the jissom killers 12"
[1992, tesco]

smell & quim are a free-noise duo consisting of milovan srdenovic and stewart keith, from the the uk. they've been around for awhile and have put out a whole bunch of releases. if you haven't heard any of their albums before, this one would make a fine starting point. their sound is more in the vein of experimental noise, sometimes industrial sounding, but never what i'd consider harsh. occasionally there's vocals, more often than not they're unintelligible or yelled, isn't it better that way? i'd say that 99% of the time their song titles are perverted, as are the album covers, especially for porn again which features a vintage, 192o's-ish photo of a woman performing fellatio. it's classy! there are times when the kinky subject matter crosses over into the music itself, but (out of what i've heard) it isn't all that often, and when it does i wouldn't say that it detracts from the music.
despite the album and track titles, the jissom killers is a serious sounding affair. s & q are definitely blessed with a sense of humor, or in their case, humour, but they stay pretty straight laced on this twelve inch. all of the pieces on here are centered around an ambient/industrial foundation, which is basically a 10-13 second piece of music that's looped for the entirety of the track, and then smell & quim build off of that. all of the bases that they use are really good, and while it's only the same thing being played over and over, it never feels like it's dragging on and it sounds perfect in combination with the noise that they're making. that noise consists of banging on all sorts of things, yelling (on two tracks, and only occassionally), feedback, drone, and random noise that i can't accurately depict (sorry). while they do use loops, what milovan and stewart are doing is more hands-on, giving the album a spur of the moment feel instead of seeming all completely thought out ahead of time. the first track, tastefully titled sucking a dead man's cock, has a nice minimal industrial sound as the backdrop, and about six minutes in grinding noises, high pitch frequencies and things being clanked together enter the fray and then drop off as abruptly as they entered. it stays quiet until about five minutes later when it starts all over again, this time the noise lasts for the remainder of the tracks twenty-four minutes. the album closer anatomy shatterme features less of an actual feeling of chaos than the other tracks. it has a nice sample of two handclaps and two claps from wooden blocks being hit together repeated for the duration of the piece. it's pretty catchy and when you add to that the dark soundscape and whining, droney feedback that comes and goes, you have an excellent end to a great album.

like i said, this is a great introduction to a group that definitely deserves some attention. i'm not sure if smell & quim still release anything, if not it's a shame, but i do know that they are still playing shows. i've seen them on a couple of noise festival bills in the u.k.

Sucking A Dead Man's Cock Excerpt (from 5:49 to 8:10)

cathedral of filth
[2002, spatter]

redrot is ryan opperman, and he's also xombie and neuntoter der plage. xombie retains quite a few of the instrumental qualities that redrot has, which is definitely a good thing, only minus the signature vocals. nbd takes some aspects of black metal (without the actual metal) and dark ambient, and isn't too bad. i haven't really heard enough of it to form a very good opinion, though.

getting back on track, the pieces on cathedral of filth can go from solo instrumental industrial noise, to throbbing bass, processed vocals and, on one track, shouting. as you can infer from the album's title, the mood is a particularly dark one. the lyrics all have an anti-catholic church theme to them, atleast from what i can actually discern. so, note to you catholics out there, you might want to avoid this release. everyone else who appreciates this kind of music (noise, not anti-catholicism) shouldn't miss out though. the songs i like the most are the ones with vocals. ryan's unique delivery and the way he affects them, gives them a very memorable quality. altar boy addiction is a great example. the vocals, along with a throbbing bassline, provide what's easily the album's highlight. the lyrics on here, as on all of the songs with vocals, consist of only a few phrases, repeated over and over. it's really the combination of vocal manipulation and repetition that makes it so appealing to me. the instrumental tracks, while lacking the immediacy of the vocal ones, are all excellent and do a great job of establishing the album's mood.

there's a definite individuality to most of everything on here, and it would be a shame if there were no more redrot recordings. hopefully, ryan's other projects don't disrupt this one. if you're interested, there's also a 3 inch cd-r from chondritic sound that was put out in 2005 called drunk on cadaverine which is in a similiar style to this album, and is a good release as well. redrot's older albums, while still worthwhile, don't have the same vocal qualities that these two releases share.

Altar Boy Addiction

the non-study of first impressions
[1997, dephine knormal music]

while japan's k2 is regarded as the master of junk metal noise, manteca, california's moe staiano just might be the master of junk metal percussion. moe uses such objects as oil barrels, pipes, air ducts, sheet metal, phone bells, u-bolts, tractor blades, circular saw blades, bowls, pots, and a brake drum, amongst other things, to create his unique sound. he does, actually, use an acoustic drum on one of the eleven tracks.

for all the metal on metal pounding, the sounds produced are more chimey, rather than ugly and clanky. his style on this album go from full on 180 (give or take) beat per minute onslaughts to a more rhythmically inclined drumming, to a minimalist, sparsh and sporadic one. moe's percussive prowess isn't the full sum of the cd though, and there are several other musicians, playing normal instruments, collaborating with him, helping to flesh out the sound a bit more.

