the hitcher c30
[2007, aryan asshole]

baltimore's (by way of chicago, by way of michigan, by way of florida) james twig harper johnston is, of course, part of the three-piece nautical almanac, with carly ptak and max eisenberg. noise fun fact: nautical almanac was founded by nate young and twig back in 1994. additionally, harper's been in scheme (early '90s), mini-systems, the beast people (with dilloway and young), metalux and also performs as buzzardstain. not to mention that he co-runs heresee. speaking of young, the hitcher was put out by him on his aa records, which is one of those labels that has a high focus on the visual art aspects of albums, and as such this cassette sports a very nice drawing of a swamp thing-esque creature on the cover. aa albums also tend to be a bit more expensive, relative to heavy tapes, i suppose.

twig's always been my favorite member of nautical almanac, and this tape does right by me. while the title (as well as visual imagery) made me think that this would be a darker venture, i'm guessing that the hitcher refers to the fact that this was recorded between baltimore and michigan, so it's more so about being on the road.

the main themes that i'm noticing run through the hitcher are well-used, subtle, field recordings with noisy texturing to flesh out the sound. on side a, the bulk of the noise in the onset is of a clanging variety. for the background layer of the field recording there's a terrific sounding thunderstorm (which will hit its peak at a little after six minutes), during this point it gets paired with dual channels of static distortion, which mirrors both the sound of falling rain and crickets at night. it's done extremely well; call it environmental noise.
where we caught a glimpse of twig in a more meditative state to start out with, he woke up and was feeling frisky for this second side. the results are very, very fucking good. the beginning of this continues with the field recordings. this is very crunchy sounding, like he was trouncing about in some desolate forest. hey, that's pretty much like what we see on the cover. after only a few minutes of that, harper gets into noise mode. now, fuck if i know what he's actually doing, i just know that it's fantastic: grinding drones, siren-like whirls, repetitious pounding percussion, chirps, shrill electronic screams, what sounds like an idling lawn mower.. make that an idling big rig and a bit of vocal noise (which i actually like in this setting). as we inch towards the conclusion, there's a different little segment of repetitious bangs that will leave us off at the field recordings that were used in the opening of the side. in this resurrected state there's quite a bit of static that's added on to it.

the hitcher is a great tape of cerebral noise. its impact isn't in how unlistenable of a racket he can make, but how well he's working in and out of concrète's outlines while adding his own spin to it. while the second side considerably raised the level of raucousness, it was still well thought out, deftly layered, and its sound and dynamism kept me wholly engrossed.

Side A Excerpt (from 0:00 to 6:22)

armadillo cake ensemble c30
[2007, unreleased]

winnipeg's terence fuller (of abandoned records) sent me this cassette of his solo work (he also collaborates with fletcher pratt under the kkrakk!! guise. in his notes to me, he said that this will most likely be put out by epicene, hence me reviewing a tape that, for all intents and purposes, doesn't exist right now.
true to its colorful artwork and playful title, terence's thirty minutes are of a more lighthearted take on experimental music and noise. it's best not to confuse lighthearted with amateurish, as fuller does a nice job with this cassette. his use of a different track in each stereo channel was a wise choice as it feels like everything's swarming around you, particularly in the opening minutes of the a side with all of those synthesized sounds. once past that section we get into some clamor based noise, which reminded me of what pratt was doing on part of his mind gunk, vol. 3. this is another strong showing for the multi-channeling as the majority of the noise will occur to the right, and in the other speaker are lesser, more complimentary noises that sound great together. the side will close out with wobbly sounds (like shaking a thin sheet of aluminum) and vocal noises. i really think that terence could've skipped the vocal work, but i'm not a very big fan of noticeable vocal noise to begin with, and here it just sounds a little out of place.

side b will also start off with a good deal of synth play, and that will turn into manipulated tape noise as well as sampling. the latter part of the cassette when the tone gets a bit more serious (as well as musical), that's when terence really has my attention. it's a pity that there wasn't more of that, but i'm glad that he showed this spark.

