Dark Music collection helps victims of tragedy in Bucharest

On October 30 2015 local band Goodbye to Gravity were celebrating the release of their second album at the nightclub Club Collectiv n Bucharest when the tragedy occurred and a massive fire began to spread. First hints point to a massive lack of security as the reason for this sad event. 

More than 50 people died and many dozens more are still in hospital. The victims and their families continue to need help with all sorts of things from funeral expenses to medical care.

Happily the Romanian artist, Costin Chioreanu has released a collection of avant-garde dark music, entitled "The Quest For A Morning Star", to raise funds for the people in need. The download features one hour of very dark tunes that in my ears perfectly fit to the dark situation we are all facing these days. 

Chioreanu is well known and highly respected for his graphic works for At The Gates, Arch Enemy, Napalm Death, Arcturus, Darkthrone, Mayhem, Ulver and many others. A musician himself, he has collaborated with various artists to create "soundtracks" to accompany his exhibitions in the past. The result can be purchsed now for the first time as a download album.

So if you want to help out the people affected by this sad event please consider buying a copy of the digital album through Bandcamp. This download is available for a limited time until November 27th 2015. You can listen to the full record below to get a idea of how the record sounds like.

Update 30.11.2015: The campaign is over and was a big success. The exact amount that has been raised will be announced on 5th December on the Facebook page of Costin Chioreanu. The digital compilation will remain on Bandcamp for the price of 1 Euro to keep it online forever.

If you still want to help the victims of the Club Collectiv tragedy you can purchase a physical copy of the record through Avantgarde Music. 

Limited to 300 copies, this A5-sized digipack features 8 beautiful art works by Costin Chioreanu on a 7 pages booklet. Includes unlimited streaming of The Quest For A Morning Star via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

All profits of this physical edition will be collected and donated to the Foundation “fundatiamereuaproape.ro". You can check out all the details of the release and find the pre-order link on the pages of Avantgarde Music.

Metalheads help Refugees with download sampler

Currently a lot of people are fleeing from the desolate situation in their home countries. They hope to find a better way of living in other parts of the world. But their start into the new life often is a problem. Some don't speak the language and most of all they are not common with the new situation and surroundings.

Happily there are organisations out there that help these people out. But of course these organisations need to have the money to be able to help. Radio Diabolus has decided to set up a call to the bands out there. Bands are able to contribute music to a sampler that is released via Bandcamp in two parts. It is a non-profit sampler - all proceeds will go to organizations helping and supporting refugees. Part one has been released yesterday and can be streamed for free below. If you'd like to support this great idea please head over to Bandcamp and buy the sampler for 7,49 Euro. It features 20 tracks in total.

Since so many songs were contributed so far the organizers decided to split the release into 2 volumes! The second one will be released in about 2 weeks. Bands and artists who still want to join sampler vol. 2 can still send the digital material until the 21st of September 2015.

The songs need to meet the following conditions:

- Songs must be in 320 KB MP3 format.
- Songs must sound clear and mastered - Please NO Demos.
- Band biography
- Band picture if available

It doesn't matter whether the band is under contract with a record label or not because it is not a sampler only for newcomers. If the participating band has a contract binding we would need the label's permission to use the song for the planned sampler.
Please send entries to: this E-Mail adress.
(please use the sampler title in the subject line)

New compilation gives overview on folk metal scene in Mongolia

Heavy Metal is a world-wide movement that's what I've learned in all the times writing on this blog. But some regions of our blue planet are still a bit unexplored when it comes to our beloved music. Recently we took a look over to India to see what's going on there but what about the scene in Mongolia?

This lack of information seems to be what some people out there might have caused to start the Mongol Metal website. In their own description they say about themselves:

"(...) Mongol Metal is a heavy metal music organization from Inner Mongolia, China. We promote Ego Fall, Nine Treasures and Tengger Cavalry, three folk metal bands that combine Mongolian folk music with heavy metal, refering to as Mongol Metal, Mongolian Folk Metal, or Mongolian Nomadic Metal.

In their music, Morin Khuur, Throat Singing, Yatga and other Mongolian music elements are widely used.(...)"

To give people out there a quick idea of how this sounds like Mongol Metal has uploaded a full sampler featuring the bands Ego Fall, Nine Treasures and Tengger Cavalry.

So I used the opportunity to check them out and had a great time doing so. What a blast of sheer power combined with some unusual instrumentation and some traditional elements of early Heavy Metal (Throat Singing has become sort of rare these days but it was very common in the beginnings of metal music - thank you for bringing this back with your music!).

Having heard the stuff I'm totally wanting to hear and see more. It's also great to see the musicians dress in the traditional clothes of their region when posing for band pictures. You can see them in the diashow passing through when you call up the startpage of the Mogul Metal Website. 
But first of all have a listen for yourselfs in the player below to discover how the music of the bands sounds like:

You can also buy the songs as digital download through stores such as Amazon, Spotify or itunes. 
Make sure to keep up to date about the further musical development of the Mongol Metal scene via Facebook or check in at their excellent website.