Issue thirteen. February 1st 2012

I am not really someone who remembers dates, and in fact, at some debates with friends I find myself actually opposing the memory of past dates, yet it was a nice, gentle surprise to discover, upon browsing through past entries on the CINYF! Page, that it has been a full year since this webzine had its first steps. We have gathered some new friends and tightened our friendship with some old ones, and we did some nice things together, and hopefully will do some more in the future (the things we did were created in the shadow of a great crisis; let’s hope for a brighter opportunity this time).
So here’s for another year, at least, of unfriending culture. Be sure to check out our winter compilation, and if you like, purchase it for a low price. This release is digital, but we want to make the next one physical with the help of your purchases.

No one year celebration, just moving on with our work. We might celebrate soon if we feel like it, and we will make sure it will be worthwhile.

Adrian Aniol – Arrhythmia OST
Eepocampe – When things go abstract
Emme Ya – Erotognosis
Murmer – Specular reflection (liquid solid redux 2000-2010)
Petrels – Haeligewielle
Povoravo – Tchernovik
Toundra – II
Visions from Oniria – The Last 3 Lines

Friendship ∞

A lot can be said about tradition, religion, Santa, Jesus, Hannuka, God, Allah, winter solstice and so on and so forth. A lot of criticism can be sent towards any of the aforementioned fields (and it well should!), but this is not what we are gathered for tonight.

Marking special and specific events throughout the year is indeed a beautiful and important ritual, whose reasons can be easily outweighed by its results, if we celebrate and mark it in a positive way.

I have witnessed Christmas Eve only once in my life so far, in London. The streets were painted with the Red of blood, the Green of greed and the White of commercial blindness like I have seen so many times in movies. Yet inside the house where I was a very thankful guest, that evening was an amazing and modest moment of family bonding and friendship. Truth or myth were not important, these people were not even Christians. I sat there, staring at the Christmas tree which did not resemble the Christmas tree I know. It was round, naked and beautiful. I saw a family being happy and for a moment I was a part of that family. I saw love.

In this spirit of lifting ourselves like a bright phoenix for a brief moment, before burning down again into the sandy, muddy and dusty pools of life, Culture is not your friend! is happy to present you with a holiday compilation with some great artists and music on it. We hope you will like it.

http://christmasisnotyourfriend.bandcamp.com/

We are friends.
Blessings and Joy.
2012~

Issue twelve. January 1st. 2012

The years are represented by numbers, and through the celebration of the updating of the number 2011 into a newer, shinier and essentially bigger number – 2012, Culture is Not Your Friend! is happy to present another issue of music reviews. Seeing the long hard road in which things go, the coming 2012 will lead us into further contrast between the fellowship, understanding and open mindedness that we (well, most of us, I hope) share between us and those we know and call friends, and amount of scorn and abuse we get from those who are above us. No wonder we keep hoping, even if subconsciously, for this world to end, and every once in a while we come to a number that symbolize this end. When the date to this Armageddon passes, it immediately loses all the power it had to it. We should have this final day, this trumpeting of endtimes. We well deserve it as a specie, and like serial killers who lead the police to catch them (or else their actions have no meaning), we know this and welcome the judgment. This is done out of sense of justice. This is done out of the exhausting of our existence. This is done out of boredom.

Alexandre St-Onge / Pier-Emmanuel Tremblay – Split
Blueneck – Repeatitions
His Electro Blue Voice – Dead Sons
Thisquietarmy – Resurgence
Zavier Krall – 4 Grievances

We are soon offering an online winter compilation with wonderful artists and music. You will be able to listen to it in its entirety through the bandcamp website, and you can support us by purchasing it, so we can afford releasing our next compilation on physical copies as well.

Stay friendly. Even in the face of Armageddon.

