land of marred normalcy c20
[2007, whatwedoissecret]

pig heart transplant's mainstay jon kortland is most likely better known for being half of the seattle powerviolence duo, iron lung. it seems like kortland's got an open revolving door policy concerning this band and his previous members list is at eleven or so. some noteworthy, to me, contributors have been ryan jencks (sixes) and chris dodge (slap-a-ham records, east / west blast test, spazz). for marred normalcy, kortland's joined by sanders creasy, mike priehs and frank reynolds. out of those three, priehs is the only one for whom i can find any information about; he's also involved in the trashy metal three-piece m|u|t|a|t|o|r.
considering the pummel rock pedigree of some of the dudes in pig heart transplant, i was relieved to find that land of marred normalcy infringes more upon noisy experimentalism instead of merely being some aggro guys with guitars. though, i do have to say, iron lung is pretty fucking rad, but yeah, we're pretty far removed from that with this release. my main thought concerning this project is how consistent is their sound? there've been quite a few releases up to this point, most of which involving differing personnel. i'd have to imagine that by bringing in different folks, the creative focus would tend to shift, but the line-up of kortland, reynolds and creasy does seem to be a recurring one, especially as of late. another thing that makes me curious is that some of the live pictures that i've seen of pht make it seem like they're rocking out more than anything else, and there's only a hint of that going on here. i'm very curious, and maybe slightly guarded.

this cassette gets its rock... uh, rocks off... during the first track, raw meat people. easily the most conventional sounding song to be found, but that's really not saying a whole lot. there's your long drawn out guitar chords, slow and sparingly used drum hits and distortion draped sinister vocals (think wolf eyes). the just a shade under two minutes of turning piss into blood (not quite jesus-like, but a for effort), seems more like a transitional piece. there's affected guitar noise which'll get overthrown by dense distortion as we ease into the killer compound people. starting off with some great droning industrial noises, jon will soon employ a slow drum machine beat that sounds like it was jacked from some early 90s dark and moody rock band, and i'm just lovin' it. when he flips it from the noise to drum soloing, then back to the noise, those are easily the finest moments of marred normalcy. side b consists solely of in another room of the house, and it's the real head scratcher, it could be because this is the only track that kortland wasn't involved in. the focus of this is on minimal noise, feedback and instrument manipulating. for the most part it comes off as being rather avant-garde, and sharing quite a bit of common ground with some of the electro-acoustic improv currently coming from places like germany. while there are a couple of fleeting moments of guitar punishment, creasy and reynolds really threw me for a pleasant loop. of course, all of this just brings my original point back full circle, what is pig heart transplant's musical identity? maybe time holds the answer.

Compound People

bleak village c28
[2007, whatwedoissecret]

ballard-based algiers is machete mobster levi berner. let's run down levi's list of musical accomplishments: demonlore, blue sabbath black cheer, visible / invisible wall and diseased visions. while his numbered tapes label may be no more, there's now the wasting tapes label. speaking of which, wasting is fairly new but there's upcoming releases by torturing nurse and family battle snake (along with some local talent as well).

normally, when an album instantly reminds you of something else, it's not a good thing. in this case bleak village brought to mind d yellow swans' declawed cassette. both utilize a similar (non-digital) ringing alarm clock sound and both pair it with some drone-like ambiance. where the swans went from slumber to face punching, algiers keeps his music mellow. so, each has their own individual characteristics, but there are some parallels. side a of this tape builds (or maybe deconstructs?) off of that ringing noise. in the onset, levi adds some fluctuating higher pitched tones creating the two main layers of sound, he'll play off of that with various other little noisy nuances and the occasional electronic squeal. the ringing noise will have faded out by the time the second track comes along and in its place there's multiple layers of light atmospheric noise and a bit of drone. the second side is where algiers really shines. once again there is background atmosphere and complimenting that are occasional clanging noises, drone, screeching tones and a repetitious noise to hold it all together. certainly there's quite a few things all happening at once, but the layers all work in unison like cogs in machine. as bleak village winds down, algiers will strip away most of the other components and focus intently on droney oscillations and a good deal of noise making.i first got to hear algiers on trash stratum's undergrowth podcast. it was an excerpt from this very cassette. now that i'm actually getting to take in his release in its entirety, i'm real impressed. the similarities between declawed yellow swans are slight and in no way take away from what algiers has done on his release.

