sabbatic 5 goat harshnoise
[200?, smell the stench]

here's a disc by another sts'er that i don't know anything about, nor can i find out anything via google or discogs. those are my only two reasonable resources. also, there doesn't seem to be a general consensus as to whether he goes by blackgoat or black goat. smell the stench's site says black goat, but the cover of the cd has it the other way, as do various sites that mention this release. as is the deal with a majority of this label's output, there's no release year given.

the liner notes for sabbatic 5 has blackgoat thanking the rita, knurl and goat for the inspiration. if you're down with that dense wall of noise sound, you're stoked. if you're me (which i am), you're suspicious (indeed). in less capable hands, dense noise has far more potential to be boring. i could get the same effect by unplugging the cable from my tv, turning it to any random channel and then turning the volume up. meh. with that in mind, blackgoat doesn't do an awful job with this disc, but in terms of whom he draws inspiration by, i'd say he's closest in kin with the rita. he tries hard to be as harsh as goat, but the lack of dynamics puts him more in line with what sam mckinlay does. there's just not enough going on within each track (or even on an overall level) to place him in the same style set as goat or knurl. blackgoat does have a couple of things going for him. namely that his track lengths are quite reasonable, averaging probably around six minutes, but i'm too lazy for math right now. so if you need a quick harsh fix, this dude isn't that bad of an option. another positive is that this is indeed harsh. there's also a couple of tracks that manage to stand out amongst the fray. both tracks two and four use some subtle changes to make them sounds for sore ears. that lets me know that there's some potential for blackgoat, but even as it stands right now, this isn't a bad foundation for him to build on.

Sabbatic 5 Goat 2

untitled cd-r
[200?, smell the stench]

traitor effigy's untitled disc marks the first of a few cd-rs that sts's leigh julian sent me. smell the stench is an australian cd-r/tape label. leigh also operates a net label under the same name. i'd recommend checking out smell the stench, there's a lot of good shit (by familiar artists as well as lesser known ones) for dirt cheap. i'd imagine that's mostly due to the low frills aesthetics in terms of packaging: xeroxed album covers, generic blank tapes and blank white cds with hand written labels. while there is a backlash against cd-r labels and approaches such as leigh's, you can't argue about the quality of music versus cost. a sixty minute cassette by an established noise artist will set you back all of three u.s. dollars.
the previously unknown to me traitor effigy makes a fine bid for heightened awareness with this thirty-three minute long gem. despite the pervasive sense of the macabre in the imagery and song titles, it's not as sinister as he'd have you think. granted, it's no skip through a meadow, but what he's doing is more in line with envenomist's bleak soundscapes, if you were to swap out david's icy touch for effigy's smidgen of noise. over the course of five tracks this stays a relatively somber affair. when there is a bit of noise on you cannot escape this fucking world! it's screech is confined to background fodder, where it becomes rather innocuous. that could be a good thing, depending on where your noise threshold lies. channeling decay is the most aurally oppressive piece of music and it trades back and forth between good slabs of noise and a frequency hum and is tops in my book as far as this disc is concerned. the three deadfist tracks are really where the envenomist comparisons seem reasonable. all three have some nice tone and drone work to get lost in, but deadfist ii is the only one that i could say is noisy at all, and it's fleeting at that.

this is sure to please fans of experimental noise who prefer terms such as 'minimal soundscapes' to 'harsh and unrelenting'. while i did drag david reed's name into this, this isn't 'dark ambient' or 'death industrial'. think envenomist mixed with (legions in the walls era) daniel menche. while you should now probably quell your expectations a bit, traitor effigy's disc is still a worthwhile listen.

Deadfist II (Reading of the Entrails)

looks that smell
[2007, kiddieriot]

i am now two albums deep into marcos hassan's musical catalog, yet i find myself no closer to being able to tidily summarize his specific style. on the split with panicsville he was equal(ish) parts synthetic percussion, guitar skronk and good ole fashioned noise. looks that smell retains a wee bit of the previously heard rhythm but takes a firm turn for the noisier, and hey, no complaints from me.

looks that smell, which is credited as being an ep but clocks in at thirty-four minutes, wastes no time getting down and dirty right out of the gate with OGGTS%%FMS336369[]]]. beginning with a strong loop of drum beats and throbbing bass, it will soon count shrieking and grinding noise amongst its company. buried underneath all that noise, i can't tell if he's still using a guitar in some fashion or another, if so, it's not very perceptible. the strongest impression being made is of the squealing variety, with just enough of a distorted foundation to flesh it out. eventually, the rhythm will relent as the piece piles on the dense noise. so far so good. from there it gets even better with the seven and a half minute FFFfFfffflllllllLlLOOOO0o0YYeeyWwW. i/c/o/c appears to be challenging ecomorti to a how many superfluous letters can you put in your song title contest, except her titles use actual words. to each their own. with this one marcos is using a great backdrop of catchy bass tones. initially, he adds some high pitch screaming noise over the top of it, much to my approval, then at the two minute mark he'll open up the flood gates. there's some excellent multi-channel noise work and harshness over the top of everything else. when he goes to short dense blast mode i'm enthralled. i really couldn't ask for anything else with this piece of music.

okay, earlier when i said no complaints from me, i may have gotten ahead of myself a bit. don't worry, it's a rather minuscule gripe, but it comes by way of the third and final track, OwWRrrrR#MmMHHrszzzssHHHH. on the surface, it's a fine piece of noise music, but when i take into account what i/c/o/c has previously done, it doesn't really seem up to his standards. it's sixteen minutes in length and i feel like knocking this one back a few minutes or so would've done it some good since i start to really get into the track around the seven minute mark, once the noise picks up. as soon as we hit that point everything's golden. i think that the element that i'm missing the most is hassan's leaning towards a rhythmic centerpiece. there's an idling noise serving as the base, but that alone doesn't keep you as engaged as say, what we heard one track prior. now, if i just heard this from some random noise artist, i'd think this is cool, there's certainly nothing wrong with it from a general perspective, so my complaint really stems from a level of expectation. all things considered, this ep is a fine showcase of i/c/o/c's music and is surely worth checking out.

FFFfFfffflllllllLlLOOOO0o0YYeeyWwW

alright, apologies all across the board for the extended absence this time around. my move from sacramento to seattle is complete. i have an awesome apartment downtownish (lower queen anne), a decent enough job and now, finally, the freaking internet. apologies to marcos and leigh for having to sit on their packages for a few weeks and probably some apologies to people who sent me things either a) late or b) without my knowledge since i probably won't get whatever you tried to send me. i've got about fifteen new reviews stocked up, so we should be good on content... for two weeks. i'd like to think that i can stay the course, though. expect a review tomorrow and that's about it as far as news for smooth assailing goes.