Issue eleven. December 1st. 2011

The refreshing cold winds of December are almost upon me as I write these short lines. I was given the dreams about the end of the universe and the fundamental lines of theology in these last days of November, as a brief guide to the closure of this year, and now, like every passing year, I have the 12th month left to project my thoughts and will forward to the future in days to come.
We have six more reviews on this issue, and I personally hope you will go through them and give them a listen. This month had a nice musical batch in it, so don’t miss it!

A Wake a Week – Through Line
Kadaver/The Vault – Noir Seasons
Kryptogen Randfunk – Live 2005
Rose Croix – Rose Croix
TeenageSinTaste – Sunday Lights E.P
The Montreal Nintendo Orkestar – The Sudoku Masquerade E.P

Good news! You will hear from us once again this month, when we will release a Culture is not your friend compilation for the Winter holidays on the 25th! We have gathered some great, new tracks by some very good people on an online album, in the hope that next year, should we survive the final draw of the curtains on the world; we will have a physical copy of our next compilation to offer. So be sure to remember us on the 25th (you can have that day with your family and friends and come back to us the day after, that’s ok) to hear what we have for you. It’s going to be well worth waiting for!

In the meantime, all love from this headquarters, and remember that Walmart is not your friend!

See you in a new CINYF! issue on January 2012 at the dawn of the apocalypse.

Issue ten. November 1st. 2011

Authority allows two roles: the torturer and the tortured. Twists people into joyless mannequins that fear and hate, while culture plunges into the abyss.”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

Few days ago Prince Charles revealed that he is a descendant to the infamous Vlad Dracula. This symbolic declaration fits beautifully with the rising tension of the vast majority against the ruling minority, bringing hope to a time in the near future when men and women will ask themselves why oh why they need a king or a queen in the 21th century. The future of this acknowledgement of class war shifts between a hopeful vision and a hopeless battle, an important step has already happened. Symbols are shattering. Let’s hope for all of them to crumble.

We are still open for Music submissions for an online Christmas compilation album. We are asking from artists to contribute a track, 1-8 minute long, which relates to this festive occasion. It can be about Christmas, Hannuka, the coming winter. We all know, listen and make music that can be sinister and blasphemous, but this is the time to celebrate and rejoice. The musical limitations to this album as loose – anything from (post) industrial (no EBM please!), avant garde, experimental, ambient, drones, wierd/psych/apocalyptic folk, noise etc etc is welcome. Other genres are less likely to fit in this compilation. We are planning on releasing this album online, but in the future we hope to press physical copies as well. You can contact CINYF! via email for your tracks, do it quickly! The deadline for submissions is November 15th.

Remember remember…

On this issue we have :

Hadar – Mishmaat
Le Montreal Nintendo Orkestar – Kiss me, I’m your Guru!
Omega Massif – Karpatia
Pwin ▲▲ Teaks – Aoxomoxoa
SeaLight – Dead Letters
Wormsblood – Black and white art for man and beast

Issue nine. October 1st. 2011

Maybe a storm is coming.
The rise of demonstrations and riots, from the well covered riots in the Muslim countries of the middle east, to the less covered demonstrations in Israel and the US, is perhaps foretelling about a change. While the results might prove to throw our world into an even less stable condition than before, it is still an important moment when mankind stands against oppression, be it in the form of violent totalitarian government, or a more smiling, even friendly looking, hyper capitalist regime. Maybe a change is coming, maybe not. But the thing that is already here is our understanding that more often than not, those above us are not our friends at all. This is a great start.

One thing that is coming for sure is December, and with it a number of celebrations, religious, spiritual and secular. After the late label Zaftig Research had stopped releasing its annual Christmas albums, perhaps it’s only natural for Culture is Not Your Friend! to continue this tradition.
We are asking from artists to contribute a track, 1-8 minute long, which relates to this festive occasion. It can be about Christmas, Hannuka, the coming winter. We all know, listen and make music that can be sinister and blasphemous, but this is the time to celebrate and rejoice. The musical limitations to this album as loose – anything from (post) industrial (no EBM please!), avant garde, experimental, ambient, drones, wierd/psych/apocalyptic folk, noise etc etc is welcome. Other genres are less likely to fit in this compilation. We are planning on releasing this album online, but in the future we hope to press physical copies as well. You can contact CINYF! via email for your tracks, do it quickly! the deadline for submissions is November 15th.

