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“A nice fold-out cardboard sleeve, with a cd containing boring drone improvisation.” I now have to pad this review out for a few more hundred words…
This C46 tape is a HWN tribute to one of the more cheesy & seasonal slashers 1984’s Silent Night, Deadly Night. The tape offers up two side long tracks that mix together dialogue & samples from the movie with thick & punishing yet creative walled noise.
“Game of Consequence” presents the listener with four 15 minute slices of walled noise. These are themed around Moments- A Game Of Consequence- a 1980’s text-based choose your own adventure computer game. Bad Algorithm is from Raleigh, NC in the US, and this CDR is the projects third or forth release
Despite being just 34 when LA's Rozz Williams tragically died he had already built up a surprisingly large quantity of recordings, most infamously as the leader of the post-punk horror show Christian Death. But even before he recorded that band's seminal debut, Only Theatre of Pain, in 1979 he was experimenting with less groovy, more bleak industrial textures as Premature Ejaculation (PE), initially in collaboration with performance artist Ron Athey.
This recent Untitled CDR release finds the French master of walled noise offering up just over seventeen minutes of pummelling & unforgiving HNW. The track with-in is the audio equivalent of forcing your head in side a vast sewer net work that’s engulfed by a raging whirl wind.
This CDR release brings together two half an hour plus slices of taut & brutal walled noise from this suicidal/ grim Italian HNW project.
“Head On Collision” is a four CDR set of recordings from this fairy long running high signal feedback based HNW project of Texas noise legend Richard Ramirez. Each disc here features a single near on hour long track of static texturing/ or thinner layered yet sometimes shrill tempered walled noise.
Brett Naucke is the head of Catholic Tapes, and The Visitor is his vinyl debut. Brett's output has been limited to a handful of cassettes, so I am unfamiliar with his work. The press release promises "electronic bog filled with subtle seductive melodies and eerie organic abstractions." The lack of hyperbole makes me very hopeful!
Scandinavian soundscape artists BJ Nilsen and Stilluppsteypa have an ongoing collaboration, and the LP "Góða Nótt" is the latest installment. Each side contains a single track of slowly drifting ethereal ambience, aside from a few welcome gestural moments.
Mind & Flesh is the latest solo project of Norwegian artist Anders B., whose previous forays into the world of industrial music consisted of Katabol Prosess (one self-produced cassette release in the mid-nineties) and Babyflesh (two albums on Italy’s Slaughter Prod and Norway’s Vendlus Records in 2002 and 2005 respectively). The tracks on this, his first album under the Mind & Flesh moniker, were actually recorded between 2005 and 2008 but have only seen a proper release this year thanks to the good folks at Force Majeure, a sub-label of the (rightly) famous Lille-based Nuit et Brouillard.
Mixturizer is a Spanish noise one-man band active since the mid-2000s. and their sole member is also half of the highly prolific R.O.N.F. Records.
For this, the Lisbon-based sound artist's debut full-length release, João Castro Pinto has provided several hundred words to articulate both his compositional philosophy and approach. Given the sensorial delights held within the disk, the dry, academic descriptions talking about sonifications and meta-soundscapes create a barrier to what is, essentially, dream-like collages of field recordings creatively enhanced here and there by synthetic sounds and processing.
This tape’s physical presence is nicely understated and “quiet”; the simplest of packaging - a folded sheet of thick paper, with a low-contrast xerox image of a woman’s screaming face, in a cd wallet - making it unobtrusive in appearance and size. The sounds within “II”, however, are anything but muted.
If the handful of releases under their belt is anything to go by, Australian extreme metal imprint Aurora Australis specialise in heathen-orientated metal, an appallingly generic term used to describe anything from Manowar to Wolves in the Throne Room and which conjures up images of lofty snow-clad mountains and dark, mysterious forests at best or cringe-inducing Monty Pythons recollections at worst. As you will no doubt have noticed, it’s been a while since leather-clad headbangers (especially those of the Scandinavian persuasion) discovered the evocative power of acoustic guitars and eerie intermissions but in truth, those who understand both the power of the mighty riff and the added value of ritual-ambient soundscapes are few and far between, indeed. This split release sees two young upstarts from Down Under give their version of what the genre should sound like.
Belgium based Crucifix Eye are a digital HNW project that create a dense ‘n’ swirling take on walled noise. The project’s been in existence since mid-2012, puting out seven or so mostly tape based releases. “Yokai” comes in the form of a c40, & features two side long tracks.
“Morricone In Colour” is a four CD set that brings together eight full soundtracks from the always versatile & creative Ennio Morricone. All the soundtracks featured on the set come from the late 1960’s to the early 1970’s, and taking in Giallo, arty erotica, comedy/action, arty drama, comedy camper, black comedy, and psycho drama sound tracking. The collection shows Morricone’s knack for memorable melody, dramatic composition, and the ability to work in many different musical genres.
“The First Chapter” is 9th in series of twelve monthly three inch CDR releases, which are been put out through-out 2012 by Ireland's Bored Bear Recordings. Each release in this new series offers up a debut release from one of twelve new projects that are been put together by highly influential & respected Texas noise artist Richard Ramirez.
Mortisle Elytrion is the first LP released by Ichtyor Tides, the experimental project of French artist Nikola Akileus. The combination of experimental music and poetry really shouldn't surprise anyone, as it seems everyone is an artist. Maybe they are and maybe I'm just sceptical when I sense pretension. Anyway, that's Mortisle Elytrion in a nutshell.
Parallel 41 is a collaboration between Canadian-born New York cellist Julia Kent, perhaps most famous for her rich contributions as one of Antony's Johnsons, with the Rome-based singer/sound artist Barbara De Dominici, originally from Naples.
Major Stars are either completely unaware that anything ever happened after 1976, or they’re simply trapped in the ‘90s, a time when an overall un-ironic love for early ‘70s bombast-era Rock reached such absurd retro heights that, arguably, rock’s reputation as a comprehensive and forward-thinking form was killed dead on contact. And even though Radiohead tried to rescue the dying music with a Kaoss Pad back in 2000, pretty much everything that has dropped in its wake has been tagged and marketed as a “revival” or a “renaissance,” not giving rock fans much to look forward to. Rock is now all about looking backward, and Major Stars continue to unflinchingly contribute to this phenomenon.
Arktau Eos is a Finnish trio that create minimal ritual ambient music of an eccentric, psychically intense flavor. They belong to the Helixes / Aural Hypnox collective , which also includes Aeoga, Halo Manash and Zoät-Aon. "Unworeldes", a vinyl only release which contains 4 lengthy compositions, is one of two releases they put out this year, the other being a CD called "Ioh-Maera".
I know both the projects involved with this tape pretty well since I had the chance to meet both Astro and Alex/C.T.D. several times, and to play with them in more than one occasion. I hope my judgement will not be too clouded by friendship and idiotic fandom.
This self titled collaboration is a wonderful shot of brutal, stumbling & careering noisy improv/ seared jazz noise. The CD brings together heavy weight & offten noise bound Norwegian Sax player Mats Gustafsson, with three piece Sprawling ‘n’ manic trio Ich Bin N!ntendo which conists of Joakim Heibø on drums, Magnus Nergaard on electric Bass, and Christian Winther on electric guitar.
“This Is The Hell That You Created For Me” is a slice of building-then-receding walled noise from this highly prolific Serbian project.