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“Cinematic & Dramatic” is c80 tape release from this English walled noise project, which themes all of it’s release around Us pop singer Katy Perry. Behind the project is James Killick (who founded the influential and respected HNW/ANW label Sweet Solitude, and is behind such progressive & creative walled noise/ANW projects as Small Hours & suddenly Seymour).
This six CDR box set presents the listener with six seventy minute plus slices of some of the most brutal & truly unforgiving harsh noise wall you’ll ever have heard. The set also has probably the one of most disturbing themes I’ve ever seen- the different abnormalities that can occur in a female human babies vaginas, with the set including medical pictures of these abnormalities, along with a eight page booklet detailing the abnormalities- so this is certainly a release for those who can take both sonic & visual extremes.
Such are the clumsy assumptions that genre-led considerations can impose, minimal composition is not necessarily the first 'style' that comes to mind when you hear that an ex-pro skater and rock guitarist has gone solo. But this is path Duane Pitre has been following since he left the San Diego-based, post-hardcore band Camera Obscura in the early noughties. In this way, many first encounters with his solo work may well confound expectations.
The Nine Gates is the second release from this Australian one man ambient black metal project, who creates a chilling & hazed mainly slow-to-mid paced sound. The album original appeared as a tape release on Germanys Schattenkult Produktionen in February 2013 in a edition of 100 copies, then it got released in CD form in late 2013 by Moribund Records- which is the version I’m reviewing.
W/M is a double cd set that brings together two albums worth of improvised fare from these two Norwegian musicians. Each of the albums is mainly focused in on utilizing just one instrument, & each album finds one of the pair covering a fair amount of sonic ground going from noisy & rhythmic, onto more tuneful & moody, through angular & off-kilter sonic fare.
This 2004 double CD reissue brings together the 10th & 11th albums by this highly influential & often distinctive sounding 1960’s to 1970’s Scottish project. The band mixed together psychedelic folk, world music elements/ instruments, and all manner of different musical genres. The double disc set takes in two albums from the bands time with Island records, and these come in the form of 1972’s EarthSpan , and 1973’s No Ruinous Feud.
Here’s a tape from Bruital Orgasme, on sincope. Its packaged very smartly with a colour inlay and tape stickers; both of which depict a woman tied to a tree (the context being porn - not kidnapping). The first side is made up of eight short pieces, whilst the second has one long track; all amount to around half an hour of sounds.
This split CDR release brings together two twenty to thirty minute slice of dense, punishing, yet textural rewarding HNW from one European, & one USA based project. Vilgoc is from Wroclaw Poland, and Abyzm is from Kansas City USA.
Malignant Records presents An Occasion For Death by long-running power electronics, death industrial artist The Vomit Arsonist. Hailing from Rhode Island, The Vomit Arsonist is the moniker of Andrew Grant, also known for doing time in projects such as: Bereft, Thee Virginal Brides, and Nau-Zee-auN. While being familiar with the name for some time (often mentioned as one of the premiere U.S. industrial noise acts going), I admittedly haven’t delved too deeply into the project’s output. That said, I was rather looking forward to deflowering my ears, with The Vomit Arsonist’s 13th full-length.
Hail Spirit Noir is a black metal influenced progressive rock band, formed in 2010 by core members Haris and Theoharis, who had previously played together in such bands as Trancending Bizarre? and Rex Mundi. Their 2nd LP, recently released in 2013, is titled "Oi Magoi", and contains 7 songs averaging 7 minutes in length.
Finland's Demilich burst onto the international death metal scene very quickly. After a few quick demos in 1991 and 1992, they released their only full length, Nespithe, in 1993. Then, as quickly as they came, they left the scene behind with nary a word. Nespithe was originally released by US label Necropolis, which was an interesting choice for a European band. This allowed American death metallers the chance to hear something really different; Demilich sounded like neither the Floridian nor the Swedish death metal scenes. As well received as Nespithe was, Demilich's quick exit from the death metal scene pretty much secured this release as a mythical gem never to be repeated by the band again. If it hadn't been for the advent of the internet and older fans getting the message out there, I'm sure Demilich would still be horribly unknown instead of getting the deluxe treatment from Svart Records.
“Les Escaliers De La Cave” offers up just over sixty five minutes of dense, brutal, and fixed noise from the French master of walled noise. This 2013 release was jointly put out by three underground noise labels, and these are: France's Decimation Sociale(Vomir’s own label), Dutch based Skum Rex, and Portuguese based Narcolepsia. The release is one of the larger numbered releases from Vomir, coming in at 200 copies.
