Locrian

Chicago's duo Locrian crafted (Andre Foisy and Terence Hanuum) ambient-doom metal soundscapes for guitar and noise on Drenched Lands (Small Doses, 2009), with tracks such as the gentle droning rumble of Ghost Repeater morphing into a sort of choral mantra, Barren Temple Obscured By Contaminated Fogs, Epicedium and the apocalpyse of Obsolete Elegy In Cast Concrete. Rain of Ashes (Basses Frequences, 2010) contains two colossal live jams, Rain Of Ashes and Sehsa Fo Niar, that sound like they were inspired by soundtracks of sci-fi horror movies.

Expanded to a trio with Steven Hess on drums, Locrian released the cassette Falling Towers/ After The Torchlight (Black Horzions, 2010), Territories (Small Doses, 2010), lethally marked by special guest Mark Solotroff's power electronics, and the EP The Clearing (Fan Death, 2011), mostly taken up by the 17-minute The Clearing but also containing Chalk Point, a solemn zombie requiem that sprouts from a free-form electronic poem, and the frenzied hell of Augury in an Evaporating Tower.

The highlight of these years was the double-disc The Crystal World (Utech, 2010), a concept album revolving around a 1964 Ballard novel, whose music evokes a wasteland populated by machines. Many pieces are simply extreme inventions, especially the two instrumentals: the minimalist repetition wrapped in grandiose guitar distortion of The Crystal World, and the flamboyant atonality of Pathogens, from subdued industrial drone to abstract soundpainting to jarring looped sub-metal pattern and finally to unnerving drumming. The gothic overtones overflow in Obsidian Facades, that opens with the screams of victims ripped apart alive and ends in a frenzied orgy of distortions. They sneak more discreetly into the folkish atmosphere of Elevations And Depths. The cinematic aspect of Locrian's art peaks with how the lugubrious buzz, sparse dissonance and harrowing screams of Triumph Of Elimination segue in the cosmic emptiness of At Night's End, barely scrached by a periodic Tibetan-like "om" that rises to become a slow, trance-y Indian funeral. The (self-indulgent) 54-minute instrumental piece Extinction occupies the entire bonus disc and covers the whole spectrum from gentle ambient drones to cathartic blasts of noise.

The Clearing & The Final Epoch (Relapse, 2012) expands the material released on the EP The Clearing (Fan Death, 2011).

The mediocre Return To Annihilation (2013) opens with one of their most melodic "songs", Eternal Return. Gretchen Koehler plays the violin in Obsolete Elegies.

Locrian's percussionist Steven Hess and French electronic musician Sylvain Chauveau formed the duo On that released Your Naked Ghost Comes Back At Night (Les Disques Du Soleil, 2004 - Type, 2009), Second Souffle (Brocoli, 2007), produced and remixed by Deathprod, and Something That Has Form And Something That Does Not (Type, 2010), produced and remixed by Christian Fennesz.

Hess also played in Chicago's electro-acoustic trio Haptic with Joseph Clayton Mills and Adam Sonderberg, whose highly technical post-rock bordering on musique concrete is documented on The Medium (Flingco Sound System, 2009), Trebuchet (Entr'acte, 2009) and Scilens (Fss, 2011).

New Dominions (Relapse, 2011) was a collaboration with Horseback, notably the 14-minute Our Epitaph.

Bless Them That Curse You (Profound Lore, 2012) was a collaboration between Locrian and Faith Coloccia's chamber neoclassical ensemble Mamiffer, whose 19-minute Metis/Amaranthine/The Emperor risks being one of Locrian's all-time artistic peaks.

Locrian & Christoph Heemann (Handmade Birds, 2012) was a collaboration with Christoph Heemann of HNAS.

Ural Umbo was the duo of Steven Hess and Reto Mader (RM74) that released: Vral Vmbo (Utech, 2010), Fog Tapes (Hinterzimmer, 2010), Delusion Of Hope (Utech, 2011), II (Merz Tapes, 2012), that contains the two lengthy jams Nichts Muss and Alles Kann.