Dear readers,

I simply want to wish you an enjoyable holiday season, a merry Christmas and a happy new year. Stay curious, healthy and positive. I hope all your dreams come alive. Impossible is nothing. I'm looking forward to hear from you soon and to see you over the course of the upcoming twelve months.

Sincerely yours,

Sebastian Kluth

Merry Christmas

Frohe Weihnachten

Joyeux Noël

Feliz Navidad

C рождеством

शुभ क्रिसमस

عيد ميلاد مجيد

圣诞快乐

メリークリスマス

즐거운 크리스마스 되세요 

Dear readers of my blog!

In order to honor Ludwig van Beethoven's 245th birthday, I would like to present you some of my favourite pieces of classical music and opera of the past three centuries, including works by Beethoven, Ifukube, Mahler, Tchaikovsky and Vivaldi among others. This kind of music is particularly enjoyable in winter and especially around Christmas in my opinion. Next time, I will introduce you to some of my favourite scores or movie soundtracks. I hope you really enjoy these musical pieces of art.

Sincerely yours,

Sebastian Kluth

Antonio Vivaldi's Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione (Le quattro stagioni) (1725)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's and Franz Xaver Suessmayr's Requiem Mass in D minor (1793)

Ludwig van Beethoven's neunte Sinfonie in d-Moll op. 125 (complete) (1824)

Richard Wagner's Die Walkure (complete) (1870)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony no. 6 in B minor, op. 74, Pathétique (complete) (1893)

Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (complete) (1911)

Edgard Varèse's Amériques (complete) (1921)

Giacomo Puccini's Turandot (part one) (1926)

Giacomo Puccini's Turandot (part two) (1926) 

Carl Orff's Carmina Burana (1937) (complete)

Akira Ifukube's Symphonic Fantasia - Volume I (1983) 

Akira Ifukube's Symphonic Fantasia - Volume II (1983)

Akira Ifukube's Symphonic Fantasia - Volume III (1983) 

Drone is a kind of music that is very hard to digest. Most artists use it for short atmospheric instrumentals and combine this genre with sinister ambient sounds, gloomy doom metal or abrasive sludge metal. For transitional efforts, these monophonic, immersive and hypnotizing effects can build up a spine-chilling atmosphere. On its own, this kind of music is though often nerve-wrecking, pointless and repetitive and rarely perfectly executed by respecting content, meter and tone in a concise manner. Very few people are enthusiastic about this kind of music, a more elevated number of music fans appreciate it occasionally and most people just can't make sense of this form of artistic expression. Ironically, Sunn O))) shows us all these three sides of their genre on one single album: the upsides, the downsides and the things that could have been done better.

The opening song has almost no variation despite its demanding length of nearly thirteen minutes. The track sounds wafting, uneasy and noisy. The complementing production sounds unpolished and has a certain live atmosphere as if the listener was standing in a hypnotized crowd in front of a stage where a strange cult is playing its depressive mantra. This creepy track would have been a fitting introduction to set the drowning atmosphere among religious cult members from the Far East if it lasted for three or four minutes. By stretching the tune to an almost unbearable length which is four times longer than requested, the band fails to keep its momentum going. The track doesn't develop any further depth and what could have been a creepy piece of ambient music ends up sounding like an uninspired, lethargic and abstract instrumental jam consisting of strained and limited guitar chords, humming bass sounds and astrophysically inspired keyboard patterns with occasional background groans perfored by famous extreme metal vocalist Attila Csihar. This bad song is simply missing the point and it's hard to appreciate it at all.

While the first painful track perfectly portrays why this paralytic kind of music is only appreciated by a limited number of music lovers, the second track is a good example for a more intellectual, diversified and concise use of the genre. First of all, the tune is already four minutes shorter and it also includes a greater number of details. Once again, noisy ambient music inspired by the sounds of our universe set the tone of the track but bass and guitar chords are generally faster and vary between medium speed and strained passages. The religious background chants sound creepy, epic and mysterious and complement the instrumental work perfectly. The musical ritual fades out fittingly with muddier guitar sounds reminding of explosions from an old documentary shown on a discordant television before the track hums out progressively. The apathic sounds approaching silence towards the end of the track are so slow and intense that it's nearly physically painful. Sunn O))) really crafted a little masterpiece that represents everything drone music should stand for. This good tune should also please to some people who usually don't care about this kind of music.

The third and last song could almost be described as a mixture of the previous two tunes even though its closer to the second than to the first. On the positive side, apathic ritual chants in form of sinister mantras add to the atmosphere of the first third of the track. Later on, expressive extreme metal vocals emerge from the background and take more and more space as if the mantras that are still coming back and forth from time to time had awoken an abominable creature from the abyss. Even the usually somber guitar tones sound a little bit higher and more floating and enthusiastic during the black metal chants in the second third of the tune. The song is almost like a horror radio play without needing any words to stress its grim intensity. The strong momentum of this track which ultimately leads to the shocking climax of the song can't be kept until the end of the song. The patterns of the first and second third are unnecessarily repeated during the falling action and conclusion and the track doesn't have a proper or fitting coda like the second track. After an elevated amount of great ideas in the first eight or nine minutes of the song, the last part is simply more of the same and goes seemingly nowhere. Even for immersive drone bands, less can be so much more and the band fails to lack the instinct to realize when comes the time to properly finish this track and get to the point.That's why this third tune is a missed occasion and ultimately only a fairly decent track but not the masterpiece it could have been like the second song. This ugly track should please to genre fans only.

