siLLy puPPy Sandwiched between their albums “Finsternis” and “Occult Rock,” the French experimental rock act ALUK TODOLO released a few nonconventional items. Firstly they were included on the split album “On The Powers Of The Sphinx” with Nihil Nocturne, Nightbringer and Saturnialia Temple. Then there was the collaborative effort with Der Blutharsch and the Infinite Church of the Leading Hand. And then there was this tiny two track EP titled ORDRE which was essentially some unreleased material from the “Descension” era and was excavated from the caverns of creativity to be resurrected onto they vinyl 10.” The two tracks are simple called “Side A” and “Side B.”

“Side A” sounds very much like the “Descension” album where their mesmerizing and transcendental opiate grooves combined with spooky atmospheres create nightmarish visions of cold ethereal visions of lost worlds. This track is characterized by a repetitive marching of the cymbal heavy drumbeat that works in tandem with the bass line as the guitar performs horrific distorted and mangled dissonant antics around them. As it continues the percussion becomes somewhat sloppier and erratic as some kind of buzzing sound swarms in and out while swirling ambience effervescently haunts the soundscape. Towards the end the percussion picks up speed and becomes quite solid as the no wave ostinati pummel the senses.

“Side B” continues imperceptibly with the chaos continuing in full force and continues to ratchet up the nightmarish tension with the instruments falling increasingly out of sync with one another generating true occult mystic psychological assaults as the pummeling percussive drive seems to be at war with the atmospheric swarms of sounds. ALUK TODOLO really blur the genre lines here as it sounds like a form of black metal no wave with Krautrock type psychedelia. While the earliest albums weren’t very metal oriented yet, this release is actually the first one that has enough drive and distortion of the guitars to be classified as part of the metal universe.

Despite being some leftovers they seem to have gotten the royal treatment and elements of blackgaze were unleashed to steer ALUK TODOLO towards the more metal oriented “Occult Rock” sound. While they’ve always been on the verge of being somewhat metal, the intensity fell just short enough to actually feel like they would fit in. On ORDRE that thin grey line was crossed and there is lots of energetic noisy distortionfests at hand although the song structures are nonexisistant and simply relies on free form meandering down a torturous sonic path into oblivion. Pretty cool stuff if you like dark ambient distorted no wave with Krautrock and traces of black metal chaos.

siLLy puPPy The debut release by ALUK TODOLO came out a year before the first full-length album in the form of this eponymous EP that contains only two tracks simply named “Side A” and “Side B.” This one was only released on 7” vinyl and debuts this French experimental band’s fascination with incorporating magical theories with traditional rock instrumentation to create new forms of consciousness and meditative states. Although they don’t incorporate black metal into the mix quite yet, they are often associated with black metal because of members involvement in Diametregon and Vediog Savior.

“Side A” begins with a repetitive bass ostinato with cymbal action and drumbeats accompanying. The guitar takes on a post-rock type of role as it dances around the groove and creates hypnotic riffs. The track picks up steam gradually and ratchets up the tension while the cymbals and drumbeats become more powerful. In the middle there’s a slow down but picks up the tempo again as the guitar becomes more frenzied and murky in the mix. It ends with some spoken dialogue by Aleister Crowley.

“Side B” is a lot more energetic than the “A” as the drums take a prominent role in fast and furious rolls while the bass while still repetitive has a more complex ostinato riff that has a touch more melody to it. The guitar floats in screechy sustained distortion mode but also has the role of extending the sound structure to include a dissonant riff while background ambience bleeds in to create a sinister sounding backdrop which is more poignant when the instruments drop out for a while and only its spooky howling is heard. The band jumps back into the groove and the guitar adds more antics and effects and i also detect a slight surf rock type of guitar riff popping in towards the end.

Not a bad start for ALUK TODOLO as this would establish their hypo-groovy mix of no wave and Krautrock. The no wave aspect is more in play at this stage with jangly dissonant guitars reminding me of early Swans but the mesmerizing repetition certainly brings Kraut classics by Neu to mind as well. This one doesn’t sound much different than the first full-length album but isn’t quite as dark and spooky as the following releases become.

siLLy puPPy After four long years the mysterious ALUK TODOLO finally releases a followup to their attention getting breakthrough (well in the underground freakazoid’s world anyway) album “Occult Rock.” While the first three releases were primarily based in the bizarre world of noise and Krautrock with dark ambient and psychedelic accoutrements, the band added black metal elements on their fourth album and continues those same characteristics on their fifth album VOIX which is French for “voice” however there are no vocals on this as are there on any (unless some weird spoken gibberish counts) ALUK TODOLO album. This music lies outside the confines of language and takes the listener to some far corners of some remote corner of the sonosphere, so dark and daunting that no one has ever dared explore.

On paper VOIX sounds much like what was established on “Occult Rock,” namely black metal type tremolo picking with distortion galore with a frenetic and repetitive bass and drum to infinity while the guitar has little freak out dances around the main groove. Despite that similarity something sounds a bit different on this one. Whereas on “Occult Rock” it seemed like there was no sense of melodic development and in reality a very sophisticated take on the no wave sound that emerged in the early 80s by acts such as Swans, VOIX seems to have melodic developments albeit minor compared to the energetic performances that accompany each and every note that is played. In fact i think there is a slight surf rock type of thing going on at times but it is so obfuscated and drenched in hypnotic and chaotic time signatures that it is very hard to distinguish. But the fact that there is a variation in actual notes means that this album isn’t nearly as meditative and mesmerizing as previous offerings even though it is!

