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Francisco López
“Sound matter” (or “sonic matter”) seems to be Francisco López’ preferred denomination for his highly-acclaimed work that, over the past 30 years, has been purely based on field recordings. But, regarding such recordings as documents of a time and place – as one does with other high profile ‘recordists’ such as Chris Watson – misses the point of López’ work, which is to immerse the listener in a world of pure sound, free from form, contexts or language. While much of his output does contain recognisable sounds – be they frogs or aeroplane engines – the listener is challenged to rid themselves of these associations to enable them to explore the inner world of the sounds themselves and, ultimately, be rewarded through a transcendence of their preconceptions.
Tuluum Shimmering
The sound of Tuluum Shimmering is like a sort of loop driven, timeless ethnic music without a region or a tradition, with more gamble and moxy than one might normally expect from something loosely akin to my laymen's understanding of new age music, but with any real identifiers stripped away.
Emil Beaulieau
They say that James Brown is the Godfather of Soul, and perhaps that’s true… But what about the Godfather of NOISE!? Who has the wisdom, the experience & the painfully uncompromising attitude that laid the foundation of what makes Noise what is today?I’m talking about that pink-shirt wearin’ Master of Disaster, RRRRRRRRRooooonnnnn Lleesssaaaarrrddd!!
Luasa Raelon
Luasa Raelon mixes up a horror themed sonic brew of dark ambience, blacked cinematic’s & death industrial along with elements of noise matter and retro electronica to the build a dark & heady brew. The projects been in existence since 2001 and it’s all the work of Columbus USA based David Reed who kindly agreed to give me an interview via email.
Jahrtal
Jahrtal are a Austrian folk band who make rich, soothing and sometimes sombre, but always beautiful folk music that’s lined with earthy and warming 1970’s spirit. Their sound is all finished off with sleepy and hazy mainly male, but sometimes female German singing. The band have recently released their second album “William Blake - Lieder Von Unschuld Und Widerfahren” on the excellent Austrian label Ahnstern( home to great often experimental folk acts like Allerseelen, Svarrogh, Sangre Cavallum & Zlye Kukly). The bands main songwriter Ewald Spiss kindly agreed to give me an email interview.
Yen Pox
Yen Pox are the American dark ambient duo of Michael J.V.Hensley and Steven Hall, and since 1993 they’ve been creating some of the most vast, effective and bone chill pitch black ambience around. With Malignant Records just reissuing their classic genre defining debut album “Blood Music”, and the band also just about to release their first new material in eight years in the form of mini album “Universal Emptiness” - I thought it was a very fitting time to catch-up with both Michael & Steven, who kindly agreed to give me an interview via email.
Dead Body Collection
Dead Body Collection is a Serbian based project who make autopsy, operation and extreme medical themed unforgiving Harsh Noise Wall. The project is a one man project and features Aleksandar Nenad, whose also in power electronics meets weird noise duo [C. T. D.] . Though Dead Body Collection has only been in existence since August 2009 Alex has so far racked-up nine releases. Alex kindly agreed to give me an interview via email.
Andrew Liles
In the four years that have passed since Musique Machine last interviewed Andrew Liles, he has arguably become one of the UK’s leading explorers in experimental electronic music and is certainly among the most prolific. Inspired by popular science as much as the arts, his wayward imagination and technical flair guide his listeners through a highly-personalised sideshow of obscure and exotic sonic delights that are unconstrained by any school or set of styles yet somehow remain uniquely identifiable despite the diversity of his many, many releases. This has lead to him becoming collaborator of choice for many other pioneering musicians choosing the left hand paths of perception including both Current 93 and Nurse With Wound, where Andrew has been a consistent component of their recent live and recorded work. We caught up with him just following Current 93’s 25th birthday, celebrated by the release of their new album, ‘Baalstorm, Sing Omega‘ (which Liles recorded, co-mixed and contributed guitar, bass and electronics) and just before the release of the first LP in his new solo, conceptual series ‘Monster’.
Cages
Just when you thought music could not possibly get gloomier, here come Cages. Just last year they released Folding Space through Cold Spring, and it proved to be the darkest and most beautifully haunting record this side of the 00s. As Nola and David got so comfortably uncomfortably under MusiqueMachine’s skin, we couldn’t help but wonder obsessively about the illustrious duo. Thankfully, they kindly agreed to let us peek into their minds for a bit.
Foul
Foul create dark , thick and mainly horror influenced Harsh Noise Wall. Behind the project is West Virginia based J. Cadle who also runs the recently formed the very promising & purely HNW label Bane Records. He’s also part of the following HNW projects ….Massacre(with Sam Stoxen owner of Phage tapes and in projects Baculum, ect) and Oasis Of Fear(With Richard Ramirez of Black Leather Jesus, Werewolf Jerusalem, Vice Wears Black Hose, An Innocent Young Throat-Cutter and many others). J kindly agreed to give me a interview via email.
A View From Nihil
A View From Nihil is the bleak and nihilistic Harsh Noise wall project of Irishman Andrew McQuaid, who now resides in Scotland. Early this year the project released one of its finest, unforgiving and ultra bleak release yet in the form of 'Triumph Of The Broken Will' on Andrews own label The Order of The HNW. Andrew kindly agreed to give M[M] email interview.
