PLAYLIST with COMMENTS/REVIEWS

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

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NaturalOrthodoxy

Quote from: Eigen Bast on June 24, 2020, 05:25:26 PM

EmptyDNA - Moon Crawls Above (Hospital Productions)
Curiously this was the first thing to sell out from the latest Hospital batch, so I am glad the whole thing is available on the bandcamp. After the subtle and ominous opening track, the rest of this tape evoked the neanderthal dub of John Olson's Henry and Hazel Slaughter project layered with morbid synth work. Slasher movie soundtrack dunked in Ketamine.


Can concur this is good stuff. I spent hard earned English pounds on the download for this cos I know I'll want to absolutely rinse it on the go. Not particularly original by any stretch but totally hits the spot if you're craving lo-fi (yet clear) cheap-sounding murderous atmospheres.

Also checked out the preview tracks of the Computer Murder tape. I don't have the money to buy the physical version but it's looking like an awesome release. Say what you will about Hospital's forays outside of industrial but they know how to put together a good compilation. Strong concept, heavy industrial, and solid atmosphere overall.

Artwork for the Vatican Shadow/Salford Electronics is very cool but the preview didn't excite me.

Bloated Slutbag

#7921
Mania – Eros + Massacre reissue
Mania – Miserable Disposition reissue
Mania – If They Move... Kill Em reissue

The most tragic thing about Keith Brewer's untimely passing is that he never lived to collect his lifetime achievement award- on perversion alone. That and the simple fact that the last of the work so lovingly lustily bequeathed to the pervs of this world represents his very best. Perhaps, in availing said pervs this trio of Swedish reissues, indefinitely available at near cost, Tommy Carlsson too ought to qualify for some sort of consolation prize- a Lifetime Perv-vision Award or something (we'll work out the details later). Truly, the man is doing the Lord's work.

Eros + Massacre comes to us originally via Carl-ssan's inimitable Abisko, with cover art almost equal to title. The opening is...heavy. Low, ominous brood which quickly thickens into bludgered rumble- and then the thick metal bludgerings start hammering down. Some nasty feedback pierces into frame, the picture grows more distorted, slow oscillations rise in waves of hissy metallic gristle. Tensions grow pretty tight in the ensuing dis-calm, possibly sampled squeals and screams snaking through wheedling feedback as though impatient for the massacre to proceed in earnest. At long and brutal last, synthetic insectile buzzings join in the grimly lubricious bloodbathings and...suffice it say, the shit gets ugly. Fucking ugly. Nowhere near the later Mania, in other words, as concerns the more recently refined strains of delicate nuance (if such descriptors may even be permitted where the project is concerned) but possibly no the worse for that. Halfway through and almost harshnoise-ish knob slobbery obscures an inward cantanker of junk-scrap chain-rattle, physical junk-slam fits only rarely succeeding in breaking the tightness of their close-walled confines. Such moments are priceless, however, their rarified gasps in deadened airs finally strangulated in the unforgiving crush of flattened deathscrunch.

The flip side wastes no time in going full ugly. Heavy thud commences the deathscrunchings straight off, junk scraps almost completely buried in the thick of it. Deceptively so, however, as an occasionally widened stereo field allows the subtler refinements to wink through. Quite unexpectedly, straight-ahead stretches of distorto-belch barrel through the center, as though to up the harshenings but in fact to usher in a good and acoustic meeting of heavily manhandled metals. The hammerings-on-down start getting real ugly here, bass-heavy lows trembling with the impact, distorto walls blowing apart, and then the voice. The voice. No doubt nothing good to say so probably for the best that not a word can be made out, assuming anything more than agonized howls were in the offing. Now the tug and pull of alternately harsh-whitened wretchings and more grim-flavored metal-thunk. In the closing minutes a huge and doleful round of successive percussive thunks absolutely butchers the field, metals clobbering slobbering together, dungeon door slamming shut, locking in the lubricious proceedings to come.

Miserable Disposition more than lives up to its promise, but I'm not one to take chances. I spend the better part of the day watching re-runs of Happy Days, slamming bottles of Elk Brew, trying my damnedest to get in the mood. Finally muster the will to press play, and...greeted by surprisingly sharpened shrieking shear, knife-edges smoothly carving grimly grinning rictus into the grayed glistening face of dirge-tainted metallic sheen.

