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Here are some opinions about
Blutopfer from all over the
world. If you find any more reviews concerning Apoptose just send them and we
try to add them to this list.
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absurd
webzine, autumn 2002 / Greece (Nicolas)
"apoptose
is a project whose work I hadn’t experienced before, mostly because I
haven’t found the time on one hand and on the other, I have to confess
that I am a bit suspicious towards the newer generation of what so called
“death industrial”, “noise” or call it whatever projects. since
though the release of their “blutopfer” cd on tesco I must say
that somehow an interest for this release was created inside me. mostly
because they were mentioning vagina dentata organ’s lp around the
calanda drums held each year during the “semana santa”, the holy week
of easter in spain and saying as well that from this event they were
influented as well to record this cd too. the result of which I found
interesting enough, not a sort of manipulated field recordings as perhaps
someone might think upon hearing the project’s infos on this cd but
their mutation of the event.
“martial rhythms” w/ ambient/death industrial textures well
crafted together, in a more personal and I dare to say mystical (even call
it “ritualistic”) interpretation of the event that make the whole
result haunting enough. personally I believe that if the whole was more in
the same vein as the final track “zuflucht” this cd would have standed
as one of tesco’s finest releases of the last years, not that it isn’t.
on the contrary is a release that brought in mind various early/mid 90’s
death industrial/ambient/ritual projects and believe that is worth
checking of people who are into this genre." |
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Battlehelm
webzine / USA
"For
a long time I was in doubt whether or not to buy this cd. I have the
"Nordland" debut and like it quite a bit, but I find it a bit
too tranquil and monotous. This cd was supposed to have more drumming and
be less tranquil and eventually I decided to get it anyway.
"Blutopfer" is Apoptose's remembrance of the Spanish "Semana
Santa" festival that is held in the village of Calanda each year.
This festival/ritual involves a massive amount of people drumming.
Apoptose recorded the drumming and made this cd with these recordings. The
result is sampled drumming (sometimes you can hear people talking in the
background) combined with monotous soundscapes. The drumming isn't as
lively as it could have been and again the cd turned out to be quite good,
but again a bit too tranquil and monotous for my liking." |
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Compulsion
online webzine, July 2002 / England (Tony Dickie)
"Apoptose's
debut release Nordland received numerous accolades for its mixture of
orchestral sampling and dark ambience. For their follow up the heathen
German outfit have drawn inspiration from the Spanish village of Calanda,
and its annual festival of drumming. It's a 36-hour orgy of drumming that
takes place during Easter.
Apoptose witnessed the festival first-hand in 1998 and Blutopfer (German
for Blood Sacrifice) captures his recordings and treatments of this
amazing spectacle. Blutopfer features tirades of rhythms interspersed with
passages of dark atmospherics. The sound of a thousand drums opens the
album with deep penetrating swathes of sound on 'Apotropaion'. A sharp
snare drum sound leads the procession march on 'Prozession der Augen'.
Occasionally the sounds of the crowd can be heard above the thunderous
beats but the rhythm takes prominence throughout Blutopfer with Apoptose
furnishing the atmosphere with solemn keyboards, and huge bass shudders.
Blutopfer strikes a perfect balance between documentary evidence and is an
impressive recording in its own right.
Blutopfer is housed in a beautiful designed purple sleeve with liner notes
from Michael Moynihan. Blutopfer is the finest setting of the frentic
ritual drums outside of Vagina Dentata Organ's Pagan Drums of Calanda LP,
and Luis Buñuel's surrealistic film L'Age d'Or. For more information go
to
www.morpharts.de/tesco-org.html" |
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Dagaz-Music
website / Portugal (Rui Carvalheira)
English:
"Blutopfer
is, basically, recordings of percussions collected in the Spanish village
of Calanda (Aragon) during the Holy Week of 1998. Those sounds were
subsequently developed in studio with such good taste as not many projects
would show. Dark-ambient sonorities were added, surrounding indeterminable
quantities of deafening drums.
All the themes take us to ritualistic atmospheres that reveal how powerful
this ancient festival is. The final product is impressing and incomparable."
Portugese:
"Blutopfer
é basicamente gravações de precursões recolhidas na vila espanhola de
Calanda (Aragão) durante a Semana Santa de 1998. Esses sons foram
posteriormente trabalhados em estúdio com um bom gosto que poucos
projectos alcançariam. Sonoridades
dark-ambient enquadram a indeterminável quantidade de ensurdecedores
tambores.
