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Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

Exile On Mainstream

Music News

Exile On Mainstream Records Launches New US-Based Webshop Via A Thousand Arms

Long-running Berlin, German-based exploratory record label EXILE ON MAINSTREAM announces a new US-based webshop through A Thousand Arms, which is now open to the public. EXILE ON MAINSTREAM was launched by Andreas Kohl in 1999, and has since released over 115 titles, including LPs from Payola, Scissorfight, Good Witch Of The South, Shepherd, The Hidden Hand, Ostinato, End Of Level Boss, Place Of Skulls, Beehoover, A Whisper In The noise, The Antikaroshi, Enablers, Conny Ochs, Wino, Black Shape Of Nexus, Darsombra, Obelyskkh, Stinking Lizaveta, Kristian Harting, Friedemann, Bulbul, Treedeon, Noisepicker, Bellrope, Dälek, Gore, Might, The Moth, Sons Of Alpha Centauri, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Karla Kvlt – Thunderhunter

This German power trio keeps it in the family on their debut record. Markus E. Lipka of the cult band EISENVATER is the Dad of group, holding down guitar duties, while his son Johann Wientjes pounds away on the skins and daughter-in-law Teresa Curtens handles bass and lead vocals. That must certainly make for some unique dynamics in the studio. KARLA KVLT’s sound is also unique and takes some time to appreciate. I really know little of EISENVATER so I can’t say how much KK sounds like that band. If I had to describe KARLA KVLT briefly, I’d say it’s […]

Music News

KARLA KVLT: New German Sludge/Post-Rock Trio Formed By Members Of Eisenvater And Melting Palms To Release Debut LP, Thunderhunter, Through Exile On Mainstream February 21st

Exile On Mainstream is thrilled to welcome back Markus E. Lipka, the driving force behind Eisenvater with his new band, KARLA KVLT. Together with his son Johann Wientjes on drums and his daughter-in-law, Teresa Matilda Curtens, on bass and vocals – both also in Melting Palms – the trio delivers a raw and monolithic album that is unique in style and approach. The alternative music scene in the 1990s vibrantly questioned traditional listening approaches and came up with some of the most interesting concepts in that sense. While it was bands like Melvins, Unsane, Swans, and Cop Shoot Cop on […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: The Antikaroshi – L’inertie Polaire

“Those” labels are few and far between; the ones where – even if you don’t vibe completely with everything about a band or album – you can, at the very least, respect the artistic endeavor, the honesty of the work itself. Germany’s Exile On Mainstream has long been one of those, which makes me even more reluctant to admit that L’nertie Polaire will be my introduction into THE ANTIKAROSHI, six albums into its discography. Truth, though. That’s what ya get here. Inspired by/interlaced with concepts described in the Paul Virilio tome sharing this title, L’inertie Polaire opens, moving forward with […]

Music News

CONNY OCHS: Singer/Songwriter To Release German-Sung Wahn Und Sinn LP Through Exile On Mainstream In October; Artwork, Track Listing, And Preorders Posted

Four-and-a-half years have passed since CONNY OCHS’ most recent album, Doom Folk. While new music from the man was rare in the record store, he was quite active on stage. In addition to some solo tours and very intensive concerts including the online Roadburn Festival 2020 and two touching performances in the Dolomites in 2021 and 2022, which fans could follow via livestream, the artist, who works and lives in Germany and Italy, surprised us especially with the band Trialogos, whose 2021 debut album Stroh Zu Gold presented a completely new side of CONNY OCHS. Working with multi-instrumentalists Kiki Bohemia […]

Music News

THE MOTH: German Doom/Sludge Metal Trio Signs To Exile On Mainstream; LP Due This Fall

Exile On Mainstream welcomes fellow Germans THE MOTH and their groove-heavy brew of doom/sludge metal to the label for their impending LP. Label owner Andreas Kohl states, “Just as a good friend recently put it: ‘This band, with this lineup and this sound – it was just a question of time until they land at your shores. They just belong to Exile On Mainstream.” The friend, Germany’s renowned Metal radio icon Jakob Kranz, envisioned what we kinda felt but didn’t know. So did we finally achieve becoming a label that defines through a certain sound? Have we become so predictable? […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Treedeon – New World Hoarder

TREEDEON returns with its all-important third album, the intriguingly titled New World Hoarder. After a five-year absence. Well, I suppose “absence” really isn’t the right word, and with such a bleakly foreboding album as Under the Machineel to follow, the time it took was the time it took, and at least some of those days were dedicated to making thoughtful steps forward. And our first step into the result, ‘Nutcréme Superspreader’, begins with the sound of ocean birds, the tide against the shore, quickly enough joined by fuzzed out, fluid bass/guitar patterns, mangled then cauterized vocal chords over the top, […]

Music News

TREEDEON: Berlin-Based Sludge Metal/Noise Rock Trio To Release Third LP, New World Hoarder, Through Exile On Mainstream Records In March

Five years in the making, Berlin, Germany-based sludge/noise stalwarts TREEDEON are preparing to release their third album, New World Hoarder, through their allies at Exile On Mainstream, who today issue the record’s cover art, track listing, preorders, and a brief teaser. New World Hoarder delivers six new tracks pushing the boundaries of heaviness and urgency. While its predecessor Under The Manchineel was a bristly beast of dark and thunderous swill pounding monstrous riffs and bleak lyrics mostly into the area underneath your chest, the new effort cuts higher, right at the heart and brain, although no less heavy. The five […]

Interviews

Interview: Confusion Master (2022)

The members of Rostock, Germany’s doomed-out sludge merchants CONFUSION MASTER continue to spread their tentacled, sucking madness with new album Haunted, available via Exile On Mainstream. HAUNTED BY THE HUNTERInterview with Stephan Kurth [Vocals/Guitars]Interview By: Lord Randall Rebel Extravaganza: Germany is really turning into a key point for doom in the past few years, Ahab, Emerit, you guys. Is there much of a metal/extreme music scene around where you are based? Stephan Kurth: We are Baltic Sea, coastal based. Rostock, Hamburg, Kiel and Copenhagen got quite substantial scenes and amounts of growing bands of all kinds of Metal. I‘d mention […]

Music News

FRIEDEMANN: German Folk/Rock Storyteller To Release In Der Gegenwart Der Vergangenheit LP Via Exile On Mainstream In April; ‘Le Coiffeur’ Video Playing + Preorders Posted

Germany’s long-running label Exile On Mainstream presents In Der Gegenwart Der Vergangenheit, the new LP by their fellow countryman FRIEDEMANN. This iconic storyteller’s fourth record has been released track-by-track sequentially over the past twelve months and will now be officially issued with a proper release in April. A lighthearted video for a new song, ‘Le Coiffeur’, has been released. With three studio albums and two live albums under his belt, FRIEDEMANN remains one of the most truly independent figures in the German music underground. Just recently called, “the German Ian MacKaye,” by none other than Scott “Wino” Weinrich because of […]