Now, I'm not necessarily going to call this purely harsh, or any more harsh than say Eros + Massacre. I mean, not to be harsh, but who knows what harsh really means anymore? Still. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that, in putting together this work for Harsh Head Rituals, Mania is playing for the home crowd. In the harsh and unrelenting screech of piercing metals repeatedly scouring into piercing metals, in the severely pitched feedback shriek, in the pain-wracked vocals railing in wracks of incoherent anguish, in the excruciating commitment to total earhole abuse, it is hard to call this anything but pure, harsh, noise.

By the halfway point there seems little resolve other than that by which to peel paint, the sheer screeching severity of it wallowing in the deliciously vicious viscosity. Then the acoustic junk metals come hammering back in cascades of roughly bashed-to-shit scrap-collapse, squealing feedback strains ensuring just that right measure of the goddamn nasty.

Flip the fucker over to: gorgeous cataclysm of acoustic metals bashing the living fuck out of one another. Amped humming spices up the latent low-end bilgeries, essential fed-back screechings carrying the bulk nastiness forward. Soon metal bashing resolves into heavy-handed, semi-regulated, percussive ker-thunk, breaking down and breaking off, making way for the much more structurally sound, industrial-strength, seethings of the follow-up. The follow-up floats slow cycling wobba-wobba against infrequent incursions of jagged scrap-shreddings. Cold, almost clinical acoustic elements murked in repetitive buzz-saw coruscation, whitened scathe-rasp progressively flattening along a mildly disheveled harsh curve.

Quite a lot of ground covered on this release so far, genuinely intrigued at what the final ditty will bring. Well first, just a bunch of mid-level curdle, threading the center of the occasional pealing strip of straight-laced feedback bleed. Then the mid-level curdle starts to agitate, tearing into rough patches of whitened belch. A sudden revelation as agitations roll into pained vocal rufflings, all the while the screechy pierce and bleed serving as guarantor of the expedited expiration of auricular faculties.

If They Move... Kill Em. Right you are, boss. Seems that someone unfortunately did move cause the results here are damn punishing. And just fucking DENSE. No screwing around even for a second, just dropped straight into the pure punishment, thick, rich, almost ridiculously overburdened and heavy. Stretched, too, to the edges of the audible spectrum, of the channel pan, flat flatulent chunks of bilge-crusted thundering bludger. Into this a fully filthed feed of carefully panned extremities, equal parts metallic, brittle, white-hot, scrunched tight, burnt to fucking shit. Filth, filth, and FILTH.

BT.HN. guests on track the second, but honestly after that first salvo you'd barely know it. Well, okay, now that the densities are sinking in, a crowded sense of forward non-movement, buried in even filthier burdenings of utter sludge. This is definitely of the capacity to challenge the capacities the low-end playback gear. Halfway through these eight minutes of perv-vection, scrap-metal scrinchings and wrenchings attempt to prize open the shut-tight airs, with more than modicum of success, the suffocating density somehow both weightier while seemingly hollowing out the core. A final give out of the insufferable pile-on and the pure metal scraps bash out a finely-hewn close.

The whole of the concluding side is given over to Hate On Hate. There is no fucking way this could not fucking destroy and, like, fuck. Destroyed. The opening intervals sound as though the protagonist were simply digging in the dirt, priming the destructive capacities. Then the huge and, yes, melodramatic slams of echoing metal distortions. A pull back and it's like only the bare distorted echoes vaguely beating against sludge-heap as the close-mic'd scrapes bite at the eyesocket. The descent to derelict dungeon hell is both steady and blurry-eyed, crud-slathered exertions piling onto crud-smothered oscillations, the barest echoed edges suggestive of so much gruesomely mangled meat. The brilliance here is in the very deliberate unfolding of the perversions, at all costs, snaring attentions in cumulative strangulated heaves of full-form saturated filth, the horrific gruesome spectacle of it simply too sick, and twisted, to ignore.
Someone weaker than you should beat you and brag
And take you for a drag

Eigen Bast

Quote from: NaturalOrthodoxy on June 24, 2020, 06:47:08 PM


Also checked out the preview tracks of the Computer Murder tape. I don't have the money to buy the physical version but it's looking like an awesome release. Say what you will about Hospital's forays outside of industrial but they know how to put together a good compilation. Strong concept, heavy industrial, and solid atmosphere overall.

