claus haxholm

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Thee Doom Riot (also known as The Doom Riot) is just one of the many, many guises of Danish musician Claus Haxholm.
Haxholm also records as Dead Back Arms, Satanism Around Hollywood and Kanada Brothers (actually, the list of projects attributed Haxholm is longer than both of my arms – too lengthy to list here).
“Let the Lights Come Down,” his first effort for the mighty Ruralfaune label, is a mammoth double CD-R loaded with gorgeous, light-as-a-feather drones and rapturous acoustic guitar playing.
It's very pretty, actually – contrasting greatly with the dual skull imagery adorning the artwork.
Both of the disks that comprise this release contain three tracks, and both follow the same general path: drone piece, acoustic guitar piece, drone piece.
The similarities end there. Each of the songs has its own personality, its own quirks and its own source of inspiration.
The instrumentation varies from track to track as well, as each piece is centred around a particular instrument, sound or idea.
The entire recording is a delicate, meditative piece of art.
I'm intrigued to see what else Haxholm has up his sleeve. If “Let the Lights Come Down” is any indication of what his other work sounds like, I'm sure I won't be disappointed. 8/10 -- Bryon Hayes (20 May, 2009)//foxy digitalis-thanks!
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...Of course it's the same deal here as well.
Dead Black Arms is another moniker of Claus Haxholm, the same man behind The Doom Riot, who did a release on Stunned a ways back if I recall... I remember being into that disc, but this is something different entirely. Two side-long pieces here, and man do they cook. The first one, aptly titled "Lake Reflection Catalyst I," gets thick real quick, and from there on Haxholm works between the lines with long vocal loops (I think) hovering above these mono-note bass thuds and absolutely terrific guitar tirades that somehow manage to keep this whole thing afloat for its entire length.
Rather than slip into the overtly doom and gloom aesthetic though this stuff is full of life, ablaze with energy and indescribable detail. Each sound careens about the others like some dark blue mist blanketing the ground, only a couple inches up so's to protect the toads inhabiting its soils. Which isn't to say it isn't heavy as shit--this thing just rolls and rolls ceaselessly, discovering all sorts of pockets within its layers. Beautiful and frightening and completely invigorating.
The following side is (again, fittingly) called "Lake Reflection Catalyst II," and this go around things start a bit more ethereally, with cymbal clatters writhing around one another to the point of sounding like nothing Keith Moon ever played. More like some junkyard gamelan ensemble really, as overtones knead their way across and out in an aimless bevy of textural clatter.
Soon though, the cymbal clatter begins to hurdle into a less airy space as percussive thumps begin to bleed in to a slowly developing and ultra-stark underbelly that writhes like some intangible worm in the sky. Really tough to pin down this stuff as its entire sound evolves so slowly and with such textural dexterity that it all meshes into this strange organic collage the parts of which are always slipping, resituating themselves, and slipping apart again.
When the underbelly does finally come to the fore it is perhaps a tad more menacing than might have been hoped for, but at halfway through the twenty-minute track the arrival is so steady that it's hardly unexpected. Just to have arrived to the destination--even if its at the foot of some cavernous gulch--is accomplishment enough.
It's a dense and beautiful sound presented here, and one that's sure to be dug by Dead C, Skullflower, Michael Flower and Metal Rouge heads alike. When the end slips into a near destructo-raga melody it sees the album off in a fittingly relaxed and well deserved row boat. You might be on the same waters, but the tide is finally out. Though hints of the foreboding weather are still on the horizon for sure... totally killer.
