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Escape Mask, either in CD or Vinyl format, is a rather intriguing & sonically unexpected reissue of a very early Merzbow release. It sees the noise legend offering up four tracks that blend together psychedelic ‘n’ spiralling guitar/ violin scaping, electro drum beats, industrial textures, the odd sample, & even buried vocals. But the most interesting & surprising thing here is a lot of the tracks have often fairly harmonic moments, as well as periods of almost groove like dwells.
I think it’s fair to say I’m personally more of a walled-noise/ textured noise fan, than a fan of more general/ straight harsh noise- so I think that’s possible why I have such decidedly mixed feelings about this recent CDR split. It brings together Ohio based Village Creeper, who offer up a sifting, though seeming fairly random & decidedly cack-handed harsh noise. And French RRR- who creates uniformed & creatively seared industrial tinged HNW.
Paul Wirkus is a Polish born electronic avant garde composer whose first released work came out in 1999. He released two albums in 2016, breaking a 7 year silence, one of which was Discours Amoureux. It is a concise, 34 minute work with 4 tracks, each 7-11 minutes in length. Their titles are four digit numbers of unspecified meaning.
Spanish duo LCC (Ana Quiroga and Uge Pañeda) are back on Editions Mego with their sophomore effort, Bastet. Letting their creation shimmer and unfold, LCC's latest works as a contemplative piece as well as abstract electronics. Named for the Egyptian goddess music, Bastet works within a realm of near ritual, but never gets constrained by what their release should sound like, and allows it to just be.
Music In Eight Octaves is a dizzying, disorientating, yet often captivating journey into piano composition. The fifty-minute piece on offer here finds this pair multi tracking four takes in each octave of the piano, to creating a rapidly spiraling, kaleidoscopic, and exhilarating rush of pure piano.
In the tape trading, pre-internet days, it was much harder to hear material from bands in other parts of the country, an even more so if they didn't tour. Such is the case for Milwaukee death meatallers, Dr. Shrinker. Not part of an exploding local scene and not embarking on national tours, Dr. Shrinker was forced to be part of a tape trade only network, and their material was grievously underheard. Relegated to being a footnote in American death metal history, Dr. Shrinker broke up. Fortunately, they had recorded a number of demos, and Nuclear War Now! is giving them the deluxe treatment. Over two LPs, Nuclear War Now! gives metal fans access to all of Dr. Shrinker's pre-breakup material, and introduces this once again active band to a new generation.
Here's a double headed feature from Vinegar Syndromes Drive In Series. The region free DVD release features two Bigfoot themed productions- a documentary from the 1970’s, and a family film from the 1980’s.
Portrait Of Miranda is a C40 & digital download from October last year. It features two dense-yet-layer detailed examples of wall noise, from this tight & leg themed Swiss project.
Is Life Truly Beautiful? is a two way split bringing together two twenty slices of walled noise. One track blends in elements of dark ambience, and industrial murkiness, while the second is a more formal example of ‘wall-craft’.
This CD brings together a selection of tracks from the 20-year career of this North Queensland Power Electronics project. The Australian duo utilise static analogue tension, feedback squeals and pitched rhythms.
Here we have a recent CD reissue of one of the more strange, unpredictable & quirky releases to appear from out of the 1970’s progressive/ psychedelic rock scene. Originally released in 1971 the rather wonderfully entitled Death May Be Your Santa Claus, blended together zany like composition, diverse & crazed vocal performances, bizarre composition twists ‘n’ turns, and a more organ and Mellotron focus.
Here we have a C60 split from two of the longer serving projects from with-in the worldwide walled noise scene. Vomir, is one of the most known projects in the genre- this French project who has been active since 2005; releasing a truly huge body of work. And Quebec based Bleak Existence, who’s been active since 2007.
The late 1960s and early 1970s was probably the most creative and experimental period in the history of both music and film. Alejandro Jodorowsky, Kenneth Anger and Jean Rollin, were but a few of the incredible talents working within cinema at the time. In music we had the Pink Floyd, The Incredible String Band and even pop superstars The Beatles were pushing the boundaries to see where new sonic techniques and psychedelic drugs could take them. During this era film and music became almost synonymous bed fellows. The Beatles were at the forefront of those utilising psychedelic imagery to expand on what they were doing in the recording studio with songs like Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, or It’s All Too Much. The resulting films Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine work as signifiers of the future development of the music video. The Incredible String Band made the film Be Glad for the Song Has Ended, and even in America hallucinogenic films, many featuring the involvement of Jack Nicholson, included heavy participation from the likes of the Strawberry Alarm Clock, The Chocolate Watchband and The Electric Flag on their soundtracks.
