a Catacomb La Catacomb, purloined from a great abyss of uncertainty, is finally among us. The fourth album proper from Steven R. Smith's blisteringly psychedelic "power trio" guise, La Catacomb languished for a few years awaiting release from this label & that before landing at Soft Abuse HQ. La Catacomb is the perfect follow-up to Ulaan Khol's Ceremony trilogy, offering more smoulder than flame
It was another great year in music. Again, like last year, I can't understand those who insists that 'nothing good happened in 20102, annoying hipsters. It was such a diverse year, full of brilliant gems. I won't go into charts and numbering, but here's a rough overview of the stuff I liked this year. Some of the [...]

Change of seasons, change of heart: A selection featuring astral drone, noisy soundscapes, tribal psychedelia from Topaz Rags , Ulaan Khol , Forest Swords , Master Musicians of Bukkake & Expo '70 . Buy Expo '70 - Paralyzed Buy Topaz Rags - Crown Center Topaz Rags - Crown Center Expo '70 - Land of the Midnight Sun Ulaan Khol - III,3 Master Musicians of Bukkake - In the [...]

Each week, we bring you some new releases or songs that we think have flown under the radar. Frankly, we've been slacking lately and focusing on big name interviews. It's time to get down to basics and find some great new bands. This weekly feature has brought you bands like The Boxer Rebellion, Warpaint, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and some other bands that are now heralded by the mjaro music mags as the next big thing. TDOA readers are always ahead of the curve. Here's this weeks' dose. Who are [...]

Download Zip File 1. The Fall - Cowboy George ( Domino ) This is another track from the best album of the year thus far. For all the people who thought Mark E Smith was a spent force (and they do exist) this record mus be a real smack in the teeth. "Our Future Your Clutter" will be available from [...]

Stephen R. Smith brings his Ulaan Khol trilogy to a close with the release of III . This time the tone is still dark, but the execution more sinister. Desolate ambiance has been replaced with a brutal edge of dust-dry passages that at their core bring to mind Neil Young's work with Jim Jarmusch on Dead Man . The creeping pace of I and II is often swept away in a torrent of amplifier rage. This is the culminating moment we've been waiting for, the full breadth of Smith's guitar chops put to use [...]

As regular readers of this mediocre blog (as well as our Twitter followers) are aware, both Hansen and I are obsessed with LOST. Here's a photo of me drinking a DHARMA beer . I mention this because the last and current seasons of LOST touch on the ideas of the Multiverse and time travel (by way of the Time Loop Theory ). This relates to Steven R. Smith, a.k.a. Ulaan Khol , in two ways. The first and most pedestrian point - dudes who are into shit like time travel, theoretical physics, mysticism, and the like [...]
![Silvester Anfang – "Satanische Vrede" – KRAAK [Out Of Print #1 / Daily MP3 #30]](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/2377163_lg.jpg)
Silvester Anfang - "Satanische Vrede" - KRAAK Records Sylvester Anfang II - "Na Regen Komt Zondvloed" MP3/download Sylvester Anfang II - "Vainomoinen Nacht" MP3/download Sylvester Anfang II - "The [...]

The idea of progress has been slowly dying. I think progress lost its allure at the ignition of the first atom bomb at the end of WWII. It has been losing luster since. Even more recently the future has become boring and unfashionable. No one wants to live in the future. The jet packs don't work, and the Daily Me is full of spam. No finds the Future attractive any longer. The only thing left to believe in is collapse. That's not boring! The end of civilization would be terribly exciting, and unlike any future we could imagine, [...]

This is the second installment in Stephen R. Smith's series as Ulaan Khol. Again comprised of several untitled pieces but this time the clouds don't gather quite as grim as on I . The second in the series, which as a whole is titled "Ceremony," still swarms with struggle. The edges of each composition are smudged black with ash and soot, but underneath there's a warm ember of hope that begins to glow; a sense that Smith's world isn't quite as bleak as the first record would let on. One can only hope that the final chapter will [...]
Ulaan Khol - Untitled 3 The swamp has never sounded so pretty; you can practically see it through those clumps of mist, thumping quietly. You can hear the torch beam too, grainy and staticy, channelled via pick ups into serrated song format, accompanied by twigs that when bent and twisted, provide different tones (ala Daniel Menche's metal noise rod thing) which are then funneled into this slow tectonic landscape. [Buy II from Soft Abuse ]
Good things come in threes, some say. Bad things come in threes, I also hear. Hence we can conclude that anything that comes on its own is neither good nor bad, and is merely average. So when football fans chant "there is only one Ali Karimi", as I'm sure they do, they aren't being especially [...]

thuja Lc Gd Gb 2008 ulaan khol untitled 7 2008 (française version) Depuis que, du siècle dernier, les enfants, abandonnant leurs parents, prisonniers de la réalité brutale des téléviseurs où défilent, labyrinthe en construction, actualités et téléachat, en boucle, se sont envolés dans leurs espaces virtuels en quête éperdue [...]

Ulaan Khol - Untitled [2] (Soft Abuse 2008) Ulaan Khol - I / Soft Abuse Since it seemed such a remarkable coincidence, I tried to find a creative way to connect Steven R. Smith's latest outing under the Ulaan Khol moniker in I with a book I've recently finished reading, Stephen Dixon's I. . Listening to this record over and over, nothing of its shimmering strums and well-deep reverb remind you of Dixon's self-reflective, straightforward prose. They could hardly be more [...]

The feedback, hiss, buzz, and delay effects on Steven R. Smith's psychedelic soundscapes seem to peacefully coexist completely independent of one another.

Image credit: NGC 2070, The Tarantula Nebula by Robert Gendler et al As much as I was looking forward to it, February 21, 2008 turned out to be a somewhat disappointing day. The evening before, the sky was crystal clear so I had my hopes up high to see the lunar eclipse in all its glory. I had my alarm clock set to 3:30 a.m. but where there was supposed to be a blood-red moon taking hold of the sky I saw nothing but clouds and mist. Definitely no [...]

Longtime RSTB favorite Steven R. Smith is already back in these pages. Not one to sit still long, Smith's second release of the year hits the shelves March 4th. Having just exorcised his acoustic visions on Owl and kicked out the free-noise jams with Thuja, Smith turns to what seems only a natural progression in sound. Angling his solo guitarisms out of the eastern psych realm and into the maelstrom of feedback and white heat that burns around Fushitsusha, the new album touches on another side of Smith's work. Floating blind in a sea of strangled strings and [...]