split 7"
[2007, soccer mom ebonics]

after about thirteen years of making noise, this is the first time that kurt and jim's music has graced the smooth surface of vinyl. they're no strangers to analog mediums, but tape (reel to reel and cassette) has been their preferable modus operandi. while this duo's name may lead you to believe that they don't take a serious approach to their music, that's far from the truth. i was really happy to hear that they play straight-forward experimental noise. not only that, but it's damn good as well. hexis begins by building itself around a layer of undulating mechanical drone. slowly, they'll implement shrill distortion over the lurching foundation, letting that ride before getting a little denser as hexis changes shape: all echoes and rumbles. not content to let one idea go on for too long, the track will shift once again for its noisy conclusion. i like how even though the piece moved along slowly, it never felt cold or dark, like is so often the case, and the more discordant aspects matched up well with the overall feel and never got to the point of being overbearing.slicing grandpa is the duo of john laux (slicing) and lance tarr (grandpa). i know that john's in seattle, if lance's myspace is truthful, he's currently in las vegas. going back to john, you've got quite a few chances to see this guy live as he's in numerous other bands: kount fistula, sizzling mansions, arachnid arcade (a review of this from me is imminent), plain, and krash un lurne. lance also keeps his down-time to a minimum with the rebellion, the billy carter experience and the indestructible pinstripe.
we go from noise to rock-based territory for slicing grandpa's daddy o strangler. this is really fucking good. swirling guitar noise and feedback punctuate the background, along with multi-tracked vocals, which sound great, but i wish they were just a wee bit louder. that main bass groove from grandpa is fucking killer and really makes the song for me. shit, but the singing is rad, too. this is definitely a great cut from these guys. the pun was unintentional so don't roll your eyes at me. i also have a new cassette from slicing grandpa that i'll get to next week.

Sparkle Girl - Hexis

next up are a few releases that kurt from sparkle girl gave to me at the splinter squid affair early last month. coincidentally, this was also at the ssma.

live at the s.s. marie antoinette c60
[2007, soccer mom ebonics]

seattle's kurt delaney and jim evans comprise sparkle girl. they've been raising a ruckus in the area since 1994, having produced and distributed, a mindfuckingboggling, 6,000 releases. they're really big fans of the diy ethos, rarely selling their stuff for actual money. seems they'd prefer to leave their releases at "public payphones, toilets and buses to be randomly discovered". i'd love to see the fucked up reactions of people when they popped sparkle girl's tape into their deck. priceless. kurt heads up the brilliantly named soccer mom ebonics label. looking at a rather incomplete discography of sme, i see releases by climax golden twins, torturing nurse and wolf eyes.

to live and shave in l.a. are from all over the place. it's a rather sizable collective of musicians and being as such, the line-up is revolving. founder tom smith's always the constant, though. outside of smith there's: rat bastard (frank falestra), ben wolcott, mark morgan (sightings), don fleming, weasel walter (the flying luttenbachers), andrew wk, chris grier, graham moore, thurston moore, misty martinez and andrew barranca (gaybomb).

the tape will kick off with tlasila, and they start out with some light manipulations of a garage rock song. it's good, whoever it is. there will be a little bit more of that with a different song, and that will transition into guitar noise, sparse at first, but it'll get more involved, along with minimal electronics. i'm liking the minimalism of it. eventually, tom will start to shout random things, but that's short lived. then all of a sudden it just stops. that halt, he'll explain, is due to "shit not working". after the explanation, they'll get back into it. tlasila will continue with the minimal theme, concentrating more on instrument manipulation and drony atmosphere as well as long periods of silence. i didn't really think that this group made music like this. their performance, for the most part is rather subdued. of course, you've still got smith's caterwauling, but that's a given, and the guitar noise will swell up, but won't get out of control. i've never really been that into tlasila's music, but if there's more like this, i may rethink my stance.

sparkle girl's twelve minute long set consists of slow churning noise. the lead-off of a static hum will make way for denser crackling distortion, and even a bit of yelling. towards the mid-section there's a brief little bit of high frequency modulating then onto multiple layers of echoed and undulating noises. the last few minutes will see a return to the shouts paired with foreboding rumbles. very nice.
one of my favorite things about this tape, outside of the good music, is how kurt wasn't content to let the unused portions of the cassette go to waste. the total running time between the two sets was about thirty-three minutes or so and these are sixty minute tapes. he ended up taking snippets from cassettes snagged from goodwill and filling the remainder up with those. it's brilliant and greatly appreciated, and the audio's not too bad, featuring actual music as well as books on tape.

speaking of the ssma, it will be no more in just about a week. their lease didn't get renewed because of some bullshit and as a result we're going to be losing one of, if not the best spots to catch noisier acts. bummer. and it was only five blocks away from my apartment! argh. let the i'm moving to portland cries begin.