Artwork for the Vatican Shadow/Salford Electronics is very cool but the preview didn't excite me.

Agreed on both counts - love that Skin Crime is pulling from Dr. Who and Harlan Ellison for "inspiration" on this one. Rogue State sample sounded pretty good.

And yeah, Vatican Shadow lost it's aura for me a long time ago, thinking about the time "Remember Your Black Day" dropped and it became a part of the Resident Advisor/Boomkat churn of mediocrity.

ConcreteMascara

Quote from: Yrjö-Koskinen on June 21, 2020, 12:09:26 AM
GRUNT Someone is Watching CD

I'm fond of that one as well. I was lucky enough to score a copy of the original tape from the shelves of Hospital about 10 years ago. Damn time flies...   But anyway I was disappointed when the reissue later came out and cut my favorite track, the atypical "synth" workout DNA Test. It's such a weird bit of squiggly sci-fi goodness. But still a good album in the vein of Europe After Storm and Terror & Degeneration, even if it falls short of the heights of those two.

Working my way through the killer K2 CD boxset on Urashima, Burst After Burst (Early Recordings 1990-1996). Having relatively limited exposure to K2 besides 4 albums, a couple 7"s and comp tracks, I didn't know what to expect from this compilation of early works. Yet somehow I was still surprised by the relentless metal clang that starts of Materia Informis. 20 minutes of rapid metal banging that's so continuous it tranced me out for most of it. The second track slows it down into more industrial territory. Hell of a start, although not my favorite after listening to the later CDs in the set. Autopsy Soundtrakks is really nice stuff. Lots of synth and weird sounds in free-flowing tracks that feel almost ambient at times. Easy listening? Not quite but at this point I was lying down on my coach just soaking it in. There's some metal clang and scrap but it feels mostly like weird synthesized factory sounds. Could easily work as a soundtrack to a spooky factory level in a video game. Part 3~Part 4 gets spacey even, reminding me a bit of the recent Hypertrophy reissue. Souls Are Kontrolled By Molekules is quite similar albeit maybe a bit choppier? As it's a remix of Autopsy Soundtrakks that's no real surprise. Hard to say which is better but since you get both you don't have to chose. De Novo is where it becomes the K2 I know, to a point. The pace relatively relaxed compared to the harried hyper-fast edits of The Rust or Metal Dysplasia, but the tasty metal sounds are oh so familiar.   Had it been released anonymously around 2010 I would've thought it the work of some Finnish metal fetishist for sure. It's an absolute joy to listen to!

And that's where I leave off because I haven't had time for Rusty Tongue or Destruktion For Model Citizens. Given the progression I assume these will be testicle-tingling, ear-drum shredding rippers. Praise to Urashima who did not combine multiple tapes on to single discs which I really hate. It's so nice to have each CD be a complete work with nothing added or missing. Even though I've only heard 4 of the 6 discs I can easily recommend this compilation for those who want a taste of true variety K2 offered in the '90s.
[death|trigger|impulse]

http://soundcloud.com/user-658220512

Bloated Slutbag

#7924
Quote from: ConcreteMascara on June 25, 2020, 07:07:10 PM
De Novo is where it becomes the K2 I know, to a point. The pace relatively relaxed compared to the harried hyper-fast edits of The Rust or Metal Dysplasia, but the tasty metal sounds are oh so familiar.   Had it been released anonymously around 2010 I would've thought it the work of some Finnish metal fetishist for sure. It's an absolute joy to listen to!

And that's where I leave off because I haven't had time for Rusty Tongue or Destruktion For Model Citizens. Given the progression I assume these will be testicle-tingling, ear-drum shredding rippers.

Safe assumption! Almost anything from that period of K2 is pure gold to my ears. I seem to recall around that time certain American metal-fetishists talking about K2 like he was the second coming of Noise Elvis. It would be hard not to hear that influence in subsequent Macro, to be realized most literally in the split-collab lp on RRR and of course the seminal Membranes And Black Holes.

