It’s been a long time since we produced a so called “regular” 45-minute episode for SATAN MADE ME DO IT. We guess our Rádio Quântica show used up more of our time than we anticipated or cared to acknowledge. It’s a two hour show and there’s only so much good music out there that we wanna share. Also, we have a lot of fun with it, especially with how things are shaping up – new studio, live show, guests – so we guess our needs are pretty much satisfied. Or are they? The thing is, a “talk” show will never be able to yield the kind of feeling we get from a contained 45-minute mix – no talk, just the feeling of the journey. We wanted to be able to go back to that, so here you go: a complete new 45-minute episode for you. Freakish as hell too, alternating between slow and fast paced, between aggressive death and black metal and atmospheric electronic and soundtrack music. This is one for the ages.

Click for show notes and a complete tracklist.

Episode 51 – The Forest Is Madness

We really screwed this up from the get go, didn’t we? That’s Jennifer Warnes’s version of “Easy to Be Hard”. It’s originally a song from the musical “Hair”, but goddamn if it’s not metal as fuck. Just listen to those lyrics. There’s a lot of “Easy to Be Hard” around on this episode. And maybe our next guests, Maleficence, will not be so amused when they find out they’re in for the joke. This is from their 7” release from this year, “Realms of Mortification”. Two tracks, we’ve used side A on a Rádio Quântica show, this is side B, “Pyre of Penitence”, and IT IS GREAT blackened thrash.

No time to lose on this episode, everything tying up neatly. Canadians death metallers Auroch take the baton and run with it, never slowing down. We’ve already said there’s a lot of great new north-american death metal out there and this is one prime example. Just recently they have put out an album, “Mute Books”, via Profound Lore. Sounds rather like Horrendous, another favorite of ours, or Pissgrave (with whom they share producer/engineer Arthur Rizk).

The storm warps into obsession and claustrophobia with a pair of British electronica tracks that many of you never expected coming after that death metal assault, but boy, they fit perfectly. First via the giallo/techno/italo/bloodbath soundtrack guru Antoni Maiovvi with his special brand of horror disco. He’s a pal of ours and a pal of Umberto, who we already featured expansively on SATAN MADE ME DO IT. This is “The Kill”, part of his soundtrack for the horror short film “Yellow”, morphing into Massive Attack’s “Special Cases” from their post 9/11 paranoia driven album “100^th Window”. That’s Sinéad O’Connor on the vocals, by the way.

No time to lose and we’re back to metal grounds with Antiversum’s “Total Vacuum”, a track from their 2015 demo we’ve been waiting a long time to slide into one of our shows. Proper swiss blackened doom, ritualized and expansive, the way we like and paving nicely into another eerie soundtrack, this time for the short film “Ruins of Time” by Mathieu Peteul, composed by the French duo Maninkari. “Experimental ambient drone folk noise” in their own words, plus jazz and minimal says we. Sounds like something from a David Lynch film.

Rudely cutting into one of our favorite releases from 2016, the excellent 7” from Cloak, America’s answer to Sweden’s Tribulation and modern Vampire, before we wrap things up with more and the same Jennifer Warnes. Easy to be hard indeed.

— Tracklist

1. Easy to Be Hard | Jennifer Warnes (USA) | Let the Sunshine In / Easy to Be Hard [7” single], 1969 https://www.discogs.com/Jennifer-Let-The-Sunshine-In-Easy-To-Be-Hard/release/3386875
2. Pyre of Penitence | Maleficence (BEL) | Realms of Mortification [7” single], 2016 https://bloodharvestrecords.bandcamp.com/album/realms-of-mortification-7ep
3. Say Nothing | Auroch (CAN) | Mute Books, 2016 https://profoundlorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/mute-books
4. The Kill | Antoni Maiovvi (UK) | Yellow, 2013 https://maiovvi.bandcamp.com/album/yellow
5. Special Cases | Massive Attack (UK) | 100^th Window, 2003 http://www.massiveattack.co.uk/
6. Total Vacuum | Antiversum (CH) | Total Vacuum [demo], 2015 https://invictusproductions666.bandcamp.com/album/total-vacuum
7. The Forest is Madness | Maninkari (FR) | Ruins of Time, 2013 https://wearethreefour.bandcamp.com/album/ruins-of-time
8. The Hunger | Cloak (USA) | Cloak [7” EP], 2016 https://cloakatlanta.bandcamp.com/
9. Easy to Be Hard | Jennifer Warnes (USA) | Let the Sunshine In / Easy to Be Hard [7” single], 1969