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I'm always happy to welcome new additions to the scarce roster of Italian harsh noise and power electronics, and Elle is one of the latest, with her first release dating back just to last year. She is also one of the very few Italian active female performers in this field.
Hearse Fetish is a relatively new churning extreme industrialized HNW project from Mayfield USA. The project start late spring 2011, and since then they’ve steadily put out release five release in CDR or download format- “Trash Day Beauty/Body” comes in CDR form, and offers up one forty five minute.
Well-respected field recording and sound art publisher Greunrekorder adds another fine release to their already-essential Compass Series catalog with sound recordist and designer Ross Adams’ “Nord Rute.”
Editions Mego returns this ultra-rare 1998 double-LP to the land of the over-eager noise consumer. It’s a “stop me if you’ve heard this one before” sort of release—Harry Pussy guitarist Bill Orcutt (listed in the credits as playing “mouse”) samples fellow HP member Adris Hoyos (on “mouth”) and lets a computer program time-stretch one second into over an hour of sliding pitches, digital chatter, and whatever else the computer imagined fit between one micro-moment and the next.
Scott Wehman turns in a fairly lightweight bit of drone for his fourth release, “Cycle Stasis,” where his evocative titles—“Suprastilled,” “Barren Landform,” etc.,-- do most of the heavy lifting alongside somewhat ho-hum stretches of meandering low tones, the occasional far-off whistle, and what sounds like luggage being dropped in a parking garage.
The first thing you see with this release, is a very professional and stylish inlay: and the sounds within follow suit. The outer of the j-card is incredibly striking, with mysterious black and white imagery and very effective use of fonts and word placing. Turning it over, the inside presents an eye-mangling pattern; which illustrates very simply the hallucinogenic and meditative effects of some Harsh Noise Walls.
Here’s yet another Untitled release from Vomir-the French king of crusty ‘n’ crushing HNW. And the release comes in the form of a C30, which features one long track of battering, crude & unflinching walled noise per side of tape.
Boasting a heap of remix work for the Warp and Ninja Tune labels as well as for Radiohead, Nathan Fake has been around the block a few times. Debuting at age 19 with the DJ-hailed EP Outhouse, Fake has made a name for himself producing “chameleon electronic” music which borrows equally from house, early (Warp Records, duh) IDM, sparse dubstep , skittering glitch-hop, chiptune, techno, acid, you-name-it.
“Abstrakter Wald” offers up just under an hours worth of sweeping morose & bleak dark ambience/ wintery synth drift. Moloch is a highly prolific Ukraine based depressive black metal/ dark ambient project that has amassed a staggering 70 plus releases since it started in 2002.
“Bored & Dirty” is a c30 tape from German HNW project Die Reitenden Leichen. Behind the project is Matt Nihil, who also runs the Monolithische Aktion label, and is in numerous noise projects such as MX Nihil, The 120 Days, etc.
Is it dark ambient that sounds like post-rock, or the other way around? Leeds' A-Sun Amissa plays music that is long and ponderous and moody, mixing strings with touches of guitar and a variety of dynamic effects that likely evolved out of live playing. Four of the five pieces are multi-part suites averaging ten minutes each; the longest is seventeen. If there is an electronic element to these, then it is carefully masked, as the organic sound of the music creates its essential character, even though the murky mix tends to make the variety of instruments somewhat indistinguishable.
The multi-talented Christopher Willits and Japan's most relaxing pianist, Ryuichi Sakamoto have created one of the best albums I've ever heard with "Ancient Future", a lush, romantic ambient narrative for processed piano and guitar, which pirhouettes gracefully through 6 concise movements, ending in slightly over a half hour.
“Seven Domains Of Disgust” is a four tape box-set that gives the listener six hours worth of HNW, ANW & static texturing. The collection brings together eight walled noise artists from all around the world, and each artist offers up a forty five minute track.
"Sing while you may” has been the consistent philosophy behind the Legendary Pink Dots that’s seen their idiosyncratic space rock last over 25 years. Given this tenure, one that has seen them ceaselessly touring the globe, recording well over thirty albums and being courted by many major labels and artists along the way, one could expect their latest live DVD to be a relatively high-production piece of the biggest gig of their anniversary tour. Instead, we get an intimate portrait of the Dots on a Parisian stage barely big enough to contain the four musicians.
