Ghoul Detail vs. Norss - The Endless Days of Loss

(Norss Plåten No004)

CDR

It's an uncharacteristically mellow Ghoul Detail that greats our ears on this new (and very limited) split album. In place of his usual apocalyptic roar there is an understated post-industrial dark ambient rumble that links his three contributions. I like this side of his music (I like the other sides too) and I think it's a shame that it doesn't come out to play as often as it probably should.

Norss are very much in the same mould with his / her / their / it's (delete as applicable) contribution being generally more of the same but with the addition of a more aggressively noisy stance. It's a good track that is marred slightly by a poor mix but has a real nice flow to it. A little more time and attention spent on the production would have made this something really worth to listening to.

There're only 22 copies of this in existence so I think you'll be lucky to grab a copy but as with all Ghoul Detail releases it's well worth the effort.

(www.myspace.com/norss)

Ghoul Detail - Glory Hole
(Smell The Stench)
CDR
A set of guitar and effect pedal twisted and jagged post-industrial recordings from the Ghoul. Very much derived from the Skullflower school of sheet metal aural sculpture and a real step into the unknown for GD that deserves to be applauded both for the way he's balanced this new direction with his previous oeuvre and also because it's really, really good. Since my first listen I've known that GD is one of the most interesting and exciting artists in a noise scene that is becoming increasingly mundane and tiresome to me and here he proves that assertion once more. This is one glory hole that I suspect is a lot more fun to stick your ears into than your cock.
(www.smellthestench.net)

Mystified / Opium Farmer - Untitled
(Roil Noise RNOCDR093)
CDR
Split release featuring two regulars here at Wonderful Wooden Reasons. Mystified's contribution is a long 30 minute hissing drone piece. Of late he has been moving further and further in this direction creating some really nice music. This one however is a little too static for my tastes and I found it difficult to connect with.

Opium Farmer is more commonly known in these pages as Ghoul Detail in which guise he produces massive noise constructs. The Opium Farmer persona however gives him the opportunity to work in a much freer environment as samples are hurled forth at breakneck speed. There's a lot of humour inherent in this work mostly derived from the abuse of voice samples although also present is the characteristic tightly controlled noise work of the Ghoul Detail project. I think personally I'd have liked to hear a greater degree of autonomy between the two projects. On the whole it's a very entertaining listen but I do however find that plunderphonics ages really quickly for me as the rigidity of the construction fixes it at a specific point. It's fine for a few listens but then I find I've shelved the album. The good point of this however is that at the speed that Jon (Opium Ghoul Farmer Detail) works there'll be three more albums out by the time I've finished listening to this one.
Definitely worth a listen.
(www.roilnoise.com)

Seemingly, and sadly, ignored by the wider reaches of the underground, Ghoul Detail has been releasing a steady stream of meandering, electronics dronescapes for a good few years now. Using CDr and MP3 as a way to keep the releases coming thick and fast, Ghoul Detail has built up a surprisingly large discography; large enough, at least, for Roll Noise to release a 5xCDr as their 50th release.

Ghoul Details prime musical mode is the long, stretched drone – ever-changing and evolving into subtle reflections of their beginnings – with occasional clattering percussion. Opening track ‘The Indiscretions Of A Feudal Lord’ exemplifies this approach with a head-warping, near-endless drone and quasi-industrial rhythm that sounds like nothing so much as the soundtrack to Silent Hill through a deadening fug of marijuana smoke. The vibrating, mechanical insistence is first interrupted by the bubbling snort of a bong and then the stuttering cadences of thoughts from elsewhere…

And so it continues. Long, shifting, gentle drones interrupted by the slightest hints of abstract elements combining into a single, unified whole which lulls the mind into sleep…a sleep that makes reviewing this release exceptionally difficult. The tones blank out all other noise, all other thought, and leaves you finding simple melodies in the vast endlessness. There’s little more to say or that needs to be said.

So, if this music is so involving and recommended, why is it so little known? Well, it’s hard to understand why and how things become known but my personal view is that more effort needs to be put into the distribution and packaging. There’s nothing wrong with CDrs, I think that they’re a great and efficient way to distribute music, but whacking them in a plastic slipcase just doesn’t cut it anymore. Making an inlay that appears to be an advert for Adobe Photoshop’s new ‘acid flashback’ filter doesn’t help much, either. It should be all about the music, yes, but to have such wonderful, effortless music arrive in throwaway, poorly designed trappings is disappointing and distracting. More could be done.

And that, very much, is it. If you like music that you can put on and drift away with then this, and anything else by Ghoul Detail, is worth listening. I can’t help but think that’s why he creates this music himself. Just try not to look at the cover while you’re doing it. You may get taken to places you’d rather not go.

(Roil Noise RNOCDR048)

2x3" CDR

First off I'm really not sure why this is presented as two mini-CDrs when it could have been far better (and far less lumpily) presented as a single full sized CDR. It seems a strange choice to me but there you go - double disc it is.

Ghoul Detail have long been a favourite here at WWR and this release once again confirms his place in our hearts. Grimy, monolithic, leviathans (I've been waiting for an album to come along where I could link those two words) of noise roll ponderously forward like an encroaching ice-age of dirt. Occasionally shards of debris are pushed from the mass, the fleeting sounds and rhythms of their passing providing a last gasp of existence before they are swallowed by the relentless behemoth (that's another word I've been waiting to use) of sound as it rolls ever onward.