Side B

find a way c15
[2007, callow god]

calling deep jew a supergroup is a freaking understatement, dig this: you've got brand new portland transplant gordon wilson ashworth (oscillating innards, riverbed mausoleum, bedrooms (with ex-jesus), black air (with pedestrian deposit and the rita), deadly innards (with deadly orifice), noisecop (with lee smith), protein den (with privy seals) and the iatrogenesis label. then you've got cole miller, who you may know better as toxic loincloth. he's also in animal birthcontrol and was a part of cock in black when that group existed. cole's dropped the toxic loincloth name and now performs as human hands. um, how about matthew sullivan, aka privy seals. he's in a bunch of things too... black chastity (with impregnable), genius females, protein den and vague apology. moving along there's alex (twomey?), half of the duo of haircut mountain transit with kyle parker. alex moonlights as persimmons pomegranate and also runs jugular forest. there's callow god's founder jeff witscher, who is no slouch himself, he's got: impregnable, rainbow blanket (with brother greg aka solitary hunter), men who can't love, watching him die (again with greg), secret abuse, without belonging (with pedestrian deposit), roman torment (with evan from moth drakula) and black chastity. other people who've blessed deep jew with their racket have been roy tatum (pocahaunted, changeling, buried valley) and ren schofield (god willing, dynasty, i just live here). i've been told that ren was the behind the drum kit for this tape. jesus effing christ. between the fifteen or however many people are in this band and all of their other projects, they must've accounted for 75% of socal's noise scene.

common sense, as well as my ears, leads me to think that there's no way that all of those people that i listed perform in deep jew concurrently. i'm betting it's more like a collective with a rotating line-up, but this is me purely speculating. actually, looking at some videos of them, five people play at once, though sometimes i see gordon on drums, other times it's someone else. this would make sense since he no longer lives in the area.

having heard the amor / a calling 7", the harem 7" as well as the not not fun split 7" with mindflayer, i can say that the find a way cassette differs from all of those. deep jew's sevens captured a visceral juggernaut, leveling everything in its path with a thrashy onslaught. thrashy, trashy, either or, but there was a distinct form to it. you could make out the drumming, the hate-filled vocals were audible, you could even pick up on some guitar riffs. find a way is punk rock bile ran through as many disortion pedals as they could find and the end result is motherfucking noisy. for all the guitars that deep jew abuse, you'll be hard pressed to hear any purity from the things as this comes closer to dense noise than the hardcore riffage they've displayed elsewhere.when i hate most, the a side track, wastes zero time in establishing the cassette's tone. layer upon layer of screeching guitar, feedback, distortion, vocals, which as vitriol as they are, have no fucking chance of being heard over all of the noise. the drumming fares a little better as it manages to sound like a six minute succession of distant explosions. brutal.
side b's the one that really does it for me. not sure if it's meant to be taken as two tracks, or one, since there's a bit of an intermission, with a (humorously) rad guitar solo amongst the bandmates' chatter that bridges the two movements. if it's one long piece, it's called pepperspray highlights. if it's two, you can figure out the names. the first half manages to be even more noisy and boasts some real nice feedback in its, brief, calmer moments. the second half starts off with that feedback and throttling distortion and refuses to let you catch your breath. with this track there's actually a detectable riff, and it's a great addition since, by now, you need something to latch onto, and this swaying rhythm gives that to you.

if the suffix -core must be attached to deep jew's music, this go around i'd have to label it as noisecore. it was a pleasant surprise to hear them stay truer to noise music, considering how distinguished they all are within the field. while it's noise, for sure, it also breaks away from the style of everyone's 'regular' projects, giving what they're doing together a purpose rather than merely being acts of self-indulgence. another great tape that also has great artwork. i especially enjoyed the frowny face; a playful side to a group who makes some serious music. released in an edition of fifty, these won't last long.

i've also got the protein den cassette as well as a tape of ashworth's field recordings that were both recently released on iatrogenesis. it's my intention to get reviews of those posted pretty soon, but we'll see how that works out.

