Loading
Oh my. I woke up at 3am for this? A mashup of every post-punky and NDW bit imaginable, with all the ‘style’ of another flatulently post-ironic LCD Soundsystem album. The Sugarcubes and Holger Hiller trapped together in some crappy industrial basement northwest of Helsinki, perhaps? If I seem unkind, my apologies.
Andrew Coltrane is a tremendously prolific noise artist. "Urge to Kill", a roughly 30 minute CDr with 2 untitled tracks, is one of many 2011 releases. Andrew immediately establishes a gritty, unforgiving tone with the smudged, almost photocopied looking black and red cover art, in which hints of what looks like graffiti are visible. Like many of the my favorite noise and drone releases, it sounds much better at high volumes, and seems designed to be played on huge speakers or amps.
Let’s begin with a confession: I accidentally put iTunes on “repeat one track”, and listened to a five minute piece on “Multistability” for about half an hour without batting an eyelid. That should give you an indication of the nature of its contents… A more concise summary of the album can be found on the Raster Noton website: “In the field of Gestalt psychology the term ‘multistability’ refers to the effect where one is unable to perceive a single stable object within complex or ambiguous patterns.“ That’s pretty much the album in a nutshell. Seventeen tracks of immense rhythmic complexity, divided into two halves or “versions of itself” - hence track titles like: “Multistability 1-A”, “Multistability 1-B”, “Multistability 5-A” and “Multistability 5-B”, for example.
This second volume of Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light has been released almost a year to the day after the first volume, despite it being recorded at the same two-week session back in April 2010. The session saw band leader Dylan Carlson’s chiming, resplendent guitar joined once again by his patient percussionist and co-writer Adrienne Davies, along with a new bass guitarist, Karl Blau, and Lori Goldston’s sumptuous cello strings taking the place of Steve Moore’s keys. However, whereas most of the first volume featured songs already developed over the course of a preceding tour, this second volume is largely formed of ‘live in the studio’ improvisations. It is not, however, a bonus disk to volume one the equivalent of DVD extras, but an entirely coherent and captivating album in its own right.
“The Ascending Scale” sits somewhere between electro acoustic improv, doomed & grating soundscaping, bleak ambience and deeply creepy sound tracking. The album brings together highly respected & prolific percussionist Z’ev, and muilt-instrumentalist & improviser Nick Parkin.
“Addiction” is the first in series of twelve monthly 3 inch CDR releases that are to be 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.
Goghal is an Belgium based one man HNW/ Harsh Noise project that’s been active since 2008, and “Aeger” is seemingly the project first purely HNW release. The release comes in the form of a CDR that features a single forty eight minute slice of fairly active, brutally ripped, yet searing & dense walled noise.
“Noi eravamo come voi, Voi sarete come noi” finds this grim & often suicidal themed Italian based HNW project offering up two twenty plus minute slices of searing, blacken & brutalising walled noise.
Mats Gustafsson. Interesting guy. Resident of Austria and Sweden (born in Sweden, 1964). Plays saxophone (and a few other instruments). A well thought of composer and improviser that has worked with many artists/ musicians. And, is willing to work with rock/noise musicians as well as jazz giants like Derek Baily, Peter Brotzmann, and Evan Parker. Curates festivals. Over 150 releases. Over 1600 concerts. Busy guy.
2011 was a funny year, while new releases were hit or miss, either being decidedly dull or wildly fantastic, re-issues were a dime a dozen. Nirvana, The Smiths, Can, This Mortal Coil, The Rolling Stones and Olivia Tremor Control all gave us reissues; some were dead on, others not so much. In that list you can add Throbbing Gristle, who no less re-mastered and reissued all five of their primary releases in 2011.
Heathen Earth was recorded live in the studio in front of a small, selected audience in the middle of February 1980. So the story goes, the band were getting frustrated with engineers meddling with their live sound through altering their volume and thereby distortion levels that they deployed deliberately. While in their studio, based in the cellar of a disused trouser factory in a run-down, pre-hip Hackney, they could successfully control and explore these aspects of their sound. However, particularly with their preceding LP, 20 Jazz Funk Greats, where the ‘reviled noise mongers’ confounded expectations once again by producing a pop-like work with nods to the easy listening disco of Abba or the louche atmospheres of jazz clubs, there was a growing gap between TG’s recorded work and live performances which remained wilder, messier and more unpredictable affairs. Observing that “to be in control technically means that you can lose a lot of very magical possibilities…”, however, the group elected to record their next LP in one take. While this decision could have been as much to do with the eroding relationships in the band, letting them get on with making a new record together in a minimum amount of time, it produced an astonishing work that captured the very best aspects of both TG’s studio and live sound, while portending to even more astonishing musical developments post-TG.
