Premiere: Stream Exclusive New 夢遊病者 and Drune tracks off New Compilation Milim Kashot Vol. 3

It's that time of years, folks, where we are most excited to announce our latest annual, globe-busting compilations in the MILIM KASHOT series. The goal, as always, is to somehow make manifest the web of, if I shall break out my Shakespearean English, cool people doing cool shit. Being in contact with amazing art is indeed a blessing and this compilations series (see VOL. 1 and VOL 2) has been our way of celebrating that with some of the absolute best in forward-thinking, weird, and experimental extreme music.

This year I have the almighty pleasure to host a long list of incredible artists, all of which can be seen in the swanky poster below but also here since whatever:

Andarta (IL) / Argwaan (NL) / Atameo (IL) / Batshitcrazies (IL) / Beyond Despair (IL) / Bygones (IL) / Chosech (IL) / Dreichmere (US) / Drune (US) / Ekdikēsis (IS) / Inter Arma (US) / Ketoret (IL) / Morris Kolontyrsky (US) / Myrdød (US) / Name (US) / Nero di Marte (IT) / ÖSTRA TORN (IL) / Pharmacist (JP) / 夢遊病者 (Intl) / Trauma Bond (UK) / ZAÄAR (BL)

My endless appreciation goes out to all of the participating bands. I think this year's compilation might be the best one yet.

Extra special thanks to those bands that went ahead and wrote songs especially for this compilation – Inter Arma, Atameo, Beyond Despair and (as you shall hear below) 夢遊病者. My endless gratitude and appreciation. And another shoutout to those bands allowing us to premiere new/unreleased material – Andarta, Morris Kolontyrsky (Blood Incantation, Spectral Voice, Black Curse) ZAÄAR (Neptunian Maximalism), Drune (see below stream), Ekdikēsis, Myrdød and Pharmacist.

As has become custom in last year's installment all of the proceeds will go to charity, with the money this year going to the good, hardworking people at For the Wildlife animal sanctuary. You can read about their work here (or donate yourself if you feel like it). And as has been custom as well the fine humans on our Patreon will get access to the compilation a week ahead of its release.

Now for this year's installment, which we are ecstatic to announce with the streaming of two unreal tracks from two equally unreal bands. The first track, "Fate's Thirst," is effectively the second single from the upcoming debut full-length from Denver doom band Drune. We wrote about their debut EP/demo at the time, became immediately enamored, and are thus honored to host this massive beast of a thing here.

The second track we're previewing is what one could call an actual, honest-to-God event. There haven't been many bands or artists as enticing, human, and utterly pummeling in the last decade or so than the multinational entity known as 夢遊病者, or "Sleepwalker." In a string of unprecedentedly creative and ferocious releases they have managed to be both melancholy and murderous, human and horrid. For those reasons it really is a job to be able to present here a track written by this monster of a thing especially for MILIM KASHOT VOL. 3, along with its own custom artwork. You can read more about this magnificent band as well as feast your eyes on said artwork below, where you will find an interview with the band.

Again, this may seem hyperbolic and to an extent it probably is but it makes us extremely happy to be able to share this with everyone, and we shall be keep everyone updated as we release the entire album. In the meantime enjoy these two great tracks, feast your eyes on the wonderful cover art custom made by the talented Nir Pinchas-Kleinman with the layout by our very own Amit Ben-Haim.

If you're new to this fine establishment then check out our various interview projects and other cool shit. And if you'd like to keep abreast of the latest, most pressing developments follow us wherever we may roam (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify and now also a tape-per-day series on TIK TOK!), and listen to our shitty podcast (YouTube, Spotify, Apple), and to check out our amazing compilation albums. You can support our unholy work here (Patreon), if you feel like it. Early access to our bigger projects, weekly exclusive recommendations and playlists, and that wonderful feeling that you're encouraging a life-consuming band musical habit. Be well!

夢遊病者 The War Inside My Head Interview:

What was the first album you bought with your own money, and where did you buy it?

As my memory serves me best, I want to say South of Heaven by Slayer. Majority of my humble collection around the time of middle school were CDs that were gifted to me by friends for birthdays, old Soviet cassette bootlegs I inherited from my sister, taped shows of WSOU radio and copies I made from the local library cassettes and CDs. [Shh]

There were four record stores my friends and I used to frequent—Music Connections which was a town over that we walked to no matter the weather, Music Man which didn’t stay open for long in the other direction that we somehow managed to get rides to, CD World that we walked over the highway to get to, and the mall Sam Goody. I vividly remember this dude named Steve who was the manager, stacking the endcaps and metal titles in that store. He played for a band called Freezerburn or something of that ilk and always kept us informed on new CDs he would get from the distributors that my friends and I would have to call “dibs” on because he would only manage to get one copy.

Both Music Connections and Music Man looked like hoarder bunkers, with shirts for sale hanging from the pipes and stacks and stacks of vinyl, rows of CDs and cassettes behind glass, and more piles of junk in the back room. It was our musical utopia. Old, new, vintage, half cracked cases, and pristine shrink-wrapped stuff barely in any order. We used to take cellophane bags or backpacks and stuff them with used cassettes and CDs. The first 3 gift CDs at that time were Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream, Metallica – Master of Puppets and Black Sabbath – Paranoid. I’m still BFF’s with these dudes, so it was trippy to reminisce with them about this. Every record within this interview is a time-capsule of a particular friendship.

