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A triple whammy of labels team up to deliver this delightful little 7” from Philadelphia’s finest, Total Fucking Destruction and on the flipside London’s digi-grind mentalists, Skat Injector.
Well here I am with the new Morbid Angel album…cause for celebration one would think, David Vincent is back on board after 15 years away from the band, it’s their first recording in eight years and, well, its Morbid Angel, for the legions of death metal fans out there, they are one of the true legends and stalwarts of the scene. More is the pity then that ‘Illud Divinum Insanus’ turns out to be such a massive disappointment.
"Kissers And Hugs” is the first full length release from this relatively new Italian HNW project. The CDR offers up a single just under forty one minute track of brutal and seared walled noise.
“So Much Darkness” finds Flesh coffin(one of the many projects of Norwegian based noise maestro Andreas Brandal) offering up his usually dark and horror filled mix of: noise, junk metal abuse, sinister and grating sound scaping, and noisy/dread filled sonic uneasy.
This C111 tape finds the Texas duo of Richard Ramirez(Werewolf Jerusalem, Black Leather Jesus, Fouke ect) and Robert Newsome (Black Leather Jesus, White Gimp Mask, ect) offering up two side long tracks of thick & suffocating Giallo influenced HNW.
The Body As I Left It is the 2010 release from Kansas Citys’ Christopher McFall. To those not familiar with McFalls work, it is an intriguing mix of analog and digital sounds. To be more precise McFall uses analog field recordings, old phonographs and various instruments and then rerecords these sounds through digital programs. While it’s not a practice that hasn’t been done before, here it is executed effortlessly.
This foreboding, uncompromisingly violent and harsh disk, the second by Justin Broadrick's new noise project, White Static Demon, is well titled. Cosmic, cryptic, oppressive, and obsidian black as space, "Apparitions" erodes your hearing unforgivingly as tumultuous waves bashing away at a rocky shore. Removed from the familiarity of the guitar, Broadrick's musical persona changes focus from riffs to complex abstract orchestrations. The chronic melancholy of his music no longer seems to emanate from a relatable human spirit but from a vast hungry void of senseless destruction.
Here’s a sparky little split tape from Horsing and Zebra Mu, presented in garish blues tones. A blue cassette, and a blue cover with some kind of “battle montage” of various varieties of Godzilla: a mini-Godzilla, a standard Godzilla, a robot Godzilla and a cosmic-uber-Godzilla. What this has to do with the sounds within is unclear; though the Horsing side is dedicated to Yukiko Okada, who the internet tells me was a teen pop star in Japan - but I can’t find any links to Godzilla. (Okada was so revered, that her suicide in 1986 - slashing her wrists and then, two hours later, jumping off a seven-storey building - led to a wave of copycat deaths.)
Steve Roach has been releasing music for over 30 years now (originally as a member of a group called Moebius) and puts out albums at a rate that whilst not quite up there with Masami Akita in terms of numbers is still nonetheless fairly impressive.
In many ways it's not easy to pin down the music, from both of these artists, as any one genre or label - there are a multitude of styles and manifestations, and it's all the better for it. This limited edition cassette is a split between White Dog and Pregnant Spore, and they are very closely mirrored in terms of musical DNA, sometimes almost cloning each other to produce a very odd whole of other-worldly atmospheres and dreams.
“High Definition Ghost” this Irish based project second stab at an all out HNW release. Where is This usually concentrate on a quirky yet creative mixture of: harsh noise, industrial textures, wonky easy listening trails, high wire yet tacky synth textures, and some HNW textures.
“Spiral Right / Spiral Left” is the long promised and dreamed of collaboration between two of the worlds most know & respected experimental/noise artists- Japans Merzbow has been creating and defining the noise genre since the late 1970’s. And American sound artist and percussionist extraordinaire Z’ev is one of the industrial scenes pioneers, and is now a highly respected soundscaper.
“Polititiestaat” sees this Netherlands based HNW project offering up a selection of different lengthy yet brutal ‘walls’ of sound. In all there are six tracks here and they last between just over the eight minute mark to just over the twenty minute a piece.
“The Robot Who Looked Like Me” finds this Sarajevo based project simmering up a highly rewarding slice of sci-fi influenced HNW. On offer here is a single just under thirty two minute track that offers up a moorishly, sonically chilling and detailed ‘wall’ of noise, which shows once again why this project is one of the most original and distinctive projects in today’s worldwide HNW scene.
The Infinity series is a open ended and identical artwork based collection of releases put out by Uk based Sweet Soiltide. Each volume sees a different world wide HNW acts attempting ambient and experimental forms of walled noise. Part Four of this excellent series sees north/eastern France based Å offering up their own take on ambient or texturally drifting HNW.
Fortress Longing, the fourth album from Human Greed, sees the duo of Michael Begg and Deryk Thomas stride even further into the no-man’s land found bordering ambient electronica, musique concrète and minimalist classical composition, an area glimpsed on their previous album, Black Hill. Before then their immersive, funereal sound had been untempered by formal instrumentation, but Begg’s increasing involvement as part of Fovea Hex acted as a catalyst in introducing traditional instruments such as piano and cello into Human Greed’s digital pooling of drowned drones and crystalline synths. As a result, Fortress Longing has the confidence and construct of a single orchestral symphony, albeit with field recordings and feedback woven into portentous pulsations and sonorous swells.
Veteran industrial/noise act Dissecting Table actually put out three releases entitled "Chaos Attractor" in the last two years, the first being a tape/CD boxset containing the original full length 48 minute track "Chaos Attractor" as well as three different 15 minute remixes, and the other two being re-packagings of the same material. The 3" CDr currently under examination features a single 17 minute remix of the song, labelled as "Chaos Attractor (Remix 2)". Having never heard the other mixes of the song, I have no choice but to evaluate the twisting harmonized tones found here completely on their own merits.
Hate Tasting is a new noise/power electronics compilation from Russia’s Sickcore records, gathering together ten prolific artists from the harsh noise underground.
The first of a proposed trilogy of releases on Debemur Morti Productions marks Blut Aus Nord’s eighth full length album to date. Always a difficult beast to pin down, Blut Aus Nord have been honing their avant-garde style of black metal for close to 17 years now and with 777 sect(s) they have produced what is arguably their strongest and most rounded piece of work to date.
I can’t help but notice that a lot of the records I’ve bought recently have been re-issues: it seems to be one area of the music industry that's truly thriving. These re-issues serve to add detail to the map we already have - whether by drawing in forgotten, “lost” or overlooked areas (the vast plethora of compilations of old 78’s for example, or the “lost gems” being resurrected by the Finder Keepers label, for another); or indeed by simply adding that detail, and showing that the standard textbook history of music - with innovations by singular pioneers - is simplistic and untrue. This album falls into the latter category.
Eald-Ge-Stréon is a compilation of pieces recorded between 2001 and 2007 and made up of tracks that appeared on very limited releases, tracks used during live performances and other odds and sods.
Texas’ Inhalant have been recording since 2000 (with over 20+ releases in 11 years) The project, in itself the creation of Chad Odom, is a combination of power electronics with industrial and noise accoutrements.
“Blunt Force Trauma” finds this highly prolific and sonically violent Serbian HNW project offering up two half a hour plus slices of unrelenting and gruesomely seared walled noise matter.
This barbaric, sleazed and often active two way HNW split is between Texas based Last Rape(aka Texas noise legends Richard Ramirez & Sean E. Matzus) and London based Pollutive Static(aka Hal Hutchinson).