Last modified on November 22, 1995
Castle von Buhler's first compilation, Soon, won praise and awards for its combination of music and art. The first was a veritable who's who of local dark, ethereal, and gothic music and art. With Anon, Castle von Buhler has widened the scope to two discs (Solar and Lunar) and vastly different bands. Far from being jarring, the music flows wonderfully. The trembling acoustics of Lisa Germano and the soft sounds of Vastlessmudge are night and day to the crank of bands like Chainsuck and Lumen but it makes for a wonderful listen.
The pure variety of the music may be even more attractive than the packaging. One of the knocks on Soon was the length of many of the songs, and Anon takes care of that with songs that barely clock in at one minute (the chiming "My First Trip to the Orient") to offset the long dirge of The Moors' "Belen-Gaard."
Anon has a great hit-to-miss ratio, music-wise, and rather than bore you by going song by song and card by card (I can't believe anyone would want to go that far), here are the highlights: The Solar disc's jewel in the crown is the pulsing "'Til My Head Explodes" from Chainsuck. Tucked within the almost mechanical beat of Michael Smith and semi-sampled guitars is a wonderful vocal melody from Marydee. Other highlights on Solar are the acoustic-tinged "Soapbox" from Sirensong, the order-from-chaos noise of Lumen's "Filament," and the swooping guitar waves of The Curtain Society's "Gravity." The Lunar disc scores with crank of the Women of Sodom's "Boots" (a.k.a. "The Accountant Song"), the rolling soundscape of Rabid Ear Test's "Red is the String," and two tracks by The Cranes' Mark Francombe's project Eardrum.
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