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“You Are Always watched” finds this Mayfield USA based HNW project offering up two flair lengthy slices of drone/ HNW cross breeds. The CDR release comes in a full colour fronted slip sleeve/ plastic envelope, and this features a close-up picture of a birds eye.
This CDR release from this Serbian HNW project takes it’s name from the extreme fear of hospitals, and fittingly Dead Body Collection offers up two twitching, clinical & relatively stripped( by DBC standards) edgy static studies or slices of taut/ nightmarish ANW.
This split CDR offers up two consist & reward slices of dense yet textural detailed HNW. Both acts here are from the state of Texas, and both acts offer up an around 15 minute slice of walled noise.
A trip to the Riot Season website, tells me that Pikacyu*Makoto is a duo comprised of Acid Mother Temple’s Kawabata Makoto and Afrirampo’s Pikacyu; and that this is their first album together, despite their respective groups collaborating in the past. Whilst this may well be a dream come true for some people, I should confess that I’ve never been overly enamoured of these groups; and despite supporting both of them live on different occasions, I’ve never heard a single release by either. This all sets up a nice narrative for me to be pleasantly surprised…but, alas, no.
The story behind this collection of rare and un-released material from former Christian Death frontman Rozz Williams’ experimental alter ego Premature Ejaculation is a strange one, indeed. Originally advertised as a limited compact disc release nearly two decades ago (it was called Dead Horse Riddles at the time) and then again as a cassette edition in 1997, it only finally got a proper release as a double CDr set at the end of last year through Malaise Music, the label set up in 2010 to make the late goth-rocker’s experimental recordings available to fans.
While not quite as astonishing as their last release, Starving Weirdos again demonstrate an incomparable gift for producing swirling, moving landscapes of sound with Land Lines. Here they trade the somewhat rockist approach of Rolled in the Midst... for a fresh take on sinister exotica, adding the occasional voice of Aimee Hennessey to the boys club while boosting the lushness of the production. On paper it might sound like the California experimentalists are struggling to find an identity, but these new ingredients turn out to be relatively minor adjustments, as the hallmarks of their sound—epic arrangements, discordant songs that form out of fog, and seamless transitions between dueling passages of disorienting cacophony—are still gloriously in place.
“Rauschen & Simulation” is the 4th volume in the The Order Of The HNW series- each release in this series presents a walled noise recording by a respected HNW act, and a related HNW text. Die Reitenden Leichen is a German based wall noise project that’s been around since 2009.
This is the third volume in The Order Of The HNW series- each release in the series offers up walled noise recordings & related HNW texts. “HNWar” offers up a just under twenty minutes of highly active & violent textured noise from middle eastern war ‘n’ culture themed US project Bachir Gemayel.
This CDR from The king of Crusty ‘n’ Crude unmoving HNW has a rather surprising & un-grim theme behind it. It’s a tribute to 1970’s glam rock horror movie "Phantom of the Paradise", which mixed together the stories of “Phantom of the Opera" ,"Faust" and "The Picture of Dorian Gray” into a campy shot of horror fed fun.
This Untitled release from the tail end of last year was one of the larger editions offered of Vomir’s work- the CDR came in a edition of 70 copies, but sadly I found it one of the least effective releases from the black bag wearing French HNW maker.
I was very exited when I heard Steve Hackett (formally of Genesis in their 70’s prog heydays) & Chris Squire ( long time member, bass player & songwriter of prog giants Yes) were getting together to do a collaborative project. I imagined it was going to be an all-out 70’s prog threaded treat, but instead “A Life Within a Day” is a mixture of intelligent AOR, and virtuoso yet fairly safe & controlled modern Prog.
Multitalented German percussionist and composer Sven Kacirek's 3rd album since his 2007 debut is "Scarlet Pitch Dreams", a meticulously orchestrated and layered 11 movement suite with significantly more melody and harmony than one might expect of percussion music, thanks to generous use of mallet instruments. Kacirek plays marimba, piano, vibraphone, harpsichord, xylophone and more.