Sparkle Girl - Live at the S.S. Marie Antoinette

this video of tom, rat, ben and graham approximates the performance heard on this cassette. it was taken the same month as this show was, too.

steve woodlief, from south carolina's daisy cutter records was kind enough to send me the first batch of seven inches from his fledgling imprint. interestingly enough, for being all the way on the other side of the country, his debut releases are by seattle area artists.

at jennie richie

iii (maximum minimalism) 7"
[2007, daisy cutter]

happiness & forever will adhere to the minimalist theme remarkably well for the a side's opener, bleak village jazz attack (for walrus machine). that feel will merge into the next track, bleak village at night (for algiers!). all these guys are great at making ballard seem like the last post at the end of the world. it's funny. at night will maintain that wind howling through a sleepy valley sound, but they'll make it even more minimally-inclined than jazz attack, which added a louder, high pitched, drone to the desolation. this second track does have some bass-heavy rumbles deep down in the background, which will play up to the atmosphere.
a song for herb diamante is the sole track on the b side, and it sees ajr adding a bit more to their previous formula. there's quite a few layers of sound taking place in the background, and they'll switch up over the short time that they're the focus. despite the fact that the track has more things going on, it's still rather barren sounding, but different elements of it will grab your attention at random intervals. during the first half there's a great bit of thunderous noise which will briefly pan between the speakers. it's occurrence is sporadic, but wholly welcome. the last forty or so seconds of this, completely dissimilar. with really no segue whatsoever you find yourself immersed in marching band-esque uptempo percussion and a catchy loop of notes banged out on the piano. then just like that, the record's finished. strange, but wonderful.
believe it or not, i have another new at jennie richie release, courtesy of bent over cowboy, that i'll try and have reviewed before the weekend's over.

if you visit daisy cutter's myspace page, you'll find mp3s from all three of the records that steve sent me, so, i'll save myself some time by just directing you there.


blue sabbath black cheer

eva 7"
[2007, daisy cutter]

with this group's propensity for dark subject matter with regards to their album titles, i would've thought that the eva this was dedicated to would've been braun. alas, it appears to be eva, the german shepherd.eva sees bsbc scaled back to the core duo of william and stan, but with geoff walker (gravitar, chinesefish) aiding and abetting on side a. with that track, live at rotture, portland oregon, may 19th 2007, don't expect the same spookfest that they exhibited on borre fen. oh, these dudes are still trafficking in terror noise, but the pacing and tension which epitomized that 12" is ditched in favor of a more direct approach. expect a great deal of white noise distortion, shrill dissonance and pounding guitar noise. after the build-up from that, here comes the sinister noise and they'll also pile on more loud blaring.
side b's song for the dead revolves around a not too stifling base of dense noise. what i find myself the most drawn to is this repetitious tone, that might be coming from a guitar. its presence makes for a centering focal point amidst all the cacophony. the tortured wails of lost souls burning in the firelike crackle of static is fucking brilliant, too. this is anguish personified. the thickness of the distortion may not change form or relent, but by throwing something repetitious in, creating subtle layers of noise beneath the chaos and having great vocal-work, they make a terrific piece of music. the cherry on top comes by way of a locked groove at the side's (almost) conclusion. endless hate.

seattle-folk, blue sabbath black cheer are playing tomorrow at the ssma! hopefully, i don't have to work.


broken penis orchestra

wet dream 7"
[2007, daisy cutter]

the bpo sees stan reed (bsbc, plethora, psychform records) changing into his dick flick persona. normally, it's safe to assume what you're going to get with one of his broken penis orchestra releases: sexually-inclined, sample collaging along with playful music and experimentation. not so much the case this time around. i should've known when the insert said "dedicated to... human haters everywhere" that something strange was amiss. though, the etchings of banana hammock and anal retentive on the vinyl made me think everything would be ok...
not the case! side a's de profundis (latin for from the depths) is a diatribe against (fanatical) christians and also americans. it centers around a vocal sample basically calling out all of the evils that they're responsible for, as well as hypocricies. it's incredibly grim, especially with the heart-beat rhythm serving as the canvas along with the slight manipulations that are applied to the vocals. the way that dick flick juxtaposes the anti-christian sentiments with the beauty of a choral excerpt was wonderful. still, this is some dark shit.
the rape of the garden maiden (which also appears on a klanggalerie compilation, looking a little out of place... ) rings truer to the bpo of old. i love the cabaret-esque piano loops, spewed digital tones and various other clatter that's going. there's so much going on within these two minutes but it's not without purpose, as there are several sounds and segments which grabbed my attention, making this one of my favorite tracks from this particular project. that high is followed by the not so pleasant genital mutilation. you don't have to rack your brain to figure out what this one is about. there's a slowed down computer voice describing that very practice on boys and girls. the female one is particularly fucked up. man, i don't want to hear about how in africa they use glass shards to cut off a girl's labia. few things creep me out more than the thought of a female circumcision, especially a crude one. yikes. it's even more disturbing thanks to flick's uptempo soundtrack to this nightmare. wet dream, ha!