Todos os temas transportam-nos para um ambiente ritualista e que nos
revela a imensa força desse tão antigo festival. O
produto final é impressionante e incomparável." |
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Equinoxe
magazine No. 19 / Germany (Alexander Götzke):
"Die
zweite Veröffentlichung von Apoptose
überrascht zunächst mit einem ungewöhnlichen Konzept, bei dem
archaische Trommelwirbel einer spanischen Osterfeier, der Sermana Santa
von Calanda, mit eigen komponierten Soundscapes zu einer harmonischen
Einheit verschmelzen. Bei der "heiligen Woche" handelt es sich
um den alten Brauch der Einwohner Calandas, die in violette Roben
gekleidet eine 36–stündige Prozession zelebrieren und sich in einen
tranceartigen Zustand versetzen, bei dem es regelmäßig zu Verletzungen
kommt. Die einfachen aber aufregenden Rhythmen dominieren in weiten Teilen
das Album und kommen gelegentlich in eine verhaltenere Gangart, die
mittels magischer Klangsphären den Kontrapunkt zu fast schon stürmischen
Trommeln bildet. Apoptose ist
allerdings nicht das erste Projekt, das sich diesem Thema widmet. Kadmon
von Allerseelen hat schon vor
Jahren einen Longplayer mit dem Titel "Gotos=Kalanda"
herausgebracht, der allerdings weniger nah an der Vorgabe lag. Die sehr
authentische Interpretation "Blutopfer" ist trotz seines
martialischen Titels empfehlenswert, jedoch anders als im Fold Out–Cover
geschrieben kein Dokument, sondern vielmehr die (wenn auch erfolgreiche)
Verfremdung eines Rituals."
(Note
from the editor: Although Kadmon of Allerseelen visited Calanda and
wrote a text about his impressions of the festival which he published in
Aorta magazine No. 3 "Nacht der Stigmata" his album "Gotos=Kalanda"
has to my knowledge nothing to do with this event. It contains music to
poems of Karl Maria Wiligut.) |
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Funprox
website / The Netherlands (HD):
"The previous and first Apoptose album,
"Nordland" was absolutely stunning, with beautiful icy
soundscapes. But for the new album Apoptose seeks its inspiration in
different regions. No silent glacier landscapes in the north, but
passionate rituals of the south! "Blutopfer" is a conceptual
album around holy ceremonies in Spain, to be more precise the Easter
drumming processions of the little Spanish village of Calanda. That's why
percussion is the main ingredient on this surprising album. Of course
electronic dark ambient and noisy sounds are added, but the stress is on
the drumming. The drums are alternating chaotic and military precise, and
are constantly embedded in dark soundscapes.
Apoptose visited the festival in Calanda in 1998 and got so impressed that
it resulted in this album. For this album many field recordings were used.
They were not the first one, already in 1985 industrial legend Vagina
Dentata Organ made an album around this theme, but I've never heard their
result.
Although I don't like this album from Apoptose as much as its 'icy'
predessor, it certainly has enough qualities to bring you in a trance-like
state and lead you to a ritual feast... My favourite is the title track,
'Blutopfer'. It has a perfect combination of drumming and atmospheric
electronics, and the tension is carefully built up in this song. By the
way, the purple artwork of the digipack by Omnon.de is splendid."
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Judas
Kiss magazine / England (LP):
"After
a cold atmospheric debut release 'Norland', Apoptose return with
'Blutopfer', which sees the group, move slightly away from the ambient
creations that invoked the spirits of Northern Europe. Instead
Apaptose have utilised the harsh rhythmic drumming that dominates Calanda,
a little Spanish village in the South of the country, for 36 hours during
the Easter period. During a stay in Calanda, Apoptose took field
recordings for this mammoth, hypnotic event and have laired the pounding
percussions together with beautiful dark haunting ambient soundscapes,
that intertwine the powerful and stirring beats that emanate from the
drums, creating a wonderful juxtapose of repetitive harsh yet structured
noise and low, dreamlike ambience, which amalgamates as one to create a
sound that has an overtly organic feel to it. As the structured
drumming and soundscapes intermingle they seem to become almost creating a life of their very
own and the sound soon becomes almost overpowering in a way that I'm sure
the actual spectacle of the drumming festival would be.
Personally I have a real thing for drums, not the heavy metal type drums
that dominate the rock scene, but ritually played drums, such as the
remarkable Japanese Kobe, so the power and emotion held within the
constant patterns drumming of Blutopfer is a sheer joy for myself to
listen to, even without the ambient soundscapes I could easily loose
myself with their hypnotic structures, but with addition of the cold, slow
moving, yet deeply evocative dark ambience that accompanies them, I find
myself being swamped with the power and emotion that this CD holds.
Even if you think that the constant pounding of these overtly ritualistic
sounding drums would grate on you, I think you'd be surprised just how
addictive they sound when coupled with the ambient structures Apoptose
have created. Housed in a stunning fold out digipack with linier notes by
Michael Moynihan, Apoptose have yet again created a deeply stimulating and
original release."