Pepperspray Highlights Excerpt (from 0:00 to 3:13)

deep jew and gator surprise trailer from the destiny is stupid dvd, which if this is any indicator, looks fucking amazing. this shit is pretty funny, too (background music by del amitri?! real nice). somebody send me this dvd, i'll gladly review it!

ahh, for once i got the jump on callow god's latest batch, so i bought the lot. they all look really fucking slick, too. it's no small wonder that jeff's releases have a nasty little habit of not sticking around for very long.

the ocean c40
[2007, callow god]

i know that the core of allentown, pennsylvania's air conditioning is bassist / vocalist robert jurgenson and guitarist / vocalist matt franco, but there doesn't seem to be a set drummer. i think that sean mcguiness sat behind the kit for the recent cd on load, so if that's true, it's safe to assume that his services were used here as well. robert and matt also have a few things going additionally; robert has his peel back the sky imprint, which most notably put out prurient's body language 12". actually, i'm not too certain if this label's even active anymore. the most recent release that i'm seeing on discogs was back in 2003. matt franco makes noise under the holy family parish name and is also a member of the three piece american band, alongside jason crumer (facedowninshit, now in darkness the world stops turning, aluminum noise, amazing grace) and lee counts. ac also like to pal around with sub pop's favorite bad asses, wolf eyes pissed jeans. that should speak to how well they can throw it down.. uh, with that being the bad ass part, not the sub pop thing.

it's been interesting to hear air conditioning's musical progression over the past four years. i'm in the mountains, i'll call you next year portrayed ac as a noisy (emphasis on noisy) psychedelic rock band, with horrendous audio fidelity, which made it endearing, but drowned out a lot of what they were doing. 2004's weakness upped the sonic intensity even more, but also saw the band structuring their music. all of a sudden there are riffs and patterns start to emerge. on their subsequent seven inch releases, they were experimenting a bit more, now burying the easily identifiable components of their music; shouted lyrics, riffs and drumming, under layers of feedback and dissonance. with dead rails, air conditioning didn't branch out as much as they honed their craft. this was in a similar vein as weakness in that it showed off some honest to god song composition in tandem with their primal pummeling. not only that, but the sound was infinitely improved, coming off less like a muffled (michigan haters-era) sightings, and more like a band that was finally hitting their stride.
the most important question heading into ac's second album of the year is: how does the ocean compare? well, it's not quite night and day, but the differences are pretty stark. the only common ground that they really share is in the ocean's opening track, peace and quiet, which superficially mirrors rails' i run low. both were minimal electronic experiments, but peace and quiet works better in this setting since it serves as a set-up for sickness and health. after the calm, peace will swell up with feedback for its closing seconds, and right when this happens, you know something good's coming up and these guys don't disappoint. the track will seamlessly transition into the next with pounding drums and cymbal crashes. excellent! the drum work throughout this side is perfect. simple, but authoritative, it really creates the energy that the other two thrive off of, instead of merely supplying a backdrop. the rest of sickness and health is filled with guitar noise, wails, feedback and the affected shouts and vocal murmuring. once these guys reach the midway point breakdown, it's fucking fantastic. the drum pace becomes hurried and then will drop off amidst blasts of feedback and an ambient electronic noise. from there it's pure guitar and pedal abuse, aided by the every now and again single kick drum. fantastic. it's like a brutally stylized play on sonic youth's noise-for-all during silver rocket. eventually, the drums will start to build again, and then it's business as usual. real fucking nice.
at seventeen and a half minutes long, superior galaxies, which comprises the b side, is a beast. albeit, an entirely different one. galaxies is hands down the most unique piece of music that i've heard from air conditioning so far. the main thing you'll notice is all the fucking distortion. lots, lots, lots of it, in fact, you can't even really make out too many other components, save for the vocals, and remnants of a repetitious bass riff. after about three or so minutes, franco's vocals get on some real howl from beyond shit, and the way that they're affected, as well as delivered, create an awesome musical sound all their own. the driving, and, well, over-driven, bass playing by jurgenson is great in conjunction. true to its name, this song is pretty out there, by ac's previous standards. i'd say that they're definitely doing a lot more noising than rocking here. wow, noising is actually a verb. once the track reaches the ten minute mark, it's time to drastically shift gears. spatial background ambiance, with minimal noise accompaniment and the occasional presence of reverberated vocals that will play up to the celestial feel that they've immersed themselves in. kind of weird, certainly surprisingly and very nice.

following the sharp recordings of dead rails, air conditioning takes us back to something a little more pristine. where you got a sense that they were making songs before, this is all about the noise. you won't find any recognizable guitar riffing, nor anything as rocking as you could find on that cd. i was considerably intrigued when i saw that a diy tape label from california's noise hotbed was putting out a cassette by these dudes, but it turned out to be a phenomenal pairing. oh, i'm loving the new romantic style artwork, too. great touch.