In the end, the few fans of drone music should obviously get their hands on this gem which comes from one of the greatest genre bands. Those who didn't like drone music before should only try out the second and shortest tune to make up their minds about the potential of this genre again. Those who occasionally like this unusual kind of artistic expression need to bring a lot of patience and hold on, especially due to the opening track which is by far the most boring song and unfortunately also clearly the longest. Next to this failed ambient experiment stand though one of the very best genre tracks ever written and another song which is almost getting there and only wasting its enormous potential during the last few minutes. I would therefor tend to purchase only the last two songs digitally instead of the entire release and complement this genre discovery with some tracks from the band's recent collaborations with British singer-songwriter Scott Walker and Norwegian avant-garde band and soul mates Ulver.

Final rating: 6,5/10

Follow this link to listen to the entire album legally: http://sunn.bandcamp.com/album/kannon 

Dear readers of my blog,

The stunning forty-seven-year long career of Canada's greatest and most famous rock band Rush seems to come to an end. The last ''R40'' tour that was announced as last longer tour of the band had already come to an end last summer. I was lucky enough to get a ticket for their Montreal show and to see the charismatic trio for the first and probably last time ever. Just like Black Sabbath and Yes, I was able to see these legends before the end of their careers. Yesterday, Rush's drummer Neil Peart said in an interview that he considers himself retired from his musical career now. This probably means that the entire band has come to an end after twenty studio albums and numerous live releases over five decades. In order to celebrate the achievements of the three Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members, I simply wanted to share some of their best moments with you. Please note that the band's live performances are even much better than their great studio records. If you haven't discovered this band yet, do yourself a favor and start your journey here and now.

I sincerely hope you enjoy this short selection of songs that only represents a minor fraction of the band's talent.

Sebastian Kluth

''Working Man'' (1974)

''Anthem'' (1975)

''2112'' (1976)

''Cygnus X-1 (Books I & II)'' (1977-78) 

''The Spirit of Radio'' (1980)

''Limelight'' (1981)

''New World Man'' (1982) 

''Red Sector A'' (1984)

''The Big Money'' (1985)

''Roll the Bones'' (1991)

''Test for Echo'' (1996)

''Headlong Flight'' (2012)

Dear readers,

This review honours my favourite German band In Extremo that mixes medieval instruments such as bagpipes, dulcimers, harps, hurdy-gurdies, lutes, shawms and many more with poetic lyrics in German, Latin, Hebrew, Swedish, Icelandic, French and Spanish among others and modern rock music with bass, guitar and drums. The band celebrated its twentieth year of existence in 2015 and released a new song entitled ''Loreley''. I hope you enjoy my review, the song and the video.

Have a nice weekend,

Sebastian Kluth

It's time to celebrate! In Extremo started as a purely medieval and acoustic band twenty years ago that toured numerous castles in Europe. Another project around the same time focused on rock music with a punk touch inspired by the revolutionary underground bands during the last years of the German Democratic Republic. A few years later, band leader Das letzte Einhorn decided to combine both projects. ''Weckt die Toten!'' was a genre-breaking effort that combined medieval instruments such as bagpipes, citterns, harps, hurdy-gurdies and shawms with hard rock and heavy metal sounds while lyrics where sung both in German and in historical languages such as Latin. In the beginning, medieval purists despised this new style while modern rock fans couldn't care less about old-fashioned poetry and dated instruments but the band believed in its potential and carried on with a lot of passion and perseverance. Only one a few years later, the acoustic version of their adaption of the old Swedish ballad ''Herr Mannelig'' was part of the now-legendary role-playing game Gothic. The video clip for their single ''Vollmond'' was played on television. The single ''Kuss mich'' became a surprising success and made it on several popular compilation albums. The band participated at the Bundesvision Song Contest were they finished third with their Gaelic anthem ''Liam''. Despite the fact that mainstream media mostly continued to ignore the band, In Extremo kickstarted a new genre, gathered fans all around the world, made two records that went straight to the pole position of the German Media Control Charts, had three gold-certificated outputs so far and sold over one and a half million albums with their unusual and unique style. 

This year, In Extremo celebrated its rise to success with its faithful fans during a weekend-long festival next to the famous Lorelei rock on the Rhine. An amazing documentary called ''Verehrt und angespien - 20 Jahre In Extremo'' portrays the band's long way to the top. A package of the festival recordings will probably see the light of day in the near future as well. In order to celebrate this event in front of thousands of fans in style, the band put out this new digital single which is also included in the highly recommendable box set ''20 wahre Jahre'' that includes remastered versions of all previous records plus an unreleased acoustic album and an album with rarities.

''Loreley'' represents everything In Extremo stands for and if you have never heard of this band before, you can start right here and right now. The track opens with epic and slightly elegiac bagpipe sounds before a powerful rhythm section and gripping riffs kick in. The bagpipe sound gets more joyful as shawms and other instruments add to the festive atmosphere of this new band anthem. The lyrics are straight, simple and authentic which exactly represents the joie de vivre of this group. The charming vocals are sometimes raw, slightly epic and somewhat self-humourous. The chorus is uplifting, powerful and catchy which makes it a perfect single and live anthem. This ode to the band and their fans has a vivid mid-tempo pace but also gives the medieval instruments some time to shine in the calmer middle section. In about four minutes, there are no unnecessary lengths and the track is to the point. The only negative aspects that could be mentioned is first of all that the track is somehow predictable since it recalls similar lyrical topics from the fan anthem ''Nur ihr allein'' and the previous band hymn ''Sieben Koche''. Musically, this isn't the band's most original hour either but that's not what it was supposed to be anyway. 

''Loreley'' is an emotional party anthem for medieval rock fans and simply one hundred percent In Extremo. Make sure to listen to this at full volume and to sing along to this to fully enjoy this great gift to the fans and the band itself. Here's to the next twenty years of Germany's most fascinating rock band.

Final rating: 8/10