Vinyl Review: "The LowSwing Sessions" by Reema

The LowSwing Sessions

The irony of this modern world isn't lost on me.

These vinyl reviews are my ode to the past and what could be the present again. These pages are read on computers, on phones, and on tablets like they use in Star Trek.

This Christmas one of my gifts was a bluetooth speaker that will be used to create a wireless connection to my phone. This will be used in the kitchen I think when I'm cooking dinner. Getting all the metals in crystal clear sound with some lovely low end should be just wonderful.

But, here I sit in the upstairs sitting room, with a CRT TV, video games from 20 plus years ago, listening to Reema's latest release on a turntable older than me, a stereo older than my daughter, and speakers, of an indeterminate age.

In one part of my home, there's technology. The Roku Box, the HD Television, the blu-ray player, and a modern day 5.1 home theater stereo.

Album Review: "Snow//Heritage" by Chiral

In no genre of music is the one man band more prolific than black metal. I understand why Varg Vikerness of Mayhem and Burzum fame had to go it solo after having killed the guitarist in his previous band, but why have so many others (Old Man’s Child, Xasthur, Myrkur, Leviathan, Panopticon to name just five of hundreds) gone this route? 

Maybe it is difficult to find other musicians with the ability or desire to play this most extreme of music.  Or maybe the misanthropic mindset which leads one into this genre just doesn't allow for dealing with bandmates. Whatever the reason, it often leads to an uncompromised product of the creator's artistic vision.


This is certainly true of Italian one man band Chiral’s soon to be released instrumental EP “Snow/Heritage”.   The artist does not categorize this album as strictly black metal, rather opting for the tag of atmospheric-post black metal neofolk.  

Certainly elements of black metal are there on the first and last songs of this four song EP, “Sage Moon ” and “Whiteness (The Snow and the Borrowed Lights)” .  Some of the hypnotic sections which feature blast beat drums surely sound as if they are ominously emitting from a frozen Norwegian forest.