This is a download release, on the ever interesting Gruenrekorder label. Its a short collection of field recordings made by Flavien Gillié on a trip to Krakow and Auschwitz-Birkenau - a place most of you will know better as simply “Auschwitz”. Frankly, this set off all kinds of alarm bells in my head; namely, that making field recordings at an extermination camp was somewhat “cheap” - with the “exoticness” or historical resonance of the site over-riding the content of the recordings themselves.
Sao Paulo Underground is a trio of multi-instrumentalists formed by Chicago composer Rob Mazurek after his move to Brazil. They play a brand of loud and distorted but quite melodic bluesy rock sludge that sounds as if it were emitting through several blown tube amps at the same time.
Rape Victim Revenge is a HNW project from Washington State USA, and this C30 is the projects second release after a self released c60 that appeared in late 2011. This tape takes in two side long tracks of head roasting & brutal walled-noise.
Long-running German, HNW act Cannibal Ritual presents 2 new walls on Punishment Of The Yacumos. After years of dormancy, this act has resurfaced with a flurry of new releases on HNW staples Vagary and Claustrophilia as well as this new release on net label Meat Hook Butchery. As evident by the project’s moniker, Cannibal Ritual creates grim, static walls based on Italian Cannibal films. You can almost listen to the pieces present on Punishment Of The Yacumos as twisted alternative scores to such classics as Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox.
Oxykitten is a fun synth project from Portland, OR. With a handful of cassettes released on Field Hymns over the past three years, Oxykitten adds another release to their catalog with Escape From New Amsterdam. My hatred for hipsters and their cassettes aside (though, the pics I saw of this tape are really cool), I'm glad they're doing their best to bring back the 80's. I don't mean when they dress like goofball extras from some never filmed breakdancing episode of Miami Vice, but with their love of fat synthesizers and movie soundtracks.
After an absences of three or so years, “Return Of The Shamatari” sees the return of German HNW legend Cannibal Ritual. This release appeared back in late September 2013 in the form of a five track digital download album, and really it finds the project returning to the simplistic yet extreme brutal & lo-fi walled noise of it’s previous releases.
“An Imbalance Of Serotonin” is a just a under half-an-hour excise in intense, ultra thick & unrelenting walled noise from this veteran West Virginia based project. The release appears on the projects own Bane Records label, and comes in the form of a free download.
This ten CD box set from early 2013 offers up a look into the lengthy,more improvised & at times fairly musical side of the Japanese master of noise Merzbow. The nearing eleven hour collection sees the project as a two piece, bringing together Masami Akita & Kiyoshi Mizutani, and over the twenty one tracks we see the pair creating dense, layered & active slices of sonic fare that sit somewhere between improvisation & noise.
The flat rural landscape of the Fens of the East of England is the focus for this third release from Simon Scott. Being "cartographically below mean sea level", as the release's accompanying notes indicate, the area was originally a vast marshland that has been drained for hundreds of years to make way for agriculture.
Pelt Part Wild Gate is a collaborative group comprised of members of Pelt, Part Wild Horses Mane On Both Sides, and Gate. Ordinarily creators of noise music, they have decided for the purpose of this LP release, titled "Hung on Sunday", to use nothing but Gamelan instrumentation.
Naxal Protocol is the resurrection of Italian Power-Noise act Cazzodio. Power-Noise? Cazzodio? Well, it's the 90's (no it isn't) and we're here to learn thanks to the internet. For those that are unfamiliar with the genre (like I was a few minutes ago), Power-Noise is beat oriented noise. The name sounds like an overstatement, as it's more industrial than noise and not really powerful. However, I've only heard a few acts, so I'm no expert. Noisex seems to be the power-noise legend. Thirteen or fourteen years ago, I was looking for some noise with a beat, and was suggested Noisex. I could only find one song on Napster (oops) and ended up getting into Winterkalte instead. Naxal Protocol doesn't seem to fit the Power-Noise description, but, again, I'm no expert.
Avalanche recordings presents Everyday I Get Closer to the Light From Which I Came, the latest offering from British post-metal band Jesu. The brainchild of Justin Broadrick (Napalm Death, Godflesh), on Everyday… Jesu weaves a com plexweb connecting a variety of styles from shoegaze to metal...from ambient to orchestral. Despite having a slew of releases on labels I’ve quite enjoyed over the years, namely Hydra Head and Robotic Empire, I never quite got around to delving into Jesu’s catalog too deeply. So I was eager to see if Everyday… would make a good entryway into the Jesu lexicon.