(www.roilnoise.com)

In a relatively short existence Ghoul Detail has released well over forty recordings in just less than two years, is this case of quantity over quality? Perhaps so, who knows for sure, one thing is though is that Ghoul Detail is having a good time doing what he is doing, and isn’t averse to having a sense of humor. Ghoul Detail is the product of one man throwing himself headlong into his work after the demise of a relationship for the past fifteen years, how much more of an impetus does someone need? Humor aside though this release is not a joke.

Over the course of this release, some aspects are less noisy than others are and surprisingly rhythmic as well, the disc opens to the grinding, slowly moving (or is that slithering) sonic assault that is “Zacatechichi” which provides the perfect landscape for a dream, allowing your imagination to venture off into a multitude of directions. Not short on undulating currents of noise that have for the most part clanging cymbals that seem to have been stretched and looped with what easily could be taken as the fluttering of wings, Tangier, 1962 comes to mind. This release for the most part is pure noise constructed upon layers of filtered and processed sound that builds and dips and then flitters off into oblivion. The song structures are dense and may I even say brooding at times, sufficient room is given to catch ones breath and kick back before the immersion begins again.

Another track of note is “San Pedro” while having a deep electric background drone that is being bombarded constantly by bombs of glitch, is probably the only track off the cd that could remotely be considered for the chill-out room if need be, it is a slow simmering synthscape made complete by a backdrop of a choral piece that dissipates and reforms to give the track a circular quality.

As with any artist that releases so much work in such a short time this release could have ended up being something other than what it is, worthwhile.

http://www.heathenharvest.com/article.php?story=20080109120146973

Since my new review package arrived and I saw that I was reviewing a Ghoul Detail release I've been trying to remember how long it's been since I first heard GD. It must be getting close to five years now. Right from the first listen I was a fan. The Soundscape Gardener is a sonic genius. As creative as he is prolific, which is really saying something if you know the length of his back catalogue.

So it was with eager anticipation that I cracked open this new CDR. To be honest, as much as I'm a GD fan I have to admit this is the first new GD material I've heard in a while. It's interesting to hear him develop as an artist. It sounds like the years of constant creation have given The Soundscape Gardener the experience to create epic tracks which keep the listener engaged while not bombarding them with too much stimulus. The resulting collection of tracks are a wonderful journey through gardens filled with blooming audio of many differing scents (to murder the Soundscape Gardener metaphor). From the skillful mixing of expansive ambience and mid-paced breakbeat rhythm of Rolling Thunder to the bitter melancholy of Hollow on the Inside and the almost tribal beat of Dark Heart (which it's driving me mad that I can't place the opening sample on), Poles Apart has amazing range. Taken as a whole this CDR could be the soundtrack to some dystopian, near-future, psycho movie.

Personally my favourite track on this CDR is Point the finger of blame. It's higher frequency “melody” and scratchy static has actually been catchy enough to stick in my head (only the second GD track that's managed to do that). The sample on the track, which I'm guessing is from some talk show, poses theme of the piece, the nature of personal responsibility, without spoonfeeding answers. Point the finger of blame only just nudges out the haunting, almost X-Files in feel, The 8th Level as my favourite track.

As astute readers may have guessed, I like this release. Ghoul Detail is an artist who, despite getting favourable coverage in Bizarre magazine some time ago, still doesn't get the recognition he deserves in my opinion. Fans of dark ambient, experimental, and noise genres would be well advised to pick up any GD release. Poles Apart would definitely be a good entry point for those a little daunted by the size of his back catalogue

http://www.heathenharvest.com/article.php?story=20080111195300565

Northampton, UK-based noisenik Ghoul Detail (aka “The Soundscape Gardener”) releases this tribute to Lucio Fulci’s 1981 schlock-horror zombie-fest masterpiece “The Beyond” (aka “Seven Doors of Death”, hence the album’s title) starring Catriona MacColl and David Warbeck, and one of my all-time favourites of the Italian director in particular and the zombie gore-flick genre in general. Using short samples from the film itself and combining it with some eerie spine-tingling noise and other elements, GD has produced ten atmospheric pieces that capture perfectly the creepy sleazy air of the film that was once classified as a ‘video nasty’ by the British authorities in 1984 for some of its gory set-pieces and consequently banned for many years. Thankfully they have since seen sense...

This album is a disquieting affair, and GD goes for the use of slowly brooding, murky, crushing electronic grinding and scraping noises – coupled with the aforementioned carefully chosen voice samples and a smattering of piano and even some neoclassicism on one track (see below) - rather than an in-your-face aural assault, and indeed reflects the atmosphere prevalent in the film, set as it is in an old hotel in Louisiana, and indeed it’s an atmosphere that is probably unique to the Italian horror genre in its ‘70s and ‘80s heyday. Just think back to other directors of that time such as Umberto Lenzi, Ruggero Deodati, Michele Souavi and – perhaps the best of them all – Dario Argento, and their cinematic output. There was a certain sleazy style attached to these films that gave them an aura immediately identifiable as Italian, and they very often made for an evening’s deliciously vicarious entertainment. “The Beyond” was definitely one of the better offerings of the zombie film craze of those days and, without giving too much away for those who have yet to taste its delights the ending is perhaps one of the eeriest and most depressing in modern horror, simple but staggeringly effective.

