PLAYLIST with COMMENTS/REVIEWS

Started by GEWALTMONOPOL, December 15, 2009, 09:30:59 PM

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Ashmonger

Grunt/Bizarre Uproar/Deathkey/Caligula 031 - Beyond (LP, Deathangle Absolution): Good looking insert for each project, very good tracks from each project as well. Deathkey tracks are among the best I've heard from him.

Gangrene - Cleaning the Wound (tape, Obscurex): Wasn't exactly convinced after the first couple of spins, but since I like both Unclean and Edge of Decay, I gave it some more spins. Turns out this is pretty good Industrial Noise/PE. Wondering if it was a one off project or not?

Edge of Decay - Kiihko (tape, Freak Animal): Less Harsh Noise, more Industrial Noise than former releases it seems, good tape.

Military Position - Black Noise (tape, Trapdoor tapes): Great tape, would fit right on Unrest Productions if you'd ask me, except for the one track that's more dancelike, maybe.

Dead Dreams - Halo Of Shattered Teeth (tape, Antipatik Records/Vanity Recordings): Described as Industrial Ambient and I wouldn't know how to describe it otherwise, very good!

Armour Group/Isomer - Desire to Fight (C30, Trapdoor Tapes): Two acts that I wasn't familiar yet with, Industrial/PE from both, good stuff, especially that first Isomer track is great, made me want to tear the walls down. Other Isomer tracks are calmer though, rather contrasting the first one.

FallOfNature

Quote from: NaturalOrthodoxy on September 05, 2017, 12:27:14 PM
AUGURE CONCRET

Got a tape in the works, due out in the next batch.

Today - Survival Unit "Murder For The Mission"

Revisited my first introduction to S.U. 10-12 years ago this lived permanently in my tape deck.

Kayandah

Sutcliffe Jugend - Shame
I'll have to eat my words, I assumed this would be more of the same, and maybe it is, but fuck me if the title track is not one of the best things i've heard from them in the modern era. Guitar driven noise that brings back fond memories of Bodychoke and Tomkins ranting over it for close to 13mins. As a huge fan of Bodychoke, I love this track. Rest of the album isn't bad, biting lyrics, different styles and it ends with a long instrumental track. Probably up there with Muse in terms of quality of recent output

Salford Electronics - Communique 2
Wasn't sure what to expect but is a combination of field recordings and integrated electronics. Definitely late night music and it takes a few spins to immerse myself into it.

FreakAnimalFinland

#6468
Quote from: SILVUM on November 30, 2010, 11:53:56 AM
Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on November 30, 2010, 10:29:56 AM
A.M.B. "Implosions" tape
Zikachudoku Self-released tape from 1995. A-side has "self scission" and B-side "self explosion", "self expansion" and "self abrasion". Underlined: All instruments as my cock! One of those bands from Japan which has remained pretty small and unknown and I guess also relatively hard to find? I do have pretty decent amount of old AMB tapes, and amount they get listened, isn't perhaps enough. A-side of tape is focused on high pitched synth oscillations and lo-fi mid-low rumbles. It's ok, but nothing special. Flip on the b-side discards most of synths and we're experiencing hands-on (or cock?!) metal junk/pedals etc what Japanese know well. It is not like AMB is re-inventing the wheel, BUT, he doesn't spill the beans immediately, but there are great moments when you have been listening loud and fierce noise for a while, and suddenly low, wider stereo sound bass rumble hits in. It's like the kick what is missing from majority of noise today, when all is maximum at all the time. Despite AMB isn't perfect. It perhaps doesn't belong to the hall-of-fame of Japanese noise, but this mid 90's original noise cruncher has lesson or two to show contemporary artists!
Just one question: Anyone else have this tape? HOW lo-fi it is meant to be? Is my ferric tape already decayed or maybe even little failed dub? I feel that there is occasional lurking high-end crisp what almost hits in. I mean, in style of Pain Jerk or such. Now, whole tape is somewhat blurred and without the very highest crispy clarity. Not that it would hurt the tape. Not at all. Just curious.

That's one I'm missing still so I can't comment on the dubbing, is there any info on edition size?

