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“One person’s noise being another’s sweet music” is a quote from the companion book to Justin Bennett’s Noise Map album which is a great description of any type of noise and ones levels of enjoyment of said sound(s). Really anything and everything can be either noise or music and that’s what’s investigated in much of Mr Bennett’s work –it’s really up to you were the line is drawn.
Papa November are neither a Gangster rap project or a metal band as their name might suggest instead their a project that comes up with an rather original mix of lo-fi glitch and percussive electronic matter with Post/ avant rock, dark indie rock tone, soundtrack elements and the odd more upbeat lo-fi pop moment.
This is a wonderfully blackened, often claustrophobic, sometimes noisy, dense and ritual tinged collaboration between Australian guitarist and percussionist Oren Ambarchi and prolific American percussionist and sound artists Z’ev. The pair forge together three long tracks of tension, percussion and an atmosphere that almost cuts you.
Take refuge in clean living sees this US five piece instrumental collective step out from their post rock/ doom metallic label to present an album that’s embraces and mixers many genres together in a high conducive, epic and accomplished manner.
Ghosts on Magnetic tape is a reissue of a wonderfully heady and dark Bass Communion album from 1997 that’s joined by a second remix of the album by Andrew Liles. Bass Communion is the dark ambient/ drone project of Steven Wilson of UK prog rockers Porcupine Tree.
Live at the marquise dance hall is a four way collaboration of improv and free jazz featureing Tom Abbs on Contrabass, Mike Brown on Contrabass, Lathan Hardy on saxophone, and Ryan Jewell on percussion.
Dislocation is another reissue in the on going series of older Hafler Trio albums with their often complex, puzzling and plush original artwork by Korm Plastics. This originally came out in 1990 on Staalplaat and I have to say it’s one of the more active and up front rewarding works I’ve heard from Mr McKenzie.
Light Ships is the first release by this new percussion heavy electro/ guitar and noise duo featuring William Sabiston (ex Axolotl) on Drums, Electronics and Jon Alcatraz on guitar- it’s also the first release on the newly formed label of Peter Swanson( Yellow Swans,ect) freedom to spend.
The Demolition Series is Jasmina Maschina’s debut album that offers up a collection beautiful sung and played pop folk songs, all of which flow with such effortless, fresh and self assured air you’d imagined she’d been homing her craft for many years.
Star Peace was the one and only album by this synth and moog bound French three piece from the 1970’s and what a great camp ride of space influenced electronics, disco, funk and general addictive cheese this is.
Journey is this German four piece debut album that offers up an invigorating, tuneful and atmospheric mix of 70’s influence instrumental rock with jazzy, blues, funk and filmatic touches.
Casiotone for the painfully alone is the brainchild of American film school drop out Owen Ashworth. And the projects name really tells you what to expect this its low grade/ lo-fi tinny synth pop music with a quirky, geeky and outsider tinge. Think early Anticon but with out the rap edge or a more up-beat John Maus & you’ll be close.
This on first few plays through seems like nine four minute tracks of searing, brain melting wall noise but the more you play it the more elements, detail and texture surface and flit over the contistent walls of noise.
Grouper sound sits between echoed and dreamy guitar pop of the 80’s, folk/rock and ambience. At the centre of the project is Liz Harris who seemingly plays everything and producers the felt, misty and haunting vocals that float, shimmer and soak through all of Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill.
This is an one man black metal project from san Francisco first album that was originally put out in 2005 and now gets a very desevered reissue. So what sets this apart from the mountains of other one-man black metal projects? well it’s the distinctive and atmospheric mix of ambient/electronica elements with varied and often quite prog touched black metal and goth rock elements all to create a epic, distinctive and dark sound.
Wood and concrete as it’s titles suggests is a mix of organic and non-organic mater- The organic textures in the form of various manipulated field recordings and non organic elements in the form of guitar, laptop textures and manipulated rhythmic and cut blocks of sound. With Edmonds building dense and detailed yet often calming and harmonic sonic pictures from these two elements, I guess best described as active and dense ambience meets musique concrete.
Painting Petals on the planet ghost is the third release by this off shoot of My Cat is An Alien featuring Maurizio & Roberto Opalio and Ramona Ponzini who last joined them for the Black magic Disco project. But unlike the dense often hectic sonic waters of Black magic Disco this is deeply tranquil, beautiful and hypnotic.
This does exactly as the title suggests- it finds electronics and sample wiz Coh Aka Ivan Pavlov taking the voice /singing tones of Cosey Fanni Tutti and cutting, reshuffling and layering them up into rhythmic, atmospheric and musically form.
Le Temps des Moissons(The Time of the Harvests)is a prog, drone and jazz cross breed original released in 1975 with hand drawn covers due to the pressing and production cost. Here Beta-lactam Ring bring it back to wonderfully hypotonic & tripped out life in a rather nice hard back book mini gatefold, with two extra tracks from the same time not found on the original release.
Though born from the Neo Folk scene there’s something very other and strange about Death in Junes sound and sonic presence, at the base of all of songs on The Rule of Thirds is acoustic guitar but there’s lots of things making this a bizarre, intriguing, quirky and at times sinister playing experience.
The nightvision is this two pieces debut album with having only one cassette release before and it’s a highly effective and eerier shot of drone craft, dingy sometimes aggravated electronics and guitar scapes bringing to mind the same sort of dread filled and doomed soaked grim looping and building atmospherics of the like of Skull Defekts and Wolf Eyes at their more claustrophobic and grim soundtrack like.
Gebirgshohenstille finds one man German black metal/ ambient project Vinterriket focusing more on the atmospheric ambient keyboard side of his sound to create 6 sonic hymns to the loneliness and beauty of the mountain scapes, with only two tracks having blacked guitar and vocal tones on them.
This split release, available only on LP and download, presents a couple of unique performers who are quite dissimilar to one another in approach. Barge Recordings are touting this as the first in a series of unlikely pairings, and they're off to a good start.
My relationship or should I say obsession with this spoken word/ sound scaping album goes back to when it was original released back in 1993, at the time I'd read a review about it saying that this was one the most appalling and gut wrenching things your likely to hear. So I spent the ensuing years looking through record shop rails across the world trying to find a copy of this depraved fruit, but I never could, but it always stayed in the back of my mind taunting me—so I was very excited when I saw it was to be reissued.