Great Albums You’ve Never Heard Of… Probably

Great Albums You’ve Never Heard Of… Probably is bringing up some fine releases, which are either from new artists or albums that never caught on the way they should have.

FluiD / John 3:16 – The Pursuit of Salvation

The Pursuit of Salvation is a split record of two very notable electronic musicians, currently surprisingly much under the underground. FluiD is a veteran presence, having released albums since the early 1990s. John 3:16 is a Drone/Industrial/Dark-Wave/Guitar-driven project from Switzerland, active since 2007. FluiD and John 3:16 produce a great split pair, both having similar haunting and enigmatic atmospheres which at times even become soothing. Artwork is also stunning, having only the webrelease I can only imagine how good it would look in my hands as the physical release 12″ Vinyl.

The intro Angels Pt II is particularly impressive – melodic ambient with lots of hooks. A very definition of a catchy intro escalating the atmosphere sky-high. The next two songs develop a more industrial sound but retain the hooks almost as well. Plague could be explained as a bastard-child of melodic dark ambient and industrial, when Forewarning rolls with a massive beat and vague soundclips, which provide more music than voice.

John 3:16 relies mostly on ambient touch similar to Angels pt II. Inside the two tracks there is a lot of variation and surprises. Compared to his earlier release Sinner’s Prayer which I described as “psychedelic gospel ambient” the two songs in The Pursuit of Salvation are even more ambient, melodics being less straighforward. God of Light fills up the continuum by progressing from rich soundscaping ambient to a very FluiD like industrial beat in the end. Toward The Red Sea evokes beautifully corrupted images of a deserted town with wind blowing through and deteriorated objects rattling in the wind to the sound of a distant gloomy church choir.

I can easily imagine both artists progressing to reach more vast audiences if they keep up the quality of their releases this high. The vast industrial and ambient soundscapes are truly thrilling to listen and most of all flow greatly together to form a compact release.

I do not know if Toward The Red Sea is an Isis reference, but having the Isis lyrics in memory I couldn’t help but noting how the last line of Isis’s – Red Sea quite suit the overall atmosphere of The Pursuit of Salvation.

The ocean spreads beneath the skin

Fluid fills blackened lungs

Tar seeps across the eyes

Away in the sea of red

– Isis – Red Sea (1999)




Overall Score: 8+

Alex Tiuniaev – Treedreams

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Surprisingly grand for a wee EP

Ever since I’ve been a kid I’ve been exposed to sequencer, synthesizer and ambient music from the likes of Klaus Schulze, Mike Oldfield, Jean-Michel Jarre etc. Even though they are undoubtedly geniuses, revolutinees of the music field and whatnot, I have never became very close to their music, though I have always kind of liked them. Still, Im sure this exposion has left some mark. Often things you’ve listened as a kid hit you hard later on and I think I finally found my first knack of sequencer-type music on Alex Tiuniaev.

Alex Tiuniaev is an ambient and piano composer from Russia. His EP Treedreams is a small piano driven release consisting of two tracks, both freely downloadable from last.fm. Small does not necessary mean simple, and minimalistic doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a lot of textures. Alex Tiuniaev’s work reminds me subconsciously of Klaus Schulze’s sequencer outputs (which of them, I cannot say). 

Treedreams I consists of a rhythmic melody circling around a rhythmic beat. Treedreams II:n has a similar beat present but it is more piano driven, than sequencer driven.Of these two Treedreams I is the simpler and clearly more memorable having a great catchy melodyline which took a few listens to materialize to its full potential. Treedreams II is a fine closer having more variation and more ambient. However for me Treedreams EP is not complete without a track from Alex Tiuniaev’s newest album Blurred. Another free last.fm download “The Wild Winds Weep” can be cleverly bootlegged to serve as a brilliant intro to Treedreams. The Wild Winds Weep is my latest random find; a full on goosebump effect in the middle of a walk.

While I have only listened Blurred once I can say it does have lots of potential, especially the cinematic “We Were All Fishes Once” caught me unaware on first listen. I cannot fully express why, but somehow Alex Tiuniaev’s music is extremely likable. If Treedreams or any of the synthesizer-artist-household-names-above make any impression to you Treedreams is, and free-to-listen Blurred may very well be, a shimmering find.

Overall score (modified EP): 8-/10

Download Treedreams for free here: Update 2019, unfortunately Treedreams is nearly not available at all, only place where I found it is a straight zip download link here which has some other songs as well: http://archive.org/compress/earman000 . Yeah i know it is suspicious, archive.org checks for viruses though. you can also find the link from here: http://relaxedmachinery.com/earthmantra/unreleases.php.

Shuji Morimoto – Mies Kaukaisuudesta

Melancholic folk pop with sympathetic oddness

A Finnish-Japanese (?) bluesy folk rock coalition who released their first self-titled release as a cassette and free download on their bandcamp-site in the beginning of January. Shuji Morimoto is one of the many projects of Päijänne Suurjärvi, others of note being Päijänteen suopalloilijat and Guggenheim-projektz. All three share the same spirit of absudism yet have a clear own facet.