Neven Smrznik
Neven Smrznik(real name Neven Misaljevich) runs the Sarajevo based, excellent quality bound and mainly HNW label Zvukovina with Andreas Brandal( Flesh Coffin, Hour Of The Wolf, Drevne Bolesti and many other projects) and Ela Vuk (Idlness Distribution duo and Nevens' wife). He’s also is the exellent cold sounding HNW project Smrznik. Neven kindly agreed to answer my interview questions by email.
Kyle Bobby Dunn
Kyle Bobby Dunn is a Brooklyn, New York based composer working within neo-romantic and drone-drenched post classical realms. He makes paradoxical and haunting pieces for treated strings, guitar, piano, and other classical instrumentation . It seems oddly fitting that my interview with Kyle Bobby Dunn would end up being … well, sparse. Much like his music, actually, where a single wash of sound serves the same function as a whole instrumental solo in someone else’s pieces. But in his few words about his own work, he speaks volumes—and after reading this, put on one of his records for yourself and let Kyle do that much more of the talking.
Matt Nihil
Matt Nihil runs the German based Monolithische Aktion label and records under various names – currently, most prominently MX Nihil and Die Reitenden Leichen. With, among other things, his outstanding material, excellent label roster and perfect art direction he has increasingly managed to enthrall noise and hnw audiences. We asked Matt to do an interview and found he was happy to. His insightful thoughts and answers you can read below!
Robin Crutchfield
Every musical career seems a little arbitrary on the outside and in retrospect. Robin Crutchfield first came to most people’s attention through his membership in the seminal downtown New York outfit DNA, but that’s been merely one chapter in a long and varied career—one where the caterwaul of the “no-wave” scene, the glittering mystery of folklore and fairy tales, and the drone and strum of medieval and ethnic music all rise and converge. There’s no contradiction between all that. The man’s large; he contains multitudes.
Stephen Thrower
A disposition to deviance and a wayward imagination threads through Stephen Thrower’s polymathic pursuits. Since moving to London in the mid-eighties he has become a principle player in post-Industrial experimental music, from his work as part of Coil from 1984 to 1993 to today’s hallucinatory electronics as Cyclobe with Ossian Brown (a member of Coil from 2000 onwards) and as UnicaZürn with David Knight (Arkkon, Shock Headed Peters) to name but a few. He is also an author of essential texts on cult cinema, publishing his own journal, Eyeball: The European Sex and Horror Review, that ran from 1989 to 2002, and more recently writing authoritative tomes that record the otherwise hidden histories of American exploitation movies and Italian horror for FAB Press.
Griz+zlor
Griz+zlor is the dark, uncompromising yet creative one man Harsh Noise wall project of Philadelphia based Paul Dever (also of Failure Of A Great Machine, Cursed Aether & earthspace noise). The project has been active since 2005 & since then has released a respected & rewarding body of work in the Harsh Wall noise genre. Paul kindly agreed to give M[M] an email interview
Churner
Churner is one of the most creative, innovative & rewarding Harsh noise acts in existence today . The project is centred around USA based Dan E who also runs the excellent noise label Violent Noise Atrocities. Dan kindly agreed to give me an interview via email.
A Silver Mt. Zion Orchestra / Alexander Tucker
“I’m here to play some music” asserts Alexander Tucker unassumingly as he announces himself on the stage of Camden’s half-filled Electric Ballroom. His one-man show, a brave experiment in self-accompaniment, is fascinating to watch as he creates loops on the fly out of a cello and then weaves his guitar in and out of the results.
Tissa Mawartyassari
Tissa Mawartyassari is one of the few female Harsh Noise Wall acts in existence; it’s the solo project of Mexican born Maria Velasquez-Soto who has also collaborated in quite a few Richard Ramirez projects in the shape of : Sado-Mania, Death Carries A Cane, Devil Times Five. Maria kindly agreed to give me rare interview via email
An interview with Human Greed’s Michael Begg
Michael Begg, along with childhood friend Deryk Thomas, has been releasing music since 2001, when, on a whim, he sent Steven Severin a cassette of music they’d created for a play called ‘Human Greed: A Mortality Play in 3 Courses’, leading to the release of their first album, Consolation. Since then, they have released two further albums of intense emotive evocations elegantly deployed through a dramatic blend of abstract electronica, field recordings, manipulated samples and, more recently, acoustic instrumentation, drawing comparisons to Henryk Górecki, David Lynch, and “Arvo Pärt conducting Metal Machine Music”.
Sam Stoxen
Minneapolis based Sam Stoxen runs Phage Tapes; one of the respected, prolific (the labels put out 99 releases since 2007), quality bound & (mainly) tape based noise labels around at the moment. Sam kindly agreed to give me an interview via email.
Richard Ramirez
Richard Ramirez is one of the most respected, influential & prolific names in American noise, he also openly gay & a fashion designer too. He has been creating noise since the early 1990’s under a myriad of different project names some of his most know project been: Black Leather Jesus( which is an noise collective instead of a solo project), Werewolf Jerusalem, Vice Wears Black Hose(with Sam McKinlay of the Rita), An Innocent Young Throat-Cutter(with Cristiano Renzoni of Alo girl & Italian HNW label Urashima)- these are just a few of the 50 plus projects his name is connected with. Richard kindly enough agreed to give me an email which has been done over a period of 3 or 4 months.
The Kittiwakes
The Kittiwakes are a three piece English folk band who released their wonderful debut album 'Lofoten Calling' last year & it fast became one of my favourite releases of the year & one of my favourite folk records of the last few years. The whole band kindly agreed to give me an interview via email