I remember Metal Dysplasia being a lot more harried than The Rust* but now you've got me going back to get reacquainted with it all. Up to and including ye olde perennial fave We Destroyed Barcelona, the relative harried-ness of which always seems to vacillate in these increasingly fucked 'holes. I have this suspicion I'd be listening with very different ears now (I mean, for one, they are a lot more fucked!)

* edit had the two backward in the initial post appropriately enough!
Someone weaker than you should beat you and brag
And take you for a drag

NaturalOrthodoxy

Picked up a copy of the Gnawed - Subterranean Rites CD, and with it came an instant download. Had a listen to this in circumstances the polar fucking opposite to the vibes of the record - a boiling hot blazing bright walk to Sainsburys dodging maskless bacteria vehicles. So it's a testament to the album that it was still incredibly atmospheric. Perhaps it's also cos I've read about the process for recording it- endless venturing into abandoned underground industrial spaces, caves, tunnels, bunkers, hidden away in dense forest, recording metal scraping, percussive knocks, and dank dead air.

The closest thing I could compare this to is recent Hildur Guðnadóttir soundtrack for Chernobyl, but with rippling phasered vocals bringing into the morbid death industrial realm. No sound feels accidental or superfluous, each knock and crash contributing to the narrative in my own mind of a Silent Hill-esque journey into the depths of empty concrete caverns haunted not only by those who might have perished on previous explorations but also by the purpose for which these now defunct spaces were built. A testament to man's failed ambition.

If you know Gnawed's output so far, it's nothing that will surprise, but it is the total refinement of a sound to perfection backed up by real obsession and dedication to subject matter and process.

ConcreteMascara

V/A - Bar Noise (Full Volume Live Vol. 1) CD - Japan Overseas 1996 - Another compilation of Japanese noise... I bet you can guess which act brought me here. More on that at the end. So this is a quaint little slice of history,  a compilation of live recordings taken from shows at "Bar Noise" which was in Osaka from the mid '90s until ??. Apparently you could go in for drinks and listen to blasting harsh noise on the proverbial jukebox while drinking, smoking, eating. Sundays were for live shows and this is the fruit of their labor and honestly, it's not quite ripe! I went into this one knowing only 2 names but wanting to like whatever I got, similar to the Riddle of Lumen compilation I recently reviewed. But where that compilation was an exciting window into the world of Japanese weirdos doing noise rock, avant jazz, turntabalism and harsh noise that I want to peer into again and again, this is something closer to being in a cigarrette smoke filled room with an unknown band constantly soundchecking for an hour. It's not painful, mostly, and maybe some of this stuff was powerful live but crackly recordings after the fact mostly fail to translate.

The first 15 songs are all pretty short, with New Mexico, Mutant and Anglers providing the most interesting offerings. Mutant is over very quickly but it's violent blasts of noise and vocals leave me interested. New Mexico is weird, shitty and somehow charming noise that's more groove than aggro. And Anglers first song is obnoxious as shit but the second is a jazz-y saxophone led romp that I can't help but like. At 32 years of age I've really gotten horny for the saxophone. I never would've guessed. Next up is Kevin Sharp from Brutal Truth with friends, which is basically feedback, screaming, and crowd noise. It's fun, even if familiar sounding to anyone whose been at a show where the audience overtakes the stage and microphone.

The next 3 tracks are long 12, 10 and 12 minutes a piece, are probably "full sets". I was intrigued by the project Prisoner No6. but my hopes were dashed by the cracking mixer sound and delivery which felt limp in the recording. Some kind of lo-fi industrial maybe? If only the vocals were better. Kouzui was next with some straightforward blasting harsh noise. No ground is broken but it's enjoyable just the same. The cracking mixer sound detracts again, and shows up for the last one, Solmania. Although this CD is from 1996 it appears this is a solo Solmania performance and it's vicious as hell. The poor recording quality limits the brutalizing effect but this isn't squiggly, off-kilter style of later recordings. No, this is ASSAULT and a clear indicator of that he's the "pro" compared to what came before. At $5 it's was worth it for this single 12 minute piece. Having already lost my mind I could've paid x4 that and still walked away satisfied. And I like owning this little piece of Japanese history about a bar that's surely gone but tried to do something different. And for all of the artists on the comp that gave it their best and still sucked, we all start somewhere. I shudder to think of what my early live recordings would've sounded like.

