A DUAL VIDEO PREMIERE: DENDRITIC ARBOR AND INFINITE WASTE

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Aug 262016
 

Dendritic Arbor-Infinite Waste split

 

Today is the day when a new Ohio label named Gloom Pit will release a split by Dendritic Arbor (about whom we’ve been writing since 2013) and Infinite Waste (who we will be paying close attention to from this moment on). Earlier this week Noisey premiered a full stream of the split — which includes three audio assaults by Dendritic Arbor (one of which is a bonus noise piece) and two by Infinite Waste — and today we have a dual premiere of videos for a song from the split by each band.

Dendritic Arbor recorded their songs with Kurt Ballou at God City Studios (with mastering for maximum impact by Brad Boatright at Audio Siege), while the Infinite Waste tracks were recorded and mastered by Zach Ohren at Castle Ultimate Studios. At the end of this post (after the videos), we’ll include a stream of the entire split, which can be ordered on vinyl, digipack CD, or tape, here:

https://gloompit.bandcamp.com/releases Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (BY AUSTIN WEBER): AN ENDLESS SPORADIC, COMA CLUSTER VOID, DENDRITIC ARBOR, VIRVUM, BRAZEN BULL, MELOPOEIA, COGNIZANCE, CAR BOMB

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 192016
 

An Endless Sporadic art

 

(Austin Weber takes over round-up duty on this Friday, focusing on new music from 8 bands. And no, the new Metallica song isn’t one of them.)

I was going to try to add some items to the next Seen and Heard when Islander told me he would be unable to do one for today. So call it serendipity, call it good timing, whatever it is, here I am with a varied post of new songs and releases to cover today since Islander is trapped in work hell. Let’s get to it!

An Endless Sporadic

While adventurous instrumental prog metal unit An Endless Sporadic may have gotten their biggest visibility boost from being featured in the videogame series Guitar Hero some time ago, the band has never ceased to continue delivering killer music. After a pause in new music for a bit of time, the band is set to release a new album, Magic Machine, on September 16th. Yesterday the band release a new animated music video/new single for “Sky Run”, which heavily features famed Dream Theater-associated keyboardist Jordan Rudess. The amazing visuals that grace the music video are from none other than NCS site favorite Costin Chioreanu, which adds that extra something special to the experience of enjoying “Sky Run”. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: DENDRITIC ARBOR — “SENTIENT VILLAGE / OBSOLESCENT GARDEN”

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Dec 212015
 

Dendritic Arbor-Sentient Village-Obsolescent Garden

 

(Austin Weber presents our full streaming premiere of the new EP by Dendritic Arbor.)

As strong a year as 2015 was for both established and new metal groups, I don’t think anyone had as impressive a year as Pittsburgh-based black metal noisey grinders Dendritic Arbor.

While I’d been tipped off to their existence prior to this year, for most people they came out of nowhere and shot right up to a fairly high amount of name recognition and warranted praise. In today’s crowded climate, that’s especially impressive. Continue reading »

DENDRITIC ARBOR: “ROMANTIC LOVE”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
May 052015
 

 

(Austin Weber reviews the new album by Dendritic Arbor, which is out as of today on Grimoire Records.)

Both black metal and grind share quite a bit of common ground when you think about it; both styles revolve around creating ugly fucked-up music that traditionally lacks any sense of conventional melody, but more importantly, are the two styles of metal most often referred to as “noise” by people who aren’t fans. While black-metal-infused hardcore/grind/etc has become quite a thriving trend these days, up until now I never felt impressed by almost all of it, save for last year’s Plebeian Grandstand record and very few others. However, when I first heard of Dendritic Arbor last year courtesy of their track “Genie” through Islander, I knew these guys were something special, a band who had finally married the two styles in a way that benefits both, and more importantly as creators with their own unique compositional style. Their sarcastically titled new record, Romantic Love, is one of the best albums you’ll hear this year. I goddamn guarantee it.