That’s it! please feel free to contact us through email or through Facebook, send us albums for reviews or let us know what you think.

Until next time –

Absent Without Leave – Faded Photographs
AUN – Phantom Ghost
David tagg – Return of the light
Kadaver / Djinn – Anti Human Life
Kinit Her – Living midnight at the Harvest Abbey
Ralf Rabendorn – Aschenflucht
Raymonde Howard – For all the bruises black eyes and peas
Various Artists – Luminance

Issue eight. September 1st. 2011

September will be forever connected to the historical, cultural big bang we all know as the events of 9/11. With history diverted from its course, by the hands of whoever was responsible for this fearful feat, it is hard to think about this month without seeing in the mind’s eye the determined approach of the airplane to the tower of history’s swansong. I remember that upon hearing the shocking news, some of my friends were convinced that we are on the event horizon of a brand new world war. In a way we were. In a way we are still there, in the eye of this global storm, which asks us with hidden malice and a fake smile to separate our enemies from our friends.

Ten years after, this separation, done for us by our rulers, is giving planet earth a new geopolitical landscape. With this slow, forced rapture, we blindly hope for a better tomorrow in a better world, while only a few of us actually believe this can happen.
The question (well, A question) is what does our future really brings, ten years from now and ten years from then. Is it fear that is going to govern our lives with self proclaimed monarchy, or are we going to break the bonds and cast this iron rule aside?

Until this future comes, another question can be asked – what do we have to offer you on this month’s edition of Culture is not your friend!?

An interview with Aidan Baker, as well as more album reviews, this time of:

Contagious Orgasm & Kadaver – A tragedy without a border line
Cyclotimia – Sci Fi Music
Fabio orsi – Light was the day
Kodiak – Kodiak
Le Montreal Nintendo Orkestar – Angry Teeth
Robin Guthrie – Emeralds
Second Family Band – Crippled Fingers

That’s all now! Feel free to contact us through emails or facebook and join our group on lastfm and we will see you once again next month!

Stay Friendly!

Issue seven. August 1st. 2011

I am sitting in my living room and writing these confused words, while listening to a recently discovered ministry’s cover for the late Amy Winehouse song ‘Rehab’. It’s Saturday and it’s a mere few hours before I have to go to a grieving over my beloved aunt, who passed away on the same day the reaper took the life from Winehouse. Both of them were buried on the same day and at the same cemetery, and on that day I took the time to sit and reflect about death and loss. A little (and maybe loose) adaptation has made my wandering mind consider an analogy to Walter Binjamin’s angel of history, who watches the eternal catastrophe piling up in front of his eyes, and see the world as an endlessly growing juggernaut of suffering and loss. Another artist I have listened to today, Louis CK, tells his laughing audience, in his own words and brilliant approach, that same things. “Most people are dead”, he says. “You are going to die, and then you will be dead for much longer than you were alive! You’re basically just dead people who didn’t die yet”.

However, bravely taking a way out of this doomed, dark and, yes, distorted approach, life is a journey onwards, and so our greatest of mistakes is constantly looking backwards in order to survey the road that is already behind us, instead of looking forward, where life really is. The future might not have history, but it can have a sensible arithmetic to it at as many points as there are points in which history completely matches the past. It does not have tradition, but it has predictions, and while the past harbors death, the future can only harbor life, even when they are brought into the wreckage of a world that we had created.

But let’s not chat about despair!

This month we gladly present an interview with Raymonde Howard, as well as album reviews by :

D’incise – Arpenter
Field rotation – Acoustic Tales
Les Modules Etranges – Turmoil
Majdanek Waltz and Sal Solaris – Tenebrae
Sankt Otten – Gottes Synthesizer
Spettro Family – Candelora
Yellow6 – Cut

That’s all folks! Feel free to contact us on facebook or through our email for
And say whatever is on your mind! It’s all love, it’s all love.