Next up is Dry Lungs V. Can you guess who is on that one?
[death|trigger|impulse]

http://soundcloud.com/user-658220512

Yrjö-Koskinen

MANIA – Eros + Massacre
I just now received the trio of tapes eloquently praised by herra Slutbag above, and would like to jot down my own perceptions of the first one I decided to check out. I have not heard the original tape on Abisko; Mania is one of those projects I've spent far too little time with. The artwork is minimal, but very tasteful and in a similar vein as the other two reissues. Noise-wise it is just plain fantastic. Heavy crunching, groaning bass and beautiful treble/midrange crashing and hissing... Noise rarely gets any better than this. My impression throughout is that despite their awesome power, both tracks feel absolutely electronic, as if someone had found a way to reach through copper wire to pummel and abuse the actual current inside. This impression lasts throughout the tape, though the end of side B features a plot twist: the relentless distortion lifts somewhat and we hear someone moving around. Bizarrely, the whole 30 minutes of massacre (and eros) seems to be the result of some violence which has been deconstructed and distorted beyond recognition for the whole sitting. Extremely impressive. Looking forward to sitting down with the other two.
"Alkoholi ei ratkaise ongelmia, mutta eipä kyllä vittu maitokaan"

Ahvenanmaalla Puhutaan Suomea

FreakAnimalFinland

THE GEROGERIGEGEGE 7"s
Decision was to go through complete Gerogerigegege 7" discography, excluding the 80's lathe cut/acetate releases which I do not have. Everything else should be in shelves.
Gerogerigegege noise at its best, is such a odd thing, that almost nobody manages to be as noisy and as ripping. When Senzuri monkey Metal Action hits in, oh damn... It is hard to say who would be more piercing, more tormenting, with noise noise assault. Total ear drill goes through a-side and more noisecore trash on the b.
Ant-Zen, before turning more into rhythmic noise, would put out things like Gero sucking sounds.
Bunch of other punk-noise kind of chaos 7"s spinned.
Wreck of rock'n'roll former self 7" is surprisingly little praised 7". Noisecore chaos with members of Mamarracho helping out Juntaro with excellent results.
Kitanomaru Hyakkei 7" is basically compilation 7", but some stuff I know from other releases, some feels more exclusive for this. Having this, means one doesn't have to worry about some of the missing lathe-cuts. Cover is with multiple page 7" booklet with amazing graphics - non social media friendly I may say. See included labels catalogue of the time. What a crazy slogans and sale speeches. Makes you want to hear everything...
Sexual Behavior.... 7" is early works and one side basically punk rock, other side wank and phone xxx and more rock.
"No sound" is neat and simple not-so-distorted, but highly reverbed metal sounds splashing. Split with origami is also less noisy stuff. Early Dream Exit 7" is many short noise & experimental pieces from the arcives. Another Gero release that had various tracks pulled from archives. Split with Pyosalpinx also decent.
All you need is audioshock is counting 1,2,3,4 over pretty much non stop noise. Veel Plezier! Is like fanclub record of Japanese radio actor. Juntaro recorded his radioplay with reel-to-reel tape in 1980 and material releases "as is" on vinyl. No overdubs, no edits, just another weird Gero conceptual release.

Government Alpha "Affective Imagery" CD
New Government Alpha CD, Affective Imagery that just came out. 2019 recordings, 2020 release. It's perhaps foolish to say, but I did not expect it to be that good. Listened twice instantly. Had some Kjostad cd before too.

continuing with 7"s..

Grey Wolves "a wealth of misery" 7"
One of the best power electronics / industrial-noise 7"s, and one of the greatest graphics too! GW at the absolute peak of their activities.
Grabbed one box of "G" 7"s to be consumed. This one has quite a bunch of The Gerogerigegege 7"s, but also many other goodies.
GW will not leave this turntable with one rotation, so lets see when time to proceed.
If there would be possibility to hear how was the master of this 7". It feels that some of the dirt and distortion is result of the master-cut and 7" format, and due very long sides, if masters exists, this could be even better on CD...