Mies Kaukaisuudesta is something of a mixture of EP and full-length album, consisting of 6 tracks clocking some 25 minutes. The overall atmosphere is very Finnish, but there is an odd heart of far-away-places and absurdism beating under the surface. The compositions are very airy and vocals mostly clear folk rock-vocals, but at times wander to stranger surfaces.

The vocals avoid the biggest pitfalls successfully even if sometimes they dance on the edge of that wire. Not being that balanced and expecte
d, the vocals and lyrics add a lot freshness and could even say danger to the music. Lyrics are particularly nicely crafted, awaking images of a land far beyond but sometimes they do turn naive. Even if the main image is such a cliche as japan, the lyrics avoid the manganisms and animenisms simply putting in an image of a distant and mystical land.

In this type of music the vocals and lyrics are particularly important but the compositions are surprisingly catchy and thought evoking as well. “Mies kaukaisuudesta” with a superbly catchy chorus and “Nousevan Auringon Maa” both have a lot of groove and swing under a relatively simple surface. After multiple listens it becomes clear that the record indeed has a lot of class under a simple surface. Distorted guitars, synthesizers, clean electric guitars and acoustic guitars take their turns and just when the track asks for it, they provide classy lead-sections bringing the whole matter to the next level.

The next three tracks: “Planeetta Punainen”, “I don’t know anything about Japan” and “Radiation is not good for your health” slow down the tempo and atmosphere from near-ballad to clear ballad. Surprisingly, in the midst the language also changes from Finnish to English and Shuji Morimoto does it effortlessly keeping the atmosphere intact. And how about saving the best melody for last? Gojira’s stylish jam of a steady melodic beat and guitar leads closes up the album.

Is it really a Japanese-Finnish folk rock coalition? Or is it just one man and a made up figure, which even has a facebook page? Here I am suspecting a persons existence but guess what, I do not want to know. Not just yet. This type of mystery is bound to make a project seem somehow more secret and mystic adding its value. In short, I cannot get enough of Shuji Morimoto and Mies Kaukaisuudesta has been spinning regularly on my evening-chilling playlist for multiple months. Extremely recommended.

Download the release for free from their Bandcamp site:

http://shujimorimoto.bandcamp.com/album/mies-kaukaisuudesta

Blueprint Human Being – Heaven Is All

Avant-garde progressive rock with doom metal influences

Being a big fan of obscure rock music, but not having many glimpses to prog bands, let alone avant-garde prog, Blueprint Human Being’s Heaven is all -ep made a huge impression on me some years ago. The band is best known as a sideproject of only a bit better known Finnish doom trio, Garden of Worm, which is exactly the way this quartet came to my attention. 

Heaven is all consists of 5 tracks, one being a noise outro track and one a short instrumental passage. But the three main tracks make this a fine entity. Especially Vojaganto and Hotelli Kognitio: b. Carrots in the Garden of Worm have an incredible groove. The singing in the record ranges from mediocre to weak and plain odd, but luckily the album largely consists of instrumental sections. When you can overcome the singing and concentrate on the obscure guitar lines, melodies and wicked rhythms, this is an almost throughoutly enjoyable release.


After all these years, the record is still available for purchase on a label Paradigms-recordings. So if you are into progressive rock music and can stand some oddities – this could be something for you. At least download and listen to the sample 11 minute track Vojaganto.

Mythological Cold Towers – The Vanished Pantheon

“Epic monumental doom metal”

The Vanished Pantheon was released in 2005 by a Finnish label Firedoom music. Even though it was definitely one of the best releases of 2005, it was perhaps too odd and distant for most Finns to understand. It stands as only the 3rd release of the Brazilian Mythological Cold Towers, found in 1994. Their first two releases were received with quite indifferent reviews. The first, Sphere of Nebaddon got more positive publicity, but for me the second, Remoti Meridiani Hymni is stronger of the two. However neither of the first two albums become even close to the 3rd release.

It seems Mythological Cold Towers really found themselves on The Vanished Pantheon. Massive doom metal accompanied with a feel of mythic remote civilizations, and old cultures getting grinded to the dust.

The gigantic atmosphere sometimes slips to being humorously overdramatic. But if you have a personality that can appreciate extremely dramatic compositions (à la Bal-Sagoth) you should find this a very interesting release. Quite raw and unpolished, yet very natural sounds fit Vanished Pantheon perfectly and give a lot of primeval power to the compositions. The sounds remind me of Keep Of Kalessin’s Kolossus, but unlike KOK, Mythological Cold Towers succeeds in having lots of strength and rage within a natural sound. Mythological Cold Towers already released their 4th album Immemorial in October on the German label Cyclone Empire. I sincerely hope that The Vanished Pantheon wasn’t just a one album miracle.

9/10