Loading
When MS Waldron of irr. app. (ext.) jammed with Blue Sabbath Black Cheer's wm. Rage and Stan Reed in 2008/9, they captured a fertile and fervent set of sessions from which three albums have now been culled.
Now...This! Records presents Restrict/Suppress/Censor; a 3-way split CD-R between Sleep Sessions, Areyfu, and Agit8. Sleep Sessions hails from Poland and Areyfu and Agit8 from Australia. On this disc, each artist offers their take on experimental cut-up noise.
Pestilence is one of those bands that has gone through countless line-up changes, stylistic changes and a long hiatus. Originating in the Netherlands in the mid eighties, the band now consist of international members. At one point this group even incorporated jazz fusion elements into their music (seemingly a bad mix with death metal), fortunately we hear none of this in the new disc "Obsideo".
Here’s what we old folks call a “cassette single”, though, technically, I suppose its an EP. The tape - in a wraparound cardboard cover, with insert - plays the same both sides: one ten minute track from SEC_, and two pieces from Micromelancolié & Youniverse which amount to the same duration. Theres a pleasingly “low-budget” and archaic feel to the packaging and artwork, which makes it look like a forgotten electroacoustic transmission from eastern Europe.
This recent reissue brings together two rather unique albums from this 1960’s US psychedelic rock project - both albums here present religious mass/rituals put into a psychedelic & symphonic rock form.
This CDR release sees Indianan based blacked noise project Crown Of Bone offering up his audio tribute to Wes Cravens 1988 voodoo themed movie “The Serpent & The Rainbow”. I guess you’d say that the single forty minute track on offer here is a mix of: sustained & searing black metal guitar texturing, intense noise drone matter, slight HNW tendencies, buried creepy sound effects & horror fed horror texturing.
“Closing In” mixers together environmental field recordings, found sounds/other field recordings, and drone to electro morphed abstracted instrumentation to create an a atmospheric work that moves from chillingly hypnotic & sometime angular sound-tracking, onto soothingly naturalistic(with often a subtle undercurrent of dread), and suddenly nightmarishly jarring texturing.
After 18 years off, Finnish death metal legends Convulse returned this January with the Inner Evil EP. Ten months later, they're dropping another slab of classic death on us with Evil Prevails. How relevant can a band be after such a hiatus in the constantly changing and evolving music world? In Convulse's case, very. The Finnish foursome isn't breaking any new ground here, but really, when you're getting back on the horse, why reinvent the wheel (it's a horse with wheels)? Classics never die, and that's as true in death metal as it is in GILF porn.
Victimology Records offers up a dense slab of harsh noise from (the now defunct) Churner. Based out the U.S., Churner (aka Dan E) cranked out an impressive body of work over his 6 year span. Exploring virtually every angle of the noise genre, you never know what’s in store for you with a Churner release. Could be drone, could be sci-fi noise, harsh noise, or perhaps all of the above.
This untitled C50 tape presents the listener with two twenty three minute slices of brutalizing ‘n’ dense walled noise from Boar- a Iowa based HNW/Harsh noise/ Power electronics project.
Vàg is a UK based HNW/ANW project that started in January 2013. “Music For Smoke-Filled Elevators” is the project first CDR release, and it takes in four tracks worth of ambient industrial tinged ANW.
PAS is an avant-garde collective named for the French negatory syllable. Their album is hilariously titled "Flanked By Women and Pumpkins". It contains 12 lo-fi atmospheric sketches averaging 5 minutes in length. Each track tends to stay in the same sonic realm for its duration, and though the tracks utilize different sound sources, most of the tones used are smeared, dissonant and murky.
A recent and wonderful trend has been emerging lately, some classical ensembles have been taking to the stage in venues not usually associated with these styles of music. A large majority of the public believes that classical music is somehow an elitist art and understood only by stuffy old antiquated peoples, this couldn't be further from the truth, but the idea has grown out of the system that has been built around classical music. Usually venue specific and expensive, most "common" people have just not been provided with the opportunity to learn about and enjoy these vibrant and very much alive art forms.
