Bob Dylan - Tempest (2012)

Dylan's latest offering, "Tempest" follows rather a different path than 2009's "Together Through Life". The record's free, fearless attitude would remind one of his early albums like "Highway 61 Revisited", "Blonde On Blonde" and even 76's "Desire". Not caring much to be radio-friendly, the album includes 10 tracks that run over one hour and eight minutes; with three seven-minute songs, two over 9 minutes, one the title track running about 14 minutes, and the other 'Tin Angel' running over 9 minutes.

Earth - Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light II (2012)

The 90's Earth has been my church for years. It's been this ocean of ideas floating around, which, no matter how many times I've considered to be through with it, always has proved to have something fresh underneath, next time that I returned to it -- sort of like Jarmusch in cinema, with the exception of the sense of humor. On the other hand, the so called post-rock Earth of the 00's might be seen as less universal, and more of a safe ground for Dylan Carlson to continue working on a singular idea that is, acid folk played in a drone fashion. The idea started, for all we know, with the release of "HEX", in 2005, but it has plagued whatever they've done, ever since. "Hibernaculum", "The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull" and the duology of "Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light", have all been variations on the same theme. Yet, the second volume of "Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light", released earlier this year, made me come back a number of times, mainly because of its instrumentation, and the rather variant tone it is carried through.

Bong - Bethmoora (2008)

What does the word 'Bong' remind you? Bongzilla? Bongripper? These guys are simply Bong; some freaks who diametrically know what they are doing, which is a sinister re-imagining of psychedelia, within the drone doom domain. It's as if Om were supposed to work on an album like Sunn's "Black One" -- yes, precisely, if that were the case, the result would have been "Bethmoora". The album contains three songs; all of them running over 20 minutes. A highly experimental record one might asses, but the length here plays the same role it does in La Monte Young's, that is nothing. Nothing? Indeed. The time here is thoroughly ignored, or better say; suspended. The entire sonic astration takes more than an hour and it barely exceeds four musical themes, and yet, Bong's music has a lot to do with the beat, and it is nowhere as close as the "Earth 2 Special Low-Frequency Version"-type drone. It would be thus more proper to call Bong, purveyors of slow-motion kosmische metal, rather than drone doom.

Ancestral House Of The Sun - Ancestral House Of The Sun (2010)

I used to be so deeply possessed by the surf rock sound that I almost banned anything that didn't have enough feedback to it. But, like Proust points it out in "Within A Budding Grove", "the character which a man exhibits in the latter half of his life is not always, even if it is often his original character developed or withered, attenuated or enlarged; it is sometimes the exact opposite, like a garment that has been turned", and therefore, in time, I also got into Sandy Bull, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Ralph Stanley, the Angles of Light, John Fahey, and later, Steve Von Till. The self-titled debut from Ancestral House of the Sun, which I'm to present to you today, may not be released by Neurot, but is -- both conceptually and musically -- a record harpooned and carved out of the bleak, and it might as well be a proper instance of the so-called apocalyptic folk subgenre.

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