Bleak Village Side B

here's the latest (i think) batch of goodies from ballard, washington's international men of intrigue, at jennie richie. more (kind of) specifically happiness and forever. yes, it's true, a significant portion of these guys' discography has been reviewed here. nothing wrong with that.

rectums merging (one-sided picture disc) 12"
[2007, whatwedoissecret]

you know, i've said it before, and it still holds true, it's best to head into each new ajr release with no thoughts of what it's going to sound like, because you'll never know. i'm thinking that they derive pleasure from fucking with our perceptions. like or dislike, it probably doesn't matter to them. well, i happen to like, i like a lot. granted, some releases are definitely more worthwhile than others, i.e. vaudeview over for blackened tea and hashishans. holy fuck is that disc great. it's probably also their hardest to find, naturally.
i can safely proclaim rectums merging to be one of ajr's more necessary releases, from the emblazoned logo of the duo on side b of the record, to the nice'n artsy inserts, to the engraved "mummies are sitting ducks" on the runout groove. speaking of which, is that not one of the best non-audio features of vinyl? the nonsensical, humorous and sometimes thought provoking etchings. i dunno, just seems to make it all more personal. oh yeah, the music's pretty good, too.

if you use your imagination you can find some common ground between this record and ajr's dreams that money can buy, from their, also recommended, the bicycle considered 3" cd-r. this commonality unveils itself more so in the sound's theme, since dreams took on a bit more of an overt electronic sound. both opened up with synthetic percussion which made great use of panning and both would feature slower changes of pace near their midsections. the key difference between the two comes by way of mood. this has a much more decidedly gloomy aura going on. first, i love the percussive sound (and affecting) in the beginning. it's like someone using one of those big metal door knockers on a huge solid oak door and having that bang just echo endlessly down a dark corridor. brilliant. that's aided by some haunting ambiance as well as other subtle additions that not only blend well, but provide a little more character. as much as i like that, too much of a good thing supposedly isn't a good thing. that doesn't make sense. anyway, rectums merging changes things up six minutes in and just continues to get better. like i made mention of, the banging will cease, but that original ambiance is wisely retained. by now the moodiness of the piece is really brought to the forefront. there's also a nice new twist that i'm wracking my brain to describe. it's almost like a skipping beat, more like something that you'd find in electronic music, that they've supplanted here and it actually works remarkably well. it doesn't hurt that there's also some great panning and back and forth between the speakers.
this is a really good record that keeps getting better and better the more that i listen to it. i'd classify it more on the ambient side of things than say the experimental / noise that you might expect. regardless, to me this was a success. i'm also won over by john's work with the label. especially in the two 12"s that he's put out. they're unique, raising the collectability, there's a concrete focus on the visual art aspects and both have been fucking great. here's hoping the good times roll.

Rectums Merging (excerpt from 4:57 to 9:05)

chant funèbre d'enterrement c16
[2007, whatwedoissecret]

goodness, the font that they opted for on the cover of this cassette was 83% percent indecipherable to me. anyway, i googled what i thought might be the words to the song titles, and they all came up as being legitimate french words, so i'm feeling pretty confident. although, my bourdon d'enterrement would translate to mean 'bumblebee of burial', so maybe i shouldn't feel so good. who knows.
chant's theme is clearly death and burial. bleak village indeed, eh? as a result, on this cassette we get music that's not quite drone, but not too far from it. let's call it pervasive dark ambiance. it's minimal, within the scope of everything that's going on, and dominated by a low end rumble. maybe that picture with them looking like the sunn o)))s of electronic music was fairly apt? while it's certainly enjoyable, i'd have to say that it's not really one of their more interesting releases due to the sheer fact that there's just not that much going on between both of the tracks.

