Annna/Rez Epo — Gozlor Gozlor

Some artists have the strangest but most wonderful talent for coming up with nonsensical yet highly intriguing titles. Masami Akita is probably the uncrowned king of this; completely enigmatic – yet captivating – track and album titles abound in his huge discography, culled variously from foreign languages, medical encyclopedias and baby talk corpora, so it seems, or combinations thereof. Gozlor Gozlor, the tape currently in my tape player, has a similarly mystifying title. It alternately reminds me of harsh noise artist Griz+Zlor and the word guzzler, making me expect this tape to be the illegitimate child of filthy musical terrorism and a night of heavy boozing.

Gozlor Gozlor sees Annna (Bartosz Zaskorski) and Rez Epo (Konrad Materek) filling a C10 cassette, each contributing five minutes worth of their own brands of harsh noise. Released through Materek’s Chaosynod label, and featuring artwork from Zaskorski, the tape looks like something straight out of the 80s, with poorly Xeroxed covers on pale pink paper. Obviously, then, this looks promising – this is an aesthetic most dedicated harsh noise fans know and love dearly. Let’s see if our expectations are met.

On the A side, Annna lays down a slab of harsh noise that seems to’ve sprung straight from the mind of a right lunatic. It’s a barrage of minute samples all pasted together to sound like a truckload of garbage released over your head. Blasts of noise, searing screeches, laser blasts, all sorts of voice samples – it’s all there, making the Annna side of this tape sound like something off Kazumoto Endo’s While You Were Out, though executed slightly less elegantly and humorously. There is little to find fault with here otherwise, though the somewhat too overtly digital character can throw certain listeners off. Those who prefer a thorough analogue vibe might have to look elsewhere.

Elsewhere in this case being the B side of this tape. The Rez Epo side continues in much of a similar vein, blasting away at the listener with equally energetic and spastic harsh noise. Following a brief, almost rhythmical percussive rattle, a guttural scream (“Gozlor!” – all that’s lacking is a “1-2-3-4!”) then leads into a crushingly wild stream of screeches and white noise. Compared to the Annna side, it’s a decidedly more analogue affair, and this lends the track an authenticity and raw, gritty texture that is slightly absent on side A of this tape. Amidst the ruckus you can, now and then, discern specific sounds, with more guttural screams, often distorted heavily, figuring most prominently. This makes Rez Epo, now and again, sound something like Masonna - if Yamazaki Maso was a morbidly obese baritone, that is.

Gozlor Gozlor is, by all means, a highly enjoyable tape. It offers three excellent brief bursts of harsh noise (two by Annna, one by Rez Epo) that are not the most original thing this side of 1980, but which are, at best, highly exhilarating. Reminding of, if not reminiscent of, a slew of other excellent noise makers and records, it is a wonderful small gem that will doubtlessly appeal to every fanatic harsh head out there.