brutal sound fx compilation and exhibition of strange fact c94 + c96
[2007, enterruption]

these two tapes, compiled by wm. and hans grüsel, are a showcase of what's come to be the brutal sfx scene; a close-knit collective of experimental (and occasionally eccentric) artists and musicians from the san francisco bay area. while i'm not too familiar with the history or particulars behind the scene, i know that the core of it is the record label. that makes sense. other brutal sfx endeavors include organizing shows, most notably would the recurring godwaffles, which sacramento did a spin on with their audio waffle. they also got to curate one of the no fun fest days last year. their brutal sfx yahoo group is something else that i'd say they're famous for doing. it's very much like an early version of the troniks / chondritic sound forum (i heart noise).

when wm. gave this to me last month, i was simultaneously excited about checking it out, and also not looking forward to how long it would take me to rip this onto my computer, then separate all of the tracks, then tag them all and then to finally listen to them all. yikes. i think the process has taken about five hours. let me tell you, it was well fucking worth it.side a kicks off with diatric puds & the blobettes, and like their name suggests, they ain't normal. the most important thing to know about the brutal sfx camp is that, for the most part, they're not doing what everyone else is. their music is centered around noise, and incorporates a good deal of it, but they seem to challenge themselves and their art more than your dime a dozen harsh acts. as a result you get a lot of stuff that's either weird or whimsical. the puds & co.'s track is that and then some. it's amazing. through a barrage of synth noise, you'll get some sped up female singing (over what sounds like a sample of pop-eye) and playful music. then on into some darker sounding ambiance and still more sped up singing along with random shouts and cheerful clamor, which is really trippy against this backdrop. the best part comes around the five minute mark when it turns into a legitimate song (with noise in the background). it's so fun and catchy and quirky. from there we'll go into angie tarantism's sharkiface. those zaps of electricity along with the slow droning noise is fucking fantastic. liz allbee's leisure sport overlord 5/06, after a noisy intro, calms down mightily and establishes a lullaby-esque groove. allbee's track makes for an extremely enchanting three minute break from the noise. the combination of catchy percussion, synth and computery noises on bran(...)pos' flijht of thr bbramblebeet kept me bouncing along with the rhythm. i like the scattergun approach of porest. after beginning with lone acoustic guitar strums, it detours for ambiance for a few seconds, then rips into noise, back to ambiance before plowing back into the noise for the rest of his brief track. porest put out a disc on resipiscent (like quite a few of the artists on here), i'll have to keep a look out for it. 16 bitch pile-up give us nine and a half minutes of noise and drone with their ragnar. it gets a little trance-inducing towards the end, i dig it. andrea williams will close out the side with san frangler. this is a weird one. sounds like she's busking on a busy street at first, just playing a guitar while we listen to the idle chatter passing around her. then there's a sample of native americans chanting, but that's short-lived and makes way for a field recording of a train. after a few minutes, andrea gets into down-tempo experimental noise, but ends with the train sounds and a sped up sample of some poppy song. very schizo, but entertaining.
side b... fuck, this review is going to be ridiculously long... i need alcohol. alright, here's where my only real complaint will come into play. this side marks the beginning of where it got kind of confusing when it came down to separating the individual tracks. the first track could either only be four minutes long, or it could be twelve. most of the time they did a good job of clearly breaking everything up, but there's a few spots on this b side where it gets muddy. the way i made the first track, it comes out twelve minutes long, but the problem with that is the next artist's, spider compass good crime band, track sounds nothing like what they normally sound like, which is more reminiscent of how midmight's track came out, but all of the other artist' tracks came out right. so it's a big cluster fuck, so if i fuck any of this up, i don't fucking care because thinking about this is giving me a headache. here goes! midmight, or that lady who plays with a lamp shade over her head, gives us another incredibly good piece of music with in homes all over the world. it's almost twelve minutes long, but it's so involved and captivating that its length isn't a concern. there's some noise, vocal samples, but the real strength is the actual music that she's making. that and the catchy, simplistic drum machine percussion. the music is alternately fantastical and dark. i mean dark like the addams family is dark. it's fun as hell. her almost clear cd, released last year by resipiscent, is highly recommended. the spider compass track (this is assuming a lot), is more low-key than what i've heard from them before, but the track is titled the melting pelecanoididae sweat gland organ plays "the book of hours benign tumor", so maybe that can account for the departure in sound? it's a good piece of music, whoever it is that's making it. subtly noisy, droney and dark. tarantism's sea devil treads in familiar waters, so i'm feeling confident from here on out. i did actually give myself a headache thinking about this. i enjoyed the tribal rhythm that was working in tandem with the brooding atmosphere and understated noises. earwicker's mictlan is pretty far removed from what i heard on their all hearing ear. if it weren't for the vocal sample interrupting the light noise, i wouldn't have guessed that it was the same band. far less of a weird electronic excursion from these guys, and i enjoy that fact. the last two tracks, first by cactus, then by pink canoes, are also coming from a more minimal slant, comparatively. cactus' opts for drone and guitar noise, while pink canoes' marduk creates sun gate, yaweh fowls it combines instrument manipulation with sparse electronics, and does a fine job of it.
