
“The Killer Wore Gloves” is a 2008 release from this Giallo influenced HNW project, which featured the projects original line-up in the form of Richard Ramirez (of Black Leather Jesus ,Werewolf Jerusalem, Vice Wears Black Hose, ect) & Isabella K (formally of Anal Drill, ERK64, High Heel Maniac, Limacon, Manplug) who left the HNW scene altogether in 2009.

“Taiwaskivi” is the 8th release from ritual ambient project Halo Manash, and it’s also the most recent release on the excellent occult ambient & mysterious Finnish label /collective Aural Hypnox.

Francisco López uses sound in a holistic way to reward attentive listeners. Adopting Pierre Schaeffer's attitude to sound as having the ability to recontextualise the world as we know it, his objets sonore - or aural pictures - explore the sum of an environment and the sound-making elements that inhabit it when divorced from the other four senses. This forms a proposal for the listener to contemplate outside of language, a freedom so rarely offered by the 24/7 loquacity of the modern age.

“Florescent Bondage” finds creative US noise project Churner creating some of his most conventional harmonic and at times approachable work to date. With the album offering up seven very different and inventive takes on noise with elements of distortion buried synth pop and sound tracking elements appearing along the way.

…. Massacre is a HNW and brutal static texturing two piece that bring together the considerable extreme noise talents of Sam Stoxen(whose also in Baculum, Grain Belt, White Plague and runs the excellent Phage tapes lable) and J. Cadle(whose also in Foul and Oasis Of Fear, as well as running the excellent Bane records that put this great album out).

“Yang Jia” is the first release from French based brutal ‘n’ punishing HNW project Å. The 3inch cdr release takes it’s title from the name of a 28 year old Beijing resident,who in 2007 was beaten by the police while in custody for riding an unlicensed bicycle. Then in 2008 Yang retaliated for his treatment by igniting eight petrol bombs and stabbing six policeman at a police headquarters.

“Goat” find’s Ohio based ultra sludge doom/death merchants Fistula offering up an five song ep based around the case of 50 year old Anthony Sowell who was charged with eighty five counts of rape and murder after the police found 11 bodies at his Cleveland, Ohio department in October 2009.

Power electronics. That’s right. A couple of weeks ago I reviewed Argentum’s We Are the Fire, and ruminated briefly about the how and what and why of power electronics. I guess that whatever I wrote in that review still stands, and likewise also applies to the tape I just clicked into my walkman – Fear Konstruktor’s Philosophy of Conflict.

Geluidpost comes to me by mail – suitably, as the title can be translated as sound mail. A post, however – in Dutch, at least – is also a position, or a place; despite the inherent – and probably intended – ambiguity of the name, this is probably the most relevant meaning of the word. Geluidpost is a listening room in art gallery Lokaal 1 in Breda, The Netherlands, and for the duration of 2007 and 2008 it was curated by Martijn Hohmann, who has dabbled in sound art himself. As a curator, he invited several artists – nine in total – to record a piece specifically for the listening room.

Claudio Rocchetti's "The Carpenter" is a mix of many genres electronic and otherwise, but perhaps firstly it is one of those 'guitar and noise' records, in which conventionally melodic guitar playing exists in harmony alongside loops, noise, feedback experiments and a generally freeform avant garde feel in many places. I'm not sure if there's yet a name for this genre, though I can name others who are playing much the same kind of music - Alastair Galbraith, for one.

“Machofucker” finds these long running Texas noise ‘n’ sleazy merchants inflicting you with two extremely dense, battering, noisy yet higly enjoyable sides of 12 inch vinyl that mix together: Extreme noise, old school & grimy industrial steel abuse and haywire sometimes almost harmonic electronics.

Holy space ships. In the ongoing history of cinema and radio plays, extraterrestrial life, be it identied or unidentified, flying or not quite so, has been given a range of voices, from the stereotypical mad banter of little green men to the zooming and whooping of flying saucers. Yet all those sounds sound suddenly mundane and this-wordly when Chant, the opener to the Fred Bigot collection Mono/Stereo, kicks in.

It’s been four years since this atmopmospric and progressive Romania Black metal collective wowed the world their fourth album “Om” which was clearly their most prefect, realized and magnificent work that far. Now “Vîrstele Pãmîntului” appears with two or three member departinting in the interim between “Om” and now, and I’m afraid to say this is one of weakest & drab records of the bands career….I guess it’s true what they say once you reach perfection there’s only one way to go.

Split album, collaboration, or tag-team competition? I had a hard time picking just one of those labels to describe this joint effort, so I’ll cop out and use all of them. I don’t think they’d mind, since there’s elements of all three approaches on this disc, and the end result is diverse and engaging enough that no one of those labels really matters. The cover art (horror/trash movie stills) and leering track titles made me fear this would be yet another grinding slog, but like the Kenji Siratori et al. split disc I looked at the other week I was happy to be proven wrong.

Flesh Puppets was the first ever project of HNW innovator and highly prolific multi project linked Harsh noise legendary Richard Ramirez(Black Leather Jesus, Werewolf Jerusalem, Vice Wears Black Hose, An Innocent Young Throat-Cutter, ect). "Medusa" was the projects first release that was recorded back in 1989, & then released orignally on Ramirez’s own Deadline Recordings label in 1990. This reissue is the first time the album has been available since then.

Mass Graves is a HNW project that’s themed around Ghosts & paranormal activity. The man behind the project is Missouri USA based Jeff Landgraf whose also in the more straight forward horror influenced HNW project Oblive. “They Wait..” is the projects first release and it's theme from an abandoned orphanage near where Landgraf lives in St. Louis- that’s purported to be haunted by the ghosts of many dead children.

‘in the privacy of your own home’ was presumably recorded in the privacy of Mark Ward’s residence in Dublin, Ireland in 2007, who only got ‘round to mastering it for release on cassette last year.

“The Sixth Hour” finds Canadian based Harsh Noise Wall project Gomeisa offering up C60 worth of decaying, stop starting, to thick and head crushing 'walls' that are themed around Franz Kafka's short story, "In the Penal Colony," which ‘describes the last use of an elaborate torture and execution device that carved the sentence of the condemned prisoner on his skin in a script before letting him die, all in the course of twelve hours.' A Fine and grisly subject for a HNW release

“Pro-Life Message” is the first release from Louisiana based industrially caustic Harsh Noise wall project Slaughter-Fetus. It offers up a C50 tape worth thick, murky and industrial weaved HNW texturing and extreme caustic drone matter.

This comes from the deepest, most nonverbal corner of the id, wastes no time. Desperately blasts out of the speakers. Among the fiercest. You hear this noise and you know why. An animal violence. A serious 3" with the meat of many full lengths. How much hell can be raised in 18 minutes? Also it's functional. Use for catharsis for yourself. I like Moke's name.

Troubled Sleep #1 is the first extreme noise paper zine from the Portugal based Narcolepsia tape label which is run by one Manuel Pereira- whoes put together, designed and did all the interviews in this first zine. He also does all the design, layout and production for all of the tape releases too- so it’s a really one show.

Ethan Rose and Laura Gibson are both from Portland, Oregon but ‘Bridge Carols’ is their first collaboration, inspired by a desire to find new ways of working.

This untitled spilt brings together two sharp and short HWN shocks from Norway’s Hour Of the Wolf which is Andreas Brandal(Flesh Coffin, Drevne Bolesti, solo work, ect) more static wall noise project. And the highly prolific German based HNW project Ptomain.

’15-Tet Oakland’ finds Sissy Spacek moving further away from their noise grind cut-up origins, and it continues further down the noisy, yet highly controlled improv path. This album offers up tow length slices of seared yet highly rewarding improv with each track having an amazing 15 people involved in it’s twisting and edgy sonic construction.