Government Alpha / Evil moisture split. EM wins this battle, but perhaps only due being dirtier in his moves.
Genocide Organ Klan Kountry 7", simple but nice!
Gruntsplatter "Pestmaiden" 7" - I got the CD too, but 7" was just enough for dosage today.
Hyware / Armenia split 7" on Peter zinckes label offers the blunt DIY harsh noise works.
Only today I realized that these Himitsu King 7"s are exactly same. different cover, same 7". Japanese noiserock/noisecore/melt banana type fusion with tons of feedback and screechy sound.
The Haters "drops ascending" 2x7". Totally rules. not long ago I complained I have too little of Haters 7"s, and now I found 5 more from wrong box... It is great to make this good discoveries in your own shelves! Total audio candy of loops of things breaking and falling apart. I still do not have enough of The Haters 7"s, so got to look into buying... or if any people want to get rid of and trade or new noise... drop me message! All your useless 7"s may be welcomed to my turntable!


2005 - I recall one friend concluding that it is the era of least wanted harsh noise. I guess it might be just illusion created by facts that there was so much noise that came out in short period of time and that there was a lot of fairly large edition pressings at that time. This combined, there are lots of releases that will never be "collectibles", but are actually damn good.
After finishing Incapacitants "quietus", I decided to go for something else. The Cherry Point "Night of the bloody tapes" CD. If at the time, this felt like just more of the mid 2000's harsh noise wall... Listening this now, it is certainly wall, but not one dimensional, not lazy. It is active all the time, lots and lots of distortion and saturation, but one can heard tons of interesting sound details coming and going beneath the layers of harsh distortion.
This CD, you can grab it cheap. You can listen at bandcamp or youtube. Of course many people already acknowledge it as great harsh noise, yet those who are more lured by hard to find trophies, I do urge to dive into mass of noise of this era. Indeed, it does crush a lot of mid 90's stuff with sheer fierce straight forward ripping brutality...

Was out of town while listening that.  Away from proper stereo systems, so online, headphones sessions only. Unusual situation of not getting sleep, so blasting Incapacitants on headphones all night long, and came into conclusion that "Ministry of Foolishness", that I used to rate very highly, is not on top level of albums anymore. It must be partially because it was among the early CD's I heard. I used to like the heavy bass-wwwwwoooooshh and irritant high pitch electronics, teamed up with pitch efx... but actually, I would say "Therminosis", "ALAP", "DDDD"... all these may actually be superior.
While the "New Movements.." is probably my current favorite, I suppose album that I have had for long time, but never acknowledged among the greats, is "73". It is damn noisy and ripping, and there is some pretty unique tracks there too. Something that absolutely nobody else is doing.

Quietus was also listened and this thin and piercing screech is totally great still today.
E-mail: fanimal +a+ cfprod,com
MAGAZINE: http://www.special-interests.net
LABEL / DISTRIBUTION: FREAK ANIMAL http://www.nhfastore.net

impulse manslaughter

Agreed on that Grey Wolves 7". Great sound/artwork. I have far from everything they did but this is the favorite GW material of what I have. I pretty much have all the Gero 7"s as well and played them all in a row last year. Can't remember which one was my favorite but I like everything except for the noisecore stuff. To me a good example of an artist for which 7" vinyl is the perfect format.

Roly Porter - 'Kistvaen' arrived here today and I just listened to it. Need a couple of more spins but very promising so far. Never heard of this artist before but ordered a copy based on the description. Nice mix of dark ambient, industrial and medieval vocals. Maybe a bit too modern/clean for some here but it's a great layered and nicely balanced album.

ConcreteMascara

Quote from: impulse manslaughter on June 29, 2020, 08:49:00 PM
Roly Porter - 'Kistvaen' arrived here today and I just listened to it. Need a couple of more spins but very promising so far. Never heard of this artist before but ordered a copy based on the description. Nice mix of dark ambient, industrial and medieval vocals. Maybe a bit too modern/clean for some here but it's a great layered and nicely balanced album.