Romantic Love starts out entrenched in hellfire and contempt for all life with album opener “Murmuration End”, a merciless patchwork of blackened sonic plagues and thundering, complex grind, schizophrenically fighting each other for control of the song’s direction. This is a trait common to many of their tracks — switching from grind-fueled black metal, to black-metal-fueled grind. I’ve yet to hear anyone else do it as well or as memorably as Dendritic Arbor. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: IN LIEU OF ISLANDER… AGAIN (PT. I)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  13 Responses »
Mar 132015
 

 

(Having heard of my job-related inability to assemble round-ups of new music for the last week (and the next one), Austin Weber has graciously stepped up to fill the void… and then I didn’t even have time to post his first installment in a timely manner. The delay is my fault, but even late, it’s still very much worth reading.  There’s a lot of good music in here.)

Our esteemed leader, and general in our revolt against metal mediocrity, Islander, has slipped into the shadows once again. Sometimes when his job flogs him too much he doesn’t have any spare time to flog his ears and spread that beating around to the fine folks who read our daily crazed musings here at NCS. So, once again, I’ve decided to cautiously fill in and ensure that killer new music from across the metal spectrum graces your ears. All death threats, grumblings, or perceptive complaints can be sent to my email: arewebd@yahoo.com. Lots to cover so let’s dive right in.

Vermörd

Vermörd are a Maryland-based blackened death metal band who are new to me, and one Islander had meant to write about before his current work debacle denied him the chance to do so. As such, I figured I’d include them in this post, and also because he told me to check them out under the theory that I might like music. And right he was. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DENDRITIC ARBOR — “GENIE”

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Aug 212014
 


Photo by Greg Neiser

Almost exactly one year ago I reviewed the debut EP (Sylvan Matriarch) by a Pittsburgh band named Dendritic Arbor. Listening to the EP, I had the sensation that the music was causing my own dendritic arbors to grow in rampant fashion — and then burning them to ash. Borrowing chaotically from black metal, hardcore, sludge, industrial, doom, and freakish electronic noise, the music created an overall atmosphere of severe derangement, as if the inmates had been put in charge of the asylum after being injected with gasoline and then set on fire. I found the whole EP (which is available on Bandcamp) fascinating, wildly creative, and extremely destructive.

Dendritic Arbor have now recorded a new song that will be released on a forthcoming compilation to be released by Philadelphia’s  Anthropic Records, and we’re premiering it today in the form of a music video. The song’s name is “Genie”, and it’s based on the tortured life of Susan Wiley (nicknamed “Genie”), whose abuse, neglect, and social isolation at the hands of her father during the first 13 years of her life prevented her from ever learning speech and led her to be considered a “feral child”.

After being rescued from the prison in her home by Los Angeles child welfare authorities in 1970, Genie became the subject of extensive scientific study, while being moved in and out of foster homes and a series of institutions for disabled adults — many of which seem to have been environments just as abusive as the one from which she was “rescued”. (Read more here.) Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: DENDRITIC ARBOR — “SYLVAN MATRIARCH”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Aug 172013
 

The most important cells in your brain are called neurons. They send and receive signals from other cells throughout the body, including other neurons. Dendrites are branching filaments that extend from the body of most neurons, and can be thought of as the pathways by which the neurons receive electrochemical stimulation, via synapses, and then transmit them to the body of the neuron (the soma).

The branching of dendrites extending outward from the neuron’s body is sometimes called “dendritic arborization”. Because they look like fuckin’ trees, as in trees in an arbor. The more you interact with the world around you, the more engaged and interested and stimulated you are by it, the more lush and leafy and dense your dendritic arbors are.

Actually, I really don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m just regurgitating bits of what I read when I tried to figure out what the name of this Pittsburgh band was all about. What I’m pretty sure about, however, is that their debut EP Sylvan Matriarch caused my own dendritic arbors to grow in rampant fashion, and then burned a lot of them to the ground. (Sylvan, by the way, is a word that refers to something associated with forests.) Continue reading »