GX is back with L. If you're not puzzled by that sentence, then you know that I'm referring to the L installment of GX Jupitter-Larsen's Zelphabet series. Volume L consists of six tracks contributed by Lasse Marhaug, Leather Bath, Lee Gamble, The Legendary Pink Dots, Leticia Castaneda, and Lionel Marchetti.
Egyptology is the collaboration of French electronic musicians Olivier Lamm (O.Lamm) and Stephane Laporte (Domotic, Centenaire). Their debut release, The Skies, is put out in grand fashion by Clapping Music (CD, 2xLP). Olivier and Stephane spent two years composing and recording The Skies. Luckily for us, it was time well spent. Retro-synth albums are tricky; you want to sound like Kraftwerk without ripping them off, and you don't want to sound cheesy. Unfortunately, the latter happens more often than it should (bits of this album are no exception). Egyptology strengthens their case by using the equipment of the time frame they're shooting for (old analog synths and recording to tape). What we're left with is a very strong synth album that stands on its own.
Adding to their already stellar catalog, Southern Lord Records has re-released some classic Poison Idea records. This cd consists of the legendary Portland hardcore band's first 7" (Pick Your King), the following 12" (Record Collectors Are Pretentious Assholes), four compilation tracks, and a previously unreleased live set from 1983. The 7", 12", and one compilation track (Laughing Boy) were originally released by Fatal Erection (hence the album title), and the remaining compilation tracks were recorded during the Record Collectors sessions. Ok, the title checks out, what about the music?
After a few darker & more cynical releases (well relatively so), “You’re No Good For Me” sees this Katy Perry based HNW project return to slightly more brighter & buoyant walled noise. Love Katy is of course the first & seemingly central project of UK HNW artists & label owner James Killick- who’s behind such projects as: Small Hours, Fan Service, Carrie, The Monochrome Man, Blank Depths, and Pooh. He also ran the excellent & influential Sweet Solitude label, and now runs Vagary Records
"The Aura of Collapse" is the first release from this rather mysterious US project who blur together: ambient black metal, bass burnt noise ambient, blacked drone drifts and HNW into a majestic through damaged form. The release comes in the form of a CDR and it offers up a single fifty eight minute track.
"Nightside Emanations" is Behexen's fourth full length album, even though they've being around since the golden years of the second wave of black metal. As with many black metal bands from Northern Europe, even with an unquestionable cult status, their career has been conflicted and cursed by many line-up revolutions, bad record label deals and other accidents.
This comprehensive “deluxe” edition of the 1984 debut album by Art of Noise is another disturbing reminder of how malleable our listening choices can be and how what we listen to now affects the way we’ll be listening next. The brain’s little understood abilities to rapidly learn patterns, enjoy anticipating them only to tire of their over familiarity is perhaps what keeps us searching for alternative structures for stimulation. Such a quest often sees work from the distant past cast in a new light as the wide rotation of styles and approaches builds an ability to better interpret previously misunderstood languages. Unfortunately (and a little ironically) for the Art of Noise, the advancements in technology, and particularly our ease of access to recorded music from throughout history, now helps highlight their rather conservative and cynically commoditised aspects.
The packaging for this split is rather curious, mixing obvious effort with distinct ugliness - to my eyes anyway. The oversized cassette case has a simple insert, adorned with a bloody image; inside is a translucent red tape and a small bag with another insert and what appears to be an animal tooth. All good so far, but the top of the bag is taped to the case; and to my nit-picking eyes it looks a little ugly. I realise I’m being picky, but here we are.
“Ripping the Flesh Out of Your Guts” offers up two brutal ‘n’ dense yet layer detailed slices of raging walled noise. Foul is a West Virginia based HNW project, and behind it is long term wall noise scene-ster J Cadle who has being in projects such as: ...Massacre, White Torture, Oasis Of Fear, ect.
Although perhaps climatically similar with its Nordic center of origin, one does not usually associate the city of Chicago with the genre of black metal. Regardless, Nachtmystium has called the windy city home and with the release of Silencing Machine scrawls a dirty line in the frozen soil demarcating its tenth year of activity. Following the release of a pair of diversionary albums (2008’s Assassins: Black Meddle Pt. 1 and 2010’s Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. 2), Silencing Machine revels in a return to form of sorts for the band which employs mainly straightforward compositions and minimal use of extraneous “non-black metal” elements.