Double Bubble: Supersonic Previewed – Goblin Interviewed

Our favourite extreme music festival – Supersonic – is almost here. We look forward to the treats in store and Jimmy Martin talks to Italian psych/prog horror legends Goblin
Not so long ago, Brian May was heard to remark that Queen’s soundtrack to Flash Gordon marked the first instance of a rock band providing the score to a motion picture. Much as we all love Flash Gordon and the glorious bombast that accompanies it, such a claim is plainly nonsense. Not only does it ignore the frequently meandering and inconsequential work that Pink Floyd delivered to score films like Zabriskie Point, More and La Vallee, and the work of Can on the numerous celluloid projects that led to their Soundtracks album, but it also fails to take into account the twin titans of 70s rockscore lore, whose startlingly vivid work looms large over not only much else of a similar disposition, but sometimes the very films themselves: Florian Fricke’s Popol Vuh, and the Italian maestros of florid grand guignol, the band synonymous with horror auteur Dario Argento, Goblin.

Goblin’s cult following originally began around the time that their score to Profondo Rosso became a chart hit in their native land, somehow taking a sound which occupied similar territory to the ill-reputed likes of Mike Oldfield and Emerson Lake And Palmer, yet injecting it with a dynamism and drama that places them well outside the more self-regarding and indulgent spheres of mid-seventies experimentation

Indeed, such was the impact of Goblin’s music, that the symbiotic relationship between film and soundtrack was often thrown beyond its usual metier. During the making of Argento’s heavenly bloodbath Suspiria, for instance, much of the music was recorded before any of the film was actually shot, and played on set to build up the requisite atmosphere. True to form, it’s genuinely hard to imagine that film’s otherworldly allure being anything like as potent without Goblin’s dark, deliciously overwrought blend of progressive baroque and wild, raw experimentation blasting away in tandem.

Read the full article
http://thequietus.com

Goblin perform for the first time in the UK at Supersonic Festival on Sunday 26th of July and also at the Scala in London on Monday 27th of July
Tickets for Supersonic Festival are available from www.theticketsellers.co.uk
and for the London show from www.ticketweb.co.uk

Terrorizers’JamMin caught up with Runhild Gammelsæter of Thorr’s Hammer about their performance at Supersonic Festival.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or find anything slower than Agoraphobic Nosebleed “a bit dull and uninteresting”, you’ve probably heard that legendary doom troupe Thorr’s Hammer (the Thorr’s Hammer that gave us drone daddys Stephen O’Malley and Gregg Anderson) have reunited to play this year’s Supersonic Festival. Sufficed to say we were a bit excited, so naturally we bombarded the University Of Oslo with phone calls and emails until we got hold of Dr Runhild Gammelsæter to get the lowdown on the whys, whens and hows from the vocalist extraordinaire.

People often have a quite cynical view of bands getting back together (and rightly so), so why was now the right time to do this?
“We didn’t want to do a reunion previously because we thought it sort of cynical, not ‘cult’ and not ‘true’ as we say in metal. All members of TH are old friends, I still call Steve when I have a broken heart. I love those guys to death. But we are getting old, people are having babies, careers, living all over the world, rarely seeing each other. We loved the idea of having an opportunity to fly everyone in, spend time together and experiencing the vibe between us again. It may be the last opportunity we have to do that.”

How were you occupying your time between Thorr’s Hammer and Khlyst? Were you still engaged with music? Have you been working on any other projects more recently?
“When I left the states and TH disbanded, I studied for ten years at different universities getting my PhD. Khlyst came out in 2006, but James and I had been working on that for a year or so before the release. I worked minimally with music while I studied, spending all of my times with books and in the lab. Played some guitar at home, singing Nirvana and Gram Parsons, which perhaps prepared me for my solo record released last year.”
Read the full article at Terrorizer

Thorr’s Hammer play for the first time in a long time at this years Supersonic Festival on Saturday 25th of July and at the Scala in London with Corrupted & The Accused on Sunday 26th Of July.

Highly recommended  – The first ever Equinox Festival kicks of this Friday in London, a three day media arts festival based on modern spirituality, culture and the occult with film, performance, lectures and music including John Zorn, Z’ev, Aethenor, Burial Hex, K11, Kinit Her, Threshold House Boys Choir (aka Sleazy of Throbbing Gristle and Coil) as well as many others.  Comus, the legendary acid folk pioneers, will be performing their seminal ‘First Utterance’ album in their first UK performance in 30 years!

Some tickets are still available from http://wegottickets.com as well as Treadwell’s Bookshop and Rough Trade East.  Limited tickets will be available on the door.
For full details check http://www.equinoxfestival.org

We have Aethenor (members of Sunn 0)))+ Guapo + Ulver + Shora) performing in Birmingham on Saturday 13th June with Einstellung + very special guests more details here