as of late, there seems to be no dearth of up-and-coming noise labels. any fan with a boom box, some blank tapes, and a bit of commitment has the ability to lend legitimacy to their projects. but while this direct democracy approach to releases can be beautiful in its expansiveness, it makes it difficult to find the true gems in what can be a sea of mediocrity. thankfully hatestate, run by eva aguila of kevin shields [pictured] fame, has put forth nothing but dedication, creativity, and a very tangible love in every one of their releases.

to this date hatestate has managed to put out nine pieces for our consumption all with beautiful hand-crochetted packaging. talk about labor of love! anyone can splatter-paint a cdr and jewel case, but it takes another level of discipline to make every package by hand from pieces of yarn. with the amount of time put into each releases packaging it is little wonder that hatestate is very discerning with what gets released.

when it comes to artists, hatestate have struck a balance between local los angeles love (pedestrian deposit, solitary hunter, kevin shields, etc) and bigger names from around the country and around the world (powdered wigs, oubliette, torturing nurse). sonically, the pedestrian deposit and powdered wigs split cassette stands out. pedestrian deposit’s jon borges gives us “charisma” an abrupt and unflinching piece similar in structure and concept to his others but definitely a welcome addition for its sheer power, intensity and brooding atmosphere. where the pedestrian deposit track is familiar, however, the powdered wigs track is so very foreign. “stabot matter” seems to disregard any sort of regularity that exists in noise structure. the first minute is pure, unmanipulated classical music. as this fades out a progression of mean, discordant tones dominates before disintegrating into a mess of twisted voice manipulation. finally the noise fades and the creepiest victorian-era song you’ve ever heard plays through the rest of the track.

another release of note is the brand new captain ahab 3” cdr. captain ahab give us nine tracks of what we know and love; beats, synths, noise and smart, quirky lyrics. to top it off, the cd is housed in a cross-stitched case, which i was assured takes more than a day to create.


fortunately, these two aren’t the only ones worth picking up; all hatestate releases have similar surprises.

the future looks bright for newcomers, hatestate. they have secured tracks from such “wall superstars” as the rita, taskmaster, kakerlak, the cherry point, filthy turd, and privy seals for a 6 c-30 boxset, which will no doubt be an amazing and much sought after release. there’s still time to get in on the ground level; check them out here.

Oubliette Mitochondrion Side B

reviewed by bortron

squirrel buries dog shit instead of nuts c20
[2006, poo]

svstriate is new york transplant andrew campbell, originally from california's bay area. you can download a bunch of mp3s from him, as well as some of his mixes here. the mixes look great too, a nice balance of experimental electronic, noise, drone and avant-garde. andrew if you're reading this, we should trade mixes some time. thanks to tralphaz for the site info.

san franciscoan david lim is tralphaz [pictured below]. noise trivia fun fact: tralfaz was the original name of astro from the cartoon that gave me unrealistic expectations of the future when i was a child, the jetsons. i want a robot maid, and maybe some sprockets.

the beauty of split noise releases is twofold. first, when you get two people that you like a lot on the same tape, it's obviously a win/win situation. lastly, by pairing better known artists with lesser known ones, that in itself is a form of promotion for the more obscure act. "hey who is this that just put out a split with the cherry point?" that may be a bad example since phil's collaborated with the universe, but you can see where i'm coming from. i've come away from many a split being impressed by the people that i knew nothing about, and this tape is no exception. being a fan of tralphaz's, and knowing who he's previously done split releases with; a 3" cd-r with t/r (who i was really impressed with when i saw him last october down in oakland) and a recent 7" with rhy yau (hail randy), i went into this with a good deal of confidence.

andrew's nature's highway is first and after a subdued beginning, with soothing field recordings that are slowly joined by a bit of electronic percussion, moves into some terrific layered noise. there's quite a few things going on that you need to really pay attention to as it's all outstanding. it's a nice break from the redundancy that some noise music can fall prey to. standing dump is svstriate's second, and last piece, and it's brilliant as well. over dual layers of buzzing drone, he buries a lovely piece of music underneath and the affect is stunning. that was also a completely unintentional nod to the album's title, by the way.

if svstriate's side was a stupor inducing lull, tralphaz's fat arm inside skinny arm is at the opposite end of that spectrum, the equivalent of getting beaten until you blackout. call me a masochist, but that's just fine with me. tralphaz is bringing a lot with this one, the first few minutes are nice blasts of harshness with his strangled screams. the vocals, outside of his loud, dynamic, brand of noise, is a definite strength, which he wisely doesn't overuse here. after the initial noise there's a bit of an interlude with some corny, in a good way, music that sounds like it could've been from any family-based tv sitcom from the 80s. so bad, but so good. after twenty seconds of that it's back to the noise, this time it's more dense, think 666 volt battery noise...if you don't know who the hell that is, try impregnable or other peoples children. these are artists who know how to make walls of noise without making you want to fall asleep. regardless, david shows enough variety throughout fat arm that some thick distortion works just fine within the track's flow.