A.M.B. "sw" tape
This one doesn't have problems being utterly lo-fi, but there is one moment in this tape when it appears as if it's just about to become clearer, but doesn't. And finally at the end of b-side it does. Which makes clear that isn't meant to sound like it does for about 3/4 of duration - although it might be even better that way, hah...
There is high pitch, almost like sin-tone wave on top, whistling on same tone through-out both sides. It's is possible it is not dubbing, but the recording itself. Mid 90's noise from Japan, which is very much unlike most of noise there at the time.
Primitive, live-noise takes with no overdubs. It is made out of various fragments, where main difference is he mostly changes used object/set up. Style is always the same unedited, brutal and physical noise that has way less effect-driven approach than Japanese 90's noise acts.
SW#3 track goes to almost masonna mode. High pitched screaming and distorted rubbish which appears to be quite small objects and feedback created perhaps with small speakers of even headphones instead any proper amps. Rest are instrumental pieces.

I wonder if anyone knows what happened to him? Zikachudoku existed already in 1991 and he changed to AMB name in 1993 or so... and probably disappeared by.. 1997? If there would be means to gather good quality masters for re-issue, I would consider that looking Japanese noise of the time, I'd certainly be in favor of reissue of something such as this than yet another Merzbow or Hijokaidan or Incapacitants. Nothing wrong with those, but there is hardly shortage of those. Project like this, at its best is such a killer stuff - and different from what the big names of era are doing.

Someone may ask, why bother to dig some forgotten 20 year old bedroom noise... well, it is just different than a lot of noise done these days. I'm certainly not against releasing new stuff, and living in past. But perhaps the past can also give healthy inspiration for currently active noisicians. Thinking how much people (including myself) have liked things like H.Ö.H. for its uttter simplicity and brutality. Rejection of obvious noisemaking gear and going back to approach of old times when many artists didn't have "gadgets", only ideas. And got to love band name: Autotoxic Mental Bizarrerie!
E-mail: fanimal +a+ cfprod,com
MAGAZINE: http://www.special-interests.net
LABEL / DISTRIBUTION: FREAK ANIMAL http://www.nhfastore.net

terminus01

Quote from: SILVUM on September 08, 2017, 02:08:15 AM
sadly Trash Ritual Chris has one of those ltd 1 boxsets, and he was all "it's not that good, maybe I'll reissue selections" Which is such a selfish masturbatory arrogant perspective to take on something like that.

dude kind of said that about everything, and he seemed to have every rarity under the sun.

anyways, would fully support these and other underrated reissues -- too much uniformity these days, with equipment and visuals coming long before ideas, if not simply dictating them.

FreakAnimalFinland

Talking about obscurities and things that wouldn't hurt reissuing... It's hard to measure is there needed to be stuff like BRUME/BOSOVO split tape. But when listening to this 91-92 release, one can simply conclude that nobody does it like this anymore. Nobody. And Bosovo, was just one-off project project involving the members of Brume, Vrischika, La Nomenklatur, and Syllyk.  Brume has plenty re-issued. I think  La Nomenklatur as well? French industrial stuff from late 80's.
Bosovo does couple tracks of ritualistic industrial. It's advantage is most of all era. Before computer. Before everybody had tons of gadgets and neat synths to be able to be... hmm.. too good?
It has elements of being made partly by people who may have not been veterans and experts, but almost like sessions of random powers of frantic chanting, percussions, odd effects and so on. Nowadays when you'd have band performing material like this, they'd most likely settle on things that are good sounding. Low throat singing, stylish evocations...  But in Bosovo, you got almost like odd theatre play of lunacy or early performance arts. Funny? Depends how you see it, but certainly wild. Not just stylishly dark and sinister.
Brume, not here at his absolute best, but still as it is, old Brume never really fails! Should look into what all there was reissued. I believe rather big amount of stuff came out on Russian labels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leFKwDLRB7I

TEM OPH AB & USE YOUR PAIN "collaboration" tape
Rarefazioni Uterine
I may have not always been enough vocal about excellency of K.Wintanski! I got big collection of his stuff, under many names. KDF. Kadef. Use Your Pain...   UYP is his most "ritual-drone" type of project, but like in everything he does, utterly crude "effect free" hand made stuff. Perhaps there were moments 20 years ago when it seemed that others were doing it better, but it was most of all being too quickly lured by bling bling of gadget noise, heh.. Nowadays Witanski feels better than ever.
There are keyboard here. Sounds more like cheap casio tones than "analogue synth oscillations".  Perhaps being just one track per side, it becomes little too long, but nevertheless great. Raw, slowly moving noise drone what is noisy most of all due difficulty of sounds and lack of neat effects. Main element is still dark heaviness. Not "noisy aggression".