core of the coalman kick off the second cassette with synthy tones creating music that could've soundtracked any game on atari. underneath that there's a bed of noisier sounds and tinkering, that when all added up, make for a playful piece of music. ecomorti shows up with more straight-forward distortion-based noise. at least until the midway point when it becomes a bit dynamic. good stuff. hans grüsel's kränkenkabinet's soundtrack to "the mask (eyes of satan)" part iii also strikes me as standing out from this group's discography as it's much more straight-faced than the quirk and joyfulness that they can churn out. this soundtrack seems like it would be very befitting for a film of that name with its muddy sound, crawling pace, ghostly noises that haunt that background. it won't put a smile on your face, but it's still great. i really like the closing minutes, with the repetitious synth noise and then the evilly affected vocals. next up, according to the track list is pod blotz, but this is definitely not the pod blotz. i'd have to say that this is the skronk of what should be the next band, ettrick. heavy, heavy machine-gun percussion and saxophone bleets. holy fuck is that drumming great. this sounds like kevin & chad on pcp. i like! the synthy beeps and blips that follow are more like the pod blotz. micose and the mau maus take a noisy, inorganic, approach for their bart bells. they've also seemed to ditch their prior levity for something more stern. while it's different, i can't argue with the results, it's a nice offering. anti-ear's tramadol is a great six and a half minutes of dynamic noise. he won't get harsh, but he will cover a lot of ground. i love how repetitious it'll get in a few different spots during the second half. after how spastic it started out, this served well to lock me into the final minutes. the rather unbelievably named head boggle domo (in auralsize) closes out the side, and actually does it really fucking well. there's not a whole lot going on, in a noisy sense, but the layering and texture is great and the main layer of synth is lovely. i focus in on that and everything else just sort of floats by in a haze. excellent use of the piano, as well.
alright, last side! if anyone's still reading this, you need a hobby. rubber-o-cement is noticeably absent from this compilation, but main man grux is not. this is the second time he'll appear, the first was with spider compass, this time it's as commode minstrels in bullface. while long-winded track titles are a common theme to grux's work, that's about all that commode minstrels shares in common with rubber-o. there's a little bit of noise, but the main, and best element is some actual music. not as jubilant as that of spider compass, the percussion is pounded out with virulence. pretty damned catchy, though it's far from lighthearted. speaking of rubber-o-cement, our new colleague over here recently conducted an interview with a-gene rackstack over at his heavy vibes blog. should i be insulted that i can hear the sound that only dogs can hear orchestra's track? hmm. bastards. anyway, i'm not quite sure how these guys fit onto this compilation since they're from eugene, oregon. it's a group consisting of cryptic weevil, i died, i.n.r.i., warning broken machine and spud. i don't get the relation. regardless, their contribution is a great one. it's not heavy on the overt noise, but there's lots of complimentary sounds and synth noise to keep the slow pace from becoming too plodding. ahh, a track from loach fillet! i was beginning to think that all he did was people's album covers. his crumbling lines of surface debris was a lovely, if not too involved, piece of synthy minimalism that's here and gone before you know it. it was enjoyable while it was here, though. i must say that i'm liking what critical monkey's doing with this track more than his failure of an intelligent design cd. it's more of a noisy experimental piece. when it seamlessly goes from the swirling synth noise to affected vocals repeating toys, toys, toys, toys over and over again, i dug that. it was subtle and executed really well. if this is robi's new direction, i firmly support it. t/r, whom i got to see in oakland last year and was really impressed with, gives us beyond the long haul. there's not a whole lot going on, nor anything that'll really stay with you, but it's likeable. at one point it conjures up the toys, toys, toys sound from the prior track. that's pretty interesting. take up serpants (might be a misspelling) gives us some minimalism with the beginning of 1st dream of the 2nd attention, before shaking the hell out of us with some dense noise. for having never heard of this project before, i'm liking this a lot. the dense noise was varied, which will always win me over, and they kept it interesting even when they were pummeling you. the comp closes out with satanic church radio's moon river, which is essentially just an excerpt from a radio program that's been slowed way the fuck down with some organ accompaniment in the background. the organs make it worthwhile.

