VATICAN SHADOW レコード& CD

Review: Hospital Productions is a non-stop operation and following this year's long-players from Alessandro Cortini, Ninos Du Brasil and Ron Morelli, Vatican Shadow's latest swoop is this ambient album produced with Function. The seven-track LP was recorded between Berlin and New York, and it's described as best suited for after-hours home listening, but whether you really want to listen to this after a big night is up to you. Indeed "A Year Has Passed" and "A Year Has Gone By" are downbeat and melancholic, whereas other tracks lean more towards industrial ambient, similar to fellow Hospital artist Lussuria's work. "The Nemesis Flower" is a darker highlight while "Red Opium" and "Bejewelled Body" is where the house and techno beats lie.

Review: Luxor Necropolitics is a 2017 album by Vatican Shadow, the alias used to explore ambient industrial and techno by Dominick Fernow. It is a superb exploration of minimal rhythms and eerie sound design that is evocative in mood and rich in texture. There are yawning and dubby slow-motion soundscapes and more driving deep techno cuts there are wide-open and expansive. This new long-player version comes on vinyl with a download code and insert having previously only been available on 10". It is as darkly alluring and intriguing now as it was five years ago.

Review: Controversial but nonetheless technically accomplished producer Vatican Shadow is divisive for more reasons than his now-well-discussed choice of collaborative partners. There's always something pretty menacing and unsettling about his output, steeped in uneasy atmospheres, taking us into the twisted side of leftfield electronic music, then sticking titles like Ghosts of Chechnya on his albums.
Nevertheless, there's light in all that pitch black, aurally at least. Listening to tracks like 'Peace Rage', and, despite the name, it's impossible not to pick up on the surprisingly hopeful harmonies, set within an IDM framework. Elsewhere, dubby techno is flirted with (if that's an appropriate word for these sounds) on 'Encryption Nets', while 'Snipers As A Breed Tend To Be Suspicious' accentuates tense atmosphere in a way that most studio pros can only hope for.

Review:  Dominick Fernow's Vatican Shadow project returns with something like his 16th single release. The dark ambient and industrial master shows his skills again here with 'Jordanian Descent (Sharia Law)' kicking off. It its a 20+minute opus that takes up one whole side of vinyl and has shuffling, ever evolving mechanical rhythms and droning sounds, automated machines and dust and grime all making for an intriguing listen. On the flipside the same tune comes as a Guantanamo Military Commisions version and it is more intense but also more stripped back. It's darkly alluring and wholly brilliant.

Review: It's up to you how overtly political the latest Vatican Shadow album reads, but there's more than a running theme here - tracks with titles like 'Moving Secret Money' and 'Predawn Coup D'Etat' are enough to give it away, respectively among the most sublime and unnerving moments here. The whole thing feels like a warning of mankind's misdeeds, sent from the farthest reaches of almost-techno.

'Taxi Journey Through The Teeming Slums of Tehran' might be the most industrial thing you'll hear this year, using the noise of steel, pressure, hammers and bolts to carve out a commanding percussive section that will not take no for an answer. 'Rehearsing For The Attack' growls and grows around a dark, dubby groove, while closer 'Ayatollah Ferocity' sounds like that uprising from within has suddenly kicked off. Intense, heavily textured masterclasses in atmospheric, edgy electronic music.

Review: It's up to you how overtly political the latest Vatican Shadow album reads, but there's more than a running theme here - tracks with titles like 'Moving Secret Money' and 'Predawn Coup D'Etat' are enough to give it away, respectively among the most sublime and unnerving moments here. The whole thing feels like a warning of mankind's misdeeds, sent from the farthest reaches of almost-techno.

'Taxi Journey Through The Teeming Slums of Tehran' might be the most industrial thing you'll hear this year, using the noise of steel, pressure, hammers and bolts to carve out a commanding percussive section that will not take no for an answer. 'Rehearsing For The Attack' growls and grows around a dark, dubby groove, while closer 'Ayatollah Ferocity' sounds like that uprising from within has suddenly kicked off. Intense, heavily textured masterclasses in atmospheric, edgy electronic music.

Review: Hot on the heels of "Church Of All Hallows Eve", Dominick Fernow returns to his Vatican Shadow alias for another stern rumination on geo-politics and Western interference to a soundtrack of dark ambient and industrial intensity. Fans of the project will find much to latch onto on "Kneel Before Religious Icons", as the continuous wrestle between harmonious melodies and noise takes place over hissing percussion concerned with texture and tension far more than dancefloor impact. This is message-heavy music that bows to no one, just how we like Fernow's flagship project.

Review: Dominick Fernow has always been open to reissuing some of his harder-to-find, limited edition releases, so it's little surprise that he's bowed to pressure from fans and finally offered up a vinyl edition of his previously cassette-only 2011 release "Washington Buries Al Qaeda Leader At Sea". Like much of his politically charged work in that period, the album's eight, mostly lengthy tracks tiptoe the fine line between anger and melancholy, wrapping bittersweet chords and resigned melodic motifs around a variety of bustling drum machine rhythms, ricocheting percussion hits and throbbing analogue basslines. It's all very strong, though we're particularly enjoying Regis collaboration "See You Again Always" and the dubbed-out, pitched down ambient warmth of "He Ambled Down The Dirt Road For Visits To A Market".

