NEPTUNE TOWERS Transmissions from Empire Algol LP REISSUE darkthrone ambient NEW

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NEPTUNE TOWERS Transmissions from Empire Algol LP

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(Peaceville)
*** This is a new and unplayed item, direct from the CRUCIAL BLAST shop. ***

DESCRIPTION FROM CRUCIAL BLAST:
Back in stock on limited-edition vinyl...
Want another example of just how closely black metal and experimental electronic music have been aligned since the beginning? Just look to the music of Neptune Towers, the strange all-electronic project that Darkthrone's Fenriz was involved with for a brief time in the 90s; this side-project allowed him to pursue a singularly dark and sinister strain of interstellar ambience that was directly influenced by the young Norwegian's interest in the kosmische music of Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk's seminal krautrock. As with the bizarre mid-90s albums from Beherit and the sympho-ambient excursions from noth Burzum and Emperor's Ihsahn, whenever any of these corpse-painted teens tried to channel the vast, majestic sound of their Teutonic heroes the result would be a fractured, distinctly darker mutation of this sound, and Neptune Towers was definitely one of the strangest. Fenriz only released two albums of this ominous space music with Neptune Towers, 1994's Caravans To Empire Algol and 1995's Transmissions From Empire Algol, both featuring a dramatic electronic sound that combined those classic cosmic synthesizers with simple sequencer robotic rhythms and hypnotic pulsations, otherworldly ambience and eerie melodies, crafted into epic astral soundscapes. Both of the Moonfog albums have been out of print for years until recently, when Peaceville re-issued them with new artwork and liner notes, full-color slipcases, and in the case of the Transmissions re-issue, never-before-released bonus tracks that were originally supposed to appear on the third Neptune Towers album before Fenriz abandoned the project.
The 2012 reissue of Transmissions from Empire Algol is divided into two halves. The first features the original album tracks, the first of which is the epic "First Communion. Mode: Direct"; for more than twenty minutes, this haunting electronic dronescape wavers and drifts through vast black expanses of cosmic emptiness, at first drifting in on soft sheets of low thrumming synth while stray notes streak across the void and an eerie minor-key melody unfolds high overhead. As this piece progresses, Fenriz gradually layers on more synthesizer noise and clouds of chordal dissonance, keeping things pretty abstract for awhile, but then that swirling melody starts to morph into something more sinister, beginning to resemble something out of a John Carpenter score, with weird bits of bright, major key synth suddenly popping up here and there. The second half shifts into a strange glowing plain of malfunctioning electronics and metallic drones, and Fenriz drops an awesome pipe organ-like melody into the mix at the same time that his pulsating rhythms start to kick in, and all of a sudden this track transforms into a killer fusion of gothic organ creep and John Carpenter-esque stalker ambience, laced with mysterious horn-like tones and gleaming 8-bit melodies; this whole sequence is fucking great, and sounds as good (if not better) as any of the synth-haulers that are currently trying to channel this same sort of sound.
A dreamlike fog of delay-drenched drones and metallic shimmer leads into the other album track "To Cold Void Desolation", but almost as soon as it begins, it kicks into a another pulsating, layered rhythm that loops endlessly around a weirdly sunny electronic melody, hardly sounding as inhospitable as the track title might lead you to believe. It definitely gets darker from there though, shifting into mysterious Middle Eastern melodies that bloom from incandescent synthesizers and random deep-space satellite transmissions, and from there into some seriously ominous Tangerine Dream-style majesty. So good.
The other half of the disc is a series of four shorter tracks that were originally recorded for the aborted third album Space Lab. These are similar arrangements of cosmic drone and pulsating electronics, sweeping synths over obsidian expanses, sinister Carpenter-esque ambience and ghostly radio waves.
Both of these Neptune Towers albums ranks as some of the best stuff to ever come out of black metal's ongoing dalliance with electronic music in the early 90s, and now that they've been given the posh reissue treatment are ripe for rediscovery for anyone who digs the void-worshipping electronic music and black-hole ambience of their protégés in Moloch, Northaunt, Raven's Bane, Tomhet, Vinterriket and Atomine Elektrine...   © CRUCIAL BLAST
THIS IS A NEW, UNPLAYED ITEM. Please note that for LP vinyl orders, we usually remove the vinyl from the jacket prior to shipment in order to avoid seam splits or any other kind sleeve/jacket damage that might occur during transit. This may require that we open the shrinkwrap on the record in order to carefully remove the vinyl from the inside of the jacket (if the record was originally shrinkwrapped). Feel free to contact us with any questions regarding this policy.

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