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Aktor pull the listener back into the late 70’s/ early 80’s with their synth/ keyboard heavy blend of pop rock, AOR, & buoyant yet moody metal, with slight edges of more prog/psychedelic matter. Paranoia is the project first full length, and it offers up ten shots fairly short, tuneful & highly retro styled sonic fare.
John Wiese is a well known LA based composer creating abrasive avant garde somewhere between free jazz, noise and modern classical, active since 2000. "Deviate From Balance" is an otherworldly musique concrete and ambient recording with a variety of approaches and sound sources from track to track, though consistently embracing free rhythm chaos and a surreal, occultish tension not unlike Naked City's "Absinthe" or "Heretic". Looking at the liner notes, these pieces span more than a decade previous, some being studio recordings while others originally parts of installations, etc.
In a recent review, I bemoaned the run of poor Gruenrekorder releases I had written about; before submitting deservedly glowing words about Peter Kutin’s ‘Burmese Days’. ‘Series invisible - Collection II’, by Christoph Korn and Lasse-Marc Riek, doesn’t so much drag Gruenrekorder back down again, as take it to a different world altogether.
Triangle Records and Somnolent Shelter Records presents Hard Panning: The Ultimate Contemporary Cut-Up Harsh Noise International Compilation. Whew...that was a mouthful! As the title implies, this CD offers 16 tracks of harsh noise, cut n’ paste mayhem. While not quite a comprehensive who’s who of noisers toiling with the cut-up aesthetic, it is nevertheless a really good showing. Featured are a collection of some of heavy hitters of the sub-genre: Developer, K2, Facialmess, Ahlzagailzeguh, Purgist, and T.E.F. along with some artists I‘m less familiar with. That said, this compilation is all killer no filler! There’s not a single dud to be found from beginning to end.
Oregon grind two piece, Nekro Drunkz, are back with their third offering and first on Moribund Records. With their Slade-esque spelling and over the top song titles, it's pretty tough to take this band seriously. And with the monikers Crystal Seth and Disgustor, it's pretty obvious that they don't take themselves seriously, either. And really, there's nothing wrong with that as long as the music holds its own and stands up to the ridicule a goofy project receives.
Since the late 1980’s Austrian project Allerseelen have been creating their own distinctive brand of Folk & Industrial music, which along the way has seen the band dip its toe in many different genre waters taking in elements of Metal, traditional Germanic folk, world music influences, avant garde pop, jazz and many others. With their new album Terra Incogninta, the band offer up a selection of old & new tracks which highlight the bands unequal sound & their seemingly effortless ability to mix in varied musical genre traits into their trademark sound, and make them their own.
Here we have the third in series of recent reissues of Sky back catalogue on Esoteric Recordings/Cherry Red. Sky were an English/Australian instrumental progressive rock group who existed (in one form or another) between the late 70’s & mid 90’s, and created an often approachable brand of classical influenced rock music & fusion. This is the bands third album, & it originally appeared in 1981 – it’s reissued here as a definitive cd & DVD double set.
W.W.W was the firth album from this highly creative Danish collective, who mixed together elements of :jazz-rock, R&B, blues, psychedelic rock, early prog rock, and pop rock into an often memorable & rewarding whole. The album originally appeared back in 1971 on John Peels label Dandelion Records- this CD reissue appeared in 2015, and found the album getting an remastering.
French-man Romain Perrot is most known for his intense, unchanging & highly prolific wall noise project Vomir, but he has also stepped out into other genres of sound/ art. This 106 page art-zine brings together a collection of his derange, perverse & child-like art- taking in crude drawings, manic scribbles, hand written texts, rough collages, ect. It originally appeared back in 2013 in very small numbers on Perrot’s label Maison Brut Maisonbruit- this reissue appeared in February 2015 in an edition of 80 copies on Black Blood Press( the small press part of Portuguese sleaze ‘n’ depravity & noise label Narcolepsia)
Here we have a recent reissue of an distinctive, often dungeon bound, & fairly undated slice of dark ambience. Originally released in 1999, Far Beyond, Before The Time was the first album from this project. Behind Kerovnian was one Vlad K, who in the past had been a member of a few Croatian black metal bands, such as Ashes You Leave.
Eliane Radigue is a name well-known to me, but until this point I’d never heard a note of her work. Admittedly, a three cd set - containing three long tracks - is a somewhat daunting way to make her acquaintance; but actually the set isn’t as monolithic as you might think. The strikingly presented release, comes in a foldout cardboard wallet; holding the three cds and a small booklet about the pieces and Radigue herself. Rather than any text, the booklet reproduces letters, posters and performance notes from around the period of composition; giving an insight into the composer and works without prescription.