If wanting to think what could be something of this nature in Finland, I picked up from shelves long forgotten and utterly ignored Finnish noise release: Putkonen-Laurila -tape. Laurila may be more known guy of these two. This is done in 1998, when he had not made yet much name in Kemialliset Ystävät, Office Building, etc. Other guy had made releases with different names on Freak Animal, New Noise (Peter Zincken's label),.. As nobody appeared to even own copy of this (including artists), I was asked to take a listen. Vague recollections was that "something close to early Consumer Electronics". Well... perhaps not entirely true. Laurila abuses electric guitar, but lacking all echeos and neat effects. Closer to what for example Incapacitants very early releases had. Just fucking with raw guitar string sounds. On the top, Putkonen operates barbaric electronics, metal junk and sound manipulation. While rather crappy packaging and artwork - and project name, is nothing to rave about, this is curious release. 1998 is year when Finnish noise scene was vastly different. Most noise acts that are active now, were yet to come. Hardly any live shows or gatherings. Someone churning decent harsh barbaric noise was already interesting. Amusingly, this tape is "recycled tape": Dubbed over Richard Ramirez' CONTROLLED FILTER tape, haha.. As Putkonen-Laurila assault is shorter than c-60, there was still other side remaining of ramirez noise. Probably should do SI "radio program" about lost tapes of Finnish noise. There are surprisingly many of them. This certainly would be worthy of exposing few minutes of it to wider public.
E-mail: fanimal +a+ cfprod,com
MAGAZINE: http://www.special-interests.net
LABEL / DISTRIBUTION: FREAK ANIMAL http://www.nhfastore.net

Peterson

Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on September 08, 2017, 03:32:21 PM
Amusingly, this tape is "recycled tape": Dubbed over Richard Ramirez' CONTROLLED FILTER tape, haha.. As Putkonen-Laurila assault is shorter than c-60, there was still other side remaining of ramirez noise.

Huh, well now I don't feel quite as guilty for taping my own shit onto tapes I can't sell/trade/etc. Odd when folks don't even bother to erase the entirety of whatever they taped over first...

Anyway, "Lost Gems of Finnish Noise" podcast would be great.

Dog Lady Island "Malone" CS (Mistake By The Lake)
        Hmm, sounds an awful lot like unused material from the much better, more "realized" "Dolor Aria" CS on Collino's own Alien Passengers label. In fact, Mike would have to personally correct me for me to believe otherwise – this tape is 26 minutes of tape-treated piano, harp, and singing bowl (??) sounds warbling and decaying. Not bad, but too minimal for how directionless/meandering the sounds themselves, as well as the organization are/is. Even slightly more accompaniment would've made this tape something more than how it ended up – there's been some talk of M.B. releasing 1980s source sound as a "new release" lately...here I suspect this is indeed the case. Check out the aforementioned "Dolor Aria" instead. Collino is too talented to do something this simple, so what gives?