I make a big second recommendation for Roly Porter generally. I've been a fan of Roly Porter since his days in proto-dubstep duo Vex'd and own nearly all of his work at this point, but I have not heard this newest album. His last one, Life Cycle of a Massive Star, or something like that, was absolutely killer. It's like dark ambient if dark ambient was interesting and not wooshy sounds and bass noises. He goes all out. And his first album songs are all titled after planets from the Dune universe so bonus points for that.
[death|trigger|impulse]

http://soundcloud.com/user-658220512

Fistfuck Masonanie

#7931
Striations - Keepsakes CD (Freak Animal Records)

Very industrial, machine rhythms churning and scraping. A buried layer of effect laden vocals underneath the surface of the noise. Murky and a horrid sense of anxiety throughout the release. Sonically it's closer to more traditional PE than the other releases I'm familiar with from Striations. The elements of harsh noise/junk metal aren't present like on some past releases.

It's definitely on the darker side like Catalog of Cruelty but sonically a little different. The heavy synth use on that release is more sparse here and substituted for a larger focus on mechanical loops. Bad vibes all around, there is no hope or pleasantries at any moment on this release. Not that there usually is with Striations though!

Recommended for those that like to soak in malaise and regret.

WCN

JASON CRUMER - Self-Titled 2LP / CD
A new masterpiece and contender for album of the year, as has already been hinted at by a few people here. Incredibly immersive and emotive album, in the same vein as Ottoman black as far as composition, but dryer and just better in my opinion (Ottoman Black never really clicked with me to be honest but I'll have to revisit it now). It's a movie, so hard and pointless to try to go into great detail about it, so just put it on and crank the volume yourself if you're a noise fan. Listened to it 4 times since its arrival yesterday, both the CD and vinyl version and I must say the CD sounds 10x better. Not that the vinyl is a bad pressing per se, but this dude is a master at producing really dynamic clean full frequency noise music and the CD format reproduces what he intended perfectly.
Harsh Noise label and EU based distro of American Imports
https://whitecentipedenoise.com/

Bloated Slutbag

#7933
See bottom of this post for digest commentary.

TVE – Smoking Big Killer
Don't ask me why, but when I first came across this project I was under the impression that it was working mainly with found tape. But it sure don't sound like no tape I ever came across. So leaving out the question what the fuck was they smokin' to the more obvious where in hell did they find this shit? Well, I'm guessing it was staged. Like the person responsible "accidentally" dumps the tape down the toilet, and then after several months fairly heavy use fishes out the soiled remains, all the while mugging for imaginary camera, "Oh golly gee, what have we here? No wonder it wasn't flushing properly!"

Clearly there's more to it than that. There would have to be. This tape, at the mercy of convictions likely disposed to deride projects like MNEM for being too hi-fi, is in no condition to carry on. Time to pop the ribbon out of the shell, but wait, not like...ah geez. Good luck trying to respool that. My man toke toke you smoke too fuckin' much. An effort to salvage a degree of playability instead nets crumpled knotted lengths criss-crossing one another in a tangled garbled weave that smolders inauspiciously at the edge of the mixing desk. Desperate for traction, a single promising length is extracted with intent to manually rub against the head. Rub it, just fucking rub it. Oh fuck yeah that's it baby. Yeah just like that. Fuck oh fuck yes YES fuck ohhh ffuuuu-

Um, sorry to break in here but this is starting to feel just that mite bit too up close and personal if you uh catch my drift. Definitely a lot of acousmatic friction going on, a lot of rough abrasion- you'd be lucky enough to make it out with just a few nasty skin burns. The sound here in any case is pretty gross. Organic, yes, but maybe too organic. That point where you start to thinking, y'know Mother Nature is all nice and all, but uh. This is pretty gross. Like meth fiend applying extreme suction to a mic-head, tokin' for all it's worth. Or perhaps the reverse, huffing and puffing and blowing straight down into it, with the midrange turned all the way up, frowny-faced EQ tweakery saturating apparent outlying concrete sources with frazzled metal-tinged raspberry clusters. From time to time it sounds as though an oversized burlap sack filled with cinder blocks were being continuously dragged in pointedly pointless circles around an unevenly paved spot of asphalt, rents in the fabric worsening with every heaving exertion, studious efforts to not give a fuck weirdly persuasive. At other moments, as the dynamics of the concrete sources seem to constantly rise and fall, a hint of metal-like thwacking almost suggests proximity to a railway track. Against this a repeated percussion of patty-caked collapse, a pachinko machine going ape-shit or perhaps someone- again, "accidentally" – dropped their collection of glass marbles into the wash and the whole cacophony of 'em is smacking into one another on the spin-rinse.