thnks Henry Smith from
< "The Ear-Conditioned Nightmare" Blog(april))
* Of major psychic use is the Doom Riot’s enormous album CELESTIAL GATES OF TIME, whose four tracks offer listeners guaranteed guestlist entry into the Underworld. Led by Claus Haxholm, the Doom Riot is the kind of heavy usefulness that Head Heritage demands of its own acts, the four tracks contained herein being massively strung-out obliterations of the Urthona, Nadja, Sorc’henn, Spaceship persuasion. My two personal faves are the near-half-hour trek ‘Backup Angel Fire Sphere’ and the burned-out and Zoroastrian album closer ‘Night Saviour Drummer’, but the whole album is a righteous and coherent statement of intent that should have y’all returning again and again. Available in a limited edition from the good people at Stunned Records (stunnedrecords.blogspot.com), you can also petition them at [email protected]. JULIAN COPE
http://www.headheritage.co.uk/addressdrudion/118/
* In sharp compliment to Stunned’s latest from the unassailable steel strings of Plankton Wat comes the work of Claus Haxholm, hereby The Doom Riot. A guitar music of drastically different stripe, the electrified monoliths constructed by Haxholm – reaching 12, 20, and 30 minutes – work in tandem of hi/lo contrast, as the gliding, half-speed High Rise of “Giants & Titans” crests sleepily into the busy, yet hopelessly murky primer “Star in the Skull”. Reconstructing a Popul Wu’uj/Popul Vuh psychedelia, the tracks chant with the monotonous fervor of the true believer, delving into the absent space which can channel the energy to craft the half-hour of booming distortion automatically-written as “Backup Angel Fire Sphere”: a sharp distortion overwhelming the secret piano of tones striating the track, the electric church congregates not without worry among the congregation; crashing into itself, the bassy plumes which cough as if on accident thin into the crackling electricity which overwhelms the ear, evoking at least a physical want for air/space. Deceptively offering more space and little percussion to be found, “Night Saviour Drummer” keeps a busy tempo in deeper hues, disallowing the lungs to relax in high-frequency/low-volume vibrations punctuated by a clattering like the warning of wind-chimes, or more realistically, a futile performance of triangle versus electric guitar. A tumultuous journey, the ‘The Doom Riot’ proves more than a fashionable misnomer, and the title a reasonable representation of the unattainable desires of the sound within. Printed CDr comes in clamshell with thick color art, hand-numbered to 60 copies. (Stunned CDr, sold out HERE)
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* This is the "Caretaker Cherry Bird" cd by Dead Black Arms.Released as RW 053 on my very own Reverb Worship label.Dead Black Arms is one of the many music projects of Claus Haxholm.Some of his other projects include The Doom Riot, Kanada Brothers, Satanism Around Hollywood, Tanko Oroshi and My Love We Found The Skies."Caretaker Cherry Bird" consists of four tracks.The first is a buzzing layered drone with the sound of a treated preachers voice coming in and out of the mix.Track two is electric guitar played through distortion pedals making a deep abrasive drone.The third track is distortrd piano.Finally track four is a "live" recording of electric guitar played in a room with all doors and windows open to the birds outside.
This cd comes in an edition of 50 hand numbered copies in a blue card cover with paste on artwork from a 15th Century woodcut.
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* TAIKO OROSHI BLEEDER LOCKED ATTACK (CDr by R.O.N.F. Records) A wet November morning in East Anglia, sleepily the CD goes into the player in the car stereo - and then BLAM! The noun "Noise" has been appropriated by all kinds of musics, experimental through to tinkling new wave nonsense - post Dada fluxus semi political bullshit performance of which even the God Merzbow has stepped into. This - read the title above again and weep - is - Noise, but I can't say this, limp, thoughtful, planned music uses the name these days, anything and everything is noise, is it then 'Harsh Noise'. 'Extreme noise'- 'wall noise?' I muse as I drive to work through the grey rain. (someone employs the guy!?) - each of the 11 tracks offers a differing definition of noise - in the same sense that Bruce Willis defines glazing in Die Hard, its 'Rape Music' - I like the image - what this evokes and the pun on Rap, (Rap on ecstasy) its Snuff Music, its not art or music but Stuff; I made up these titles whilst driving to deliberately exclude anything that puts forward an argument, and excludes all the sound collage/texture improv pussies.. (I've been watching 'Life on Mars' and the 'philosophy!' of Gene Hunt has got to me. Oh the days before PC was everywhere.) The term 'post-conceptual art'- more polite, dangerously so, but still has the irony that what now goes for conceptual - unmade beds et al. is in fact material, this sound is material, is stuff. Can we adopt then - us noiseniks, stuff, rape music to remove those who have pocket handkerchiefs from our genre. Here on some post Deleuze/Guattarian plateau - is all noise stuff- and its always perfect. Claus - you're the man. (jliat)