Enterrement En Argile (Clay Burial)

meth / bugs c20
[2007, whatwedoissecret]

coming to us from the puget sound area is the mysterious duo of m1666 and ~dyna*girl. i'm not one hundred percent sure, but i'm under the impression that these two have ties to the backwards nw label, methfest (the noise-based alternative to the hippier hempfest, which coincidentally happens on the same weekend) and the methamphetazine. yay, meth!

this twenty minute tape with the scuzzy theme is housed in a real spiffy looking vinyl case and comes with quite a few goodies including a 6" x 6" black patch of their logo (a lower case 'x'), a no marijuana pin and a neat little flipbook zine filled with drug references and some pornography. i particularly enjoyed the little bit from an electronics parts catalog. mmm, male couplers, banana plugs, female ends. hot.

while i've read that pc's music is influenced by pop, harsh noise, drone and punk, it seems that they're rooted mainly in death industrial. i still don't know what the fuck death industrial is. can someone get working on a wikipedia entry for this? well, i'll be damned, there already is one. okay, let's see, similar source sounds to power electronics, yeah i can see that, i suppose. (damn, i just listened to some of my exsanguinate, now there's someone i would apply the death industrial tag to. yikes.)i really think that penetration camp dedicated this tape to the wrong drug. meth projects a certain image of nervous energy (and the cleaning! always with the cleaning!), this is more like gutter noise. if you're in some dimly lit back alley, crouched in between two dumpsters, injecting junk into your veins, fuck punk rock, this is your music. side a's meth captures the sleaze in full force opening up with miniminiminal clattering, made even more minimal by the fact that the audio levels aren't so high (listening to this with headphones on actually proved to be a mistake), then we'll notice that most of the noise is happening in the right stereo channel, yet sounds like it keeps trying to fully cross over into both, but never does. that creates a pretty interesting audio effect. the bulk of the noise itself crawls along, with just a touch of density, but the squealing noises thrown in (while still rather hushed) do the trick for me. b side bugs is the killer track, though. this time all the audio's in its proper places. it begins with a vocal sample of a man talking about how meth use is only a minor problem. that lasts for about a minute then we're treated to a few different layers of interesting sounds. slowly, but surely, the track will build, adding some more commanding noisy layers to the fold. i dig this shit a lot. the second half will get more noise concerned, but again the duo's using repetitious sounds and loops, and everything they've opted for turns out to be great.

let's forgo the headache inducing genre descriptors and just go for something vague: experimental noise. meth / bugs isn't a stereotypical synth-laden wave of cold sounds, nor does it have any harsh peaks to it. this is slow, filthy and wonderful.

penetration camp at le sous-sol in eugene, oregon, 7/11/07


Bugs

rogyapas bath c20
[2007, whatwedoissecret]

chicagoan blake edwards has seemingly had a knack for coming up with terrific album names. well, return of the interrobang's title was definitely tarnished by pitchfork naming one of their columns that. the ocean's gone, the ship is next? tell me that's not great. the title of this tape has that let's throw a couple of words together that don't really belong, but that sound neat thing going on upon first glance. after discovering the meaning and listening to this, i think blake might've been onto something.

rogyapas are people who cut away the flesh from the bones of the deceased as part of the tibetan monks jha-tor. once the bones are also crushed, the remains are offered up to vultures, "assuring the ascent of the soul" towards the heavens. with that in mind, i think that you probably have a good idea at to what the musical direction here will be. well, focus more on the latter half of what i just said, rather than the hacking up the dead part. rogyapas bath actually, unconsciously, picks up where vertonen's last release from a seattle label left off. fever waters' live in osaka, japan 10-26-06 was a droney departure from the rest of the cassette. bath adheres to that theme pretty well, though the a side will betray it slightly by staying a warm wash of drone during its entirety. part one is nicely multi-dimensional: there's your main drone, an oscillating wave (which'll evolve a bit towards the end) and some subtle tone tweaks and sustainment. part two will also feature more layering, but the music will take a turn towards the somber and introspective. with these sonic contrasts, it made me think of how warmth's death as a young child tape also played out.
is there really any better kind of music to link up thematically with death and spirituality than drone? i can't think of any. blake's done a fine job of turning a detour into spatiality into a pleasing journey. it might take a couple of listens for everything to come together properly, but the tape isn't very long, so that's good. there are a scant few copies of this remaining (from an edition of fifty). if you're interested, check motor & famine. it's only four bucks, postage paid.

Rogyapas Bath, Part Two