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: Here's something to excite those of an experimental techno bent: a collaborative set from veteran producer Function and drone/industrial sort Vatican Shadow. Given the qualities' of both producers, it's perhaps unsurprising that Games Have Rules is rather good. Like any good collaboration, it tempers the more outlandish aspects of each producer's work, delivering a set bristling with icy textures, bittersweet ambience, dreamy atmospherics and, perhaps most pleasing of all, sprawling techno (see the brilliant "Bejewelled Body"). Highlights are naturally plentiful, from the crystalline mood of "A Year Has Passed" (reminiscent of Selected Ambient Works era Aphex Twin) to the murky textures and spooky electronics of "The Nemesis Flower".

Review: First released as a very limited 2 x 10-inch vinyl package in 2017, Luxor Necropolitics is widely considered to be one of Domimic Fernow's most accessible albums as Vatican Shadow. It was produced in collaboration with Teflon Tel Aviv member Joshua Eustis and, as this first ever CD edition proves, boasts more relatively straightforward moments than we're used to from the American experimentalist. Of course, his usual influences and sonic traits are still present - an obsession with geopolitics and the Middle East in particular, shards of melancholic melody, dark and dystopian techno grooves - but this time packaged into accessible, often rhythm-driven chunks rather than abstract ambient excursions and sample-heavy sound collages.

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: 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: A new Vatican Shadow release is always greeted with near adoration here at Juno Towers. Dominick Fernow's shadiest guise is still his best work, and this is especially true when his has 2 slabs of vinyl with which to express his ideas. As you can imagine, Luxor Necropolitics is a lingering, tenebrous cloud of industrial electronics and contained power noise. The moments that do transform into techno are still made up of the same rough materials that characterise all Vatican Shadow track, and that is a pale, unforgiving glow of sounds that never seem to get repetitive. Class.

Review: Dominick Fernow doesn't do things by halves. When he unleashed his sixth solo album under the Vatican Shadow pseudonym, Death Is Unity With God, it came on no less than six cassettes. Oh, and only a hundred of these six-tape packs were manufactured. Naturally, an online scramble for copies ensued. Happily, Modern Love has decided to reissue it, stretching the 20 tracks across three CDs. For those in love with his typically dark, murky and intense take on electronic music - think droning textures, foreboding electronics, glitch-influenced rhythms and bombastic post-dancefloor workouts - it should be essential listening. Given the sheer scale of Fernow's ambition, it's undoubtedly his most remarkable work.

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: 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: Thus far, Vatican Shadow (AKA techno misfit Dominick Fenrow) has built a reputation as a politically charged maverick, delivering a slew of limited edition 12" singles and cassettes that flit between collage-based oddities, clandestine compositions and intense techno workouts. Remember Your Black Day is being billed as "his first proper album", and sees him shift focus towards a more listener-friendly sound. Of course, he's lost none of his anger and rage - check the breathless intensity of the title track, for starters - but there are more world-weary melodies and subtle musical touches amongst the bleak atmospherics (see standout "Tonight Saddam Walks Amidst Ruins"). Hardcore fans may see it as a compromise, but that would be harsh; in truth, it's arguably his best work to date.

Review: Although we've already seen two exceptional Vatican Shadow releases this year in the form of his Type and Blackest Ever Black EPs, they were taken from earlier cassette only releases, while this first record on his evocatively titled Bed Of Nails imprint represents what is clearly the next phase of his career. The influence of techno which was somewhat foggier in his previous records is brought to the fore. The title track, which comes in two halves, sees incisive kicks playing off against gravelly claps, with the kind of broken rhythms more characteristic of industrial UK sounds. It's something repeated on the rapid fire of "Cairo Is A Haunted City", but despite this, his music is still filled with the kind of spectral melodic explorations which unhook his more earthly beats from the physical realm into something altogether more nightmarish. The output of the Downwards imprint is obviously a reference point, but the beatless kosmische of "One Day He Heard The Call" which closes proceedings shows that there is more to his influences than a fondness for 90s Birmingham based techno.

Review: A gnarly double header up next on Dominick Fernow's notorious Hospital Productions, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary. He dons the reverb Vatican Shadow moniker for his take on "Bunkerterror" a blistering example of 'war techno' if we've ever heard it. This steely and pitch black epic reachers near tribal moments with spitfire military rhythm arrangements. On the flip, Ancient Methods provides his take on the track and other than the occasional metal strikes, his version is less industrial and more hypnotic style techno with its grumbling monosynth bass and heads down/strobe-lit feel throughout. These two cuts were said to be inspired by their occasional back-to-back live and-DJ sets, with Fernow providing the "New York" side (naturally) and Michael Wollenhaupt (Ancient Methods) obviously turning in the "Berlin" side. Dangerous gear right here, handle with extreme caution!