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* Claus Haxholm is one of those multi-talented electronic musicians who has more aliases than the number of artists on an average independent record label. When he makes music under the moniker The Doom Riot, he delivers a smooth kind of drone that stretches slowly over long tracks. Dominated by the likes of Sunn O))) and its mastermind Stephen O’Malley, the genre has been losing momentum for a few years as originality is harder to come by. Then again, how is one supposed to sound original when faced with the minimalist, stagnant nature of drone music? Slow Estate Dreams might be the beginning of an answer to that question.”(The Silent Ballet)
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* "Here we have abyssal eon-spanning drone from Denmark's Claus Haxholm, who splits his soundsculpting time between The Doom Riot and Dead Black Arms, among many other smaller projects and live happenings. Celestial Gates of Time is four massive pieces recorded over 07–08 which plumb grim depths of solo circuit throttling & tranced heights of minimalist/"classic" drone weaving, cumulating with the epic 30-minute "Backup Angel Fire Sphere." Dense swaths of crisp and crackle, endless in scope, pulling us white-knuckled and quaking through gates leading into the infinite black. For those who like their ecstatic stasis-states in the flavor of Goslings, Eureka, and RST." Limited edition of 60 hand numbered cdrs in plastic case with ancient haze art.(Animal Psi)
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DEAD BLACK ARMS - AWAKE FROM THE DEAD! AWAKE FROM THE DARK! (3"CDR by Dokuro)
The last one is a new name for me. Dead Black Arms is one Claus Haxolm from Denmark, who presents a piece of drone music. Not of the subtle kind, but one of a rather louder and more abrasive kind. An organ is recorded as loud as possible, but without distortion, and then superimposed upon each other. Some sections seem to appear as loops, whereas over the whole there is an overall layer of two, three or more. Then somewhere some distortion is used, which wasn't necessarily, I'd think, but throughout I thought this was a nice piece. Crude, rough minimalist drone music. A violent Palestine! (FdW)
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Fra Claus Haxholms eksperimenterende og kunstneriske leg med lyd under aliaset The Doom Riot kommer Slow Estate Dreams - et værk, en marginal udgivelse, der, ud over at komme i nummererede eksemplarer, langt overgår min forstand og evner som anmelder. Otte unavngivne kompositioner af tom lyd, af støj, repeterende flader, der støder sammen, og en knitrende organisk baggrundslyd, som i helhed udfordrer opfattelsen af musik som kunstværk og grænserne for samme. Er det her musik? Er det kunst? Det lette svar er, naturligvis. Kunstneren havde gjort sig den tjeneste at forfatte og håndskrive et kort notat til anmelderen sammen med det nummererede cover. Det lyder blandt andet: ”Textur og klang [har været i fokus] – således at melodier vil være svære at høre – men at sangene bliver mere, om man vil, meditativt anlagt – samtidig med at det støjer som i en isstorm. Alt det bedste, Claus Haxholm.” Slow Estate Dreams er arrangement af lyd, der bryder de fleste regler ud i den eksperimenterende elektronikas navn. Hvad man skal gøre af det, er et åbent spørgsmål... (simon christensen, gaffa.dk)
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Cool fuzzy, droney stuff here from The Doom Riot. Maybe from the name you might expect a dodgy Sunn O))) knockoff but that's really not the case at all, it's nothing like as dark as it might first appear with much of it actually being quite uplifting. Most of Slow Estate Dreams is undoubtedly noisy though, a lot of it sounds quite like Stars of the Lid being played through broken speakers, or maybe My Bloody Valentine playing one chord for minutes on end. It's quite lovely listening to the variations in the same sound over time, it almost makes it seem as if you can hear it changing as it fills out the room, poking its way into all the little nooks and crannies. The first twenty come with a bonus 3" CD for just that little bit more goodness.(Brett,normanrecords)
loads and loads and loads of records being here and coming: myspace.com/satanismaroundhollywood