Admittedly I haven’t watched the film in about a year or so but as far as I can remember I found Fabio Frizzi’s score slightly off-putting and distracting. This however is infinitely better at invoking the air of utter hopelessness that pervades the film and more especially the latter half. The feeling of malevolent creeping evil is well realised and the last track of all “the beyond” does full justice to the ending, with its chanting choir and brutal metallic grating, like a snarl from the lips of the beast himself. Other notable tracks are the opener (“7 doors”), the pulsing teeth-grinding breath and heartbeat of a cold evil, made even more terrifying by the overlaid sample of the brutal slaying of the artist Schweik by the townsfolk who accuse him of being a warlock and which forms the chilling prologue to the film; and “hidden in a cursed place”, a beautifully sonorous and forlorn piece, a brooding presence over a landscape vast, lonely, lifeless, hollow and empty, where life itself is a curse and death is very welcome; the pain of despair made even more poignant by the haunting neoclassical string passage towards the end. Finally there’s the unrelenting menace of “those dead shall rise”, a time when unstoppable violence and chaos spills out of the graveyard and into the streets and not even death is able to stop it....

To be honest, it’s all cracking stuff on this one, the never-ending doom, gloom and despair - in addition to the flesh sloughing off in clumps - notwithstanding of course, in fact you could do no worse than invoke a copy from somewhere and bring some shuffling shambling zombie evil into your life...

http://www.heathenharvest.com/article.php?story=20071216163914508

Mystified vs Ghoul Detail - Split
(Roil Noise RNOCDR064)
CDR

It's taken me an insanely long time to get around to listening to this album as it arrived amidst a flood of other Ghoul Detail releases which I made myself ration out over the course of several months (and there're more still to come). Here we find the Northampton based sound abuser paired off against Saint Louis droner Mystified (or Thomas Park to his mum).

Jon (B*****s - Ghoul Detail) as regular readers of WWR will know is a perennial fave around these parts. His massive, muscular, heavily tattooed, biker, bounty hunter, chain-smoking, beer swilling, night club doorman type noise drone extravaganzas are a joy to behold and as new releases arrive faster than relatives at a lottery winners house he's always welcome on my stereo. This is no exception as he layers slabs of fuzz and grind onto a bedrock of broken bottles, blood and teeth. Excellent stuff.

It's not often that one of the poor unfortunates twinned with Mr. B*****s on one of these split releases can really keep up with the musical turmoil he unleashes but Mystified manage it with some aplomb. Parks' noise is much less earthy than B*****s' growl as his buzzing grind soars and swoops

(www.roilnoise.com)

Haz-Mat / Ghoul Detail - Corroded Horizon Dawning
(Blast Periphery Fall-Out002)
CDR

You know that feeling you get when you've just taken that one swig too many at the end of a long day's drinking. That moment when the world starts to tilt and the slow dawning arrives that there's no way you're coming out of the other side of this unsullied. When the internal and the external are hell-bent on meeting. When up and down are concepts that are no longer understandable and are rapidly becoming redundant. When every fibre of your being hones in on that one undeniable fact! Well, that's what this album sounds like and you know you want it.

(www.myspace.com/blastperiphhazmat)

Ghoul Detail - Living on Borrowed Time
(Roil Noise RNOCDR058)
CDR
Over the years I've been doing WWR I've written more reviews for Ghoul Detail than pretty much anyone else. All are overwhelmingly positive because all have been deserving. He does the big, muscular, noise and drone thing better than anyone else I could name. So this time I'm not going to talk about what is, yet again, another damn fine release instead I'm going to talk about the weather.
The sky is grey today. Not the dull, heavy grey that signals rain but a light, off-white, grey. Occasionally patches of blue sky show through breaks in the cloud whilst gusts of wind are assaulting the tops of the trees in the woods behind my house. It's what I've decided to call a liminal day - it's almost sunny and yet also it's almost stormy. I like liminal days they are days filled with promise and trepidation. They are days of transition, of change and of surprises. One never really knows where one is with a liminal day. They are utterly wilful and gloriously unpredictable. I love them.
This album is a liminal day.

Ctephin / Ghoul Detail / Spagirus - Aural Sects

(Roil Noise RNOCDR052)

CDR

Three way split on the Roil Noise label of two of their stalwarts and one newcomer (to me at least). Ctephin provide gritty, crackly, tonal play, overlaying sparse forlorn drones with an ocean of spluttering noise. They come over all Merzbow on track two before settling into a disjointed and cacophonous pseudo-Arabian melody on track three. The hammered guitars of their fourth contribution brings their section to a suitably riotous close.

Our old friend Ghoul Detail is in a decidedly mellow mood on his three tracks (mellow being an entirely relative term) and it's not until the seventh mnute of his third track that things really come to a head. I like this more restrained side of GD as he lets the sound do the work for him and the music swells and flows with a logic all it's own.

Spagirus are a new name to me and here provide a single long track of pulsating, soaring drones. It's big, its loud and it's beautiful.

One of the best Roil Noise releases I've heard and heartily recommended for all three contributors.

Haz-Mat and Ghoul Detail- ‘Corroded Horizon Dawning’ CD (Blast Periphery)      
Written by Roger Batty
   
‘Corroded Horizon Dawning’s’ black and white artwork suggest this could be a Black metal project, but instead it’s a collaboration or split(it’s unclear which as it doesn’t say who does what on each track) in a lo-fi dark ambient, grimy noise and drone doom mould. It seems that guitars along with effects peddle and electronics were used to create the feeling of black windy abyss that theses three tracks summon up. The tracks give the feeling of travelling on the black reptillic wing of a vast demon over burning plains or walking sulphur hissing ally ways blacked sky streets of some hellish city carved and made from putrefied bodies and bone. Nothing mould breaking or new but effective enough to curdle ones atmosphere into darker hues.

