The sixth handful of audio captures from this year’s Roadburn festival might be the most eclectic yet. Sure, past installments had the likes of Black Pyramid or Spindrift, but how many times in your life are you going to see Wovenhand next to Voivod?

That’s all part of the experience of the fest, and as always, it’s presented gorgeously on these streams by Marcel van de Vondervoort and his team at Spacejam. Dig it:

Wovenhand
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44901054#ondemand.44901054

Voivod (Midi Theatre)
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44901050#ondemand.44901050

Sabbath Assembly
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44901025#ondemand.44901025

Year of No Light (Vampyr soundtrack)
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44901058#ondemand.44901058

Circle
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44901008#ondemand.44901008

Blood Farmers (Afterburner)
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44900998#ondemand.44900998

Special thanks once again to Walter and Roadburn for granting me permission to host these links. Roadburn 2011 took place April 14-17, at the 013 Popcentrum in Tilburg, Netherlands.

Not to steal thunder from this month’s just-posted podcast, but it just wouldn’t be a series if you missed an episode. Accordingly, here is the next batch of streams recorded live at this year’s Roadburn festival at the 013 Popcentrum in Tilburg, The Netherlands. Some cool stuff here from Voivod, Soilent Green, Blood Farmers and Black Mountain and a couple I didn’t get to see from The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble and Jesse Sykes, plus Quest for Fire, who packed out the Bat Cave, a second set from Dragontears (if you missed the first, it’s here), and a few more, so there’s lots to check out.

Black Mountain
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44797866#ondemand.44797866

Blood Farmers (Green Room)
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44797874#ondemand.44797874

Dragontears (Midi Theatre)
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44797879#ondemand.44797879

Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44797886#ondemand.44797886

The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44797890#ondemand.44797890

Quest for Fire
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44800056#ondemand.44800056

Soilent Green
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44800060#ondemand.44800060

Void of Voices
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44800064#ondemand.44800064

Voivod
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44800071#ondemand.44800071

Year of No Light
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44800075#ondemand.44800075

As always, these links come at the generosity of Walter and the Roadburn crew and were captured/mixed by Marcel van de Vondervoort and his team at Spacejam. Heartfelt gratitude to all parties involved.

Droning, crashing, building tower after tower of riffs and choking the oxygen out of the very atmosphere you breathe while you listen to it – these would seem to be the objectives behind French post-metallers Year of No Light’s second full-length, Ausserwelt (Conspiracy). The Bordeaux six-piece featuring three guitars, two drummers, one bassist and a host of keyboard and electronics that can come from just about any of them present  four extended tracks to make up the album’s 48-minute runtime, the shortest being just over nine and a half minutes long, and the longest, “Hiérophante,” clocking in at 13:13.

With six people in the band and the most recognizable figure being guitarist Shiran Kaidine (also credited with vocals, though there aren’t any words on the album) of Monarch!, who came aboard after Year of No Light’s 2006 debut, Nord, it’s the wall of sound that’s the star on Ausserwelt. It would almost have to be. Throughout “Perséphone I,” “Perséphone II,” “Hiérophante” and closer “Abbesse,” it’s the full-on tonal weight the band crafts that makes the record memorable, if not necessarily the songs themselves, which are instrumental, given toward stretches of ambience and, frankly, going for something entirely different than catchy hooks or lead lines. In a way, Year of No Light have so many spontaneous elements in their music – the effects, the electronic noises – that they can’t really come out of Ausserwelt sounding like anyone but themselves, but that said, what they’re doing isn’t really all that original.

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