bauhaus

December is largely a reflective time for me. And one of the things Iw as reflecting on this was how massive an influence the great Angelo Badalamenti was for popular music. His scores, particularly his collaborations with David Lynch was a huge impact on a ton of heavy music, whether you (or the bands themselves) realize it or not. So we’re kicking this edition of the Nine Circles Playlist with one of his most memorable themes. Is it also a meme? Sure, but if anything those memes show just how adept Badalamenti was at evoking an entire mood with just a few notes.

Elsewhere we have the latest video from Megadeth, and Rocky and the Sweden covering…Cheech and Chong? The rest of the staff kicks in the usual great tracks, including new music from Sanguisugabogg and Insomnium, a monster of a new Enslaved track, a live cut from The Armed as well as fresh music from A Pregnant Light, Tithe and Ashen. We have classic tracks from Baroness and Mogwai. There’s a Christmas track from Majestica, and some moody music courtesy of Bauhaus, Dashboard Confessional, and an epic closer from Jane’s Addiction.

Get listening. Stay safe. See you next week.

—

– Chris

It’s nearly a given at this point in heavy music that genre lines are far more blurred than they were even ten years ago. As the tendrils of post-metal, ambient music, and shoegaze crept into black metal, death metal, and doom metal (and vice versa), it suddenly became much harder to classify bands with a rigid genre tag. The same has happened with a good amount of music tangential to metal: Post-punk has always been viewed as the big brother (or father, even) of goth rock, new wave, and industrial, but the beginning of each sound was fairly self-contained in its origins until artists started integrating more textures. It’s interesting, then, when all these worlds collide at once; Atlanta-based trio Dead Register have crafted an absolutely stunning debut with Fiber, which seamlessly coalesces influences from gothic rock, shoegaze, doom metal, and some “post” tendencies, both rock and metal. Continue reading →