Ctephin / Rabbit Girls / Damno Te / Ghoul Detail - Split
(Roil Noise RNOCDR038)
CDR
American label Roil Noise specialise in the dark and deep ends of the drone and noise pool. Size is the name of the game here. Massive, pummeling, tumultuous noise (Ctephin), beats you could drive in rivets with (Rabbit Girls, Damno Te) and drones that would blanket an ocean (Ghoul Detail). Each band (although only Ctephin conform to that description) is on fine form although an over-reliance on synthetic sounds does leave parts of the album sounding a little cold and distant but as an introduction to both the artists and the label this is a fine release (far more so than the distinctly patchy R.I.N.O. compilation (see review elsewhere)).

Various - R.I.N.O. an international compilation
(Roil Noise RNOCDR071)
CDR
Compilations drive me insane. Not in the listening process but in the reviewing one. You see a lot of this album was, in my opinion, awful. Power electronics and muscular noise workouts of the type that makes my bowels itch. Some of it was astoundingly mediocre and some of it was really pretty damn good. The bad ones I'm not going to name because to do so would really suck, the mediocre ones I'm not going to name because that would be rude and the good ones...well...I'll happily name them. Android in Motion vs. Ghoul Detail, Ctephin vs. Elser, Cull, XDUGEF vs. GDR, Tada, Opium Farmer & Sturclub. Why these? Mainly because they're all going their own way to some extent and that's always interesting to hear.
Interesting but not essential.

Ghoul Detail - Beyond the 7 Doors
(Roil Noise RNOCDR069)
CDR
Release number 5342 for Jon (Ghoul Detail) [sorry Ian, can't be giving my surname away now] (and that's just this week) and like all the others I've heard it's an absolute corker. Huge, actually let me do that again, HUGE slabs of noise and monoliths of sound interspersed with samples from Lucio Fulci's flawed (that's especially for you Jon) masterpiece. I can think of no-one who does this sort of muscular drone and noise thing even half as well as Ghoul Detail and here he augments his sound with a more rhythmic and linear, almost song-based, structure. This is a fantastic addition to the Ghoul Detail catalogue (I'll even go so far as to say it's one of his best) but what I would have liked even more would have been to hear him doing an actual re-soundtracking of the movie. In case you missed it, that was the sound of a gauntlet being thrown.

The Ghoul Box Set. Roil Noise Offensive’s 50th release and this is a great one. What you get is 5 ambient experimental CDr’s, 3 stickers, and 2 buttons all packaged in a nice looking cardboard case with print on the top. Each CDr in the case has it’s own slimcase with artwork, like an individual release would. Ghoul Detail has been creating ambient and experimental sounds for over 3 years and his out put is mainly focused on war and drugs it seems. The box set comes with an insert that details the discs and the tracks, but it also has a quote by Sven Hassel from 1961. It talks about the body movers of the 2nd World War and he label’s it as the Ghoul Detail. Now I know where the name is from and it all finally makes sense.

Getting back to the music, there are a lot of samples used in these tracks. Some tracks have heavy bass lines, some have vocal samples, others have mixed clashes and scrapes, but each track carries with it his distinctive sound. If you’ve ever listened to anything by Plastikman you may know what I mean. The drone may carry throughout the entire track but all the sounds mixed in place keep you from getting board. One of my favorite tracks is on Disc Two: Track 1 "Path Of The Righteous Man", there are lots of movie samples (Taxi Driver to name one), mix with a groovy bass line and the ever present ambient push, it works well like this. Track 4, "Teratogeny" on disc 2 is probably the most interesting simply because it features Lord Greenskull. Within GD’s ambient tone there’s a hip-hop beat with Rap lyrics. When I first heard about this I didn’t know what to expect, but I’m a fan of Prefuse 73 so there’s no surprise that I actually like this track a lot. There a lot of other great tracks in this box set and what I love best is each disc seems to have a theme, could disc 5 be about Dune? Who knows, but the sounds and range of ambient tones make this something to listen to over and over again. I personal do so while reading and sometimes I’ll get surprised and look at the stereo with a smile. Out of all the disc’s I really like Disc 3: Junky, it has 4 tracks with nothing under 13 minutes and it’s the one I think defines the true sound of Ghoul Detail. So, in a nutshell, if they were sold separately some day I’d probably buy this one first. Jon knows his stuff and he deserves the title as "The Soundscape Gardener".

The only negative I have is that some of the tracks can run to long. A good example is on Disc One, Track 5 "Munch The Stinkfinger". It runs just over 13 minutes and it could have been just as well presented had it been half as short. Good drum beats with ambient movements, but it’s a bit too much for 13 minutes.

http://noisear.blogspot.com/2006/11/ghoul-detail-ghoul-box.html

37 releases. I can't believe that Roil Noise records have hit that milestone already. They have actually surpassed this figure already because this review is running a bit late. 7 releases too late. Currently Roil Noise are up to number 44. So the beginning to this review is outdated. As introductions go the saying "must do better" springs readily to mind. At least the effort was there for all to see and read.

This 37th release is a split between Cracked Dome and the mighty Ghoul Detail. The artist recording as Cracked Dome has been around since 1995 and bases the music created as "depression through sound" and whose stated mission is to provide sounds for suicides, murders and nervous breakdowns. A fun guy to take to any party. His 6 track contribution backs up his intentions. Welcome to another purveyor of electronic extreme noise. Although he very cleverly doesn't initially show his full hand at the start. Instead he leads the lambs to slaughter by having the first track sound very dark ambient in structure. A modulating piece of electronics that is the calm before the storm. The second track moves into a bleak piece of power electronics as his mask slowly slips. By track three he is fully uncovered as a killer with a knife. There be blood on his hands and all down his
clothing as he tears the listener apart with his cold clinical noise excursions. Then he smiles. A lunatics grin as he brings things down a level. Not much mind. Just a smidgeon with a beat orientated noise piece. Then back for more aggressive power noise with a chainsaw effect taking centre stage before ending in another semi black ambient piece. Powerful stuff all round and if this is indicative of his work then all his previous releases are also worth checking out.