Flysch "For Opposition" 2xCS (self-released)
        First track; some awkward choices of field recordings (obvious carpentry sound bringing up images of guys drinking beer, etc) and inclusion of fluttery ambient key-type sounds that just never jive well with me, but I like this sound collage/field recording stuff nonetheless. Has a sort of eerie atmosphere to it, as if intended for a score or incidental soundtrack.    
        Things seem to kick into gear by the second of four side-length pieces, with really well-equalized, detailed field recordings of reverberated metal scraping, some odd thumping, and microtonal high-end. Ghostly whistling in background slowly morphing into electronic hum. Acoustics focus on resonance as much as sound of impact/friction. Animal noises add more interesting atmosphere than simple melancholia/introversion.
        Third piece is on the noisier, more fluid side of things, bringing to mind Arv & Miljo's "Oppna Vattendrag" – static-like hiss against slight water rumblings and shifting, loud-ish mid-range metal, wall-of-noise building arc structure... then things wind down quickly, and I am fairly sure I like this piece a bit more than it's comparative tape, though. Takes on a loose rhythmic quality as slight reverb seems to intrude and add room to an already-spacious track. Pretty sure some of the source sounds used here are just recordings of thunder, which if so, is a great choice. Just the right amount of tape-recorder crunch, too. I can see here some vague comparisons to Stefan Aune's Kjostad project.
        Similar introduction to fourth piece: immediately-recognizeable "busy" field recording of flowing water, birds chirping, cars passing in distance, slight breeze, lending a bright, exuberant quality I'd like to see more of in tape-music. Some labels would probably release an entire tape of this. Bass-blown sound of wind against tape recorder mic. A good recording is just that. This project seems to fit right alongside Kjostad and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes that one, I doubt they'd find much fault here.
   

Händer Som Vårdar "Anhedonia" CS (Throne Heap)
        Somewhat "tasteful" and/or "socially acceptable" yet no less challenging stuff from ever-evolving, always suprising HSV. Straight away, this stuff reminds me of a less comical, less happy-go-lucky Head Boggle (therefore far superior) in that it's driven by what appears to be a modular synth setup alongside something more typical, and maintains a certain palette and texture throughout despite a diverse range of sound, but relies on edits/cuts enough to qualify as musique concréte as much as the dreaded vagueness of "experimental." In the latter half, the emphasis on electronics shifts toward tape and edits.
        Side A has two pieces indistinguishable as to where the first ends and second begins. A constantly-moving, shifting, and intersecting piece of tape-edited and sometimes-manipulated synthesizer sounds (and occasional acoustic details) which seem to have center of more consistent, loop-based structures in between two more frantically-changing left and right channels. Things continually move and change until the tape stops, at one point slowing down considerably and focusing on two loops in particular, presumably being the second track.
        Side B has three pieces, the first of which takes a slower pace and almost zero edits in comparison to the previous side, emphasizing tone and texture with little noticeable movement, giving a pretty big contrast. Second piece features more prominent tape edits and more obvious use of tape in general; from production/fidelity to specific cuts of recordings, such as a blown out recording of someone playing a drum set, some outdoor stillness, deck motor hum, and so on. Occasional bursts of rattling sounds or delay-effected electronics. Things pan around the mix from left and right, moving outward and inward as well as side-to-side. No real distinguishable split between the last two pieces. Overall, probably the best work so far from HSV and one of my favorite tapes from Throne Heap. Definitely one I'll revisit frequently.
   
Vast Glory "Scorpio" CS (La Cohu)
         Always perfect. "Vast Glory" is certainly right. Might even say it's my favorite harsh noise/wall noise/whatever you call it of it's kind. Even more than Zone Nord, Dead Body Love, or Monde Bruits.  Always minimal and captivating, slowly-building, undulating, interlocking layers of hard electronic sound, always only using a Roland SH-101. This interation even has a rhythmic undertow on the A-side piece, which relies, mostly (and as usual) mid-range, windy static noise textures. B-side piece begins with more "pummeling," lower but still mid-range textures, with that looping bassy grind that Dead Body Love and early Rita can rival VG with. Eventually, that shifts into a skittering higher-end pattern that slowly reveals a harsh background drone that combines a lower sine wave with a hard, higher square wave.
        This tape is an example of the way this project is able to capture a wider range of emotions/atmospheres/whatever than the usual anchor of taboo, extremity or whatever that often accompanies harsh noise. Rather, this is just an extreme listening experience, and I'd say extremely soothing/relaxing/healing. Ian told me once that he'd hoped to do something that was just the static noise version of Eliane Radigue, or something like that, anyway, he succeeded. Pure meditative bliss. No concept, no message, no content. Who needs Vomir when you've got Vast Glory?