France’s Dolorism take their life-affirming name from a post-war philosophical movement spear-headed by a compatriot of theirs, Julien Teppe, the tenets of which attribute to pain and suffering some sort of moral and intellectual value which could serve to elevate mankind to a higher sphere of spiritual comprehension. That its main proponent did suffer from all sorts of physical and mental afflictions during his life-time certainly did not help him look at the bright side of life but it seems no other person has ever gone so far in trying to rationalise their own misery. If he’d been born in the late 20th century, there can be little doubt Julien Teppe would have been a black-clad, depressed-looking emo kid.
This 73 minute CD is a live document of UK sound artist Haswell’s noise actions across four days of his April 2010 performance schedule.
Today’s quick approximations of sound on computer that allow hi-fidelity recordings to be manipulated in every conceivable direction in real time can hinder our ability to empathise with how it felt to receive the new technologies in recording and synthesising sounds of the fifties and sixties. For musical minds newly liberated by the likes of Stockhausen and Cage, these developments must have seemed like a whole new dimension had been discovered, laying in wait for willing pioneers to breach its threshold.
Adam Fritz's En Nihil project has been active since 1994, and once again I must confess my ignorance: I’ve only recently heard of this project, and this C60 tape is the first release I’ve listened to.
Well, this is somewhat of a rarity in the Harsh Noise Walls scene - a pro-pressed cd and printed booklet, in a healthy edition of one hundred copies. A brave venture from Where Is This, which should pay off given the quality of the sounds within. The cd holds four tracks, and is wrapped in wonderfully shadowy, decayed artwork; which reminds me of the beginning of the film “Irreversible”.
Kay Lawrence is a textured noise/ crunching ‘n’ crackling HNW collaboration between Canadian noise legend Sam McKinlay (The Rita & Vice Wears Black Hose ) & Italian based Cristiano Renzoni (Alo Girl & An Innocent Young Throat-Cutter).The projects rather unusual name comes from the US actress who was the star in the classic Gill-man monster movie Creature from the Black Lagoon.
“Sounds From Dangerous Places” is a rather wonderful 2cd/ book set from this English field recordist/ sound artists, who now lives in Germany. The release’s title pretty much sums up what this release is about- the first disc takes in field recordings from Chernobyl & it’s surrounding area. And the second disc takes in field recordings from Caspian oil sites and various dangerous sites across the UK.
Breakdancing Ronald Reagan is the noise project of Texas native Johnathan Cash. Johnny Cash's performances walk the line (heh) between harsh noise and performance art. Whether amplifying meat or carving packets of butter, BRR sets are something to behold. Johnathan Cash may look like a young version of the guy that lives across the street from me, but this kid knows how to bring it. Does he do so with this release, too?
Stephan Mathieu + Caro Mikalef's "Radioland (Panoramica)" is yet another highly enjoyable long form ambient work on the Line label. Stylistically, this is "classic" ambient music: the track is a slowly evolving synth tone cluster in a massive reverberant soundspace, with similar timbres to the work of Steve Roach, and the same billowing, upper atmospheric feeling many of his albums have, though Mathieu and Mikalef seem to prefer a more minimal chordal framework.
Astoundingly prolific and well on his way to becoming a metal legend in his own time, Devin Townsend isn’t subtle and he doesn’t do things lightly. Having completed his promised four-album conceptual cycle in 2011, he has already delivered another record and, on a roll artistically, has retained the DTP name for it. The all-new Epicloud means to defy expectations entirely in terms of genre while preserving Townsend’s trademark huge multi-tracked sound and bombastic production (he’s humorously referred to the work-in-progress as “heavy Enya”). It succeeds wildly at both of these things, even if it’s not a wholly satisfying listen.
“Prospekt” finds genre shifting locked rock groove Finish project Circle at their most urgent & taut. This album originally appeared back in 2000, this 2011 reissue adds in new artwork and a rather effective noise bound remix of one of their live tracks.
Willows is a new ghost/ horror themed HNW project from New Rochelle, New York based noise maker Dom C( of brutal HNW project Faggot Front, & ANW/HNW project The Structure). “Visitor” is the projects first release, and it comes in the form of a CDR.