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Originally released in 1994 Gingerbread Man was The Residents first foray into blending their distinctively quirky music with Computer graphics. With the original issues of the album featuring animations to play on ones PC, connecting into the tracks themes. This 2016 reissue sadly just comes with the audio elements of the album, so it does feel like something is missing- yet as it stands it’s one of The Residents more wordy & moody of their more theatrical albums.
Close To The Noise Floor is a rather splendid four CD/ book set that celebrates & chronicles early British electronica between the mid 1970’s & the mid 1980’s. The compilation is certainly a varied & highly consistent ride- stopping off in DIY techno, proto-synth pop, more noise bound/ experimental tinged terrority, bright ‘n’ buoyant futuristic electronica, electro- ambience, and beyond.
This is the third release from Germany's Gruenrekorder label that I have reviewed this year after Christina Kubisch and Eckehard Guther's Unter Grund and the startling collection of pieces collected under the Landscapes of Fear project. Despite the bar having already be set high this weighty release presenting what is in effect the doctoral project of Hein Schoer easily surpasses those other two releases in complexity, depth and intellectual rigour. The basic question that Hein poses and which provides the orientation and occasion for the recordings, book and multi-media features that are included in the Box of Treasures is stated at the outset of the text: "How do I make a good cultural soundscape composition for museum-didactic purposes". The culture that he chose to document were the Namgis/Kwakwaka'wakw, a North American first people based around Alert Bay British Colombia.
This CD of four Torvund compositions comes wrapped in a garish, cardboard, gatefold wallet. The garishness is provided by the pictures on each of the four panels of the wallet: each a brightly coloured cartoon, and each representing one of the tracks. The pieces are performed by Asamisimasa, an ensemble well-versed in avant-garde music, and their main tools, here, include: clarinet, guitar, keyboard, cello, and percussion. However, these are joined by sampler, whistling, electric drill and ‘toy laser gun’ (to mention a few), to give you a sense of the incredibly colourful palette they utilise.
Here we have another example of head-drilling & totally unrelenting walled noise from this highly prolific Serbian project. The release comes in the form of a C40 cassette, featuring one side long track per side of tape, and really this is HNW at it’s most crushing ‘n’ overloaded.
Here’s a tape that seems to have fallen through the cracks. This self-released cassette, features a pair of Russian noisers, Paraplegic Twister and Segment Aura. Released in 2014, this is hardly a new release. However, with my unfamiliarity of both artists, it’s certainly new to my ears. What we have here is 60 minutes of noise, with each artist providing distinctly different styles.
British power electronics legends Sutcliffe Jugend have been busy as of late, with three releases (so far!) in 2016. Returning to Cold Spring again, the duo have released Offal, a churning, pulsing, looping swarm of electronic fury. Consisting of four long tracks spanning 55 minutes, this release shows how Sutcliffe Jugend continues to change their sound and challenge listeners the world over.
Cradle Of Filth will need little or no introduction to anyone who's even a little familiar with the metal genre in general. Since the early 1990’s the British band have offered up a distinctively melodramatic(at a times muddled) blend of Black metal, Goth metal, horror film soundtracking, with darts into trash, more traditional metal, and death metal. The release we’re covering now is not a new release, but a different version of one of their cornerstone release’s- Dusk…And Her Embrace, which originally came out in 1996 and really fired the band into the big time.
It’s been a few years since we’ve had a new full length/non-collaborative release from Black Leather Jesus-the US harsh Noise collective set up by Richard Ramirez in the late 80’s. So it’s great to have this new double CD release on Germanys L-white( who are known most for their PE releases).
Here we have the 2014 reissue of the synth based soundtrack for The Boogey Man- a 1980 horror film that blended together elements of slasher & supernatural horror, to create a often muddled though no-less entertaining B-movie.
Elephant9 is a Norweigen instrumental progressive rock band formed in 2006, who have 5 albums as of now, their newest a collaboration with fellow Norwegian Reine Friske titled "Silver Mountain". "Silver Mountain" is a massive and ambitious project containing both sections of dense complexity and tranced out improvisation.
Here we have the first volume of George Crumb works from Bridge Records. Crumb is a highly respected & versatile American avant-grade composer, who has been working since the late 1940’s, and today is one of the most played modern composer. This compilation release comes from 1991, and features three pieces that nicely highlights the scope, creativity, often inventive sonic flare of Crumb.