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Musicclub
website / Italy (Emanuele
Salvini)
"A
due anni di distanza dalla realizzazione di “Nordland”, ritorna dagli
Inferi Apoptose, artista tedesco che firma i suoi lavori per la Tesco di
Mannheim, casa discografica di culto negli ambienti
experimental-folk-gothic soprattutto per i leggendari lavori di Death in
June e dell’astro malefico Der Blutharsh. Numero di catalogo “52”
per un’opera allucinante e sperimentale, ispirata ad un rituale pagano
celebrato, durante la Settimana Santa di Pasqua, in uno sperduto paesino
spagnolo chiamato Calanda che ispirò profondamente anche Luis Bunuel, che
quivi nacque. “Blutopfer” sta, nell’idioma tedesco, per
“sacrificio di sangue”, una metafora atta a designare non tanto
un’uccisione di un animale da sacrificare agli dei, quanto una cerimonia
popolare connotata in senso misterico e mistico, nata per preservare la
comunità locale dagli influssi negativi dell’esterno, un rito dunque
non propriamente iniziatico, quanto l’iterazione annuale di una
ricorrenza religiosa assolutamente pagana, per quanto celebrata durante la
settimana di Pasqua, e quindi in un certo qual modo cristianizzata e “normalizzata”.
Il rito, che dura ben trentasei ore, consiste nella riunione di tremila
persone, vestite di viola e armate di casse e rullanti, che percuotono i
propri strumenti con modalità estatiche ed iterative, cadendo in uno
stato di trance mistica e allucinatoria, che vede gli astanti unirsi in
modo tanto simbiotico con la tribalità ancestrale della loro musica da
ferirsi le mani e sanguinare (ecco forse spiegato il “sacrificio di
sangue”). Apoptose, che durante la Settimana Santa del 1998 si è
trovato partecipe di questa cerimonia, ha registrato nella propria mente
la tribalità percussiva, allucinatoria e psichedelica del rito,
aggiungendo alla fedele registrazione delle rullate alcune tastiere
gotiche arrangiate con tonalità atmosferiche e agghiaccianti: ne esce un
ritratto estremamente suggestivo del mistero assoluto delle religioni e
del paganesimo, un mistero che risale alla notte dei tempi e che mai potrà
essere pienamente svelato nella sua interezza. Cercare di sottrarsi a
questa suggestiva ed ipnotica sequenza di suoni dopo aver adagiato il cd
nel lettore risulta impresa impossibile, il maelstrom ivi contenuto è
destinato ad inghiottire chiunque si trovi nelle sue vicinanze: detto
questo, risulta saggio avvertire che un eventuale approccio ad Apoptose è
del tutto a vostro rischio e pericolo."
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Tandem
News website / Canada (Chris Twomey)
"It
doesn't take a visit by the Pope for the Spanish village of Calanda to
erupt in religious expression. As documented by filmmaker Luis Bunuel (who
was born there) Calanda's Easter celebrations feature 3,000 drummers who
take part in 36-hour drumming processions until their hands bleed! Clad in
purple robes the massed drummers create standing waves of sound that
tremble through the streets with a primordial strength. A previous vinyl
document of the drumming brotherhoods of Calanda released by Spaniard
Jordi Vallis in 1985 is long out of print, but now a German visitor has
combined location recordings with his own music for this special release
titled "Blood Sacrifice." Apoptose's dramatic pieces focus on
single groups of rhythms rather than Vallis' wall-of-sound approach, but
his haunting string synth chords bring out the power of this ancient rite
that defines a social unity with sound."
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:twilight
zone: webzine / Italy (Antonietta & Francesco Gentile)
"Apoptose's
lunar influences come back to orbit around our senses, before imprisoned
in Nordland's cold, and now red hot by Blutopfer's fire. An album inspired
by the artist's emotions, he has lived in Calanda, Spain, during the
traditional and suggestive celebrations, which have been taking place
every year during the "Holy Week". Most important subject in the
opera: percussions, magic strength that these instruments can spread
around, their ritualistic incursions, incandescent atmospheres can be
created. Seven tracks to hole the silence with a really strong impetus,
like a crash that can create the birth of a volcanic island. Percussions
imposing beatings build invisible and solemn equilibriums air- earth,
which transmit to the listeners suggestive imagines and charming
atmospheres. Icy ant twilight keyboards contrast with air's electricity,
punctual in underlining and accompanying drums journey. Once again
Apoptose builds a sumptuous musical relic, by a visionary soul and a
secret sensitiveness. The vital flux of the earth. Rhythm of ancient
circle... men passage."
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