Superior Galaxies Excerpt (from 2:18 to 7:00)

alright, terence, i'm finally getting to your package now, sorry dude! terence fuller from winnipeg, manitoba, sent me six releases from his abandoned records, about a month ago.. er, three releases from abandoned, an as of yet unreleased cassette, a tape from midori records and then he also sent me a pratt cassette from new jersey label, loveless tapes.

blackened lung
[2007, abandoned]

first of all, there's two different fletcher pratts. three, if you count author murray fletcher pratt. there's the detroit psych-rock band, the fletcher pratt and then there's the noisy one. popular name, but while it didn't immediately ring any bells, checking out his body of work (including that with his midori label), revealed a few other names that i did know like snip-snip and epicene sound (both of whom he has releases with), gone and fossils (both have releases that he's put out). you can usually get a good idea of someone based on the company they keep, so i'm feeling pretty optimistic.
with the way that the first track of blackened lung starts off, it's not hard to see how david reed (snip-snip) would be interested in this; heavy presence of static humming drone along with multiple layers of synth drone. eventually, that main hum will shake out of stasis and fluctuate its tone, which adds a trippier element to the already hypnotic feel of the piece. after a few minutes of drones and scuzzed out synth play, it will take a soft turn towards light noise. it kind of sounds like staticy interference at first. there's a great back and forth between this new element and the previously heard synths that i really enjoy. once past that, he'll focus solely on the static, using the drones as background filler.

damn, i liked that first track a whole lot, but the second one is fucking killer. fletcher will take a completely different approach for blackened lung's conclusion, and it's considerably more noisy. best of all, it's rhythmic noise. the base of two is a rad loop of repetitious tones and sounds and over that dude is just going to town with a tempest of noise. it's nothing harsh, but it works beautifully with the rhythm. i could listen to this for days, but the track's twenty-minutes long, and pratt seems to know what he's doing, so two will undergo a few shifts before all's said and done, each brilliantly segued. the second movement involves revved up synth tones and a pair of pounding percussive hits. the noise is virulent as ever with higher pitched synth flutters thrown in for good measure. one took a bit of a less is more approach, but making the most out of what you've got; two is fletcher throwing his arsenal at you and seeing what sticks. the third section will slow it down a bit, incorporating and manipulating samples while adding slight noisy touches into the equation.

fletcher pratt's made a fan out of me with this fantastic disc. an edition of thirty pretty much guarantees that you'll never get a physical copy of this. matter of fact, googling 'fletcher pratt blackened lung' will net you zero results, so, thanks terence!

Two

mind gunk, vol. 3 c20
[2007, loveless tapes]

before i get too ahead myself in singing fletcher's praises, i've got one more solo cassette by him. also, i'd like to voice my displeasure with the postal service. two of the tapes i got from terence arrived with their cases all kinds of broken. coincidentally enough, they were the only two cassettes with decorative covers that i can't just swap out, so that's lame. what is it about working for the usps that makes people such bitter assholes who have no concern about whether or not they ruin other people's shit? dicks. i feel better now.
mind gunk is pratt's ongoing series of tape collage work. his fifth volume is still available to buy from matt reis' epicene label. tape collaging, to me, would seem to entail the use and abuse of a variety of different cassettes. if this is the case, mind gunk, vol. 3 isn't a hodgepodge of concepts and sounds that you might suspect. on the same token, this isn't exactly lucid. on the a side, fletcher will alternate between various audio samples, some of which are musical, and varying degrees of noise. he won't approach the tumult that was witnessed on his blackened lung cd, nay, this is more of a noisy racket. the second side sees pratt shying away a bit from the overt sample usage, and as a result, takes on a more musical tone. of course, that music is experimental noise. i'm diggin' it.