there are quite a few highlights on the album, but the only real misfire, for me anyway, on here would be the 11:20 disgruntled toy's remedy for a migraine, which is basically a bunch of people talking, making random noises, being goofy over some synthesizer static and very minimal percussion. it just sticks out in the context of the album, and goes on for far too long. the positive moments on the album far outweigh the singular not-so-positive one. do you deserve this much pleasure? starts off the album and it's a solo track showcasing moe's drumming, and it's actually pretty catchy. other highlights are the, grinder and power drill led, legless spider, but, true to it's name, keep it tight comes across as being the most cohesive track on here, and is probably my favorite.
i had the pleasure of seeing moe staiano live, and it was a pretty awe-inspiring performance that did feature: smashing vinyl, cymbal punching, vibrators, drums, a baseball bat and a xylophone. it was definitely one of my favorite live acts. witnessing the savagery and precision of it was incredible, and i'd definitely recommend seeing him live if at all possible.

Legless Spider

self-titled
[2006, iatrogenesis]

the rita, sam mckinlay from vancouver, b.c., and oscillating innards, gordon ashworth from redwood city, ca, both played at the last installment of the audio waffle here in sacramento this past sunday, which is where i picked up this album. it's an untitled collaboration/split with each artist using source material from the other. it consists of two long, around seventeen minute, tracks of a loosely based nautical theme. i only say loosely because it's kind of hard to have a theme when you're just playing noise.

the rita's track, blackened sperm whale corpse, is first and it starts off with a vocal sample (spoken in spanish maybe?), which i assume has something to do with his part of the theme, then it immediately goes into a dense wall of noise. if you're unfamiliar with sam's sound, it has that rumbling distorted quality, with lots of static. from what i remember about the rita's set at audio waffle, it sounded it a lot like what i've heard from his releases, including this one. there isn't a whole lot of variation in the noise, and while there are additional layers of noise that come and go, it has a similiar feel to it and this particular brand of noise, while it's still good, doesn't really work as well for fifteen straight minutes.

who endured only on the floor of the cold seas is oscillating innards' contribution and it definitely has a similiar sound to the rita's, but a bit more screechy. also, one thing that immediately stuck out to me was how gordon utilized different sounds simultaneously in the left and right channels and would then go back to using the same sound on both. using this approach he managed to avoid the settled in feel that the rita's track had and makes it a great listen on headphones. it ends with a sample of running water, which i guess completes the whole nautical theme. i actually missed oscillating innards' set on sunday, but i have heard some of his live recordings, and they don't sound like this piece, which is another thing that i liked about this.

Blackened Sperm Whale Corpse Excerpt (from 0:00 to 2:59)
Who Endured Only On The Floor Of The Cold Seas Excerpt (from 13:59 to 17:10)

gently carved into sound
[2002, humbug]

continental fruit are from, i believe, new zealand, and gently carved into sound is their debut release for the norway based humbug label.

this album is, at it's core, an ambient electronic album. the music itself has a cold, spacey feel to it, that reminded me of biosphere. the six instrumental tracks just seem to drift along without ever seeming like there's very much direction behind them. the remaing four tracks do have vocals, and most of them are delivered in a half spoken, half whispered manner, that are mixed down pretty low, which just adds to the ambient feel. sometimes, the vocals are processed, and since you can't really make out what he's actually singing (talking?) about, they come across more like a layering piece or an additional instrument, instead of being the focal point of the song. futhering this idea of vocals as a layer is the fact the singing doesn't appear to have any real purpose to them. there's no discernable choruses or hint of melody to be found on here. when you combine that with the music you have a nice album, but not a particularly memorable one. there is one definite bright spot though, time alone. this track has vocals, but it's the music itself that makes it so great. it's really the only time that continental fruit seems to make an effort at being catchy, and it worked well. it's times like this that you wish that they would've made an effort more often throughout the album.

i don't mean to imply that gently carved into sound is a boring album, it does make for a pleasant listen, it just seems more suited as background music instead of something that would make you want to pay attention to it.

Time Alone

psychedelic sounds of yamashirube
[2006, subjective spirit sound]

thank christ the japanese have hauled their asses over the denudes-hump that hit a couple of years back. uncommitted? i may be, but an inexhaustible supply of shit based on the denudes 5-song repetoire was threatening a second coming for Group Sounds; an incestuous water-tread for the new millenium. relief then that the last year's seen a spree of relative unknowns surfacing, not least of which are tokyo's yamashirube. this, their first cdr, teasingly stretches beyond the reach of psych-rock pigeonholing.

a one-man-band at their birth, psychedelic sounds might suggest psych rock gesture, but here it only struggles to the surface of through a layer of lo-fi diy noise. the primitive, blown-out and slurred mastering purees any guitar in the mix, while the din as a whole settles into a snakelike noise-as-trance jam; if anything, the pulsing scree suggests sightings tearing a page out of the burning star core handbook. clincher on this one for me is the almost trademark japanese intensity brought to bear; it's noise improv, but there's no sense of hesitation. i can't speak for the follow-up (now with full-band approach), but this doesn't struggle to keep in step with any stateside media-darling contemporaries.

Excerpt from Rinne (from 11:00 to 16:40)

reviewed by blackandgold