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"Feast” was the first release from German HNW project Die Reitenden Leichen (which means The Riding Corpses in English). This C20 tape was released in 2008 & was ltd to 25 copies.
I feel mildly ashamed for putting this album so far down on my list of Things To Do. Most everything Tony Wakeford touches turns to gold—sometimes platinum—and Not All of Me merges an ambitious concept with some heartfelt and deeply absorbing music. It’s not the sort of thing I’m going to be playing while I’m paying the month’s bills, but that’s only because it’s powerful enough that it demands complete attention.
"Behavioural Decline" is the third release and first widely distributed album by noise / power electronics artist Lee Howard, who released his first double CDr "The Power of September" in 2007.
Peter Wright's discography is rather long, but it may give a hint to the fact that this artist has been around long enough to justify this number of released albums, working on his music for over 15 years and just shooting them every week or so, regardless of the quality of the material. With this release he proves the opposite, it being a thoughtful, emotional and very rewarding album.
“Crust” finds Croatian HNW project Placenta Lyposuction offering up three suffocating, at times semi industrial, but always brutal examples of intense ‘wall making’.
“My Life’s A Gunshot- Retrospective 1989- 2009 Vol 1” is the first of two double vinyl sets that celebrates the work of highly respected Berlin based Swiss noise & extreme sonic collage artists Joke Lanz and his Sudden Infant. This first volume collects together work from between the years 1989 & 1999.
Chuch are a three piece from Wales, although I don't really know who play's what. I'm assuming this is a rock band (or it's set up like one) that plays mostly very odd-sounding experimental material. What is recognizable is the guitar work and the electronics, but although there seems to be percussion it's processed in a way that sounds alien. This is their second album.
Like the oft-quoted epigram, Norwegian home recording artist Fredrik Ness Sevendal sets about his musical journeys without concern for the destination - it’s the getting there that matters. His sound, presented here by Miasmah reissuing his debut CDr of 2005, is based around the most minimal of melodies played on acoustic or electric guitars whose spare notes are steadily and earnestly repeated to build celestial, cyclical incantations supplemented by subtle electronics.
There’s nothing quite as endearing as a simple concept executed to near-perfection. What we have here are five vaguely neoclassical pieces for piano, played with great sensitivity and skill, and combined with production and experimental sounds in such a way that the underlying feel of the music is enhanced and not obscured. That’s a tough assignment to pull off, but Dimo Dimov, the man behind Miel Noir, has done it.
“Rail killings” offers up two slices of brutal HNW and extreme static texturing from Werewolf Jerusalem- one of most well know and respected projects of hugely prolific and highly influential Texas noise artist Richard Ramirez.
This CDR offers up two slices of living dead and zombie influenced thick ‘n’ nastily brooding ‘wall’ making from Irish HNW project A View From Nihil.
Though originally released in 2006, then reissued in 2007 “Et In Saecula Saeculorum” feels like it could have been released back in mid to late 80’s with it’s distinctive & highly retro early black metal feel that has very vigorous nods towards the likes of Venom, Celtic Frost & Mercyful Fate. Mixed in with big dollops of: 70’s tinged doomed mettlics, prime evil early Slayer blacked trash-outs, and wondering bass meets horror film organ lined 70’s slightly psychedelic metal work-outs.
Sektor 304's 3rd release and first real album, "Soul Cleansing", released in 2009, is basically late 80's/early 90's cyberpunk industrial metal along the lines of Godflesh with a dash of EBM thrown in, a pinch of modern noise/power electronics along the lines of Wolf Eyes, and an extra dollup of post-apocalyptic science fiction cheese. It doesn't explore any uncharted territory, but it's an enjoyable piece of work.
‘The Cool Scene at Café Bizarre’ attempts to recreate the musical and sonic vibe of late 1950’s and 1960’s Greenwich village Beatnik & smart hippy scene that congregated around cellar clubs like Café Bizarre & Café Cino.
A gruff voice, sounding of years of whiskey and cigarettes. Sparse piano play, nothing fancy but effective nonetheless, just audible beneath that voice so close by, practically pushing through your headphones physically. A song of leaving and loving, telling a story as old as life itself, if not older. The tone is set; Welcome to the Heart literally is the prelude to an insight into the heart of Eamon McGrath, Canadian folk-punk troubadour.
On Cache Cache off Sawako’s Yours Gray, the Japanese experimental musician captures the sounds of fellow artist Toshimura Nakamura performing at the GRAIN gallery space in Japan from various points in the vicinity of the venue; Nakamura’s sine tones carry far, and the high frequency squeals can be heard at quite the distance still, far from the place where the piece is performed. It’s a sort of magic, the way in which these high frequency tones move through air, stone, earth, and transform and are transformed by its environment at the same time. As I pop in The Mother of All Feedback by Claudio Parodi, its high frequency tones that bore directly into my skull from the get-go put a wide smile on my face; the potential of transformation that lies within them is inevitably exciting.
Dan E AKA Churner shares a C30 cassette with Illinois’ Infirmary for his label’s 84th release. For Infirmary it just precedes their debut LP (on Scratch and Sniff Entertainment) following over ten cassettes released over the past two years while for Churner it is merely one in a sea of almost a hundred releases in the same time frame. This sheer abundance of recorded output, mostly self-released, confronts the hardy listener with as much of a challenge as the individual sounds themselves – how to interact with something that’s constantly changing, yet always the same? And this release is as good as any at provoking thoughts orbiting this conundrum.
This C30 tape from always rewarding and distinctive Italian HNW act Alo Girl takes its name from 1972 Sergio Martino directed Giallo moive (original titled “ Il tuo vizio è una stanza chiusa e solo io ne ho la chiave” ) which featured Edwige Fenech as the young, beautiful, and self-confident niece of burned out writer & possible killer Luigi Pistilli. The tape features on the cover a still from the movie of Ms Fenech holding a black cat to her naked body.
This split c90 tape offers up a length forty five track a piece from two HNW scene newcomers in the form of Vorg & Kaffehitler who both come from the city of Jonkoping in Smaland, Sweden- which is the ninth most populated city in Sweden.
When a band jams in free rhythm with lots of effects pedals, feedback and guitar noise and makes a big soupy, messy drone out of it, I usually call it 'psychedelic krautrock' in honor of those groups from the 70's that first put this sort of sound on record.
Dictionary time. Somnivore: eater of sleep, if my Latin is correct. And Oneiros—one of the sons of Night in Greek mythology. Sounds to me like we’re in for a tolling, rumbling, cavernous excursion into Lustmørd territory, and we are. But a clone this isn’t: like all good records, the stamp of an individual creator can be heard on each track and in every aspect of the recording. Imagine—or maybe better to say recall—the music that resonates in your inner ear right after you’ve floated up from sleep.
Oddly TIM the Band features no one called Tim(or Roland, for that matter!), but instead it features two San Franciscan gentleman who offer up some nice sometimes spaced-out & mellow, to rapidly honked and often electronic loop improvised sax playing.
“Pressure Vessel” finds Chicago based HNW/ Harsh noise project Is creating a single, highly tense and violent thirty five minute track that utilizers only the sounds of the carbonation of water.
Ïîòåðÿííàÿ Ãîðëà (Lost Necks) is a brutal & brain roasting HNW collaboration between Sarajevo Neven Misaljevich(of Smrznik and one of the minds behind the excellent Zvukovina label) and Russian based Alexander Kibanov (from Äåíü Ðàñïëàòû, and many other projects and labels such as Mind Noise Disintegration).