Sundaze 1632

Hello, a great Olympic Roadrace today 2 of the 3 leaders crashed on the final descent (Nibali taken out by Henao) all clear then for Majka with a 23 sec lead but he succumbed to Fuglsang and Van Avermaet who's teamwork got them the silver and the gold. A couple of world records in the pool already..



About today's artists, they shared the same label 'Extreme', an experimental recording project of Australian musician Darrin Verhagen, that could be described as dark ambient or gothic industrial. They began in 1992 as a trio, consisting of Verhagen, Charles Tétaz and François Tétaz. Eventually, Verhagen became the mainstay. their first LP, Bloody Tourist, was released on the Extreme label. Subsequent LPs were released on Verhagen's own Dorobo label. Verhagen's side-project, Shinjuku Filth, released music in the industrial music genre ........N'Joy

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Shinjuku Thief was the alias of experimental electronic artist Darrin Verhagen, also the Melbourne, Australia-based founder of the Dorobo record label. Taking his name from the Nagisa Oshima film Shinjuku Dorobo Nikki ("Diary of a Shinjuku Thief"), Verhagen additionally incorporated cinematic influences into his music by conceiving his work as soundtracks to non-existent films; his debut, 1992's Bloody Tourist, drew equally on ambient and industrial traditions, although in the future his more industrial projects were recorded under the name Shinjuku Filth. (New Age-inspired works, accordingly, were attributed to Shinjuku Fluff.) The second Shinjuku Thief LP, 1992's The Scribbler, was a minimalist piece commisioned as a soundtrack for a stage performance based on Kafka's The Trial, while 1993's The Witch Hammer was the first in a series of darkly orchestral records inspired by the supernatural, complete with a nod to the German expressionist films of the 1920s. Branching out from the Shinjuku name, Verhagen adopted another alias, that of Professor Richmann, to record 1994's Succulent Blue Sway, a techno-inspired release composed for the Canberra-based Vis a Vis dance company. Junk, a Shinjuku Filth collaboration with Black Lung's David Thrussel, followed in 1996. Two years later, Verhagen followed with Raised by Wolves on Iridium.

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The Shinjuku Thief debut, produced by Paul Schütze and featuring additional work by Charles and Francois Tétaz, is another notable landmark in the development of invisible-soundtrack urban ambience, heavy on the bongos, fretless bass, environmental samples, and late-night saxophone as well as Oriental instruments, including shakuhachi and Balinese vocals. The opener "Komachi Ruins" begins with Japanese chanting and some ghostly chimes worthy of the track title, but later explodes into an electric guitar workout with synthesizers eerily reminiscent of the Miami Vice theme. While several tracks use martial arts vocal samples, for the most part the album retains acoustic and organic vibes -- a fact which makes the occasional digital intrusion much more pivotal than it would otherwise (like the shift from distorted beats to symphonic percussion on "Burden of Dreams").

Shinjuku Thief - Bloody Tourist  (flac  231mb)

01 Komachi Ruins 4:15
02 Feather Woman Of The Jungle 5:15
03 Burden Of Dreams 3:27
04 The Sacrifice 6:10
05 Preacher's Ghost 4:29
06 Hallucinations 3:18
07 Open Wound 9:51
08 Nkoma 4:02
09 The Year Of Silence 3:43
10 Graven Image (Remix) 4:51
11 Ba-Benzele II 4:32

Shinjuku Thief - Bloody Tourist   (ogg  110mb)

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In 1992, experimental music project Shinjuku Thief released The Scribbler, a piece commissioned for an Australian arts festival. The album was a "soundtrack" to Franz Kafka's book The Trial, and was performed with accompanying visuals. After a limited initial pressing, Cold Spring reissued and remastered the record in 2007. The reissue reworked/augmented some passages, and included a video of the original visuals. The new package is a revelation; that such mastery lay ignored for so long is criminal, so to speak. By and large, the ingredients are orchestral, though they could be electronically sourced. Industrial touches pepper the album and give it depth. At the outset, strings sketch out minor key themes that return throughout in various shapes; doomy church organ adds menace. Although this album is a soundtrack, it works marvelously by itself. Like the book, it grows progressively more labyrinthine. Textures vary from the barroom piano of "Lanz" to the symphonic density of "Advocate." "Titorelli" has unnervingly anxious, sawing strings. The material is tonal, geometric, and repetitive à la Steve Reich. Yet the soundscape continually shifts, perhaps echoing Josef K's search for a reason behind his tribulations and ultimately his existence. In fact, given the posthumous assembly of the book and its unfinished original state, this album is probably more coherent. It lets in more light than its inspiration, but that only makes its darkness darker.

