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This is a short and curious, little tape; with spartan but elegant packaging. It has seven tracks on just twenty minutes worth of cobalt, so a quick burst of mathematics will show you that none of them loiter too long. Except that they do loiter, really; the tracks, as a rule, sprawl through the speakers. They circle around an idea; there’s not a lot of progression, as such. Guitar instrumentals are the order of the day, and cryptic ones at that.
This four way HNW split boxset brings together a side/track a piece from the following wall noise artists: Death Laid An Egg, I Am A Slut, The Sun Turns Black and White Plague.
Pink Sexdeath is one of many names and groups from which Russia’s Paul Ryazanov (aka Paul Von Aphid) rapidly hurls vast quantities of releases into the world like an unstoppable human gatling gun. Recently he’s been drumming in tribal goth band The Nextmal while working on his seemingly ever-expanding list of solo and collaborative projects including the so-called “fetish electronics” of Redstockings and the black metal-influenced Poison Tongue and Zaaku.
“We Destroy” finds this Serbian extreme and war obsessed HNW project offering up three near fifteen minute tracks of punishing and hope crushing walled matter. Leaving you feeling by the end of the release like you’ve been through the ringer and back again…but it a pleasing and moorish manner.
This Split brings together two near on forty minute slices of euro HNW matter. We have a track from highly prolific and ghoulish Serbian Dead Body Collection, and a track from relatively new French project Ekunhaashaastaack.
A week Of Kindness is the new project from Texas based noise maker and uncomfortable mood setter Sean E. Matzus; also of The Secret Geography, Last Rape, Black Leather Jesus and The Land Of Archers. This new project finds Mr Matzus building unsettling and suddenly jarring/noisey long form soundscapes from minimal electronics, buried/ distant acoustic elements, controlled noisiness and field recordings. ‘Nürnheim’ is a cassette tape that offers up two thirty minute tracks which each take up a side of tape each.
This Three way CDR split brings together a track a piece from three USA HNW acts Boar,Oblive & I Like You Go Home. The disc was original put out to promote/celebrate the three way tour the trio of acts undertook in the winter of 2010/2011 across several US states.
Eleven years after the release of IRON by CoH, Ivan Pavlov (creator of CoH and cofounder of Soisong) presents to us IIRON. Once again the sound artist and engineer has extended his study of Metal by turning it inside itself and injecting it with an electronic flourish. Shadowy artwork by Stephan O’Malley prepares us for the dark sounds we are about to experience.
Consisting of two full length tracks of 26 minutes each, this is the latest in a prolific run of independent, limited releases from the 'Harsh Noise' musician Churner, on his own label Violent Noise Atrocities. His music could also be labelled, variously, as Dark Ambient, Power Electronics, or Industrial Noise, although none of these terms can adequately describe the amorphous, ever-shifting templates of sound and noise which the one-man Churner employs and manipulates. It is a good thing that his music can't easily be pigeon-holed.
Mathieu Ruhlmann's "As a leaf or Stone" is as cinematic as it is intellectual with its perfectly formulated droning and clatter that's able to entice me, even being the most distracted listener when it comes to free forming and experimental sound the abstracted ambiance is flowingly musical without rhythm or melody.
For their second release, The Psychogeographical Commission, an esoterically preoccupied and shamelessly philosophical English pagan electronic and folk duo, have unleashed "Patient Zero", something of an intense and ambitious semi-dystopian narrative concept album, a crystalline astrological tapestry in which the placement and content of every scene has been carefully considered and reconsidered in order to best reflect a distinct moment in the cosmic cycles.
Promotion is, alas, a staple part of the music industry. Years back, when a friend of mine tried to start up a “proper” label, he told me with resignation that realistically he needed to spend twice as much money promoting his releases, as he did actually making them. Tis the way of things. You can get lucky, but there will always be perseverance and hard work. Why do I mention this? Well, this tape arrived to me with one side blank… Ha ha. These things happen…
Stratospheria Cubensis is the second full-length release from Seattles’ Lesbian. Okay first off, if a band named Lesbian isn’t one of the signs that all the good band names were taken then I’m not sure what is. Get past that and you will find a deftly crafted blend of music that combines the best of 70’s prog and early doom with flourishes of experimental black metal.