There should be a fanfare to this part of the review. Ghoul Detail deserves one. If you've read any of my previous Ghoul Detail reviews you'll know how highly I rate this artist. The jewel in the Roil Noise crown. His 8 tracks lived up to all expectations. Well all of mine anyway. Starting with a very sexually orientated piece, almost porno in stereo, his electronically created sounds are in a different league to everyone else. Working between dark ambience and faintly charged power electronics his music is a gorgeous experience to behold and hear. Never afraid to introduce a bit of melody here or experimental touch there he is continually evolving musically. I could lose myself for hours within his creations... and frequently do. My words will never fully convey the utter brilliance of his music so I‚m not even going to try. If you've never heard his music before then you don't know what you're missing. More fool you.

One of the greatest pleasures I've had over my time reviewing for Aural Pressure was being introduced to the music put out by the Roil Noise record label. At first I thought they wouldn't last the course... but thankfully I've been proven wrong in that respect. Everything they've put out... the good and the bad... has always been, if nothing else, an experience. Sometimes they've outdone themselves with their presentation packaging wise... and let themselves down likewise. You just never knew, or could second guess, what they would put out next... as seen with this release. It typifies their stance to bring different musical artists together on one release.. and the fact it actually works is testament enough.

My personal thanks go to Roil Noise. It's been an emotionally charged ride while it lasted

http://www.auralpressure.com/review/c/cracked_dome_ghoul_detail.html

Cracked Dome vs Ghoul Detail
(Roil Noise RNOCDR037)
CDR

Getting sent lots of split albums lately. This one features one newbie and one old friend.
Cracked Dome is the newcomer and he open proceedings with a, deceptive but rather splendid, circular noise drone. Deceptive because track 2 arrives dripping with speaker shattering shards of harsh and aggressive noise that sets the pace for the rest of his contributions. Big, bad and bold, it's loud enough to dominate your attention and it's quick enough to keep you interested.
Ghoul Detail, from here on referred to as Jon, is in a strange place on this album and the first impression is of how well he's started melding the voice samples with the music. Played loud, his first track will definitely get your neighbours talking. I used to find the voices a little intrusive but this is spot on. Second impression comes 5 tracks later when you realise that it is 5 tracks later and he's taken you on a journey over which you had no control whatsoever. Absolute bliss. I love it when an album mangles my perceptions and this one did it to the Nth degree. The final two tracks brought me back to earth very nicely and are all recommended but it's for tracks 7 to 12 (apologies for not writing track titles) that this album is a must hear.

http://ecr.homestead.com/ecreviewsnew.html

Ghoul Detail has come out with more releases this year and the last than anyone out there, including Merzbow. Some would say that this is not a good thing and that when an artist comes out with so much material in one year that you're going to get some crap. Well, I haven’t found that yet with GD and this latest release proves it yet again. Although this is an official release from Roil Noise it is not included in their catalog....yet, and the reason for that is this disc is to be part of an upcoming Ghoul Detail Box Set on Roil Noise. So watch out for that soon.

Getting back to the release. An ambient, drone, experimental release to the fullest. Ghoul Detail has a remarkable effect with his tracks that makes you think of the cold depths of space every time you hear one of his tracks, even if he doesn't mean it. The gravity of each track in this disc pulls you forward towards a distant star and then lets you circle it while you think and contemplate life...at least for me. None of these tracks bore you in this disc as only two manage to crack the 10 minute mark, which is hard to do for an ambient artist. If I were to say anything negative about this release it would be that the harsher of the ambient tracks aren't as good as the more softer ambient tracks. Not sure if that explains it enough but to me a harsh ambient track can sometimes sound like wall noise or white static, and I just don't look for that with ambient, drone type artists. But some like it anyway so it's not too bad.

The styles of sounds used in this release are very high pitched and focused. Some tracks, like Fading Yesterdays have a very musical quality to it and create a very relaxing tone for your ears and pineal gland. Something to get high off of as well. I'm not saying go out a buy drugs now, but use weed, crack, LSD, hell anything, with this release (and anything by Ghoul Detail without the drugs) you get the same effect.

http://noisear.blogspot.com/2006/05/ghoul-detail-trail-of-tears.html

The label… Roilnoise. Type of recording… compilation. Genre… Drone. Artists appearing… IDX1274, Jason Macri, Xdugef, Random Insults, Loopool, Redglare, Residuum, Watchmenmk, Dolmensniper, Eye, Ghoul Detail, Nimheil, Rabbit Girls, Scrawn, Allerian, Big City Orchestra, Ctephin, KRLL, Froggtobogan and Aro:Pund. Total number of artists… 20. Number of cds… 2. Total running time… over 2 hours / 120++ minutes.