Music Man had really cheap tapes and I remember grabbing Suffocation’s Human Waste EP, Dismember’s Like an Ever Flowing Stream, Sadistik Exekution’s We Are Death… Fukk You! [simply because I found the cover to be badass], Afterlife – Surreality, Morgue – Eroded Thoughts, Paralysis – Patrons of the Dark, Broken Hope – The Bowels of Repugnance & Swamped in Gore, Necrophiliac – Chaopula – Citadel of Mirrors [which had one of the worst covers I can remember but some of the coolest guitarwork] and the Live in Leningrad VHS from Yngwie Malmsteen because my best friend’s father had it and we been all super jealous. I think I paid something like 20 bucks for the lot. I later ended up trading all those tapes for Iron Maiden tickets at the Ticketmaster stand at CD World a decade later. Traveling back through time inside my minds’ eye it was either of those records that were first purchases.

What 2-3 albums did you hear the most growing up? 

After I moved to the States and some time has passed, my parents and I used to take these drives up north in their old Corolla. That car had a tape deck, so anything was essentially game. I remember distinctly asking them to take my sister’s Dark Side of The Moon tape along and put it on—on the drive up. On the drive down it was Adriano Celentano’s – Soli bootleg with a bunch of other hits. My father would have these compilation tapes he would make that had anything from Alla Pugacheva, Engelbert Humperdinck, Muslim Magomayev, Elvis, Vladimir Vysotsky, Julio Iglesias. In retrospect—incredibly powerful vocal performers with highly melodic sensibility. I was instantly drawn to it.

The album I listened to the most was probably Queensryche – Promised Land. There’s not enough paper in the world to truly scribble how I feel about that record, but in short, it captures atmosphere, melody and power in a singular vision.

What two albums taught you the most about making music (mixing, production, performance)?

I used to take music completely at face value and never focused on the sonic intricacies until I started to really tinker with it myself that suddenly my world was blown wide open in good and bad ways haha. I was always conscious of compositional choices but ignored the mix.

There was a show series on VH1 that focused on music production called “Classic Albums” that I watched growing up, that only later I understood the true value of. It’s hard to even pick 2 from that series but here goes, it’s probably a triangular tie between Steely Dan – Aja, Deep Purple – Machine Head, and Frank Zappa – Apostrophe/ Over-Nite Sensation. And I’ll explain why those three. Aja, because it uncovers an absolute obsessive attention to detail that can be both a soul-crushing downfall for a musician and a grandiose victory, Machine Head because it’s an example of utmost resilience against the odds when it comes to tracking, writing and production and Apostrophe/Over-Nite Sensation because it completely pushes the bounds of what a record can be and stand for, from the sonics to the composition.

In a modern prism, those three phenomena are probably captured in Robert Miles – Organik. This album completely blew my mind when I heard it. There is so much unexpected texture to it all, tasteful, unpredictable, put-together, rich, expansive, memorable. It’s the perfect blend of mint, smoky pomegranate sauce and slow-cooked lamb.

What is the last album that absolutely shocked you?

Danny Elfman – Big Mess. Floored. Dude is 68 and he’s at the top of his game, probably making the most uncompromising music of his whole career and everyone else is 2000km behind scratching their heads. First solo record in 18 years. The visual identity for this album is superb, just the perfect package and incredibly put together. The videos. Berit Gwendolyn Gilma, Sarah Sitkin. The arrangements. I felt like a kid listening to the record. Like I was in Music Connections all over again picking up a record blind.

What album relaxes you or centers you the most?

Ace of Base – The Sign. It's nostalgia fuel. It never stresses you out with any sharp turns. It’s an immovable rock in memory. It’s the connective tissue to the past, and again, it’s melodic and somewhat melancholic sensibility is off the charts. It’s also utter cheese that is entirely self-aware.

What are the 2-3 albums you’ve listened to the most recently?

Anja Lechner, François Couturier – Lontano: Consummate professionals.
Khost/Deep Cross – Split LP: Gut-wrenching, and gut-splitting.

Viagra Boys – Welfare Jazz: Snarl worthy of the greats, yet has dimension.

Bonus:
Henrik Palm – Poverty Metal: A sensible extension of Voivod without losing own charm.
Black Midi – Cavalcade: Controlled madness, uncontrolled tastefulness.

Mana Mana – Totuus palaa: A genre-less gem that still has the punch to knock you out.
Koniec Pola – CY: Fearless ideas before anyone else has attempted them.

What album is grossly underrated?

АукцЫон – Бодун. There is a guy I met in college who was also from the foreign-speaking diaspora but grew up in Texas. He had these apartment parties in Inwood that ran all night, with lots of booze, drugs and great tunes. He had a gigantic binder of CDs that we would cycle through the night and this one always made an appearance along with Prodigy’s The Fat of The Land, and a bunch of others including Miles’ – Organik.

Even with it feeling pretty avant-garde, it never felt interruptive to the flow of the party because that record has a really cool energy about it. It’s very honest, almost danceable, but also takes no shit. Even with this post-Soviet post-punk revival, it doesn’t look like it made it into people’s playlists yet, but it’s a beautiful hidden gem, for when uncovered, shines brighter than the sun. Language barriers be damned. Texas Sasha ended up doing some artwork for the new record, so, full circle.

What album would you recommend from your local scene?

I had initially written down Human Remains – Using Sickness as a Hero/Where Were You When so I wouldn’t forget to reply.

The post-it sat there for about a day and that night I had a dream that Pete Lloyd [who did a supremely killer guest job on the massive Seputus record this year] invited me to an airplane hangar/barn house to track guitar. Doug Moore kept egging me on to nail the part and Dave Witte stood in the corner shaking his head, going— “this is a disgrace to the New Jersey name”. So, I am officially entering Replicant – Malignant Reality as the local ruby. Steeve Hurdle, Piggy, Pete Maturi all smiling down on The Garden State come September. Thanks to Rennie for always keeping me honest.