Shinjuku Thief - The Scribbler  (flac  206mb)

01 The Assessor 3:37
02 Stepping From Routine 4:26
03 Blue Octavo Notebooks 1:49
04 Threats And Violence 2:56
05 Proceedings 4:05
06 Lips Of The Guilty 3:21
07 A Promise And A Lecture 5:04
08 An Awful Autumn 3:10
09 Degrees Of Acquittal 5:01
10 The Fabric Of Guilt 2:03
11 The Invisible Architect 3:59
12 Paynes Grey 2:34
13 The Parable 5:02
14 Vogelfrei I & II 6:42

Shinjuku Thief - The Scribbler    (ogg  103mb)

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A classic gothic industrial album paying homage to both German expressionist film of the 1920's and supernatural horror from the 1500's. Dark orchestral timbres set into rich soundscapes, interspersed with outbursts of violence and power. According to Darrin Verhagen, the man behind Shinjuku Thief, The Malleus Malleficarum, a 15th century treatise on how to identify and deal with witches, provided a central thread to what became a trilogy.

Stating that the territory of the subject matter is so rich, a loose framework ("witchcraft and the supernatural") was all that was needed for the audience's imaginations to do their work. His interest was more in the historical/political than the supernatural. The framework was provided by the text but, according to him, the initial impetus for writing "The Witch Hammer" came from a musical interest in employing a hip-hop approach to construction, whilst using a classical sound palette.

There you have it. Verhagen is classically trained (and teaches at university in Australia) and highly educated. This is "dark" music from the point of view of an art school aesthetic not your "goth" sound made by someone trying to make creepy music to express their hatred of society. Your reaction to it will most likely be determined by how many and what types of horror films you've seen. Along with the other two albums in the trilogy this comes highly recommended.

Shinjuku Thief - The Witch Hammer  (flac  222mb)

01 tollkorn.(4:53)
02 waltz of the midwives.(2:42)
03 the witch hammer.(1:55)
04 smell of nightfall.(3:26)
05 a midnight mass.(4:05)
06 wolfzahn.(4:52)
07 poena damni.(6:40)
08 trespassing the gates.(3:56)
09 the darkened psalm.(3:03)
10 totenheer.(5:00)
11 burkhardt of worms.(2:17)
12 flight of the screech owls.(3:52)
13 warm as blood beneath the clods.(5:10)
14 in the path of walpurga's ashes.(5:46)

Shinjuku Thief - The Witch Hammer    (ogg 108mb)

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For the second release in the "witch" trilogy, shinjuku thief descend further into the nightmare world of medieval superstition, paranoia and vengeance. East european violin, reflective passages of brooding ambience and occasional moments of hope are undercut by sheer orchestral violence and a chillingly bleak filmic landscape.

"Overwhelming...gorgeous. If only most classical music could mean as much as this. A work of discipline and assurance and no little beauty, given an added dimension by its mysterious subtexts of found sounds and radio interference. Indispensable. Enchanting, bewitching, darkness unveiled, like it's predecessor, a marvelously evocative album."

Shinjuku Thief - The Witch Hunter  (flac 220mb)

01 prelude-in the wake of walpurga's ashes.(5:12)
02 a black furrow.(4:25)
03 cobwebs and vinegar.(3:01)
04 shadow path.(3:54)
05 a swim at night.(4:23)
06 the second dream.(5:08)
07 blue flame.(3:54)
08 smoke and ice.(4:04)
09 marias' shirt.(2:04)
10 berserkir.(4:54)
11 the witch hunter.(5:44)
12 four ember weeks of ecstatic sleep.(6:21)

Shinjuku Thief - The Witch Hunter (ogg  107mb)

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The long awaited close of the highly acclaimed trilogy. Dark postclassical compositions, alternating between poignantly lyrical and furiously dramatic, set amongst disturbed supernatural soundscapes, and an unsettling cinematic sound design.

'The Witch Haven' is the final piece in Shinjuku Thief's 'Witch' trilogy, and like the other releases in the series, it submerges the listener into a world choking on religious zeal and ancient superstition. Ghouls and lynch mobs roam this countryside at night, lurching over plague corpses and pagan altars. The music is darkly orchestral, shifting from hauntingly romantic and expressive to violent and hideously absurd. Shinjuku Thief (Darrin Verhagen) builds on this uneasy balance with rich textures from acoustic instruments, such as the clarinet, viola and trumpet, setting a palpable evil to lurk in the tracks. On 'Waking at dusk' the wails and whines from trumpet and strings are like cries emanating from an unkempt cemetery, with piano notes falling like raindrops on the tombstones.

Shinjuku Thief - The Witch Haven  (flac 231mb)

01 waking at dusk.(3:24)
02 edge of the wilderness/black cockerel white stick.(6:26)
03 the witches' ladder.(3:14)
04 the gestation of elben.(2:41)
05 a red room/a slow dance.(4:41)
06 five dark corners.(1:45)
07 father of lies.(2:00)
08 the spores of death.(2:54)
09 the white lady.(3:37)
10 procession of souls.(3:24)
11 sign of the black eagle.(2:07)
12 an event on the commons at dusk.(4:10)
13 a tavern of midwives.(1:13)
14 the night child.(1:55)
15 es ist ein ros' entsprungen.(3:00)
16 blood and fat.(1:50)

Shinjuku Thief - The Witch Haven (ogg  94mb)

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