Flying Teapot: January 2022

Obtained Enslavement - 1997 - Witchcraft

The fuck is that cover? The fuck is that name? The fuck is that title font? All those questions quickly evaporate once this relatively hidden gem starts its first proper track after pleasuring you with some synth cheese for about three minutes. They came from that lower bulbous part of Norway, dished out some okay albums and then petered off to somewhere else. While synth black metal albums weren't anything new or special by the time this came out these guys knew how to blend synths and guitars fairly well. Yes - it is cheese and over the top but what is written is good and perfectly listenable cheese. Giving credit to their songwriting is the fact that most songs are around 6 minutes in length but none feel like they are overstaying their welcome or are bogged down in monotony. One minute you'll have soaring tremolo riffs and shrieks and a minute later it will smoothly transition in a DOS game synth orchestration backed up by drum gallops. Something is always happening, something always changes even if for a brief moment or a tempo switch. At the total length of 50 minutes this can get you fatigued but if you are in the mood for this kind of stuff the album just breezes past.

Their other albums didn't quite grasp the brilliance of this one but the second one after this one s worth checking out if you get tired of this one.

Get it.

Stream it.

William Bell - 1967 - The Soul Of A Bell

Let's start this year proper with some great old school soul / R&B. William Bell is actually still alive during the time I'm writing this post but I'm not very familiar with his entire catalog. This was his very first album and it's fairly conventionally safe. The album can be roughly separated into two categories which are: slow songs and fast songs. Riveting; I know. Bell definitely excels in slow songs and those are my favorite on this album while the faster, upbeat ones are alright (my favorite of the jumpier ones is track 10) but are often too cheesy or even outright annoying (Eloise) to me. All the slow ones though are really a treat and sometimes when the organs chime in I get a funny funeral doom feeling. It's doom metal...but soul. I don't know, I get that vibe.

The biggest issue with this record is that during the quiet parts you can hear a very audible hiss which unfortunately comes from the original tapes and can't be removed (or they didn't try). If you can get past that then you'll have a wonderful soulful time.

Get it.

Fav track.

Stream it!

End of 2021 and start of 2022!

Holy shit, it's over already. Can someone please stop time? It seems like whoever is driving time has passed the speed limit a long while ago!

The world seems to have stopped at around 2019 tho and history repeats in a sense that I managed to get covid a second time almost exactly a year from the last time! While last time it was't really a joking ordeal (had a 3 month sick leave) this time around I got over it in like a day or two but I'm still in isolation. Isolation is actually pretty nice this time of year since it is too cold to be outside anyway and I was getting tired of my endless treks across Europe. With new year comes new hopes but dressed in old rags. This time it will be different! I doubt it but maybe something changes.

The year 2021 in music to me has been pretty uneventful for the most part. The biggest discovery that I had was Keith Jarrett and his solo piano performances. Yeah I know he's pretty well known but I never got around to his music before and I can honestly say that his solo piano concerts really live up to the hype. That is if you enjoy listening to one lone dude hammering on a piano for an hour.

Anything else? Let's see... Well metal had a couple of good releases that I liked. Warloghe released an album but can it count as new? It really is just a bunch of songs they wrote 10 years ago but never recorded. Despite that it still is my fabled album of the year. I love how it sounds and the feeling I get when I listen to it is the feeling of helpless decay. Absolutely marvelous. Moving past the metal cavemen I would also like to mention King Gizzards album from the year and that one saw a lot of rotation during my long waits at airports or transports. Another not metal release that I adored is the collaborative effort between Evan Parker and some new-ish kids on the block. A really solid and intense live performance that we are lucky to be able to witness in recording at least.

That's it - pretty much. Brief much like the post number for 2021. This year maybe more maybe less - who knows? I have like a week more of isolation so I hope to drum up some more posts. I do have a couple albums I wanna talk to about with the abyss of the internet. In any case - here's the list:

METAL:

01 - Warloghe - Three Angled Void

02 - Lvcifyre - The Broken Seal

03 - Clandestine Blaze - Secrets of Laceration :

04 - Korgonthurus - XX

05 - Alda - A Distant Fire :

06 - ЛЕШИЙ - ПОГАНЫЕ СНЫ

07 - Silvanthrone - Forbidden Pathways to Ancient Wisdom :

08 - Voidsphere - To Overtake | To Overcome :

09 - Warmoon Lord - Battlespells

10 - Frozen Flesh Order - Extra Terrestrial Terrorism

NOT-METAL: