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I’ve always felt that dark ambient had something to offer me. There’s an undeniable attraction in the dark and gloomy sound scapes, the raw, gritty and dirt stretch of unpleasant sound. And then there’s the darkness in the imagery – to anyone even remotely interested in experimental music of the dirtier kind, there’s definite appeal there. It's all about what lies in the shadows, what harrowing visions appear at the edge of my vision as I’m drenched in eternal blackness – this obscurity, this understated-ness is ever intriguing, and, though we are drenched in darkness, we are eager to find our way through it, or to get lost in it, and then to disappear completely.
This double disc CDR release offers up two Walls of near unchanging Harsh noise matter that fall between just short of an hour & just over an hour a piece. The first disc is taken up by Minneapolis based White Plague who is Sam Stoxen(which runs Phage tapes & is also in Baculum, ...Massacre & junk noise collective Grain Belt) & Angie Ridgeway. And the second disc features Nordrhein-Westfalen Germany based HNW act Wallkeeper.
‘The Autoerotic Odyssey’ offers up two five minute sides of tape of creative & crunching HNW matter from the excellent & always rewarding Alo Girl project which is Italian based Cristiano Renzoni; who also the other half of Richard An Innocent Young Throat-Cutter & runner of the great Urashima label. The only down side about the whole thing is it’s over far too quickly!.
‘Harsh Purification’ is a four way split release that offers up a full length album a piece from each four actsinvolved. We have on the first two discs great prime HNW matter from An Innocent Young Throat Cutter & Vomir. Then on the other two discs we have volatile, but inspired psychedelic harsh noise from :Government Alpha & Torturing Nurse….really it’s a noise fans wet dream come true…
There’s no doubt about it during the mid to late 2000’s The Yellow Swans were the most exciting, creative & each release anticipated act with-in the worldwide noise scene. With their distinctive & one off mixture of noise, boiling psychedelic drone matter, caustic yet at times haunting & harmonic guitar scaping, and seared ambience- Sadly in early 2008 the band decided to call it a day. 'Live During War Crimes 3' is the final volume in the series of the excellent live collections which shows this inventive & inspired two piece at the height of their powers in the live arena.
‘SATOR’ sits between thick & mysterious ritual whisper lined mood scapes, and macabre to discordant Fender Rhodes slightly guitar barbed freak-outs. It sits in a strange sonic place between smooth yet puzzling ritualistic airs & churning lite psychedelic rock work-outs. Like a strange ritual that’s organised, sleek & sensual; yet debauchery lined, primal & off-kilter at the next turn.
Shield Your Eyes are three stalwarts of southern England’s post-hardcore scene that grew in response to developments that spread across the States throughout the late eighties and early nineties from Washington DC’s Dischord Records (Rites of Spring, Nation of Ulysses) to Texas’ At The Drive-In. A principled scene that took old school hardcore’s socio-political dogmatism and cast it internally, bringing about a more intense, introspective range of sentiments reflected by punk’s maturing musicianship.
Toby Dammit's "Kriminal" is the loudest Harsh Noise release I've heard all year, and is mastered just about as loud as is actually possible. If you're looking for sheer sonic violence, here it is. But is there any depth to it? I believe so. It's difficult for an album like this to distinguish itself among the countless releases available today, but "Kriminal" succeeds in doing so, and crushes you in the process.
‘Schattenlieder’ sees Sturmpercht return with their 4th album of Alpine Folk- the genre they invented that mixers together elements neo folk, more traditional Austrian / south Bavarian folk, with experimental & creative edger’s. The album as a whole shows a darker, denser more atmospheric side to the band, sure there still the drinking & buoyant accordion ribbed songs of the past here. But on the whole the album more thoughtful, dense & darker; almost like the band have gone into deeper, darker Austrian forests for their influence & vibe.
‘Alt’ Collects together 10 tracks from over a period of twenty years (1989 to 2009) by long standing electronica, ambient and stripped atmospheric techno artists Frank Rothkamm.
When my wife and I first began dating, she worked third shift at two news-radio stations in New York. I’d come back to her apartment, lie on the bed, wait for her to come back, and let the sounds of the city ooze in through the walls and maybe the open window (if it was warm enough for that). Being surrounded by the city at night, several floors up, was like being half-asleep in the lap of some giant creature that only breathed once every couple of minutes.
'Сиби́рь [Siberia]' finds Italian based HNW project Fukte offering up a single one hour long track of walled noise, thats made purportedly from unedited digital recordings of a plane flight over Siberia using digital recorder with stereo microphone.
‘Wall 'n' Brick’ offers up 10 tracks of short HNW making- the idea behind the album is that each track is a brick in a huge wall of sound i.e. the whole album is seen as a wall. It’s an interesting concept, though for me it’s more than a little underwelming.
Watch Me When I kill is one of the lesser know Richard Ramirez(Werewolf Jerusalem, An Innocent young throat Cutter, Black Leather Jesus,ect) projects. It’s been in existence since 2008 putting out six release thus far, the project also features Ella Einsmire(ex Anal Drill, S.S. Electronics, E.E.E). Primal Impulse is a enjoyable, thick & often jitter bound slice HNW making with some neat and at times amusing Giallo film samples interlaced through-out the tracks just under half an hour runtime.
The mysterious Archiaro is to be found in Catanzaro of Southern Italy – Tommaso Cosco describes it as “a countryplace where memory and becoming merge in a present full of inspired consciousness”. Occasionally it seems to be used as a low key venue for friends to perform experimental, ambient works in a natural setting – something that Andrea Marutti, head of Milan’s Afe Records, took advantage of in 2007 when he incorporated some of Tommaso’s ideas into a solo live performance that was released by Nextera the following year as ‘The Subliminal Relation Between Planets’.
‘God Is Busy... Save Yourself’ is a truly suffocating, crushing & black as night excise in sludge infected & barbwire noise ripped doom metal. This truly is one of the thickest, nastiest sounding doom records I’ve ever come across- that is best approached only if you enjoy both doom & all out noise mix.
‘Oh! Gimme You’ is the second chaming, approachable yet experimental album from Japanese three piece Kasumi Trio. The album sits in laid-back, quirky & at times off-kilter place between folk pop wonderings ‘n’ haphazard strums. Bluesy, jazzed & at times tuneful improv guitar nodding, quiet psychedelic folk/rock tinges and the odd hint of wayward stripped electronics & subtle /quirky noise matter.
It’s difficult to under play the relevance & influence of EX:EL the 5th album from the British electronic collective 808 State. Firstly it was one of the first dance or electronic albums to have really commercial success with out losing it’s underground or creative edge. Secondly it was the first dance record to use guest vocalist which is of course now is common practice. But ultimately EX:EL is an album that mangers to be approachable, yet highly creative, dense & varied through-out.
Gli occhi dentro(Eyes With Out A Face) is a sonic tribute by this USA/ Italian HNW duo to the 1994 film of the same name by Italian sleazy & exploitation director Bruno Mattei.
Jono El Grande would certainly have you believe him to be some sort of mad comedic musical magician, summoning up an exciting and entertaining quirky compositional style involving rapid changes of instrumentation and musical genre, incorporating influences from a truly extensive variety of cultural influences. In other words, the musical territory occupied by such bands as Estradasphere and Mr. Bungle, and Naked City. I find there to be nothing 'dada' about it.
Based in Portland, Oregon, Brown is the work of Jeremy Long, also guitarist for local drone metal band Tecumseh. The title shared by this, his third self-released album and its final track comes from the poem ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’ where the poet Dylan Thomas appeals to his infirm father to “rage against the dying of the light” as part of his reflections on grief and death. Brown’s cacophonic soundscapes wrought from recordings of improvised guitar, violin and DIY electronics do not so much portend the challenge of death as portray decay as a living process that thrives throughout its inevitable entropic decline.
My familiarity with Metek starts and ends with my having heard a few of his releases – all collaborations – in addition to a sort of bewildered intimacy with the eponymous threads on various noise boards dedicated to his person, filled to the brim with love, hate, anger, what-not – virtually every emotion on the spectrum.
'Channel 0-1' is the debut release from one man Texas based HNW project Stress(aka Casey Duncan). And it offers up two tracks & thirty six minutes of punishing yet enjoyable & hypnotic ‘wall’ making.
Drop a microphone down into a fault line, between rivers of bubbling earth and plates of ice grinding each other into snow, and you’d come up with something that sounds like Heated. Jana Winderen’s album for Touch, recorded live in Japan, was compiled from (according to the sleeve) a slew of sonorous location recordings in Greenland, Iceland and Norway.