The Star of Azazel - Azazelin Tähti

Three albums I'm currently listening a lot:

1. Batushka (=Father): Litourgiya - I kind of instantly fell in love with this. So much that even before listening through the whole album I had already pressed the buy button. The vinyl hasn't arrived yet though so have to still listen through streaming... If Orthodox (church) mysticism and black metal can meet on a conceptual level in your opinion, check this out. Very well produced and symphonic.

2. Myrkur (=Darkness): Mareridt (=Nightmare) - I did like the previous releases. They weren't perfect musically, but somehow I was satisfied enough to hear some distant echoes of my favorite old (black) metal bands, but also to Arvo Pärt's choral music, Dead Can Dance, maybe even The Gathering. And yes, I know "Not TRVE" etc. comments about her, but I guess this is not everyone's cup of tea especially if "scene" things matter a lot or you're purist in your musical taste. I haven't decided if I like or not this new one, but I've been listening to it still.

3. Toivanen: Transitions - Found this on Perttu Häkkinen's short radio series about Finnish electronic music (his other radio show often having esoteric and religious topics is sometimes discussed on the Finnish forum, I guess pretty popular among the Finnish speaking SoA forum users), he selected to play the song Jossakin on maa, which is sort of perverted / subconscious approach to one of the most famous (Finnish) tango / schlager songs Satumaa, which tells about this dreamy like paradise. Listeners can decide whether this place mentioned in the lyrics is otherworldly or not, but definitely Toivanen's version captures many layers, himself being perhaps one of the most succesful tango and popular music producers in Finland. This is his solo project using only analogue synthesizers and definitely there are lot of stuff here he has to leave out of his professional producing work. Link to original song by Unto Mononen for reference

Lately I have really gotten into a Finnish band from the late 80's - early 90's, named "Noitalinna huraa" ("Witch-Castle huraa"). It has a very unique atmosphere of mystic innocence. Although I don't think they're labeled gothic rock, I really feel like they convey an optimistic sort of dark romanticism that makes me think of Eric Draven and Shelly Webster before the tragedy. And that is one of the nicests thoughts I can think of!

Here are some fine examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SjA_ozojDw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8UqgD8qCCs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZSvKhD1Jqc

Hahaa! I too love Noitalinna Huraa!

I am listening to Russian orthodox monks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7vvPXz-Qes

Heith wrote:Hahaa! I too love Noitalinna huraa!

I recently read that the idea for the band came up when one of the members heard Young Marble Giants from the radio. I checked the band out, and I really liked it. It is minimalistic and intimate, with superb melodies. It sort of reminds me of 22 Pistepirkko, which is always a positive thing.

Contortus - Violence in Heat

One roots/Americana artist I have been following for several years is a Nashville, Tennessee based performer by the name of Holly Williams. She has a piece by the name of Waiting On June, which tells the life story of her grandfather through his perspective. While I still love the extreme and abstract musics I've always been accustomed to, as I get older I find myself drawn to this type of story based songwriting.

https://youtu.be/wk79WIgb7ng

I've also been listening to a good deal of baroque-era compositions lately, particularly Handel and Bach.

I've been going to lute music again. For the majority of the time, I can only listen to lute music anymore. Anything else seems, 90% of the time, futile and inferior. Whereas lute music nourishes me. For interested parties, I would recommend Silvius Leopold Weiss, whom I've come to respect as the greatest composer of all times. I adore him.

Other very good ones are John Dowland and Johann Hieronymus Kapsberger.

Great collection of popular devotional songs to Shiva, with lyrics.
I can't get enough of this stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKzHz2H_pjY

I do not normally post on this thread, because my listening habits tend to either remain on something very similar or identical for long periods of time, or change so frequently. Either would make my posting here rather unbearable to read, I think....

But I felt I would contribute now, for there is one album which is moving me no end;

‘Ethe’, by Richard Moult.

https://richardjohnmoult.bandcamp.com/album/ethe

It is a piano album. So simple, yet so intricate a web it weaves. There is a voice - a poetry to it - and to me, it renders so many emotions. But in such a soft whisper. Like a slightly weighted leaf, moving down stream, sometimes being taken by the current, sometimes being overthrown by water, but always emerging somewhere to the solitary eye that watches it.

Charlemagne Palestine; particularly ‘Strumming Music’ and ‘The Apocalypse will Blossom’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bulibjyaQ0s&t=198s

It is interesting, because minimalism to this extent doesn’t normally move me so much, but there is something very transformative about this piece (Strumming Music).
He is playing between two pianos, I think, but monotonously on the same sustained arpeggio. It is in many ways a practice in patience, but if one can last to the point that the first sustained harmonies begin, they have a profound beauty - at least to me they did/do.

I first listened to it with the hope of it helping me sleep. It did at least send me into something of a meditation, where I was able to ‘switch off’ enough, so to speak, that I could just stare into some kind of middle distance. But when the first sustained harmonies began to emerge from the monotony of the arpeggio, it was really quite moving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8DP5sbUVzA&t=1163s

This is similar, but a lot more dense, and I think some electronics might be used.