Ritual Stance is an offten texturally active and atmosphric one man HNW project from Richmond, Virginia. ‘Cold Dark Steel’ offers up three tracks, and just under an hours worth of brutally atmospheric HNW matter.
“Miscarriage Of The Soul” is a tar black, deeply grim and often pained mixture of: horror fed ambience, buried cinematic dread scapes, Harsh noise, distant industrial brooding clunky and the odd blackly seared Harsh Noise wall texture. I guess if you call Demonologists a more cinematic and ambient ribbed, yet more noise seared cousin of Blue Sabbath Black Cheer you'll get an idea of what to expect here.
Ataraxy is a German based one man Hash noise project whose releases move between harsh Noise wall, Harsh noise, and a mixture of the two. ‘Duality Of The Bizarre’ is the projects ninth release and it finds Ataraxy offering up five 15 minute tracks that mixe together brooding & throbbing punk bass drones with jittering, juddering and violently purring HNW textures.
There is a realm of inchoate chaos and darkness, teetering on the void of sheer madness. Within this supreme maelstrom of disorder, there lies a tiny corporeal manifestation of a half-formed, languid essence. Nestled against the swarming darkness is a shimmering image - a ruined Gothic castle, amongst the perversely twisted, gnarled, rotting trees and fauna. You falteringly step over the threshold of this haunted, aeon's old structure, and inside the heart of this putrid and decaying edifice, there is an oppressive, claustrophobic atmosphere. You stand there, shivering from unimagined, shadowy terrors, breathing slow and heavy.
Foredoom Productions second release brings together two London-based noise artists seeking new approaches to experimental noise generation and harsh noise combination.
After a few split vinyl release 2010’s ‘L'homme Saturé’ was Vomir’s first full lenght vinyl release, and what a release it is!. Somehow it managers to feel some much more battering, bleak, morrish, yet grimly enclosing than many of the Frenchmen’s other CDR and tape releases.
The DOD Death Metal distortion peddle is one of the favourite tools of many worldwide HNW acts. This great four disc compilation celebrates this wall-making peddle, with four HNW artists from around the world utilizing purely the peddle to create one full length release each.
Will Gresson's very first release, "Venedig", came out in 2010 on DIY avant-garde/noise label Small Doses, who have released Locrian and Richard Ramirez among others. To my surprise, the music on this disk is quite subdued, and closer to minimalist sound sculpture than anything else I've heard from this label, drawing clear influence from William Basinski, Wolfgang Voigt's Gas project and the basic waveform compositions found on the Raster-Noton label.
Nearly ten years ago, I released a tape by Lea Cumming’s band “Opaque” on my label; bizarrely, I think this is the first complete release I’ve heard since by him. The important thing is that he’s still going; and, judging from this cdr, going strong - so more fool me for my woeful neglect. My ears expected noise, noise, noise; since one of the few times I’ve crossed paths with him, I was on the receiving end of one of his chaotic Kylie Minoise sets. But no, there’s quite a different beast on display here.
Zenith is a Wisconsin, USA based HNW act who makes hypnotic and brutal walled noise from VCR recordings, which are fed through several tape recorders to create layered feedback loops. “Chain” offers up two rather different versions of the near on forty minute title track- one master and one unmastered.
‘Release ' is the first release in the Infinity series which sees worldwide HNW acts attempting ambient and experimental forms of walled noise. This release finds Louisiana based HNW/ Harsh noise project Vargrwulf( aka Joseph Gates also of Slaughter-Fetus, R.S.P, Peiste and runner of Violent Revolution International) offering up a wonderfully constricting, taut and detailed slice of long form ambient HNW matter.