Enjoy this issue, see you all on September!

Issue six. July 1st. 2011

Here is the new issue of Culture is not Your Friend!, for the coming month of July.
My birthday earlier in June was a good time to think about past frames of mind and beliefs. I remember how as kids growing up in the eighties and early nineties, we KNEW that the dawn of the next millennium will bring us the wonders of space travel, world peace and heaven on earth. As we began to realize how those we thought as friends, who rule the world, have other ideas about the future, and that we can forget heaven, that was the time when everything, even the shiny and alluring bit of cultural curiosity seemed to suddenly be dragging a long trail of sticky, gray slime of somber understanding about interests, damage and deadly consequences for one of the dwindling good, innocent or undeserving beings in the world.

Last week an article on one of the mainstream media channels celebrated the possibility of our near future bringing us the joy of wireless electricity. A brief mention of a similar invention by Tesla, preceding the article in 120 years with his wireless and free electricity explained how he was unsuccessful with his work, in contrast to our present day inventors, who will bring us their “invention”, together with the proper way for someone to make huge profit from it. June has taught me, once again, that profit, when attached to progress, just might not be our friend, maybe a short term lover with a cynical smile.

July Issue! So what do we have in here?

An interview with Yellow6, along with seven album reviews:

Aim Low – Foulards
Contemporary Noise Sextet – Ghostwriter’s Joke
Hypnoz – A Score for Iron Blues
Indelible – Remnants in Red
Montreal Nintendo Orkestar – Häxan
Rei Rea – Tarvine
Yellow6 – Close/r

Also – during June we got more information from mainstream media, not a good friend at all, with more and more droplets of reports about the severe situation at Fukushima’s nuclear reactors that suffered immense damage from the Earthquake in Japan last march. I am trying to keep in mind that while I am living my relatively safe life, away from that disaster (and closer to other disasters), some people are risking their lives on daily basis in order to save lives. We at CINYF! Have released a great quadruple, online album with wonderful artists, and all the money gathered from its sales go directly to one organization of amazing people, called JEARS, who donate their daily lives for locating, saving and recovering hurt animals in the Japanese disaster area. We can all help them a little from where we are, and we must not forget what they are still doing, when many of us have already forgotten about this disaster, and moved to a newer one.

Let us all go through this summer together as friends – CINYF!

Issue five. June 1st. 2011

Another month rises, cornering us with the talons of an inevitable, scorching yellow sun. Yesterday I came across an article about scientist who demand and declare that our sun does not harm our skin at all like we thought. Doubtful at best, and certainly not serving as any form of comfort from the coming wrath of the dry summer, it does raise questions about things we call beliefs, and things we call facts. Certainly, my own idea of a safe summer stays the same it was for the past ten years – Don’t leave home, although as a year have passed since the last time I did this – diving is a great solution as well. The benefits are numerous, but two of them overshadow the res. Rich marine life is so alien and beautiful to see and carefully interract with, and even more important – the detachment from our own world, even if for thirty minutes.

This is my recommendation for the summer, for what it’s worth. Much finer recommendations are found in this brand new issue, including an interview with Cloudscapes and more album reviews, this time by :

Akin – The Way Things End
Bad Sector – Raw Data
Burial Hex – Eschatology I
Final Cut – Ballade de Bruits
Kikiilimikilii – Lumens
Raindrinkers – The Healing begins now

Also, speaking of animals, we urge you not to forget our online quarduple album, which is available for sale only because it is 100% charity album, using the money to help JEARS and their wonderful work they do, saving and recovering lost and injured animals in Japan, which still goes through insane times while many of us have already forgotten about the catastrophe that hit that nation.

That’s all for now! you can join us on facebook as well if you like! Don’t worry, we don’t post drunk pictures and obscure, private status lines about our problems.

Until July – Your friends.