In late 2011, the one and only Throbbing Gristle re-issued all of their classic albums in remastered and expanded editions, including the original albums as they were on LP (minus the CD bonus tracks) and an extra disk of related material from the era of the album. Their 4th real album, "20 Jazz Funk Greats", was always among their most recognized work, likely as much due to masquerading as a pop record as to its actual content.
When I first saw the packaging for Broken.Heart.Collector’s album, I must admit I thought my ears were due to receive a dose of twee indie folk: cartoony paintings of wolves, flies and flying hearts with bat’s wings. But about nine minutes into the first track, “Love Reclamation Song”, any twee possibilities were dispelled by the arrival of a bass driven, muscular rhythm; topped by distorted vocals and a punctuating wind section. This had all been preceded by cautious, building and colourful sections, full of different textures and sounds; all combined with a melancholy vocal, to bring forth an eerie atmosphere of expectation. Though its safe to say that the end of the song was not expected…
Released in 2004, "Blacker Than Darkness" is Moloch's first demo as far as I know. Comprised of Dr. Sergiy on vocals and instruments, and a girl with one of the most ridiculous names in metal history (which is an impressive achievement on its own right), Unholy Tatjana.
The blend of art and music; whether it is performance art, spoken word or music installations is a combination that is either wildly engaging or over the top pretentious. Choose the wrong music (or unsuitable art) and the message or ideas trying to be conveyed can go wrong very quickly.
“Black Mass Rising” is a two hour experimental movie that mixers together psychedelic & occult themed visuals, with mixed genre experimental & atmospheric music.
“Laryngeal Carcinoma” is brutal 'n' bass bludgeoning walled noise attack on the sonic sensors in the form of two cdr’s feature a near on eighty minute wall per cdr. This release appeared back in 2010, but has been one of the more difficult DBC release to source- hence it’s been reviewed a few years after its original release.
“Untitled” offers up a selection of four forlorn yet battering fifteen minute walls from the progressive, creative & sometimes ambient focused French HNW act Ghost.
This “untitled” CDR offers up two twenty minute slices of taut, tight & restricted walled noise/ textured noise. The Small Hours project is from the Uk & is the work of James Killick(of Love Katy, Carrie & excellent HNW/AHNW label Sweet Solitude).
“Untitled” presents the listener with a single 65 minute slab of dense, locked & roasting walled noise. Static Mantra is a Czech Republic based HNW act that themes most of its releases around Hindu & Buddhist themed concepts & ideas.
“Third Gender / Bare Upon The Altar” is a split CDR that brings together two half an hour slices of engrossing, taut & creative walled noise from two US HNW acts.
Traitors is a Dutch one man HNW/ Harsh noise that started in April 2011, but since late 2011 it has been purely HNW. The project has amassed 12 or so mainly CDR releases in a self released format. “Recluse is a CDR release that offers up two 25 to 30 minute slices of walled noise.
Just the other day I was listening to a mix of B-52s, Devo, Lords of the New Church, and The Residents. While my mind wandered down weirdly nostalgic roads, it occurred to me that some bands no matter how serious the music still possess a sense of humour that shines through all the grotty pop/rock murk and shadow. While conceivably true for some albums and genres, generally speaking most bands might be easier to take with a chuckle or two….or twelve. This problem becomes a bit tougher when approaching bands with which one has little or no familiarity; are the loons in question having a giggle or do they have a fairly large titanium rod up their collective backside? Generally speaking, a little levity seldom hurts. In all honesty who would you rather party with, Lemmy or Blut Aus Nord?
This sprawling set collects over three hours of Peter Nyström’s solo explorations in electronics and noise under the guise of Negru Voda, presumably named after the thirteenth Century ruler of Wallachia whose moniker conveniently translates as ‘black joy’. Though there’s not much joy to be found in Nyström’s sound world, which falls into line behind other so-called ‘death industrial’ bands that formed largely in Scandinavia at the stylistic crossroads of the industrial and power electronics pathways. Nyström, however, cites the bands at the very roots of these genres as his key influences from Cabaret Voltaire and SPK to Controlled Bleeding and, most incongruously, Howard Jones! But, as evidenced on these three discs, perhaps the biggest influence was his 13 years spent working amidst the noise pollution of the local steelworks in his home town of Oxelösud, Sweden.