All the above is barest approximation, of course, the acoustic determinations forced, under plainly physical pressures, into exceedingly narrow frequency bands, smudged fidelities resigned to choke in lumpy mufflings of raw, mangled, dilapidation. There's this sense of taking previously blown out gear and trying to recreate that first killer blow-out, smoke and all, allowing the circuits to choose their own path to simulated oblivion. At its loudest peak the tape abruptly cuts out and then the slow emergence, through amplified hum and hiss, of sporadic semi-acoustic, multi-orificed, farts and coughs, their badly-defined contortions indecorously flopped out in between protracted stretches of tense, bone dry, air. From time to time the farts and coughs cobble together in bubbly bulgings of bass-heavy bluster, their tinny, teeny, under-amped decays vaguely suggestive of worm-like screw-driver scrabbling or rusty voiced hinge-squeaks. A final cobbling together of stringy gobs of toked out belch, gasp, clatter, end side the first.

The flip-side actually threatens to get musical in its opening stretch, if you'd call the repetitive call-response of cheese-grater-scraping-against-tinfoil-speakers and cracked-tongue-out-lolly-wheedle-of smothered-amp-hum musical (I know I would!). In the background, meantime, an increasingly dominant strain of wobbly electro-drawl snakes along a low-end feedback-curve to complete the picture perfect portrait of ailing machine on the fritz. Smooth fade to muffled hiss and then the smothered acousmatic farts and coughs are back, polarities kipping backward into extended stretches of stale, hissy, air, smudged particles percolating at the surface but never revealing more than the bleariest hint of origin. At a dramatic moment, a warped and slurry snatch of gravelly downpitched voice- sounding like a depressed mutant robot on lithium- temporarily un-hinges the relative stasis, jarring snaps and pops of overtaxed-speaker-ready-to-blow accentuating the incursion.

Now the snaps and pops are getting aggressive, machine-gunning together with pent-up percussive force and heeere's Marvin, the mutant strains of the paranoid android back to narrate some sort of domestic complaint details of which soon blurrrrrrr into a gravelly droning consistency. The gravelly consistency gets roughly chopped into irregular textured exhalations, like an extremely bad case of smoker's cough run through a single faulty transistor. Muffled speaker pops overtake low-end feedback drawls and then that scrappy cheese grater is back, shredding the tangy smoked-out ozones, the full medley of discardables cacking together in turns like the climax of that ill-fated Strauss opus Bicycle Built For Two.


Digest spew
For those who think MNEM is too hi-fi, TVE's got the shit. The dirt. The dregs of filth-flavored fidelity fed through tinny tinfoil frictions, frazzled metal-tinged raspberry clusters rendering raw the rough abrasions of frowny-faced frequency bands narrowly choked in the bleary-eyed acousmatics of muffled, multi-orificed, farts and coughs. Very organic in execution, the dynamics of badly defined concrete sources rising and falling, close-mic'd contortions subject to wild-eyed whims of mad scientist, tweakin' hard, intent on reverse engineering the art of blowing amps reeeal goood, tangled circuits traveling their own path to simulated oblivion. If this is to approximate the effects on the lungs of inhaling seven thousand toxic chemicals fifteen times daily, I, like, get it. Life, or some fair approximation thereof, goes on.
Someone weaker than you should beat you and brag
And take you for a drag

Zeno Marx

John Wall - M - 2020 - he's always been a master tactician and sonic surgeon (check Alterstill and Fractuur), but I lost touch with him when he went down paths that interested me less - listened to this twice today; could be that I was just in the mood for this kind of craftsmanship and sound, or anything sounding similar to a chopper blade is certain to pique interest, but whatever it is, this is a great 15 minutes - I'd like to see him collaborate with John Wiese - the way he puts together sound, I'm surprised independent film makers aren't knocking at his door - electro-acoustic, but other than that.
"the overindulgent machines were their children"
I only buy vinyl, d00ds.