Another aspect that makes this different from previous albums is the fact that the drums have gained some independence. While in previous offerings it was customary for percussion to be tied to the activities of the bass guitar, here it breaks free from its constraints and acts more like a jazz drummer would do and creates complex drum rolls that create a rhythmic backbone of the droning lysergic dissonant guitar distortions that venture into pure atmospheric space that can result in extended humming sprees. All tracks bleed into each other and this is really one long sonic journey through the noise filled halls of the jittery and distortion fueled head trips of ALUK TODOLO’s wildest dreams. This type of music is in effect a psychedelic black metal free form extravaganza in a universe where no song structures exist and snippets of melody come and go as they please offering not a scant trace of rhyme or reason or any predictability whatsoever.

These sounds are solely for those who love noise, chaos and cold, dark places. This “music” may contain more elements of melody that the listener can latch onto in order to have some point of reference but they are equivalent to the bio-lantern of a deep sea angler in the crushing pressures of the deepest recesses of the Mariana Trench. This is bizarre music that is equally evocative as an active listener as a passive one. Much like the mathematics of a fractal, you can zoom into the details of your temporal comfort zone or not. This is music that is equally bizarre if you fully focus upon every detail or simply sit back and shop for new shoes on your favorite internet site. There seems to be a slight step up in the evolution of ALUK TODOLO and even though it took four years, it is excellent to hear their distorted reality coming into a new phase as it gradually and reluctantly takes on more melodic aspects of music and twist and distort them into their own bizarre concoctions.

siLLy puPPy As you probably figured out from the title, this is indeed a COLLABORATION album shared between the French psychedelic and experimental Krautrock band ALUK TODOLO and the newer incarnation of the Austrian industrial psychedelic neofolk band DER BLUTHARSCH that on this album makes their debut as DER BLUTHARSCH AND THE INFINITE CHURCH OF THE LEADING HAND. The result of this marriage of talents is an album that displays both bands’ characteristic sounds on full display as one hypnotic lengthy track bleeds into the next.

A COLLABORATION features four tracks that are all close to the ten minute mark with each one having somewhat of its own personality. The first two tracks sound rather similar as plodding bass and drum mesmerize as they drift on into infinity while strange lysergic organs dot the ambient soundscapes and noisy guitars jangle into one distorted frenzy after another. The first two tracks are also fairly non-musical and very much utilize the no wave meets Krautrock technique of ALUK TODOLO’s first two releases also they don’t seem as dark and soul piercing. 
The third track takes on a different flavor as it has more of a techno groove while spoken muffled words come and go while a guitar actually musters up some musical mojo and creates a lingering solo of sorts. Track four has a much more industrial sound as a regular uptempo beat ushers in Bauhaus type guitar riffs and a rather “jingle bells” type of percussion along with the electronic beats. This track sounds the most “normal” of the four and wouldn’t sound out of place on a Skinny Puppy album minus the vocals as the final two tracks actually provide melodic developments which is virtually absent on ALUK TODOLO releases.

While i’m not familiar with BLUTHARSCH, i have to say that for an ALUK TODOLO album, it seems that the collaborative effort has watered down their freak factor a few notches as the tracks have lost a bit of their edge after the extreme tripped out darkness that preceded. The atmospheric ambience is just as hypnotically blissed out but something has been somewhat sanitized in this mixture of ideas. Be that as it may, this is still a compelling journey through the bizarre reaches of the sonic universe. Cool album but falls short of the cream of the crop.

siLLy puPPy Album number 2 for the bizarre French band ALUK TODOLO which continues to exist in their own strange little world between the cracks of reality that utilizes no wave and Krautrock with extra helpings of dark ambient, hypnotic grooves and sinister sound effects. The album begins with “Premier Contact” which releases a steady and mesmerizing drum and bass beat that slowly builds up tension and allows haunting guitar distortion effects to drop in and out of the scene like poltergeists crashing a party on a secret burial ground. The hypnotic groove ushers in soporific tendencies only to be awoken by jarring contrasting and nerve racking Kosmiche guitar effects that dig deep into the psyche and then never let go.

As with the first album, the combination of the repetitive bass and drums with the spastic and jittery screams of anguish from the guitar that throw a stake in the heart of any passers as the rhythm sounds like a giant goblin parading through the darkened forest to slay unicorns. While musically this could be classified as a mix of no wave, noise rock and Kosmiche Krautrock, it really develops more like post-rock with all the accoutrements of the aforementioned with spastic little bursts of metal energy now and again exploding like little volcanic releases of tension. The production allows every little sound to pierce through the soul in controlled doses and yet somehow sounds raw and organic. Some of the percussive beats turn tribal as if the astral attack has set its sight on Native American sacred sites as the tom toms repetitively commence while the frenetic chaotic swirls of distortion and ambience radiate from every direction.

This is simply freaky stuff here and one that could drive you to collapse in fear if listened to in the dark or in a cold and questionable establishment. As with the debut, this is not musical composition per se but rather a beeline into the abyss of the sonic voids of space and then subject to the physics of the vacuum left behind as the sporadic guitar distortions suddenly appear and then fade away like a comet flying through the night sky. FINSTERNIS is a noticeable improvement over “Descension,” not in that it has become more sophisticated but rather it has become more startling and haunting like a galaxy of pissed off ghosts have come to attack randomly. Creepy as hell but i’m a glutton for punishment and dig this sort of torturous experience.