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“Maisonbruitarchive” is a wonderfully put together & highly consistent four disc collection that takes in all the releases put out by the prolific French HNW legend Vomir on his own label, Maisonbruitar, between 2005 & 2007- every thing is here expect the material from four box set Deliverance - The Living Dead Noise . The set features in total twenty one tracks, with each disc offering just over a hours worth of playing time.
Deep listening sound sculpture artist Christopher McFall has been extremely prolific since his debut in 2005, his output steadily increasing in the last couple of years. "The City of Almost", released in 2008, was his third album. The music found here is a pleasant and cohesive patchwork of field recordings and tape loops processed to various degrees, with a decidedly 'submerged' feeling. The track titles frequently reference 'containment', and oftentimes the soundspace is palpably tight around the listener, the timbres muffled as if heard through liquid.
According to the Important Records website, this is Larsen’s first album with the addition of Annie Anxiety Bandez as a permanent lyricist and vocalist; and, not content with that, Larsen also enlist Baby Dee to play piano on a couple of tracks. I’m not au fait with Baby Dee, but I saw Little Annie play a festival in Boston some years back; and despite some of the heavyweights on the bill, she was my pick of the weekend. She’s had a chequered career, releasing a single on Crass Records in 1981 and now performing songs in a very theatrical, cabaret style. She has a beautiful voice, full of character and life; so Larsen should consider themselves honoured.
Sometimes release sleeves can be very deceiving, take “Pour Vous” front cover with it’s arty black calligraphy lettering and deadhead centred black & white bow tie motif…you’d imagine this would be some kind of romantic yet slight dark female fronted indie band or maybe female singer/songwriter fare. But instead what’s on offer here is searing yet creative HN/HNW crossover.
Clams Casino has made his name producing for the likes of US Hip-Hop mavericks Lil B and Soulja Boy. This EP on the ever reliable Tri Angle Records comes after his self released CD-r of instrumentals just re-released by Type and is his first standalone collection of tracks.
“Big Red One” sees two of the HNW scenes more hard hitting, dense and weighty projects getting together for an hour long collaboration track. In the right hand corner we have Philadelphia based Griz+zlor, and in the left corner we have Serbian based Dead Body Collection. Together the pair boil up quite a thick yet layer shifting slab of weighty HNW that doesn’t really sound like either parties work.
“Kulmhof” is a mysterious new HNW project, and this self titled full length CDR is the project first release. The album was apparently sent into Sweet Solitude HQ with no other information other than a note saying “never forget”.
Akifumi Nakajima is one of the prominent names of Japanese noise/experimental underground since the early nineties, both with his output as Aube and with his legendary label G.R.O.S.S.
Uk based Tenhornedbeast's sound has always been somewhat of a balancing act between dark ambience, doom, ritual & military percussion, and dark drone matter. This new three CD set sees the project focusing purely on the drone side of it’s sound, and the set offers up an 180 minute drone epic in three separate movements or parts spread over the three discs.
Here we have the third piece of the Totem trilogy from Master Musicians of Bukkake. A little history, the band is a collective of Seattle based musicians from bands such as Diminished Men, Asva, Earth, Burning Witch and Sun City Girls to name but a few. The music created is a mix of Middle Eastern, African and South Asian. Throw in a bit of psychedelia, some amps and a few mantras and you have Master Musicians of Bukkake.
Lips Infection is the Italian label helmed by Italo Belladonna aka Venta Protesix, spewing out what he himself classes as ‘Digital Perverse Noise’ and judging from the imagery and track titles taken from this disturbed little 7”, he is not far off the mark! The release has been mastered by James Plotkin (Khanate, O.L.D, Khlyst) and the two pieces of flipped out computer racket and fragmented noise bursts are, on one side, absolutely without remorse or artistic endeavour, but on the flipside, so in your face and out and out ridiculous that you can’t help but admire what has been created.
Thomas Mortigan, American born and long term collaborator with Richard Ramirez’s Black Leather Jesus project, branches out here with his own solo outing under the guise of RU-486. The project derives its name from the drug ‘Mifepristone’ which is used to facilitate abortion in the early stages of pregnancy. The grim subject matter portrayed via the names meaning, fits nicely with the dystopian noise which lies in wait on this c50 cassette release from No Visible Scars.