That there was the facts about this release. Time to add my personal view. Add flesh to the bones so to speak. The word ‘Drone’ holds a lot of different connotations for every individual. Each will have their own ideas of what constitutes ‘Drone’ music. My viewpoint won’t naturally match someone else’s. Which is why some of the music to be found on here wouldn’t be classed as ‘Drone’ in my opinion. Also… if you look at the artists partaking in this endeavour you’ll note that they aren’t the ‘BIG’ names usually associated with ‘Drone’ music. In fact I only know of Random Insults, Ghoul Detail, Rabbit Girls and the Big City Orchestra from this motley crew… which shouldn’t deter you in the slightest. With so many pieces of music there’s no way I’m going to attempt a review of each piece. Instead I’ll just give you my highlights.
In order of appearance: IDX1274 (for the glorious noise), Jason Macri (crackling ambience), Xdugef (experimental electronics gone slightly mad), Random Insults (hell spawned black distortion), Loopool (an adventure in sound waves), Watchmenmk (a throbbing killer), Dolmensniper (loud and proud), Eye (even louder and aggressive), Ghoul Detail (but of course because he never fails to inspire), Nimheil (interesting ideas borne fruitfully), Rabbit Girls (atmospheric with a capital A), Scrawn (lovely and dreamlike), Allerian (an eviler Scrawn), Big City Orchestra (pastoral pleasantness), Ctephin (beats and voices), KRLL (sample strewn madness not unlike Clear Stream Temple) and Are:Pund (out to lunch and gone way West).

Apologies to those few who didn’t make the list. Shit happens. Remember though that those are only my highlights. You can diss me if you so wish. With so much music on offer there’s bound to be something that will appeal to your own tastes. I’ll even end on a bold statement. "Fossil Species - A Drone compilation" is the best thing (apart from the Ghoul Detail releases) that has so far come from the Roilnoise record label. Easily accessible with an abundance of good quality music to indulge in you are literally spoilt for choice. Smooch on over to their website for ordering details pronto.

The last time I reviewed a Ghoul Detail release I chose one of his more drone based releases. This one is more of a mixed bag. The harsh drones are still there and they're still sounding as good as ever. The middle section of the album (separate tracktitles but it's all one long track - at lkeast on my copy) is a series of overlapping and overdriven drones each bigger and more insistent than the one before. Interlaced with this we have a succession of beats, bleeps, throbs, squeals, crashes and pulses. Some parts work better than others, although this may well be down to my ambivalence towards beats, and the end is a bit abrupt but it's another damn fine release from the house of Ghoul.

http://ecr.homestead.com/ecreviewsnew.html

Cannibal Holocaust is one of the greatest family films every made. A riotous laugh a minute feel good movie. Actually that’s crap. Everyone knows, or should know, that Cannibal Holocaust was prime contender for top video nasty of all time. The controversy over the release gaining the film cult status. Yet for all the ho-ha surrounding it there’s not a lot to get upset about. Sure it featured excessive animal cruelty to pad the film out but when you consider what we humans do to each other it pales into insignificance. Having got the full uncut version, with everything restored, I would call it Blair Witch in the jungle…with added nudity and violence. Fitting then that Ghoul Detail aka the Soundscape Gardener should release this tribute to that infamous film.

I got to interview this musician for another zine…not printed yet…and what a nice guy he was / is. Honest and upfront he was a joy to communicate with. A lot of people don’t realise just how prolific an artist he is. At the time of the interview he had 35 releases out and if you visit the Roilnoise website you’ll see a section just dedicated to his work released on that label…most of which haven’t been sent in to AP to review…curse you Roilnoise in the nicest way possible. As a fan of grind house (as he put it) films Ghould Detail felt that Cannibal Holocaust would be an appropriate subject for which to base his music. With eight tracks he re-imagines the film in his own stylish manner by utilising electronic ambience to the fore bringing the darkness that that film required. Although the actual film music is fairly good… in the Italian music style of the period… this new technology employed by Ghoul Detail adds a dimension sadly missing from the original score. This journey into a wilderness where modern man meets primitive in a clash of cultures and ultimately bloody flesh strewn conclusion is brought to the ears in a vivid panorama of sounds that are as dense and foreboding as the jungles the protagonists must journey through. Even if you haven’t been lucky enough to see the film the music gives you some idea of what you missed.

With Ghoul Detail you never know what to expect next. He goes where his muse takes him and he genuinely cares about what he releases. If he likes it then it goes out. Every title differs slightly and this follows that trend. Atmospheric and quite awe inspiring "The Green Inferno" is one of my favourite GD releases. Anyone lucky enough to hear it will bow down to the conclusion that black filmatic ambience has never sounded so good and in more capable hands than that of the Soundscape Gardener.

A weird review..... but a good one.

The psychiatrist sat on his plush leather chair. £4,500 it cost. Money well spent. He looked at his latest patient laying on his equally expensive couch and sighed an inward sigh. He hated new patients. All that bother of writing up case histories. Further hassles doing background checks. He sometimes wondered if it was worth it. Then he thought of the hourly rate he charged these mugs. Made plumbers and electricians seem like security guards by comparison. He smiled to himself. Best get this over and done with. He looked at his clock and hit the timer button on the front. Time is money bastard and the clocks ticking.

