EVIL MOISTURE appreciation

[FreakAnimalFinland]

From the playlist topic:

Evil Moisture "Creem-Lube Romantic Storage System" tape has been luring me for long time too. Packaging by Banned Productions is pretty damn odd. Just way too large sealed "foam" cube. Had to throw it in. 1993 brilliant tape-deck / pause button heavy wreckage and saturation. It is almost mindblowing that tapes this good would not reissued. 15 owners at discogs... 5/5 rating? Probably yes! I think perhaps Evil Moisture would need topic of its own to make recommendation what to check out and what not. I am not totally sold for everything I hear, but especially with early ones, there are material that crushes a lot of other noise 10-0.

The best of old?
The best of new?

[Bruitiste]

For old, I was gonna say "Gak", but then I remembered the 2xCDr "Earless Childbirth / Draculina, Princess Stomach Gas" with Nondor Nevai on drums on that second disc, the whole thing is amazing and relentlessly varied and never boring.  The Tochnit Aleph anthology of early material, "Amanita Burger", covers a lot of the great stuff.

For newer, I like the collab with Panicsville on Nihilist, but that was so long-gestating it could almost qualify as old. But "If You Want To Fuck The Sky, Teach Your Cock To Fly" LP on iDEAL and "Goo" LP on Blossoming Noise are pretty solid.  I tend to return back to the older stuff more.  The "Killer Nuts" CD on Deco which is an anthology of his computer works (IIRC) is somewhat recent and interesting too.

[Potier]

A lot of Mr. Bolus' older releases (many of them very hard to find at this time) are available for download on his bandcamp.

https://evilmoisture.bandcamp.com/

I was going to start a similar thread since I think that Evil Moisture is somewhat overlooked/undervalued all around. With the recent thread about fun in noise, I was reminded of the project and its approach to noise and art. It's refreshing to look at and explore the discography of EM as well as Royal Sperm. The bizarre collages, the video work, the web design, the titles - all of that says: Don't take yourself too serious. A sentiment that seems rare these days...
Fiercely DIY aesthetic, very distinct approach...

Personally I love the older material and have not heard a lot of the more recent releases. It appears there have been a few compilations of sorts as well that provide an overview of different time periods and live recordings. Smaller editions and tends to disappear quickly...
The LPs - Gak, Goo and If You Want To Fuck The Sky... are worth everybody's time for sure. Cannot comment on the Spite LP. I like Yerm Flowers a lot as well - which is included in the already mentioned Amanita Burger anthology...

Collaborative project with Mark Durgan as Olympic Shit Man - their Supercharge release is cool. Thankfully reissued in 2011 by Harbinger.

Would like to find out more about the various lathes and splits - it tends to get confusing to try and see through all of it...

[Grübelschlinge]

Evil Moisture/Hanatarash - fatanarchy on airtube CD
Brilliant nonsense without reason

[CMSFoundation]

It's gone pretty quickly out of print, but the "Drool Freezers" CDr + chapbook on Chocolate Monk is probably my favorite recent Evil Moisture release. I like the stuff where you can really hear the machines doing their thing. More process-oriented and less on the superfast-edit side of things, but just a bit.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

For old, I was gonna say "Gak", (...)

I have some memories that I was listening other, newer Evil Moisture LP and wasn't blown away. Gak is entire different deal. Just perfect experimental noise here.

Short tracks of busy tape manupulation, kind of harsh, but... not in same way as pure harsh noise. It never really focuses on being harsh total noise blast only. Instead, you got lots of dynamics, tape cuts, nasty broken transitions from small bit of raw noise to next. There is often something slightly odd. Not goofy, but something that ain't really BRUTAL, but more just bizarre noise.
It would be nice to know how long editing something like this took in 90's and how much of it is accidental, how much was re-recorded, selected out of longer pieces etc?

In this era of computers you can easily do cut ups and keep fine tuning album till death... but when you did it on tape, I think there ended up things you couldn't easily remove if it felt little clumsy or out of place. Just accepted that it is there now, and so be it. I guess valid for a lot of 90's noise.

How good LP is, is proven when 3rd time of this Evil Mosture spinning and feeling like could just flip the side and continue for more.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

After listening great new Andy Bolus interview from WCN podcast, and that he said EM/Macroronympha CD is the best of the collaborations, I was ready to listen to the masterpiece. Browsed my Pure CD's... could not find this. Browsed them 3 more times, thinking I have always had it, and how the hell it is not here. Browsed E for Evil Moisture, M for Macro, and no trace of it. I am not suicidal man, but there are times when that option seems easier than cope with living without CD like this, heh....

Eventually I realised that my alphabetics are a mess, and it really can be almost anywhere. So, carefully going through every slice of M cd's and in wrong place, finally found and now playing as we speak.

I see that the regular editions (Pure/RRR) are still cheap as fuck. I would recommend anyone to grab if they don't have it.

I don't know if there is extra value in version I have, since this is the artist edition done by MSNP, so probably... 50 exists? It doesn't seem to be listed at discogs (until yesterday Audio dissection put pics I sent him), but I would assume some noiseheads of the time must have it too? Packaging is more personalized, with artwork prints glued on Pure disc cardboard and couple inserts added.
Absolutely brilliant CD and I guess I have to pour little whiskey and listen CD to the end to calm down from the shock...

It has lots of things what will remind you of what Macronympha was in their.. ehm.. golden era, but I would assume even more thanks goes to wild editing skills of Andy Bolus, and the structure of CD that has more to do with EM type of short track approach. No boring moments, lots of odd noise sounds that are harsh, but besides harsh, also have the weirdo/bizarre vibe to it. In podcast there was sometimes used word "silly", but I would rather use word weird or strange. Many times in best Evil Moisture, it feeling isn't for me that that it would be predominantly funny or silly, but perhaps just weird and bizarre. Of course these qualities contain dose of humor build in, but perhaps less of haha, more what the fuck was that?!? (in good sense)

[impulse manslaughter]

Ghost Meat 7" on Smittekilde is the Evil Moisture record that I played the most. Not spectacular, just 2 nice cut and paste sounds collages and it comes in a nice silkscreened foldout cover. Saw there are a few cheap copies left on Discogs.

[Strangecross]

Since Andy Bolus talked about how he sees himself as a visual artist overall (in WCN interview), on that side of things i would have to mention the untitled lathe on AA Records and WW5 Maggot Bomber
(Olympic Shitman already covered in said interview)
Completely breaks the bonds of the "you cant just use porn as art" argument.

Another thing i would mention is that Andy's blog is what got me into Korpses Katatonik.

[Theodore]

Best cover art : https://www.discogs.com/release/6094972-Evil-Moisture-World-War-Five-Maggot-Bomber-

Edit: Shit, i quickly read the above reply and missed it was mentioned already. Ofcource it is. Record to own even just for the cover alone !

[brian o'blivion]

The Slime Street/Evil Moisture split tape on Pop Quiz is a personal favourite of mine. Both sides are fantastic.

https://youtu.be/K-vZ0s7iBXM

[PuddysJacket]

It's gone pretty quickly out of print, but the "Drool Freezers" CDr + chapbook on Chocolate Monk is probably my favorite recent Evil Moisture release. I like the stuff where you can really hear the machines doing their thing. More process-oriented and less on the superfast-edit side of things, but just a bit.

Drool Freezers was fuckin great. The accompanying booklet too - very dark and moody, at the risk of sounding like an art faggot.