Strolling down the pleasantly empty, picturesque streets of my suburban neighborhood, which on of my initial listening was blanketed in patchy shifting sunlight, "The Headlands" by Barn Owl & The Infinite Strings Ensemble had an immediate, soul stirring effect on me.
Fabio Orsi started releasing music in 2005 from his home in Taranto on the southern coast of Italy and is probably best known for his 2006 collaboration with fellow Italian outsider musicians My Cat Is An Alien (titled ‘For Alan Lomax’) that revealed Orsi’s inspiration for field recording. More recently, though, he moved to Berlin, where this, his latest album, was self-produced without any explicit field recordings in the mix, instead featuring a minimal set up of guitar, synth and effects to deliver a series of five sequentially numbered ‘Loipe’ or loops.
This untitled release is the first full length CDR from new Winnipeg, Canada based HNW project Sleep, the project has also had out a split c30 tape with Gluttoness. And it’s also the first release on new minimalist & unchanging HNW label Inactivist Recordings that’s run by the man behind the Sleep project.
“Tanatoxina” is the third full length release from Italian suicidal walled noise project Nascitari. And what we have here is a cdr featuring a single forty minute track of harrowing, raging and pitch black HNW.
“Searching For Paradise” is the second release from Iowa based Alex Nowacki(of Boar, Phantom Rib & I watched You Die) new, mysterious quite primal sounding & story based HNW project Centuries Behind A Gate.
Now this is an interesting thing. An attractive cloth bound box containing a CD, a booklet of philosophical essays and five little ball bearings. What could it all be about? The spiel reveals it to be a collaborative effort combining Hecker’s psychoacoustic experimentation with philosopher Quentin Meillassoux’s concept of ‘hyperchaos’ – the absolute contingency of the laws of nature. Meillassoux (a former student of French Philosopher Alain Badiou) contributes an essay to the booklet along with Robin Mackay and Elie Ayache.
Since 2009 French noise maker & improviser Alexandre Bellenger has seemingly dabbled in all manner of noisy improv and experimental music-he’s utlized guitars, turntables, and analog synths to create his varied noise bound sonics. This new album appearing under his surname, and on the excellent progressive/ ambient French HNW lable Slow Death records, finds him focusing on creating a varied & mostly consistent HNW record.
Miminokoto feature members of notable japanese psychedelic rock bands Che-SHIZU, Maher Sharal Hash Baz and Acid Mothers Temple, and with various line-up changes, they try to expand our consciousness with fuzz pedals since the year 2000.Such set-up/line-up makes it easy to guess what we're getting into.
A very smartly packaged double tape set here, from Phage Tapes; a good example of what can be done without necessarily going to extremes of effort: it’s all in the detail. Both inlays have striking images copied onto light card and the tape artwork is similarly sombre but effective, but the smallest of details makes all the difference: the text for the titles (etc) has been printed onto paper, then ripped up into separate pieces and stuck on to the pictures. When copied, this creates a very nice effect of depth to the artwork; its simple but very effective.
“She Is Like The Winter….” is the latest slice of brutal, unforgiving and death stench heavy Walled noise from the hugely prolific Serbian based project Dead Body Collection.This release offers up three single sided C60 tapes which feature three half an hour brutal lessons in gruelling, suffocating and rapidly battering HNW.
1981’s “Moving Pictures” saw theCanadian progressive rock band Rush come up with the perfect mixture of tightly reined prog rock/metal, atmospheric & memorable synth textures, and edgy new wave tinged moments. It was the bands mainstream break through album, and it’s still one of the bands largest selling releases. And it easy to see why as everything seems perfect blanced here from the memorable song craft, to the rocking guitar moments, onto the sleek and atmospheric synth dwells- it truly is the near perfect album. The release celebrates the albums 30 year anniversary, and presents a remixed album, a glossy 30 page booklet, and a DVD featuring a 5.1 surround mix of the album & three videos from the album.
First of all, I listened to this CD while looking at pornography and eating wonderful lasagna so my judgement could have been clouded and warped by the over-stimulation of senses.