Mind Gunk, Vol. 3 Side B

small worlds
[2007, quiet world]

there are actually two british darren tates and both seem to be rather good in their respective fields. one of those fields is club techno, though. this darren has established himself in the upper echelon of dark drones, rubbing elbows with luminaries such as andrew chalk (in the duos ora and birdcage walks and the accoy trio), andrew liles, nurse with wound's colin potter (in monos hands of fate, aka dada lives). what, was andrew deutsch not available?

this quiet world release is more in line with what i'm interested in: drones and nuanced ambiance. while tate's collaborators are specifically known for the presence of darker tones and atmospherics, this disc doesn't seem as interested in moodiness, only creating engaging drone work.

the first track crawls out of the gate with a ton of different layers, all of which compliment each other remarkably well. there's some great synth and piano usage hand in hand with multiple layers of drone and atmospheric sounds. one of the main backing layers will switch out for another, which is more akin to a warning siren, and it's a nice way to completely alter the sound, without really taking anything away from the piece. there's a lot to like about this. the base of it is drone, but it feels like an organic thing the way it will continually evolve during all of its eight minutes.

following that is a more lumbering number. the foundation (hell, the whole structure) is a dense rumble. it's seemingly scaled back, in terms of that first piece, involving a lot fewer sound layers. the other main component here is darren's guitar manipulating. it's more like chord tweaking rather than pedal-based affecting. those will also come rather sporadically, giving the track a very wide open feel. i enjoy it, despite the fact that it's so minimal (and that it's ten minutes long). that dense noise that tate's working with does well to submerge and pacify me, and the guitar parts keep me interested.
the third and final composition, at twenty-minutes in length, will call back to the drone and layering of darren's first piece. i love the oscillating drone that this is centered around. the bit of organ music (that i didn't even pick up on until the third time listen) is a fantastic touch. it's memorable, and it's buried beneath the drones, creating a haunting sensation. i like how he barely uses it; it comes and goes before you can fully realize it, but nevertheless you appreciate its inclusion. he'll also use his guitar in the same fashion that we just heard. in a way, this is darren coming full circle with the different musical approaches heard throughout, somehow he manages to do it without the sound being cluttered. during this track's middle section he adds another wavering layer of drone which will supersede the previous one, but that'll be retained for texture. again, tate's excelling in continually changing the shape, sound and feel of his drones, giving you a great reason to actually pay some attention.

Untitled 1

moving right along this is the first of two cds that ian from the welsh quiet world label (previously known as ecrecords) sent to me.

walking through fireflies
[2007, quiet world]


holloway's release using his own name, comes after quite a few years of recording as psychic space invasion. in the accompanying notes that were sent to me, it was said that a close friend of ian's, vic golightly, passed away from cancer, and that this disc was a tribute to his memory. obviously, releasing it under his own name would make the album significantly more personal.

i love what ian said about his psi project on its myspace, "ambient music that seeks to be an integral part of the listeners environment and not merely a soporific". while i had to look up that last five dollar word, i knew even without definition what he was talking about: ambient music that craves attentiveness. that's a tall order for a lot of musicians, at least it seems that way, but ian shows that he can walk the walk (ack, a pun, fuck me.. ) with this disc. i'd credit his lack of relying on unwavering, repetitious drones for his success. the music is layered well, with great panning in areas (specifically, a lighter being) and the inclusion of organic instrumentation, like the piano, add depth to the music.

throughout this cd, holloway does a good job of combining traditional ambient music (i.e. light, spacey synth drones) with elements that make me think of beat-less minimal techno. a lighter being and tower of winds are the best examples of this meshing. it comes across more so in the background textures and sounds that they use. you could use words like cold and dark to describe ian's music, i guess, but even then i feel like too much would get lost in the translation. while walking through fireflies serves as a memorial to vic, don't let that sway you into thinking that it's filled to the brim with plaintive sounds. that's not the case. ian started working on the album prior to his friend's passing; the music wasn't influenced by it.

with fireflies, ian's put together an album of minimal electronic music that any fans of the genre would be very pleased with. for me, i don't really listen to too many things that sound like this, but even i enjoyed listening to it. it provided some great mood music for this lovely overcast day we're having right now.

Sunnyshine
The Birds Banquet

here's a video for the cd's first track, new seasons


weird thing of note, i was listening to this disc's sunnyshine as new seasons was playing.. it sounded great... try it yourself.