after all is said and done, this is a highly recommendable compilation with absolutely no one turning in a poor or even below average effort. also, every side featured at least one stand out track amongst all of the other good ones, that's a wise decision when it came to sequencing. when you're dealing with a release that's three hours long, you don't want to heavily stack everything one way or the other. the way that it was spread out was very well done.

Diatric Puds & the Blobettes - The Weird Watusi Variations
Sharkiface - Live in Newport KY
Ettrick - Summoning the Recluse

drinkin' lighter fuel c26
[2007, rundownsun]

green mist is brighton, uk's dallas k. tragically, i don't know too much about the dude. i do know that he's also a part of the ridiculous alien zoner ape, which also includes glamorous pat (shitty vibe smasher, moms who chop, cherried out merch), frozen corpse (carlo and eva), mutant ape (george proctor, also of turgid animal fame) and lastly, luke younger (birds of delay). someone needs to rip their disc onto slsk... with the quickness.

after hearing a great split tape with bbblood (by both parties), i was eagerly looking forward to getting a hold of some more of green mist's work and along comes this cassette by way of canada's excellent rundownsun label (ran by josh of sick buildings). going back a step to the split with the charming title of poo & wee, that was much closer to what i'd consider orthodox noise than what i'm witnessing with this release. let's call drinkin' lighter fuel (which, rumor has it, is something he actually engages in) an experimental noise album. outside of being something that your more topical music fan would derisively dismiss as being noise, your more commonly used hallmarks of the genre are absent. no feedback, no high pitch squeals and scraps, no overbearing distortion nor channel pans. just what in the hell's going on here? actually, quite a bit and i'm a big fan of the angle that green mist has chosen to take.

dallas goes for the gusto on side a, which wins out as being my favorite of the two. while he may be eschewing some of the fundamentals one thing he wisely retains is layering and that's best proven within the opening minutes. very engaging. the noise that he's making is a challenge for me to put into words. you've got an electric hum, a dense scratchy noise like if you rubbed a contact mic on your shirt and add some sustained tones to that, along with various other noises that will come and go at random. there's a vocal sample that pops up near the end providing a nice twist but it's really the combination of the out of the ordinary noise and the not so unusual noises providing background layers that do the trick.
with side b we anchor near a bit of common ground with denser distortion, but it's quite spread out. there are sporadic periods of rumble, then all you get is tape hiss until ushered into the next segment, which differs a bit, sounding more like what we got on side a. i really like the revving engine sound occurring around the midpoint which will stick around, here and there, throughout the tape's conclusion. it's definitely my favorite part of the second side. without it, it still would've been enjoyable, just a great deal more of a minimal noise affair.

while it seems like most people (fans of noise) are still in the dark when it comes to dallas' music, he's been quietly releasing albums on american labels like trench knifed, teenage whore and loveless, so that makes me happy. i'll actually be able to buy his releases for a sensible price.

Drinkin' Lighter Fuel Side A

chances are pretty high that you might not know who steve warwick himself is, but you've probably heard of his main gig: birds of delay (see also birds of prey), the british noise-drone duo with luke younger. i have in my possession two of his solo projects. the first is hungover breakfast, which i bought, the other is warwick [pictured below, on the right, along with younger] as heatsick, and paul from transdimensional sushi sent that one to me.

hungover breakfast

untitled (one-sided) c30
[2007, alcoholic narcolepsy]

ahhhh, one-sided cassettes! you know what these are great for? yep, recording yourself onto side b and then re-releasing them as splits. voilà, instant credibility! all joking aside though, i fucking want to drop kick these things off of the roof of my apartment building. granted, this isn't as bad as seth oubliette's italian gore tape which actually only ran for twelve minutes, and it was a c60. wtf. i love oubliette though, but still, c'mon! they make twelve minute long cassette tapes, you know.
over the past two weeks i've had a few hungover breakfasts, and they were more like reverse breakfasts. think about it for a minute. bad memories and bitterness over single sided tapes notwithstanding, i really enjoy this cassette. first off, it's completely different from birds of delay. if you're unfamiliar with them, the words loud, droney and noise should do a good job of catching you up to speed. hungover's noise has a stricter emphasis on electronics, but really stripped-down. after having listened to several noise albums which all featured excellent texturing, it's a nice change of pace to have the rawer sounds of... whatever the hell it is that steve's using. analog synth maybe? i love how the tape starts off, the noise is a little muffled and distant sounding. it'll fly around the stereo channels for a bit before finally coming in with full clarity. what you've got here are some great rips of static-draped distortion along with some squeaking noises. the way that steven's working with it, it's almost like he's trying to squeeze some rhythm out of those sounds. as it moves along expect higher pitched tones and more prolonged periods of repetitious noise, while managing to stay dynamic throughout.