Harness "Sleight of Hand" CS (Imminent Frequencies)
        One might generally expect "musique concrete" when applied to known US noise guys to mean something more like crude, tape-manipulated quieter sounds with an industrial austerity. Not the case here. Although at one point an early-Whitehouse-type feedback flutter emerges amidst tape-slowed lord-knows-what and water droplets, it's not until several minutes of carefully-filtered cricket sounds have gone by. In other words, not so much the deliberate corrosion and abrasion to be found here, but serious exploration of sound detail executed with precision and clarity. Without trying to explain technically, in that sense, it's similar to Italy's Elisha Morningstar. Given the restrained volume, quite "musical" sense of timing, and the "pastoral" nature of the sounds (faucet, wood creaking, clock ticking, etc), this is pretty much at home on the more "academic" (but still underground) Imminent Frequencies.
        Although there's a tight, appreciable sense of composition and sound pairing here, it's the kind of thing that makes me hungry for more rather than satisfied with this helping – in all, the sounds do feel a bit "mundane" for my immediate liking. Second A-side piece begins with more aggressive, spacious metal acoustics and some nicely-placed echo effects, with what sounds like some of the same water recordings from the first piece making a re-appearance. Considering what I'd describe as the relatively high fidelity nature of this recording, I'm wondering if reel-to-reel tape is perhaps involved as well as cassette tapes.
        Interesting and detailed wind recording with some distant and not too intrusive chimes drift along for quite a while opening the B-side first piece, after a bit revealing subtle low drones before a burst of chimes, then end. Although I do enjoy wind sounds, I'm not sure how well the simplicity of that track worked as an entire piece. Along the same lines, treated chime sounds along with some resonant, occasional pounding metal introduce side B's second piece, which seems to have the strangest accents yet in terms of warbly tape treatment. Again perhaps a bit too straightforward, despite that, this may be my favorite track on this tape. Overall, this project seems to be about subtle restraint and discretion, rather than overt boldness or blatant-ness. I'm not always in the mood for this type of thing, but I can definitely say I'll be seeing what else Harness currently has to offer.
   

Deadpriest

#6472
Rudolf Eb.er: String Quintet and Ass Trumpet:

A very listenable to classical music that sounds to me to be describing a hard journey through something, a woman (crawling around the floor is how I picture it) screaming and howling and Eb'er occasionally talking and shouting in the background as something is dropped over and over again sometimes smashing into things.
My book of poetry: http://www.histergrant.com/

monotome

Abandon - In reality We Suffer Use to adore this, slow and heavy sludge doom by which the singer died through an overdose, though shit. Well, it's still not bad and the tracks somnambulistic and in reality we suffer are still intense on high volume, but they take to much time for the buildup and when it's not intense in sound, it sounds to dull.

Remesh - Choke Remesh, Lietterpisch, Poochlatz, D9, don't know what these guys are up to these days, but these guys done some great things over in Israel, like this one. Long and creepy buildup, begins with dark wavering drone where more and more icy distortion and PE sounds creep in and some guy screams in the background. Of course this leads to an eruption and the guy screams his lungs out, good!



NaturalOrthodoxy

After a weekend in the studio recording a PE album and listening to nothing but PE for months to prepare, I've been caning old Blazebirth Hall black metal this week. Branikald and Forest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DFJ3RtjPsg

Also been revisiting this underrated Ulver album, which was probably my first foray into anything that could tenuously be described as "noise" (in reality closer to ambient or musique concrete?). Regardless of genre it's an amazingly atmospheric album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltRVjzuU5MA

Also checked this out this morning which has added to my eternal regret of not attending Obscurex Fest:

https://soundcloud.com/der-b-nker/zss-live-excerpts-finland-2017

Amazing live recording, very clear but still sounding filthy, vocals are top fucking notch.

Scat-O-Logy

Quote from: NaturalOrthodoxy on September 13, 2017, 12:11:43 PM
After a weekend in the studio recording a PE album and listening to nothing but PE for months to prepare, I've been caning old Blazebirth Hall black metal this week. Branikald and Forest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DFJ3RtjPsg

Speaking of BBH, found this oddity as I was looking to purchase some obscure Russian industrial noise: https://yaop.bandcamp.com/album/mrakobesie