‘So Mr Soundscape Gardener’ he started. ‘Just call me Sound’ interrupted his patient. ‘Yes…well so Sound’…this ones a bit of a cheeky cunt he pondered…‘You’re here because everyone thinks you have what we in the trade call Multiple Personality Disorder…or MPD for short. Do you?’ ‘Not as far as I know’ Sound responded. But you would say that wouldn’t you thought the psychiatrist. ‘Well I’ve been studying your past history…or more specifically…your past recordings and to date it definitely appears as though you’re acting as totally different persons at any one time…care to enlighten me on that?’ Sound cleared his throat and looked up at the psychiatrist. ‘I’m a fucking artist. I don’t believe in staying within one accepted musical genre. I change. I divert. I metamorphosis all the fucking time. It’s what I do. I’m the fucking genuine fucking article of a conceptual artist.’ ‘No need to rant. Calm down’ the psychiatrist soothed. Boy was he going to be hard work. I’ll maybe buy a new Bentley out of my fees with this fucker he mused to himself. ‘Ever wanted to fuck your mother?’ the psychiatrist asked. ‘What!! No!!’ spluttered Sound. ‘Just asking…you never know…so anyway how do you explain this “Regale me with tales of my own demise” recording seeing as how it varies so much from previous recordings?’ the psychiatrist queried. ‘But it doesn’t. Sure I’ve added in a bit more drone work. Stuck in my usual black ambience pieces. Thrown in the odd experimental style passages. More of the same really. All done to the highest of standards folk expect from me. I’ve also thrown in some samples. Fiddled about with the electronics and all that. I think I’ve made another corker of a recording actually. So your question is negated by the music in question’ thundered Sound. ‘Hit a raw nerve have we?’ smirked the psychiatrist. ‘For fuck sake man will you fucking listen to what I’m saying. The eleven tracks on my latest release showcase my style. Those who’ve heard my past stuff will go bananas over it. I just get progressively better with each release. I’m learning all the time and putting that experiences into each piece of music. I’d go as far as to say that if anyone hasn’t heard my music before then this would be the ideal place to start. I love my music and I love my fans’ Sound screamed. ‘That’s all well and good but I still think you need treatment’ the psychiatrist grinned. ‘Or should that be ‘all of you’ need treatment’ he laughed.

He hit the button once more. Times up. He’d had enough of this bullshit from the so called musician. He liked music as much as the next man…in fact ELO were his favourite band…but he couldn’t understand why anyone would like anything by the likes of Ghoul Detail. Sign of the times really. Still he had to wrap things up as he was due to tee off at Wentworth in 45 minutes. ‘I’ll make you another appointment for next week then’ he said to Sound. ‘Nah…I don’t think so. You’ll not be hearing from me again’ Sound said as he left the room. Oh I doubt that very much. I’ll be hearing a lot more from you in the future. You mark my words thought the psychiatrist as he grabbed his golf shoes from the floor.

http://www.auralpressure.com/review/g/ghoul_detail_regale_me.html

Ghoul Detail - Strung Out In Skogar
(Roil Noise RNOCDR011)
One of a pile of seedees I traded with Jon Ghoul Detail. This being, for me, the finest of a very good bunch. Huge rolling drones crash against the speakers sending out soft shards of noise to caress your ears. 'Strung Out...', and indeed, lots of Ghoul Detail's output is performing a balancing act on the line between noise and drone. This is some master wire work here though. Effortlessly incorporating the best of both camps into a beautiful seamless whole. If I have one complaint with this album it's with the slightly superfluous voice sample that only serve to break up the flow.

http://ecr.homestead.com/ecreviews.html

Following on from the last self released "Residential Tremors" CDR Mr Ghoul Detail himself, the Soundscape Gardener, has finally found a label willing to distribute his music to a wider audience. Step forward to a round of swift applause…the Roil Noise record label. A label with the acumen to know a good thing when it hears it. Here’s hoping it’s a marriage made in Heaven and not Hell.

I’ve taken a shine to the old Soundscape Gardener. Ok…so it’s unabashed grovelling…like I give a shit. Ever since his first release "I want to have your Aids Baby" I’ve waited for each subsequent release with bated anticipation. Such is my high regard for his music I would even gladly buy his music if it hadn’t been sent in as a freebie for review. That’s a true fan boy speaking. That’s amour as drunken sozzled dead Dino could testify.

"Strung out in Skogar" moves a million miles away from the acid space trip of "Residual Tremors" with the ten tracks taking an experimental / noise / dark ambient approach… sometimes a combination of all three genres within one track… to the music. The sonic sculptures encapsulates an artist at the top of his game. Electronics rumble and roar attacking with intensity or act as a tranquil backdrop to the enveloping textures which are proficiently added. Samples are used sparingly only coming into fore when required to compliment and add robustness to the tracks. Sagacious effects augment the music into unparalleled realms of aural complexity. Thoroughly dark and desolate the artist playfully toys with your emotions by throwing in the odd curve ball here and there to sustain the maximum impact as the cohesive pieces intertwine with each other.

With the backing of Roil Noise records there’s no good reason or excuses now for anyone to miss out on the music of Ghoul Detail. Any artist who can record such flawless and desirable dark music demands to be heard. You know what you must do.

http://www.auralpressure.com/review/g/ghoul_detail_strung_out.html

The first CDR recording by Ghoul Detail that I had the pleasure of reviewing "I want to have your Aids baby" [read here] was a sonically bleak, black power ambient, sample laden ‘hot shit’ release. I doubt that many of you picked up a copy though. Silly, silly you. Reappraising it once more prior to this review I can only re-urge you to visit the website…now up and running…and grab yourself a copy pronto. Whilst there you might as well flash the cash and buy this release at the same time. The reason for this endorsement. Read on MacDuff:

Ghoul Detail…still not 100% sure about the name…have taken the bull by the horns and gone into Space ambient territory with their eight track cdr release "Residual Tremors". Competing against the likes of Lustmord, Arcibo, Clock DVA, Gustaf Hildebrand, Visions, Dark Factory…the list like space itself is endless…he, The Soundscape Gardener, manages to hold his own against such illustrious company. The premise is simple. Take various samples from NASA, the Soviet space program and radio recordings from the outer limits and mix them in with suitably far out cold electronics and effects. The execution is nigh on faultless. Mixing in with the usual slow build up dark sonics are slightly faint power electronics…generally space ambient releases tend to be more serene floaty affairs…they up the ante in their interpretation of space ambient music. Here waves of music throb and hum with static overdoses and swirling passages. Tight shards of noise reverberate whilst distant echoes bo unce and collide in wild abandon. Blip, blip, beep, beep, blip, blip. The samples binding it all together making for a neat take on this ever expanding genre.

