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This four-way 12 inch vinyl split offers-up a track a piece from some of the most respected, innovative and know names with-in the worlds HNW scene. We have a track a piece from: Richard Ramirez’s( who needs no introduction if you have even brief knowledge of the scene) bigfoot obsessed project Fouke, Canadian HNW & Harsh noise legend The Rita, French Unrelentingly harsh & black bag wearing Vomir, and lastly Chicago's Is and his interesting use of Harsh noise textures.
Solo Andata are an Australian duo who have been working together since 2006 and are shortly to release their 3rd album. This though is their second and gets its release on the 12K label who have done a great job of bringing to people’s attention a lot of previously unknown acts.
The Polish noise duo MAAAA have released numerous albums on different labels since their inception in 2005. 'Decay and Demoralization' brings together the projects side of two separate short run splits. And the original splits were a CDr with Torturing Nurse, called "We are so fucking harsh! You are so fucking suck!" from 2007, and the split cassette with the act called Out of Focus, which came under the vivid title 'Blood and Shit' from 2008. This CD is a pressing of 500 copies, which makes sure more people hear the sonic chaos that is MAAAA.
Following on from a split album with another demented noise terrorist Kylie Minoise, 'Super Spermatorrhea Bukkake Dance Party!!!' is Grimalkin 555's debut solo album, released by Kovorox sound and offering "nasty trash and hack exploitationoise" (artist's description) to those daring enough to give it a listen.
Exploring the possibilities of sound on tape has preoccupied Francis Dhomont since the 40s. His compositions tend to exclusively focus on the manipulation and morphological interplay of natural sounds that are ‘performed’ acousmatically, diffused across a range of loudspeakers. Approaching eighty years’ of age, Dhomont has chosen Kafka as his latest existential theme, following work that centred on the writings on mental illness by controversial psychiatrist RD Laing and the Freudian interpretations of fairy tales by Bruno Bettelheim. The sleevenotes of Études pour Kafka make it clear that these are preliminary studies for a longer, unreleased work, called Le Cri Du Choucas.
Concrete Threat are a shadowy and ultra-grim two piece project from Sweden who formed in 2006. And since then have created some of the most unforgiving, bleak and nasty HNW and tar-dark black Harsh noise you’ll ever have come across. This six tape box set brings together just shy of four hours and forty minute worth of the projects rare/ out of print work from between 2007 and 2009, and to say the least it’s a very harrowing and ultra nasty experience.
Is it strange that I can sit through a whole album of Merzbow’s wind tunnels without blinking, and yet halfway through Abstract Expression I was squirming as if I’d picked up a nasty case of scabies?
The notion that voice alone is enough to carry music is by no means a new one. The almost ominous hums of Gregorian chants and Anaasheed have already haunted our ears for centuries, yet the a capella approach has, in more recent years, also been adopted by a plethora of other artists working in a variety of genres.
The Renderers have a very scary name for a folk-rock act such as them. Makes me think of abduction and torture, or maybe I'm thinking of "rendition"... Well going back to the band, they have remastered an old album (due to bad sound) called Monsters and Miamisas...
Gigant is German for giant; and this Belgrade/Serbian based HNW project certainly live up to it’s name as they create here one long and huge sounding track of throbbing and rumbling walled matter. This is the projects first (self) released album.
The “Nocturnal Veils” title may suggest lulling and grim ambient expanses, but there’s nothing darkly soothing or grimly subtle about this C30 tape- instead it ties you down & then gives you a detailed/thick noise battering. On offer here are two sides of raging and shifting Harsh noise with some very wallish like dwells taking over large sways of each side long track.
“BAVE” is an excellent four disc CDR set that brings together a disc a piece from cream of French Harsh Noise wall scene. We have disc from each of the following here: Bördel Noïr from the west of France ,Vomir from the south of France(how could any French based compilation be with out him!), Å from north/east of France and écoute La Merde from the east of France.
“Hunts & Wars” finds this British based dark ambient meets stripped and off-kilter doom project offering up their third and most consistent release to date. With layers of ritual and military percussion, along with noise elements been added to the projects sound to create a grim and sweeping sound canvas that has moments blood stained dissonance/ noise to more subtle and uneasy dwells.
“No Way Out” is the 2009 release, on Vrihaspati Recordings, from Dutch project A Challenge of Honour. The project has been creating music since 2000; starting with Johan Konig. Later Konig left, leaving Peter Savelkoul with guest musicians to man the project. While their style and direction may have changed somewhat, the name has not. A vast amount of releases remain, with numerous albums and EPs littering their offerings.
Henry Jacobs returns with another selection from his archives that laid abandoned under his house for 40 years. Sadly the linear notes are somewhat scant and don’t provide enough background information. I don’t know if this is perhaps some deliberate act designed to foster an air of mystery around these recordings or just an honest oversight by the label but a booklet with some more history and a bit of context would be more than useful.
Endometrium Cuntplow is the project of one David Lucien Matheke, a quite prolific and apparently diverse experimental musician. The "Hollowbeast" 3" disk contains a single track, exactly 666 seconds long (11:06), and is pretty easily classifiable as dark / ritual ambient. What it occasionally lacks in originality it easily makes up with energy, tasteful pacing, and interesting sound textures, despite an obviously very low recording budget.
"Batutut" is a three c20 boxset that offers up six new ten minute tracks of thick ‘n’ extremely crushing static texture and engulf HNW matter from Richard Ramirez's bigfoot obsessed project. The set takes it’s title from the name used for the bigfoot/Yeti beast in the forests and jungles of Vietnam, Laos, and Borneo.
The last time I came across a collection of this caliber, it was the Susan Lawly compilation Extreme Music from Japan, which (along with the amazing Dry Lungs albums) introduced me to pretty much every major Japanese noise artist of note: Merzbow, Masonna, Hanatarash, Gerogerigegege, Incapacitants, Government Alpha, Hijokaidan none of whom, I should add, are on this disc.
Classix Nouveaux where a British 80’s pop band that grew from ashes of the shambling, yet charming punk rock project X-Ray Spex. Classic Nouveaux were a much more slick yet still fun bound project than X-ray & they mixed together more commercial post-punk edges with snyth pop & a new romantic spirit.
The music on Infra started life when German-born but British-raised composer Max Richter was commissioned by choreographer Wayne McGregor to compose the music for a new work for the Royal Ballet, which premiered in 2008 in London’s Royal Opera House. This swiftly followed Richter’s triumphant soundtrack for the multi-award winning film Waltz with Bashir and his fourth solo album (24 Postcards in Full Colour) whose short, dramatic orchestrations were designed as ringtones, further proving his deftness at seamlessly blending electronics with traditional classical forms.
K11 is otherwise known as sound artist Pietro Riparbelli, who prefers to make his music from short wave radio transmission at various locations. This particular release was recorded in a forest at night.
“Kapnos” (Greek for 'smoke') is an experimental/ ambient compilation. This disc is the fourth part in a series called "Between the elements" which sees Italian sound/ ambient artists tattle music that’s themed around different elements/ environments -other volumes in the series include “Cloud” and “Desert”.
Behind this Baltimore based Psychedelic, Blues & Rock band are Adam Bufano, Mac Hewitt, Will Kelly and Elias Mays Schutzman. This self titled effort brings together the bands two E.Ps, 'Bad Blood' and 'Winter' which were originally released back in late 2009.
Aurora Borealis unleash this stoically uncompromising slab of avant metal, raging against a tide of trite, gimic led black and doom metal, while steering a path away from ambient wash out to plunge headlong into the void.