Thirdorgan/Cacophonic Joy — Untitled

Ruido Horrible presents a limited edition CD-R by a pair of international noise acts: Thirdorgan and Cacophonic Joy. For those unfamiliar, Thirdorgan is the moniker of Japanese noise artist Akihiro Shimizu and Cacophonic Joy is Rodrigo Ambriz hailing from Mexico. As best I can tell, Ambriz also runs Ruido Horrible.

For this split we’re treated to 4 tracks by Cacophonic Joy and 2 tracks by Thirdorgan. The tracks are interwoven rather than separated by artist, so I’ll start with Cacophonic Joy first, since they have the first track on this split.

Things start off with Cacophonic Joy’s “Sunday Vomit,” which sounds like a fetid mix of cut-up noise madness and insane vocal stylings akin to Mike Patton at his most manic (think Fantômas). Think harsh noise blasts, hard beat pulses, synthy chirps and bleeps, gears churning and spinning, machine gun synth parts, silent stops, and even some jazz samples. Weaved into the cacophonous collage is Ambriz’s vocal spewage of incoherent mumblings and other guttural absurdities. On track 3 (simply designated as “.”) Ambriz adds some electro acoustic metal abuse to his repertoire.  This short little track combines metal bang and clang with gear-like winding, synth pulses, and vocals. His other 2 tracks on this album, “Pure Fucking Necrosense” and “Epí Ta Metá Ta Physiká” carry out in much similar fashion to his opening salvo, however with some steadier passages to counterbalance the more nimble parts of his work.

Thirdorgan delivers two longer passages on his contributions to the split. Shimizu’s first offering is “Musica Di Campionatura Bionica 1,” a track dedicated to 70’s Japanese pop star Junko Yagami. I’m not at all familiar with Junko, but her work is sampled heavily throughout this piece (which sounds Abba-esque to my ears). Over the span of 10:40 minutes we’re treated to extended cuts of Junko periodically demolished by rampant static wash, reverberating synth blasts, broken static, and speed changes. Due to the longer length and extended samples, this track feels more like a sound collage than the overt cut-up style pervasive in Cacophonic Joy’s tracks. On “Musica Di Campionatura Bionica 2,” Thirdorgan turns his affection toward American actress Amber Heard. Samples aren’t the focus of this 15:01 track (though there appears to be some buried underneath the chaos), just lots of layered digital glitches, chirps and other electrified sounds are generally confined to the  insides of a computer monitor.

In the end this is an interesting split of two artists toiling in the international noise underground. If I had to pick and choose, I slightly favor Cacophonic Joy’s tracks (just because I tend to favor shorter noise statements). However, each artist is certainly worthy of merit and it’s always cool to hear what’s going on outside of one’s own country