Various Artists — Troubled Sleep #1 (paper zine)

Troubled Sleep #1  is the first extreme noise paper zine from the Portugal based Narcolepsia  tape label which is run by one  Manuel Pereira- whoes put together, designed and did all the interviews in this first zine. He  also does all the design, layout and production for all of the tape  releases too- so it’s a really one show.

On offer here is a sixty page A5 Zine that has an orange outside paper cover, and digital printed or better grade photocopied black on white paper inside. Unlike most zines Troubled Sleep just consists of purely interviews, with no reviews or any other write-ups present here. In all there are eight interviews on offer here; with each interview lasting between five to eight pages a piece and the  projects interviewed/covered here are: Highly respected and  well know French HNW project Vomir, Perverted and creative Power electronics and extreme noise of  Italy's Fealove, Minneapolis based HNW and Hash noise project Baculum, Chicago based thick ‘n’ bombarding HNW project Bachir Gemayel. Georgia based ritual extreme noise based Order of Nine Angels, Maryland based  noise/ Power electronics/ extreme industrial  label Trash Ritual, and Mental Funeral Zine interview.

All the interview questions are well thought-out, researched and interesting. And my only criticism here is that there are no introductions to any of interviews, so if you don’t know anything about each project to beginning with you’ll be more than a little lost by the interviews.

The lay-out and look of the zine is nicely lo-fi, perverse and gritty. With Pereira breaking up each separate interview with either old 50’s or 60’s pornographic pictures or more random/ bizarre pictures…really the artworks very much like what he uses for his tape releases, so if your familiar with those you’ll know what to expect here. The interview texts themselves are made up of ripped up pieces of typewriter written paper that’s put onto varied textured or photographic backgrounds.

All told Troubled Sleep #1 an interesting and informative collection of interviews with various extreme noise related projects. With Pereira nicely keeping the lo-fi, sometimes random and perverse art desging and feel of his tapes in place. Well worth a look if your into the extreme noise scene in general, and it’s great to see the paper zine alive and well when so many are web based theses days....roll on #2!