Mark Lazarus

#6476
Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on June 09, 2017, 05:21:13 PM
U-731 "By All means..." CD
Black Plagve
Members from United Front, S.H.P., Vomit Arsonist,... It sounds to me quite a like one could expect based on hearing those names. Also something what makes me think of several current USA projects. In a way, it is decent. It has pretty much all the basic elements of the dark post-industrial / heavy electronics stuff. Aggressive vocals. Strong samples from speaches or documentaries. Aggressive electronics as well as bleak and eerie, even tonal keyboard usage. It's not recycling same template, but actually each track does stand on its own.
But what sets it apart from the best of the genre, is the fine detail of sound. Many tracks suffer from somehow flat production. You got steady tone of raw electronics as back bone, then processed vocals echoing on top, and perhaps few other sound elements or samples going on, but nothing melts together and the true punch is missing. Seemingly like mixed on computer multitrack without sounds truly "becoming one", and often sound is relatively thin or flat, only enhanced with things like "reverb", rather than looking into core of sound, is it really any good? And instead of looking for brutal, fat, crunchy or truly fierce and ripping, you got this almost low bit rate multieffect type crackle tone hidden under echo? Well, of course not all the time and all the tracks - but the commonly heard and seen problem these days in this type of approach.

Of course, when you put some germanic leader speaking, you can throw almost any fuzzy tone behind it, and track can't be too bad, hah... So the CD is fine. But project appears like they could do way better than they have ended up doing. Lack of physicality and loud amplification is perhaps one missing detail, but I'm not sure if that's even the thing they want.

Ha! Everything that could of gone wrong regarding equipment failure to mixing the album using software was the reality of to why as much as I enjoy what we did as a whole ultimately failed on my end to deliver the intended sound....Since then I have re-worked and restructured new material using a different palette and methods to achieve something much heavier yet keeping as much as the United Front sound somewhat intact, I do hope we achieved with the second chapter of By All Means II (The Fall of Church and State) ;)

Baglady

ROTAT - High On Excitement C40 (Narcolepsia)
Really fond of this one. Sounds like older Ochu colliding with Vårtgård av early Mania to these ears. A sound I'm especially in love with which I rarely encounter these days. Looks good too, this tape. Is the rest of the Rotat discography in the same vein? If so, I need to go shopping.

zd313

Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on September 08, 2017, 03:32:21 PM

If wanting to think what could be something of this nature in Finland, I picked up from shelves long forgotten and utterly ignored Finnish noise release: Putkonen-Laurila -tape. Laurila may be more known guy of these two. This is done in 1998, when he had not made yet much name in Kemialliset Ystävät, Office Building, etc. Other guy had made releases with different names on Freak Animal, New Noise (Peter Zincken's label),.. As nobody appeared to even own copy of this (including artists), I was asked to take a listen. Vague recollections was that "something close to early Consumer Electronics". Well... perhaps not entirely true. Laurila abuses electric guitar, but lacking all echeos and neat effects. Closer to what for example Incapacitants very early releases had. Just fucking with raw guitar string sounds. On the top, Putkonen operates barbaric electronics, metal junk and sound manipulation. While rather crappy packaging and artwork - and project name, is nothing to rave about, this is curious release. 1998 is year when Finnish noise scene was vastly different. Most noise acts that are active now, were yet to come. Hardly any live shows or gatherings. Someone churning decent harsh barbaric noise was already interesting. Amusingly, this tape is "recycled tape": Dubbed over Richard Ramirez' CONTROLLED FILTER tape, haha.. As Putkonen-Laurila assault is shorter than c-60, there was still other side remaining of ramirez noise. Probably should do SI "radio program" about lost tapes of Finnish noise. There are surprisingly many of them. This certainly would be worthy of exposing few minutes of it to wider public.


i would love to hear this, and yes an SI on "forgotten Finnish noise" would be great. Jan (Kemialliset...) is an old friend, toured w him in 07 or 08 for a bit.... weirdly in the US that whole side of "experimental Finland" is always brought up; yet from what i know that scene and the "PE/HN" side of stuff don't cross much??? also Mikko i remember u listing some junk noise LP a few years back that i think was people from this crew, maybe Avarus related??? sounded great but can not find the link.

FreakAnimalFinland

E-mail: fanimal +a+ cfprod,com
MAGAZINE: http://www.special-interests.net
LABEL / DISTRIBUTION: FREAK ANIMAL http://www.nhfastore.net