Review: When Dominick Fernow first donned the Vatican Shadow alias for the politically charged "Pakistan Military Academy" album back in 2011, he had no intention of releasing the set on vinyl. Instead, it was offered up as a limited double "C20" cassette offering. Eight years on, he's finally decided to release it on wax. It remains one of Fernow's most poignant and picturesque sets under the now infamous alias, with three of the tracks delivering neo-classical style movements (played on synthesizers, rather than by a string quartet) and evocative, ear-catching ambient chords. Fernow smartly moves through the gears as the set progresses, ending with a blast of gnarled, rhythmic noise and more tear-jerking electronics. A must-have.

Review: New York's Dominick Fernow has released no fewer than eight albums of experimental techno and industrial ambience in his Vatican Shadow guise since 2011, all but one of them on his own Hospital Productions label, and now here comes number nine. As ever with Fernow's output, if you're looking for instant podium singalongs or catchy earworm riffs you'll be humming all day, forget about it: this is uneasy listening for the beat-inclined, as industrial FX and fragmented synth melodies merge with stuttering, off-kilter rhythms while track titles like 'Deny Military Involvement' and 'Asymmetric Warfare Studies Group Double Game' hint at the paranoid, dystopic overall feel.

Review: Dominick Fernow presents another dark and confronting opus entitled Media In The Service Of Terror. Read between the lines of the titles then listen and learn via these harsh textural abrasions on offer. The sombre and brutalist opener "Ziad Jarrah Studied Mathematics" sets the scene well, the tunnelling slo-mo techno of "Take Vows" is great and follows the same path as Vactrol Park or L'estasi Dell'oro have in recent times. "Interrogation Mosaic" shows Fernow still has the knack for some chilling imaginary soundtracks while "More Of The Same (Tunisia)" has the classic outsider techno sound that Fernow has honed on previous efforts like Remember Your Black Day or Ghosts Of Chechnya.

Review: Oh yes, it was about time Dominick Fernow aka Vatican Shadow crawled back into our lives with a new LP, and we honestly have been in need of his distinctly negative outlook on life and all of its particulars! This double LP album arrives through the ever-impressive Modern Love and features a handpicked selection of tracks from the Death Is Unity With God cassette box set Fernow issued on his own Hospital Productions label last year. If you are not one of the Fernow completists who plumped for that set, you will appreciate the opportunity to delve into the 12 tracks featured here which are a balanced blend of broken, ice-cold techno and finely calibrated drone pieces backed by subtle percussive patterns. There's also plenty of his more raucous beat thrashing and even a few moments of nostalgia. This comes recommended, as per. Another winner from both artist and label.

Review: The prodigious Dominick Fernow is a one-man production line for paranoid, scratchy, intense industrial techno, drone and dark ambience. He released three albums in 2012, and this is a swiftly issued collection of alternate versions and outtakes from his most recent outing, the Iraq War-inspired Remember Your Back Day. While "Not The Son of Desert Storm By The Child of Chechnya" and "Remember Your Back Day (Bouthayna Traditions)" are particularly bleak and uncompromising, there's some evocative warmth and plenty of tear-jerking melodies to be found on "Al Qaeda", while "Atta's Apartment Slated for Demolition (Bouthayna Engineering)" is a shuffling, atmospheric delight.

Review: Although Dominick Fernow has already released a vast amount of material under the Vatican Shadow moniker, and some of which - including It Stands To Conceal and Ormamented Walls - have appeared in LP format, Remember Your Black Day is supposedly the project's debut proper, with the other LPs being made up of cassette releases and other material. Described by the label as "the most direct and propulsive Vatican Shadow material yet," and was produced with the assistance of Silent Servant producer Juan Mendez. Although much of the Vatican Shadow material to date has been frenetic and noisy, there's a sense of calm present in this LP which marks it out, with the slow moving "Enter Paradise" and reflective '80s synth textures of "Tonight Saddam Walks Amidst Ruins" offering some refective sombre moments. Despite that there are still some driving tracks as well, with "Not The Son Of Desert Storm, But The Child Of Chechnya" offering a particularly ferocious moment of clattering industrial textures. Highly recommended.

Review: Hot on the heels of "Church Of All Hallows Eve", Dominick Fernow returns to his Vatican Shadow alias for another stern rumination on geo-politics and Western interference to a soundtrack of dark ambient and industrial intensity. Fans of the project will find much to latch onto on "Kneel Before Religious Icons", as the continuous wrestle between harmonious melodies and noise takes place over hissing percussion concerned with texture and tension far more than dancefloor impact. This is message-heavy music that bows to no one, just how we like Fernow's flagship project.

Review: Back in 2012, Dominic Fernow offered up a highly limited edition cassette containing rehearsal recordings of a themed show in Los Angeles entitled "Kuwaiti Airforce". He's now decided to make these available on vinyl, alongside a slew of other rare tracks recorded in the same period. Like Fernow's later Vatican Shadow work, it's highly political and offers a lo-fi and noise-soaked trip through dark ambient and hypnotic, atmospheric mutations of techno. Arguably the most arresting tracks are the collaborative ones: the hushed, sample-heavy creepiness of Demdike Stare hook-up "Cohors Helvetica", and the deep, minimalist techno hypnotism of "SNA" by Los Angeles Death Cult, a one-off studio face off with Juan Mendez AKA Silent Servant.