction interrupted, leaving behind a series of "ruins in reverse". Lacquer cut by Andreas Kauffelt. Ltd x 300 copies with photography by Gabriele Albergo.

YOSHIWARA #1 Magazine (Yoshiwara Collective) - £7

First issue of this excellent zine hailing from Northern Ireland. 17 detailed features and a reviews column that spans the proggy folk psychedelic drone space rock universe through the vessels of MOLOCH / SATURN FORM ESSENCE, SANGRE DE MUERDAGO, WOVEN SKULL, EARTHLING SOCIETY, KRAUTZONE, LAMP OF THE UNIVERSE, OWL GLITTERS, BLACK PANDA BEACH, ST 37, ANNOT RHUL, NIGHTSATAN, BRIGID MAE POWER, FLOWERS MUST DIE, TRUPA TRUPA, DEMENTIA FIVE, plus labels Giallo Disco and Kommun2. It's bold, it's diverse and genuinely a portal to another dimension. We bid you enter... A5, 104 pages on 115gsm paper with a 250gsm colour card cover and 6mm spine. Front cover artwork by Alfie Gallagher.

YOSHIWARA #2 Magazine (Yoshiwara Collective) - £7

A dozen features and sprawling columns of reviews. The eclectic content traverses the proggy psychedelic folk drone blackened dark ambient space rock universe through the vessels of NYTT LAND, PRIMITIVE KNOT, WELTRAUM, DEEP SPACE DESTRUCTORS, SPACE DEBRIS, ZHRINE, CARLTON MELTON, LETTERS OF UTRECHT, ROSLYN STEER, ØRESUND SPACE COLLECTIVE, plus labels Sloow Tapes, and Cryo Chamber. The warped tale continues... A5, 104 pages on 115gsm paper with a 250gsm colour card cover and 5mm spine.

VARIOUS ARTISTS - 'Anthology Of Persian Experimental Music Vol II' CD (Unexplained Sounds) - £12

The second volume of the this spectacular anthology, following the first CD in 2019, is testament to how the alternative, experimental and ambient music scene in Iran continues to be one of the most vital and creative in the world. By including new and unknown musicians, this gives a wider picture of the contemporary and alternative music scene and its continuing evolution in the country. Music is imprinted into Persian culture pre-dating Islam by more than 1400 years. By the time of its arrival in Iran in the 7th century, Persians had already developed the core of the theoretical framework of music of Middle Eastern origin still valid to this day. The 12th Century represented a point of departure as Sufism penetrated Persian culture and poetry became intertwined with music. This survey of avant-garde music in Iran has uncovered a wide range of unique voices and compositional styles resulting in a mature body of work: Shahin Souri, Force Ignore, Ali Ostovar, Varkâna, Soheil Soheili, Xerxes The Dark, IDFT, Reza Solatipour, Sohrab Motabar, Ali Latif Shushtari, Alireza Amirhajebi, SpectroDuo, Zhoobin Askarieh, and Alphaxone. Digipak. Highly recommended for fans of Cold Spring's double disc Iranian compendium, "Visions Of Darkness".

VARIOUS ARTISTS - 'Unsere Heimat' CD (SkulllLine) - £12

A compilation celebrating 15 years of SkullLine, with exclusive unreleased material in the Neoclassical, Neofolk, Dark Ambient and Martial Industrial genres. Features: Arditi, Asensang, Carlo De Filippo feat. Enzo Castaldi, Der Feuerkreiner, Karma Marata feat. Morgan, L'Amara Vs Carnera, L'Effet C'Est Moi, Leidungr, Nihil Novi Sub Sole, Schattenspiel, Shattered Hand, Sol & Marcel P., Stein, Strydwolf, Von Thronstahl, and Weihan. Ltd x 300 copies in a hand-numbered digipak.

BACK IN STOCK!

METH DRINKER - 'Oil + Discography' 2 x CD Enhanced (Throne Records) - £16

The first disc here contains the complete vinyl-only studio recordings from New Zealand's sludge-doom masters Meth Drinker, including their self-titled 2013 EP, splits with Open Tomb, Moloch, Leechfeast and Dead Instrument, plus compilation tracks. Re-mastered and presented on CD for the first time ever. The second disc is a reissue of their 2014 masterpiece "Oil", presented on CD-proper for the first time. Also includes 3 videos which were banned from YouTube. 6-panel double digipak with 28pp full colour booklet. Ltd x 500 copies.

UNITED BIBLE STUDIES - 'Cave Hill Ascension' LP (Pariah Child) - £18

Gentle, ethereal and haunting, the new studio album from United Bible Studies is the first step in a bold trilogy. Two longer devotional wordless movements have been paired with two shorter lyrical folk songs, which makes for a beautifully rounded and mystical experience. The trio of David Colohan, Alison O'Donnell (The Owl Service) and Dominic Cooper (The Owl Service, The Straw Bear Band) really shines. An ode to the majestic hill which overlooks Belfast. Ltd x 300 copies on heavyweight red vinyl with A6 insert and download code.