Charlotte Braun is a new collaborative walled noise project, that brings together two of the scenes most creative & detailed textural noise creators. We have Uk’s James Killick(Small Hours, Love Katy, Flood, etc), and he’s joined by Canadian noise maker Chris Garant of Horrible Mess( whose 2013 release The Well was one of the wall-noise highlights of that year).
Miasmic Corrosion offers up just under an hours worth of taut, tense yet highly compelling walled noise. Paul DVR is one of the recently active projects of long time & respected US HNW artist Paul Dever( of Griz+zlor, Cursed Aether, & Dhusk).
Originally released on a limited edition cassette by Annihilvs (12 copies!!) in 2012, Malignant Records' re-release of Theologian & STROM.ec's Hubrizine is long overdue. Given the names involved, it seems strange that the original release was such a limited run. Regardless, Malignant once again delivers the goods to the experimental community. Basing their works on a shared appreciation of Philip K. Dick, the two genre stalwarts work together to produce an engaging work that is very different from their original styles.
Handmade Birds imprint presents Wrong Intersection by Kevin Drumm. Kevin Drumm is a long-running experimental musician, hailing from the windy city. He’s been releasing solo and collaborative output since the late 90’s, working with such artists as: Jim O’Rourke, Prurient, and Aaron Dilloway. This full-length CD, released in 2014, is my first foray into the artist’s work. It is to my surprise that I’ve managed to make it this far into my avant garde, musical vocabulary without having crossed paths with Mr. Drumm yet, but Wrong Intersection is as good a place as any to start.
Barren Harvest is a two piece neofolk group comprised of Jessica Way and Lenny Smith, both veterans of the scene. They've released a pair of albums to christen the project during 2014, one of which is this album, "Subtle Cruelties".
Along with Black Leather Jesus & Werewolf Jerusalem, Last Rape is one of the more known projects of multi project linked Texas Noise Legend Richard Ramirez. The project is known for it's often giallo & horror movie themed walled noise, and it started in 1995. On offer here is a recent release- that either comes as a C30, or a digital download- I’m reviewing the tape version.
Avid readers of my reviews (its ok - I’m being facetious), will have noticed that the last few Gruenrekorder releases I’ve written on, have received fairly short shrift from me. I’m pleased to announce an end to this run, with Peter Kutin’s wonderful album, “Burmese Days’. It comes in a very low-key package, with minimal artwork and information - most notably, a distinct lack of ‘field-recording text’: praise the Lord. The album has eleven tracks across two sides of vinyl.
Here we have the third volume in the Underworld Transmissions series. Offered up here is a C20 cassette tape- it takes in two side long slices of seemingly improvised & eerier ritual ambience from the mysterious Finish based Helixes/Aural Hypnox collective.
I Am In Hell, Help Me is another sonic brain scramble from this Southern California project - it mixes together wonky & wavering electronica, slurred synth melodies, psychedelic noise, layers of weird sounds, samples, melted ad jingles, and all manner of puzzling/ deranged fare that’s fed into a often dense & twisted mass of sound.
Emmanuel Allard's "Nouvelles Upanishads Du Yoga" is an album of often abrasive digital synthesizer texture which moves about the stereo space in erratic quasi-cyclical spasms. Described in the liner notes as 'investigations of various feedback circuits', it's comparable to the homemade synthesizer experiments of Japanese noise legend KK Null.
The fun and inventive debut of Floridan death metallers, Orbweaver, has been reissued on vinyl by Corpse Flower Records. Originally released in 2013 and available on tape and CD, this reissue has been remastered by James Plotkin, and is limited to 300 colorful editions. Featuring Randy Piro (ex-Gigan & Hate Eternal) and Sally Gates (ex-Gigan), the band definitely has some scene cred. Although they haven't released anything since this debut, the band is still active and Strange Transmissions From the Neuralnomicon is still garnering a lot of praise.
U.K. based imprint KIKS/Girlfriend presents XXX Colder, by HNW mainstay Clive Henry. Colder was released in 2014 as a C60 cassette, in what I can only assume was a really limited edition. Clive Henry hails from the U.K. and is a rather prolific figure in HNW circles. I’ve often seen him referenced as a “progressive” HNW, which I’m not really sure what that means giving that wall noise is a genre dedicated to static sound. With that said, Colder is one hell of an odd duck.
Abominor is a black metal band out of Iceland. Although the band eschews the scene’s rather incestuous mix of members (apart from a brief stint from drummer Bjarni Einarsson of Sinmara) they share an undeniably similar musical palate.