Full Album Stream: GOG: Ironworks – new album

Now, visit Pop Matters here (or simply scroll down) and listen to GOG's album ‘Ironworks’ as you read the following explanation provided by that fine French label Season Of Mist:

“GOG started out as a project to dismantle and destroy music. As the project progresses it seems to have taken on the task of rebuilding with the bits and pieces left behind in addition to the destruction. Inspiration is found in the sounds often unheard or sometimes unbearable, they are amplified and dissected and repurposed. A cacophony of noise manipulated can become harmony and the most beautiful of sounds can become ugly. Making something out of what appears to be – on the surface – nothing. Finding the sounds and emotions hidden amongst everyone – possibly right in front of them, amplifying them and making it an intense experience that hopefully no one can ignore.”

[Added GOG mastermind Phoenix, Arizona noise innovator Michael Bjella:] “I started GOG to explore the darker sides of thought and life. I want to create things without restriction and form that can transport people and possibly make them confront their own fears. Things that are truly dark but have contrast. To borrow a line from one of my favorite artists, in case there might be harmony, then it is the harmony of accident, of chaos. I’m not trying to make harmony...”

Recorded in a late 19th century blacksmith shop where several members of Bjella's own family toiled, ‘Ironworks’ is apparently an ode to the death of the American dream (“This is the sound of physical labor, of blood, sweat, and tears. Metal rings on metal, shaping flesh and bone in the eternal pulse of the anvil and the searing flames of the furnace. ‘Ironworks’ gives enslavement through capitalism a sinister soundtrack.”) Released on vinyl in 2012 through Utech Records, its CD version can be now ordered from Season Of Mist here, and its digital version downloaded from iTunes. ‘Ironworks’ is out now in Europe, August 30th, 2013, and is due in North America on September the 3rd:

“You’re not required to agree with the argument Bjella lays out on ‘Ironworks’, but it’s impossible to refute the strength or honesty of the message. The album is a powerful political statement. It examines the idea that we’re progressing as a species, and in doing so, it makes clear that the damage inflicted on those made victims of industrialization is written in pummeling and reverberating form. There’s a lesson to be learnt from ‘Ironworks’. It’s a lesson that harks back to a century ago, right back to Luigi Russolo's “L’Arte dei Rumori” [“The Art Of Noises”, a Futurist manifesto written in 1913],” [wrote Craig Hayes, Pop Matters – more here:]

GOG features: Michael Bjella – everything  /  Visit GOG on BandCamp here and on SoundCloud here for plenty more