STIMBOX

Started by FreakAnimalFinland, March 16, 2017, 04:17:36 PM

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Bloated Slutbag

Quote from: Bloated Slutbag on March 26, 2019, 04:18:37 PM
Quote from: Bloated Slutbag on March 26, 2019, 04:16:01 PM
Quote from: Zeno Marx on March 24, 2019, 10:30:50 PM
Quote from: Bloated Slutbag on March 20, 2019, 04:52:17 AM
Incapacitants – Zouvneree cd (Alchemy)
Holy laser noise, Batman!
Listening to Stimbox and thinking back to the lazer noise deal.  Are we talking about anything similar?

Good question. I wanted to take the time to give it the response it deserves. So, let's see. Just to consult my extensive notes here...

Ah yes, here we are. The answer is: no.

More seriously. Zouvneree seems one of the more Mikawa-driven of the recent Incaps, sitting cleanly inside a crisper, cleaner, digital-sounding range of wheedling, mewling, squeal and scree. Rapidly ascending and descending overlap of criss-crossed sweep and swoop. Fuzz and feedback making way for more laser-pointed precision, free-wheeling psych extremes never quite losing the sense of strictly delineated range of movement. Gear would have to factor strongly into the equation. With Stimbox, different gear, different times, just, different.

And as far as the Stimbox lasers. One should probably refer first to the vast majority of artists coming out of Japan, any one of whom would have had as much or more on the laser side of noise. Quick list off the top of the head: Merzbow, Pain Jerk, Incapacitants, Monde Bruits, CCCC, Astro, Aube, MSBR, Masonna, Thirdorgan, Government Alpha, Gasolineman, Kazumoto Endo. Plenty of laser action, none of it really defining any of the projects (unless one is inclined to want it to). I'd again chalk it up to gear plus general predilection for more dynamic, high energy blasting of the Le Shit. (Mileage may vary.)

<trigger alert! about to jump off the deep end>
Plus, and not to put too fine a point on it, a healthy spirit of wtf aka willingness to experiment.  A lot of these folk were/are serious gear fetishists, as often seemingly willing to be led by as much as to lead the gear. A matter of willingness to take the good with the bad and the ugly, to let the sound speak for itself. But... perhaps that willingness has always- and will always- be there. Forever locked in battle with the apparent fetish of the moment. And the winner is...

I'd meant to come back to this for a few things. First, to move it here. Second, the above off-the-deep-end thing about "forever locked in battle with the apparent fetish of the moment" refers to the sound fetish, not the gear fetish, which may occasionally be the same thing but for the sake of the above argument were/are very definitely not. Ugh. Now I've almost lost myself. But essentially: letting the gear speak for itself may be a calculated risk that does not necessarily pay off in critic-proof sound. But, y'know, fuck the critics (and their ratings systems). You know who you are!!

This was funny to me in light of the Merzcast. Tim was easily the most Merz obsessed listener I'd encountered. The one who almost on the day new Merz dropped would already be out with a very pithy assessment on its worth. And here we were, in Merzcast number two, and one of the guests arguing what sounded like one of Tim's old (ancient) arguments about cut-up noise...

The question about lazer noise reminded me of a dumb-ass review I'd written a while back. I think that particular release was later incorporated into an anthology representing Tim's, um, official "comment" on the subject.

So I decided to dig the review up and repost it here, just for fun. (Plus any limerick involving the ancient and storied town of Dundincter is almost automatic win.)


originally posted to alt.noise march 2002

QuoteSTIMBOX - Lupus Tuberculoso MCD (Tabula Rasa)

There was a young man from Dundincter
Whose nostril was also his sphincter

This is his story.

Too silent too long, two years plus, Oliveira-san. The bowels of noise welcome you back like the world`s biggest jellied asshole, puckered up, panting, primed for pleasure. A bit of a departure, it is, from Stims of yore. No longer so shamelessly reliant on the subsurface interplay of overarching, saturated harmonics, a stripped-down surface tension flays about wide-open water tanks populated with collapsible fishing rods willing white-hot whip-action on squealy-mouthed wigglypigglies. Tingly tissues teased and tweaked in tandem. Kebab skewers dance and twist on frayed-raw mechanical nerves. This is a dirtier, smellier Stimbox, one with some kind of nervous twitch and fresh crop of colorful skin diseases. The opening alone is hint of deviation to come, sounding like an out-take from QR Ghazala`s "Threnody to the New Victims of Hiroshima". Wheex-wheex-wheex-wheex, whoop, wheex-whoop, wheex-whoop, wheex-whoop. A few more windshield squeegees later and he`s taking what sounds like a chainsaw to all semblance of insect orchestration. Locusts mutate on cue into giggling, bigwheel-bound orangutans, before giving way to the pay-off: a heaving symphony of flatulent warthogs, all snuffling and snorting in an unwholesome orgy of sludge. Our man from Dundincter is in top form, administering the freestyle blump in characteristically over-exuberant fashion. Signature Stimboxims abound, in the way of brittle, crumbling kernels of creak and crunch. The circular throb of lurch and shudder deliciously stutters and staggers along mutant spines in a vaguely familiar way. Yep, unmistakably, the same sick, slime-coated sweetness, complete with slow-build into red-zone oblivion, haunts this puppy. Here, however, imminent scorchout balances neatly – make that messily -- with a buttload of belching and wheezing, slurping and gulping, plumbing the depths of depravity, delivered with all the subtlety and patience of bad-tempered hippo at a Japanese tea ceremony. Twenty-one fucking tracks indexed on this twenty-one minute mini-cd, and I`m not convinced he`s not taking a guarded swipe at the pause-button school of cut-em-up noisesters. They deserve it, wankers. Nice one, sphincter boy. Another satisfied customer.
Someone weaker than you should beat you and brag
And take you for a drag

Zeno Marx

Nice.  And fucking QR Ghazala.  Where's that "box sets needed" thread?

and mon, ma? mon!!! seems pretty lasery
"the overindulgent machines were their children"
I only buy vinyl, d00ds.

Cdan

Not sure if this was posted elsewhere but it appears Dada Drumming has returned and released this: https://dada-drumming.myshopify.com/products/stimbox-a-fail-association-split-lp

WCN

Quote from: Cdan on April 14, 2019, 08:07:56 AM
Not sure if this was posted elsewhere but it appears Dada Drumming has returned and released this: https://dada-drumming.myshopify.com/products/stimbox-a-fail-association-split-lp

Killer LP - great material from both projects.
Harsh Noise label and EU based distro of American Imports
https://whitecentipedenoise.com/

pentd

i have 2 or 3 tapes buried somewhere and they're powerful, stimbox is quality!

Lazrs3

I'd been playing '12-01-2005' recently off the back of this thread and really liked it. On investigation I'd found out more about why he stopped and was sad to hear as the work was really good.