Here’s a tape from Phantom Cadaver, presented in suitably sombre grey tones, with red titling. The front cover features a washed out photograph of a house, and that’s really all there is to say! Side A has four tracks, whilst B has two, however, in practical terms it’s rather hard to tell where one track might end, and the next start. The material is homogenous, though, and it’s therefore easy to see the pieces as larger wholes, rather than needing to worry over track divisions. Both sides are unmistakably HNW.
Bow brings together a selection of modern classical/ improvised pieces from this Canadian based composer & percussionist. The seven tracks offered up here move from often angular improvising to lush & harmonic string composition. All making for a release that quite a unbalancing-yet- enjoyable proposition that shifts between skewed ‘n’ soured, majestic ‘n’ lush, and somewhere inbetween the two.
In recent years the interest in throat singing, overtone singing, or khöömii(Mongolian throat singing) has grown & grown. With a project like Russian Phurpa, causing much interest & critical praise with their dark blend of throat singing & dark ritual music. Here we have a nicely presented double CD & colour book compilation, which focuses purely in on Mongolian throat singing- collecting together forty three tracks, from between the years 1954 & 2016.
British jazz-funk-disco outfit, Shakatak, sees the re-release of 1982's classic Invitations via Secret Records. This newly expanded edition features six alternate remixes of four Invitations tracks. A must for any fan, this easy, light, danceable album will get you moving for sure.
Aught offers up two nine minute slices of creative & detailed static texturing/ walled noise from the always worthy Train Cemetery. The release comes in the form of a C20 cassette, and early in 2017- sadly the physical tape is all gone now, but you can still download the release from Hallucination Tapes bandcamp label.
La Jaula De Concentratión 69 severs-up two extremely searing, at times shifting, yet un-complex examples of brutalising walled noise from this Spanish project. This C40 is the fifth release from the project.
This is the third album from Kentish folk rockers Green Diesel, and the follow up to 2014s Wayfarer’s All album. Mixing traditional acoustic folk instrumentation with a more modern electric sound really pays dividends for this vastly underrated band, who represent for me one of the gems of the folk underground. The album was recorded at Roundel Studios with producer Roger Cotton, to whom it is also dedicated, a sure sign of his worth in helping to shape the sound of this beautiful new record. The CD was released earlier in 2017 and is currently available through Talking Elephant Records.
Planning For Burial, the brainchild of Thom Wasluck, present their latest album, Below The house. This is a mix of shoe-gaze, doom, 90s alt rock and drone. It is a return to form of sorts to Planning for Burial’s beloved first album, 2010’s Leaving.
Here we have the first ever DVD release of two ultra obscure SOV ‘horror’ films from the 1990’s. And as the genre goes each film here is fairly rewarding- bringing together a mix of low-grade effects, stilted dialogue-to over acting, 90’s cheese, often wonky/ campy synth scoring, and the odd surprising plot twist.
The 26th studio album from The Melvins arrives in the form of a sonically disparate double LP, the first in the band’s lengthy history. Comprised of the more formally familiar-sounding “Death” (a “proper” Melvins album) and the expansive and experimental score “Love” (crafted for a short film by Jesse Nieminen, which the band also helped produce), “A Walk With Love and Death” also stands as the first Melvins full-length to feature newest bassist Steven McDonald, not counting his four-song appearance on 2016’s “Basses Loaded” LP. The two albums stand in stark opposition to one another and embrace both sides of the Melvins’ aesthetic: tight, metallicized sludge riffing anchored by Dale Crover’s always incredible and powerful drumming, and bizarre, disorienting, occasionally twee “what the fuck” style pastiches of collaged sound and warped studio-as-instrument aural wreckage. As a set, the two records don’t really play off of one another in any meaningful way, but they do offer the Melvins devotee a fairly enormous amount of confounding sound to get lost in.
Here’s a strange little package from See Through Buildings… Two CDRs in a card wallet, housed in a plastic picture frame. The frame itself shows off a drawing by Charlotte Skrobek. So, it’s unusual packaging, and I think the first time I’ve seen a frame used. Both discs are dominated by wall noise, and textural pieces. There are seven tracks, with four long works at 20:01 minutes, and one short one at 5:24.