"Residual Tremors", like its predecessor, is a recording you’ll actually enjoy returning to and marks a welcome return from this English agent provocateur working with very little funds and no support from the big guns. Producing this quality of work shows that we need Ghoul Detail more than he needs us.

http://www.auralpressure.com/review/g/ghoul_detail_residual.html

Ghoul Detail is The Soundscape Gardener with additional help from Android in Motion and Meisterpiss. Original if nothing else. The cover features a fence adorned with dead foxes or what looks like deceased Basil Brush’s. The title is probably meant to shock or cause controversy, which is fine by be, but today it’s very difficult to actually cause offence as we’re all desensitised to the nth degree. Ho hum. Taking all these details into account you would naturally think or presume that the music of Ghoul Detail would be of the extreme electronic noise variety. You would be very wrong with this assumption. Instead the music dished up on ‘I want to have your Aids baby’ is eleven tracks of sample heavy black ambient electronics. I must confess that I do have a soft spot for samples used in music. Half the fun is trying to figure out from which film or television / radio programme or whatever they have been lifted from. The sample taken then looped from the film ‘Airplane’ on track seven particularly stands out. If Propergol slams a fist in your face with his approach to music then Ghoul Details merely flicks your nose nonchalantly by comparison. This isn’t a bad thing.

By not going for a full on electronic assault to the senses, which would have been very easy to do, the music becomes far more accessible and dare I say it…exceedingly enjoyable. In fact even without the samples the music would have easily stood up proudly amongst the other black ambient releases currently on the market. The samples are just the cherry on top of a delicious cake of a recording that everyone interested in this type of music should get a slice of. Great stuff Mr Kippling. Fuck knows how you’ll find it though.

http://www.auralpressure.com/review/g/ghoul_detail_aids_baby.html

Ghoul Detail
Whoremaster
And the year's best album title goes to our cheery friends Ghoul Detail, providing the soundtrack to life in one of the more subdued circles of hell. This is very evil-sounding music, full of underwater tremors, ghostly echoes and unspeakable sexual demands. The Soundscape Gardener thinks this is "the sound of dirt". Whatever that means. Either way, it's obvious why he's been commissioned to compose the score for an upcoming film about Albert Fish - this is as loud as quiet gets. AG You can't buy this CD from the shops, so go to soundclick.com/bands/6/ghouldetail.htm

not a review as such, but a very positive feature/interview written about Ghoul Detail in the August 2004 issue of the UK's "Bizarre" counter-culture magazine. It appeared on page 93, heading up the music review section and dwarfing the review of John Frusciante's (ex Chilli Peppers) CD The Death To Will which appeared on the same page.

This is a slightly truncated version of the feature...

'Ghoul Detail would like you to "close your eyes and accept the realisation that the world is not the bed of roses and grassy meadows of yesteryear". Can you do that please? Then you might be ready to enter what they call their industrial nightmare.
They think what they do sounds like Victorian steel factories. "We don't compose music, we sculpt sound" says their spokesman, who likes to be known as The Soundscape Gardener, and is happy to risk accusations of pretension when he says things like this, because as far as he's concerned, they're making soundtracks for eyelid movies. "I like music to play images across your mind," he says, "to be atmospheric and give your imagination something to do while the tracks unfold on the CD. Much of it's pretty dark stuff, but then films are a big inspiration, a lot of dark sci-fi and horror movies, twisted stuff, mondo documentaries..."
If you think the word 'dark' is overused these days, rest assured it describes their sound more accurately than you'd expect. They say they take their name from a term given to German soldiers who cleared up after battles and bombing raids during the Second World War. The men on Ghoul Detail had to "scrape out the remains of people from inside bombed-out buildings. Nice work if you can get it... and the only incentive was an extra ration of grain alcohol"
Accordingly, the band make music that sounds like a ghost town in hell. On their website (details below), Soundscape and his colleague Oxide provide helpful descriptions of their songs. So before you download Ground Zero they want you to know it sounds like what happens to your kids minds when they grow up in the shadow of the bomb: "fat bass distortions and atomic winds blowing away what's left of humanity". The song Serenity is (fact) "what it sounds like to sit in an air-cooling duct on an alien spaceship". Don't dispute it. This truly is music from Somewhere Else, somewhere you haven't been before, and you may not until after you're dead.
You can download Ghoul Detail's music for free, as they'd rather you hear it than be deprived until a courageous record company offers them any money. They put some CDs in a shop and attempted to sell them for £4, but the only ones that left the shelf were stolen. Soundscape thinks this is the fate of the band: "We're destined to find an audience as long as nobody has to pay to listen to us. Let them spend the money on the dope that'll get them into the music a bit more"
He can't promise they'll be playing live any time soon either, as he is happiest "sat down making music all night in a small room without much contact with the outside world". But then this is a man whose favourite spot is "anywhere that's grey and blackened by industry". I asked him what he sees when he closes his eyes and listens to their music, and he says he sees "a man dressed in rags dragging a huge rock on a chain through a dark forest" Thanks Ghoul Detail. Have a great day!

Listen to Ghoul Detail at
www.soundclick.com/ghouldetail