Here’s a cdr on the Muzikaal Kabaal label, packaged in the usual, stark house style. We get two tracks from Glasgow Smile, and three from Laboratory Fire; all of which inhabit harsh, abrasive climes.
"Under My Hands….She Dies On The Hospital Bed” finds this highly prolific Serbian HNW project offering up a c20 release. The tape features two just shy of ten minute slices of brutal yet creative walled noise.
The advent of cheap, accessible technology has allowed armchair musicians to record bedroom albums easily for a while now. Get your instruments, mics, mini-studio and record away before using free, readily available software to clean it up and then dump it on the internet. Send it to your friends or post a link on a bulletin board and get your tunes out there. It's so easy, even I have been doing just that for the past twelve years. However, thirty years ago, bedroom recording was much more of an undertaking. This feat becomes even more admirable when the artist builds his own synthesizer to rock out with. Getting your work out there was way harder, too, and exponentially more so if you didn't make copies for anyone! This is the case for T.R.A.S.E. (Tape Recorder and Synthesiser Ensemble), the teenage project of now well respected British tape engineer Andy Popplewell.
Second Language Records presents Mag - Amplitude by sonic experimentalists Constant Light. The Australian duo of Sasha Margolis and James Dean present a follow up to their well received Observations/1. If you can imagine taking Krautrock cranked through the grinder of the early 80’s Manchester scene, then brighten it up with some contemporary synth pop/dream pop (ala Stereolab), add a pinch of noise and you might begin to approximate the Constant Light sound.
"Dedicated To George A. Romero” is a recent CDR release that brings together three out of print releases by this popular La Crosse, Wisconsin HNW project. Each of the releases pay walled noise tribute to Mr Romero Infamous & highly influence original zombie movie trilogy- Night Of The Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead, and Day Of The Dead. With the three tracks been mixed into just shy of eighty minute mini ‘wall-fest’.
The Incredible String Band were one of the most distinctive, original & unequal bands to appear from the 1960’s music scene. The bands sound mixed together elements of psychedelic folk, world music, and other musical genres to create a truly unique & creative sound. 'Be Glad: An Incredible String Band Compendium’ originally appeared back in 2003, and the book charts & discusses the bands career taking in different types of writing, from fan remembrance, ISB & related interviews, album dissections, more scholarly song theme analyse, concert reviews & beyond. This new 2013 edition of the book sees manly of the articles up-dated, and also offers up a selection of new interviews/ pieces.
'The Slaughterhouse' is like no other release found on the pages of this site. The clues we're initially presented with (its title and label) inspire presumptions that suggest it's a field recording that, like many works in this area, highlights some aural properties of found sounds that would otherwise be filtered out without us being persuaded to listen in a suitably focussed way by lovely labels such as Gruenrekorder.
This CD double disc 2010 reissue brings together two early 1970’s albums by The Incredible String Band- the highly creative psychedelic folk, meets world music, mixed genre project, which was in existence between 1966 & 1974, with a sporadic re-groupings between 1999 & 2006. On offer here are the bands first two albums on Island Records, which both appeared in the year 1971- “Be Glad The song Has No End”, and “Liquid Acrobat as Regards the Air”.
Welter In Thy Blood are a three piece LA based project who create a truly nightmarish & tar black mixture clunking ‘n’ churning percussion, stretched-out & bleak doom, and blacked ribbed noise dark ambience. “Todestrieb” is the bands third releases, and it truly takes the listener to a very hellish & darkly curdling sonic place.
This is a nice looking package, which combines a simple sticker with a hand-printed outer and insert to make a noticeably “different” release. I must admit I got quite excited from reading said sticker: “david font: electronics/ jose luis rodriguez: guitar”; because my immediate thoughts were that this would be an album of electronics and flamenco guitar improv, which sounded like a fascinating meet-up. However, rather than the electronics being a separate instrument as such, they take the form of realtime processing.
The Chinese duo VagusNerve has returned with their second album "Go Back to the Sirius" on Utech records, a full 65 minutes of dense and heavy drone split into 3 tracks, averaging a little over 20 minutes in length. Their debut, "Lo Pan", was also released on Utech, in 2009.