Svstriate Nature's Highway Excerpt (from 1:49 to 3:52)
Tralphaz Fat Arm Inside Skinny Arm Excerpt (from 0:00 to 1:05)

batstew
[1975/2006, de stijl]

batstew's an odd little document thats been dredged up from the hinterlands of the private press, largely met with praise for its naively romantic sentiment. and for his part i assume tucker intended this to be a tribute to an ex of his (the eva bataszew of the [near] title), but it seems like its a gesture provoked more by courtesy than grand romance. the reality seems to be a little different: dude has a serious case of projection. most of the album shuns the girl and shamelessly fixates on his car which he's imbibed with his ideal eva-like personality. in her only real appearance , a phoned-in plea which seems to crowbar its way into the lp, eva chokes down the phone "i'm sorry that it was the way it was.... and that i turned out to be just an ugly thing for you, compared to your fantasies" and hits the nail on the head. tucker only offers up a detached acknowledgement that couldn't be further from the mindlessly effusive monologue he lavishes on his purring car.

aside from the personal melodrama, which comes and goes in waves, the rest of the album is split for the most part between luxuriating in the sounds of the garage and a strange kind of half-japanese take on the works of gilbert and sullivan. the automotive jaunts are for the most part cut and pasted into a jerky but straightforward pastiche narrative which has a strange childrens-programming feel to it when he's not just reveling in the oanistic delights of sitting, revving the engine. and barring the last tracks which dizzolve in a scooby-doo haze, the majority of sounds (engines, door slams, etc) are left as-is which at least spares the listener any late-century home tape noodling.

as for the songs, what can i say? i'm baffled by the kind of guy who records not only an album of himself talking to his car, but intersperses it with ditties that wouldn't sound out of place in some sort of lost footage of a disoriented john darnielle on the muppet show. the torchburner love song you might expect(which happens to be the standout) actually surfaces near the end of the first side, but shuns any mention of eva in favour of a summer boy-crush he had back in his early teens. and if the following offering, the prancing ren-faire bataszew wasn't flavoured with enough madness for you, then the synth-and-tape meltdown of submerged bat vortex (which doesn't so much conclude the album as preclude any suggestion of it continuing) is a vertiable witches brew, a cornucopia of crazy.

for all that, its parting leaves an odd sensation; somewhere between bemusement and a joyous confusion that a record with such a private logic is now being peddled to all comers. and it's a shame it's such a freak blip on the radar; a boxed neighbourhood of tuckers would make for the great suburban apologia.

Prologue: 1964 Cadillac

twilight time one-sided cs
[2006, sloow tapes]

orphan fairytale is belgian eva van deuren. she's also in frozen corpse and hardline elephants, both with carlo of audiobot fame. i think i can use fame there.

i probably wouldn't even have heard of orphan fairytale if it wasn't for tinnitustimulus' post in my last.fm group about nff's '07 line-up. that prompted me to dig up some info resulting in my coming across an asinine review of eva on stylus: "On the one hand, a load of derivative pablum sees the light of day only because of its resemblance to another, better act. On the other, the common template injects some welcome familiarity into a genre characterized by the alien and other, while remaining versatile." i hate shit like this, what the fuck is that supposed to mean? you don't write for the new york post, keep it simple stupid. regardless, i soldiered on and tracked this release down.

while my reading comprehension could probably use some work, i feel like my ear for good music is just fine, and this sounds great to me. eva's instrument of choice is the keyboard, which i tend to associate with a cheap sound. so very wrong of me, i wonder why i think that...anyhow, orphan fairytale overcame my initial hesitancy and won me over with a terrific tape of experimental sounds as well as plain ol' musical ones. as a matter of fact, the only part on twilight time that even sounded overtly keyboardish was one my favorites. go figure. twilight time's half hour length seems to be broken down into four compositions. the first piece is its most noise-based, i say that because it lacks the musical focus shown later on, not because it's difficult to listen to. it starts off slowly with some drones and nice feedback before some percussive noises come in a few minutes later, centralizing the sound a little. the next song that transitions in focuses around a loop of whimsical music box chimes. it's a memorable stretch of time that ushers in eva's more musical efforts. the third song is the keyboard one that i mentioned before and outside of a bit of vocals in the beginning, it's really just eva tickling the faux ivory and doing a great job of it. the final nine minutes of the tape has her in all out drone mode, aided by some vocal wailing in the background.

i'm quite happy that i found this little gem. i was really impressed with not just the variation shown, but by how adept eva van deuren was at each foray into a new direction. her experimental/noise pieces were excellent, her ability to play actual music was great and she showed a clear knack for melody and being able to create something that really grabs you. well done.

Twilight Time Excerpt (from 3:53 to 5:24)