Untitled


heatsick

muddy paw
[2007, transdimensional sushi]

seeing as how warwick now resides in berlin (hanging out with the skaters perhaps?) while luke is still in london, it makes sense that we would start to see more solo work popping up from these guys. luke's got a cd-r release slated for alcoholic narcolepsy in the near future.

as should be the case with everyone who has more than one solo project, heatsick bears no resemblance to hungover breakfast. not at all. you could compare some of steven's work on this disc with that of swamp jewel from birds of delay, but that's really the oddity of their discography. swamp jewel was a lot more toned down and welcoming than their usual disharmony.
opener arms splayed out doused and waiting is almost instantaneously captivating. give it about twenty seconds or so until that outstanding trio of base layers will assert their dominance. one of those is just a warm drone, but the other two are more musical sounding and made their impressions felt very quickly. they're higher pitched (not to the point of abrasiveness) and almost sound like a flute which is giving off slight screeches of feedback. it's fucking good, and it's merely the starting point. there's also a good deal of synth noise. early on it was just a lone, brief rumbling sound which would continually repeat, but as arms' running time passes the midway hump, more sounds will accompany that layer. the main thing to be aware of is that it's not noisy in any unlistenable way, and with the beautiful background sounds, the sci-fi-like whoops and accoutrements just build up the tripped out aesthetic.

wading through is a sun soaked jaunt that centers around some memorable guitar chords, which will repeat almost endlessly and there's also some airy percussion provided by wire brush cymbal taps. that will comprise the bulk of the track, but there's also the requisite odd sounds and drones. those other synthy effects made me think of lieven's portal jams, only buried underneath a flowing guitar jam. the last couple of minutes will see a denser wave of sound nearly encompassing everything else...

... which will segue into the finale, dewy perfume sunrise. i really think that the titles for the last two tracks should've been switched up. the imagery of this track's name is much more evocative of the previous' music, while the denser noise we're getting here reminds me of fast moving river rapids. way down below there's a dronier layer just managing to stay afloat, so wading through would seem more appropriate to me, but what do i know, if this were me i probably would've given it some perverted title that had absolutely nothing to do with how it sounded, but that's just me.

Arms Splayed Out Doused and Waiting

heatsick in berlin:

double lunar halo c30
[2007, beyond repair]

when you factor in lack of american press and lack of stateside exposure from not touring over here with a shitty exchange rate (add postage to that as well) it becomes less of a mystery as to why there's a great noise scene across the pond that a majority of us have barely skimmed the surface of.

nackt insecten (i think it means naked insect) is glasgow, scotland's ruaraidh sanachan. honestly, if you know about ruaraidh or lea cummings, you're well on your way to knowing a good chunk of uk noise. as far as sanachan goes, he's also in: opaque, kmvsni and temple of static christ (all three of those are also with lea cummings (kylie minoise), the third features alan sinclair, as well). he can be found sans lea in eye shaking kingdom (with alistair crosbie (occasional member of opaque, also runs lefthand pressings), and he operates the sick head imprint, which is where you can pick up some of his nackt insecten releases, if they're still in print.

the scant bit of music that i've been able to find or able to buy without paypal from nackt insecten have quickly won me over. pushed more towards the experimental / drone side of things, sanachan's use of layering and sound textures are the winning combination.
double lunar halo's first number, tunnel vision, stands out not just for being a great, albeit way too brief, piece of music, but it's also the most dissimilar from the rest of the cassette's oeuvre. instead of being centered around drone, it uses two great pieces of enchanting music and matches those up with electric guitar noise that has a little bit of reverb treatment to give the music a wondrous spacelike quality. true to its name, lysergic daughter sets its (blurry) sights on psychedelic drone. this is all swirling, dismal ambiance, affected guitar, minimal synth beeps and what might be vocal moans in the background. moonbow is another memorable offering with a more wide open sound to it. as was the case with the opener, there's less of a focus on drone, instead sanachan goes for aeriform sounds. with one constant layer of light noise, a few ambient ones and heavily processed vocals to provide complimentary sound. picture being isolated somewhere frigid; it's getting late in the day, the wind is blustery and you can hear the wolves starting to get restless. if you can do that, you can get a feel for what this sounds like. bleak. barren. etc.
one fourteen minute droner is what you're going to get with the eponymous b side. the first half of it sticks true to nackt insecten's previous blueprint, which is: dual layers of a droning sound, one that's pushed up front, the other you have to kind of listen for, add to that two more layers of various noises, with at least one being dynamic so as to stave off listener fatigue. once double lunar halo gets into its (locked) groove of undulating drone and you think 'okay, this right here is what i'm going to get for fifteen minutes. eh, i can live with that.' ruaraidh tosses in a recognizable bit of guitar to the mix. it's an unexpected midway addition that really gives the side the boost it needed to have some staying power. honestly, the drone and oscillating noise together still leaves me pretty spellbound. all in all, well played, sir.