After weeks of digesting wall noise and sounds residing on the harsher side of the experimental spectrum, I was due for a respite. And what better way to cleanse the palette than to escape into the naked sounds of the natural world as provided by Gruenrekorder and friends. The German-based field recording label (arguably, one of the most prolific in the field recording arena) teams up with Tentacles of Perception Recordings to present MMABOLELA, a 2 x CD by David Michael and Slavek Kwi (Artificial Memory Trace).
Here’s a professionally printed and pressed CD, from two unknown names to me: Tobias Preisig, and Stefan Rusconi. Their depiction on the front cover, summarises much that you need to know: Rusconi sits at a church organ, Preisig saws away on a violin, and in the background, an intricate stained glass window. The album was recorded in a church in Cully, Switzerland, in 2014, and features nine tracks. These vary from a long, near-fifteen minutes, to a short one and a half minutes, and would appear to be overwhelmingly improvised. Pleasingly, the album covers quite a lot of ground - though some parts are more engaging than others - and is certainly not a collection of dry, difficult improv
Japanese death merchants, Defiled, are back again on Season of Mist, this time, with their fifth release, Towards Inevitable Ruin. Taking the form of twelve short bursts of pounding death fury, this tight four piece uses machine gun drums and quick, effective, compact riffs to bring their art forth. Five years since 2011's acclaimed In Crisis, Defiled offer up a manic slice of death metal that is sure to please fans waiting for their next bit of Tokyo terror.
Here from Arrow video we have a DVD/ Blu-ray reissue of a long out of print supernatural tinged slasher with a snowy setting from 1984. Satan's Blade is very much a low budget regional affair from the USA, featuring an cast of (still) unknowns, and a one time director.
Here’s another release from Lurker Bias Neon Wall series, and this time around we have two tracks from Newcastle Upon Tyne based HNW act Shurayuki-hime. The C32 release came in an edition of ten copies, and featured neon pink sleeve that takes in a photo of a young oriental women in granny glasses.
Void Immersion is Cory Strand’s addition to the Lurker Bias Neon Wall series, and it sees him offering-up three examples of wall-noise/drone blends. Mr Strand should be well known to fans of either the wall noise scene, or the experimental noise/drone underground- for his prolific output( under his own name, or under project banners such as Lethe, Fantome De Sang, Dejection, etc). Or for his highly respected HNW and dark ambient/drone label label Altar Of Waste, which has released around just over 400 releases in it’s four year existence.
Here’s a monstrous, pro-printed and pressed two CD set from Rudolf Eb.er - the driving force behind the Schimpfluch Gruppe collective. Eb.er is known - if not notorious - for visceral performances and recordings that often concern themselves with the immersing of the body and mind in unsettling situations. Whilst these often flirt with, and transgress, taboo subjects, they are nearly always delivered with an earthy humour and awareness. There’s increasingly a sense of Eb.er as occupying a shamanic territory, and Brainnectar makes that link very explicit.
Sumbru is the new project from respected & prolific French wall artists Julien Skrobek, and this C40( and digital download) release is the debut release from the project. It’s also the first release on new French label Rapture Records.
REV. Laboratories presents World News, a CD EP by Janek Schaefer. Schaefer is a London-based sound and installation artist, and quite an accomplished one at that. Over the span of 20+ years, Schaefer has won multiple awards for compositions, was a Visiting Professor at Oxford Brookes Sonic Research Unit, and has a lengthy discography of albums and art installations under his belt. With such a prestigious background, I feel that I should know this artist more. So to rectify that, I immersed myself into World News.
Synthy space dwellers, Contact, are back with their sophomore effort, Zero Moment. Following up their regarded debut EP, First Contact, is no easy task, but, thankfully, A.E. Paterra and Paul Lawler are well seasoned and handle themselves accordingly. Although not too far sonically from their first outing, Zero Moment still shows that well played and well written songs are the bedrock for music. This may not be the album you get drunk and rope all your friends into listening to, but it's very solid. And, hey, if you have to rope your friends into anything, are they really your friends to begin with?
Here we have a well deserved re-issue of three classic & much loved easy-listening albums from the late 1960’s. All three albums are a great blend of spoken word (themed around the sea, sky or earth), and lush/ mellow easy-listening music, which touches down in smooth jazz, romantic orchestration, sentimental & light 60’s string led pop, moody yet soothing piano work, big-band/ swing grooves, and beyond.
And the Posters' "The Prose Stand" is a cryptic, homemade looking CDr release of lo-fi electronics which range from verbed out drifting soundscapes to grim industrial flavored downtempo. Every one of the 17 tracks is rather amusingly titled with a different anagram of "And the Posters", some of which are quite creative.