Divine Blow-Out

nackt insecten live at peacocks visual arts centre:

london's paul watson (bbblood) sent me the latest offerings from his transdimensional sushi imprint. awhile back, before i had the internet in my new apartment, i was planning on doing a bit of a focus on uk noise because i don't feel that a lot of them get the stateside exposure that they deserve. it seems like now would be a good time to incorporate those reviews onto the site. admittedly, i didn't get to write up as many as i would've liked before i started to get busy, but it's a start...

experiment 50
[2007, transdimensional sushi]

you'd think that after fifty releases, the baron might get a bit complacent. after all, once your discography takes on a seism-esque level of ambition, logic would have it that one's to the point where they just record and release every single thing that they do, without any real quality control. paul would be an exception to that (assumed) rule.

the music that i've heard from bbblood has primarily centered around dynamic harsh noise, first and foremost. with that as a base it seems like he's tried to do more within the genre, expanding its sound not only within an album's setting, but also on individual tracks. i think that experiment 50 is his most shining example (and triumph) of that aesthetic.

three tracks, forty-six and a half minutes, will begin with gnarly ghost. seems like a title that the cherry point would use. this is a hell of a start to the album. sparse racket will pepper the opening minute, then it will start to build, slowly, slowly... it'll fade out for a quick sec, then slowly, slowly... once past three minutes, we're in business. the rapid-fire machine gun blasts of noise are fantastic, as are those loud synthy whines and sputtering foundation. damn. there's a lot of great layering that will continually change its shape during these twelve minutes. the idling engine sound will serve as a static theme, but everything else is up in the air. i wouldn't say that anything here is harsh (especially in comparison to his cosmic gash cd), but with a multitude of interesting (and occasionally repetitious) noisy layers to sort through, this will grab your attention. thumbs up for the boingy outro.
bbblood will play with our perceptions for a bit with blue moth. lush ambiance aided by higher pitches drones. there's some noise in there as well, but it's a little muted. not for long! it doesn't take more than two minutes for this track to turn into a noisy kick in the pants. this is a bit denser than most of the straight up noise that i've heard from watson, but it's still lively. very much in the vein of government alpha. then, from out of nowhere, it'll just stop; reverting back to the sense of calm that was established in the onset. beautiful ending.

speaking of which, 50 will conclude with submissive, which has to be one of bbblood's less... bbblood-like performances. think of the darker, moody, atmospheric, noisy drone that chop shop, (early) contagious orgasm and small cruel party could traffic in, and you've got your foundation. paul's noisier than those guys, so, naturally, he won't stop there. despite the fact that this thing creeps out of your speakers, the more dissonant and rhythmic bits that are thrown in keep submissive, ironically, feeling vibrant. with all of the texturing that bbblood's exhibiting in the first half, even when the sound really slows down, there are still quite a few options in terms of what to focus in on. the last eight minutes are toned down, scaled back, and will just float out of existence on a rarefied note.

Gnarly Ghost

here's a video for 2225 (different album), i'd imagine that this is from his dvd...

self-titled
[2007, abandoned / midori]

the last album that i have from terence's batch is his collaboration with fletcher pratt, kkrakk!! (sometimes it's listed with only one exclamation mark).

in keeping with the tradition of not being able to expect what anything bearing pratt's name will sound like, we have this cd. my first impression of kkrakk!! is that it's like eai meets barry bonds' personal trainer... or his trainer's secret stash, anyway. there's elements of electro-acoustic to be found, but where silence and minimalism comprise a large part of that genre, these two take maximalist approaches. there's plenty of layers and sounds, the amps are up to eleven and they're havin' a ball. the name of this (which reminded me of the kkringg tracks off of the flying luttenbachers' album, systems emerge from complete disorder), as well as the track titles, made me assume that this was going to be more along of the lines of your standard fare noise, you know, onomatopoeias and all, so i was pleasantly surprised with how this turned out.

the disc will begin with splank. the clattering that both have exhibited previously bleeds over into this project as well. the squealing guitar (?) noises in the background as well as the haunting delayed vocal moans in the background will tie everything together really nicely.

eeeoooooooooo brings drones, screeches and audio samples together with drumming. the samples and percussion are the most prominently featured aspects to the piece. my favorite part of this will come towards the end when there's several different layers of samples at once, one is of a demonstration where the crowd's yelling 'fuck you' repeatedly and added to that is a nice sample of an older sounding song and then there's the appropriate percussion accompanying it. it's really, really good.

zzwuumph! is a sparser track that centers around guitar playing and manipulation along with sporadic and clanging percussive noise.

the eight minutes of tzzeeoow is where the influence of eai can most strongly be felt. as far as noise goes, it's scaled back. there's haunting atmospheric sounds in the back, as well as percussion that's pushed so far back it sounds like it was mic'ed up from the next room over. additionally, we have whirling and pulsing synth sounds and screeches emanating from a violin. i dig this a lot. the tone is a darker one, the pacing is slower and there's just the right amount of noisier things happening (mainly with that background layer as it fluctuates in amplitude) to keep it interesting.

immediately after that is the nearly thirteen minute long pflatch. while it's like minded with its acoustic instrument manipuation, it's also considerably more chaos-based. amidst string tweaking there's a great deal of clamor. it's less synthy electronic sounding and more like a cluster-fuck of noisy racket. crank sturgeon would surely approve of this.

no surprise here, the most focused piece of music on the cd, tzkatooosssh, is the one i like the most. the oscillating background layer that establishes the colder mood is wonderful, but there's some great synth noise that's catchy as hell that they'll repeatedly use. i'm in love with that sound. they could've relied solely upon it, allowing it to continually play out for all five minutes, but instead they'll switch it up and opt for light atmospheric noises. tzkatooosssh is a flash of cohesive brilliance and really points at what this duo's capable of, beyond what's an already great showing.

the disc will end with oooootskratkkooooooo, which is nearly an encompassing of the broad range of sounds heard throughout the disc. i enjoyed how in the beginning of this, the pace of the percussion (forefront) was a lot slower than that of the noise in the background. eventually, the two will come together to kick up a dust storm of clamor. the vocal noise that permeates most of this is pulled off very well, too. affected enough to not be so obvious, it meshes with the other elements and still has its own distinctness.

Tzkatooosssh

meditations iii c30
[2007, midori]

after a little bit more confusion (this is now the third, and final time, that i'm updating this info), i found out that calling the sky people is a project involving fletcher pratt (midori records) and d'alton hindle (unravelled broken orchestra).

hmmm, these are some rather dark and foreboding meditations. the first thing that really strikes me about this, though, is how (mid)night and day calling the sky people is from pratt's work under his own name. while it's already been established that he's really versatile, it's great to see him continually trying to do new things.meditations iii will begin with ominous drones and noises, layered underneath that is some wonderful guitar noise. in this sense i mean that someone's just playing the hell out of their guitar, but there's really no rhyme or reason to it, yet it provides a terrific addition to the wintry chill that the noisier elements are giving off. for the second track, they'll lean heavier on the icy gusts and desolate noise. the colder elements are pushed to the forefront, while, similar to the previous track, the noisier one is left to burrow itself out of its buried layer. the third, and final, track of the a side is a little more involved, comparatively. it's not a departure in the sonic theme that they've seeped themselves in, there's just a few added elements: repetitious synth noise, whirling teapot-esque tones, guitar squeals... my roommate just walked into the kitchen and said 'it kind of sounds like a wind tunnel'. i agree with her assessment.

the first track of side b sees the duo taking a bit of a more straight-forward approach on drone with dueling guitars, effects pedals, hardly anything else, but it works. the fact that one of the guitar layers will also focus on making noise, while the other just drones away in the background, keeps it interesting. the sudden end to that track, just as it was building, drops us off in the midst of a thunderstorm. a six and a half minute long field recording, with nothing else to change it up makes it kind of feel like a really long intermission, but there's still something soothing about the sound of falling rain. after about a minute and a half build-up of barely there noise, meditations iii sends us on our way with the most musical work on the cassette, a lovely, yet doleful, bit of synthesizer music that i wish had stuck around for more than its lone minute.

what i'd most commend pratt and d'alton for would be their ability to create bleak sounding music without coming off as miserable bastards. by being able to do this without the quintessential dark synth tones, that was their advantage. i also credit them for not just making two fifteen minute tracks. the idea to have (roughly) five minute long pieces was greatly appreciated and also made meditations iii easier to enjoy.

Meditations III, Part One