scum hope c20
[2007, iatrogenesis]

protein den is a collaboration between portland's oscillating innards (gordon ashworth) and los angelean privy seals (matthew sullivan). the two have hooked up previously as a part of the deep jew collective.

the first side of this cassette is a collaboration through the mail. anytime i hear that i always think of something coming out sounding segmented and not flowing very smoothly. it's never the case, though. this is seamless, brutal noise. it's dynamic in both the denseness of it as well as the racket that it's overpowering. the decision to have two different channels of subdued noise beneath that huge wave of distortion paid off extremely well, as it will keep you throughly attentive. this is fucking rad. i really wished that the black air project that oscillating innards, the rita and pedestrian deposit did sounded more like this instead of coming across like something the rita could pull off in his sleep. the six minute mark of side a has the density slacking off a bit, accentuating the feedback and other noise which was previously buried, then it's back to the punishment. the total sum of everything that's going on, combined with the aggressiveness of the sound makes for a killer fucking combo. really great work as far as denser noise goes.
scum hope's b side is taken from a live collaboration between gordon and matthew. interestingly enough, to me, this took place in chapel hill, north carolina, and it marks the second time that oscillating innards has used live sets from there for his releases. i wonder what's so special about the place. anyway, this side's pretty good, too. the best part is the first half, though. it starts out pretty minimally with slow, whining feedback and just a bit of echoing clamor. it will start to increase in volume, but those prior elements are still the focus, until one of the guys shouts out "public enemies.....creepy uncles". after riding on some feedback for a minute, they get down to rumbling business. beneath the deluge there are sustained piercing noises, a little bit of feedback and electric hums.

Scum Hope Side B

oscillating innards @ showboat in tokyo 3/6/2007

let the juggling begin... here's the first part of what tyler from b.o.c. sent me.

serum feast
[2007, bent over cowboy / fish pies]

for some reason, anything with pigs in the title makes me think of metal. there's probably a reason for that, but it escapes me currently. anyway, i was filled with much joy when i looked inside the cover and saw sharkiface and loach fillet [pictured] as the performers. nice. sharkiface is angie from tarantism. noise fun fact: angie had a brief stint in 16 bitch pile-up for one of their west coast tours. after digging around i found that loach fillet's actually involved in a few things, beyond his album artwork endeavors: he's in pod blotz (with froth fingers, aka suzy poling), psichologico tramas (with joseph hammer, mitchell brown and albert ortega), saxxdorxx (again with albert ortega (feed the dragon)) and he's an occasional helper outer of chicago's ritualistic school of errors. loach also runs the fish pies label. additionally, these two hook up as the diatric puds and the blobettes, angie as princess pcp to his count loachfillet. i believe that this duo also comes together under the runny dumplings name. that reminds me, i haven't had dumplings in ages.. mmm.
serum feast starts off with fifty seconds of loud cavernous scuzz, boomeranging its way through the stereo channels. i wouldn't have complained if this was a bit longer. it was a great introduction, nonetheless. gouts of artificial blood retains the loudness, but it's a short stay. soon, the bottom will fall out and we're left with background muck, undulating synth drones and various knob twitterings, unique in each speaker. gouts will writhe along, accumulating haunting atmospherics as it passes. after another brief noisier overture in tongues of fire i, the couplings/serum feast is a return to gouts of artificial blood's form. slow, tension-building, malignant vibes abound in the onset. it's like being in a dank basement with puddles of filthy water all over the place. you can hear rats squeaking as they scurry along the walls, the one exposed light bulb is flickering off and on... something bad's going to happen, you just aren't sure when. the discordance starts to pick up a bit, and there's a great panned rhythm (slow and reverbed) that joins the fray. creaking sounds (like someone trying to unsuccessfully start a gas powered lawn mower) and faint screeches can be heard in the background. then the squealing starts. then the noise. fucking great. crackling embers mixed with muted distortion marks tongues of fire ii. i really liked the mellower bit at the end with the chimes. that'll segue into the more boisterous shaking tent. this is denser than anything else on the cd, but don't think that they're channeling the rita, it just has a thick sound to it. the repetitious wavering tone that's serving as the foundation keeps me paying attention, and when it knocks off, shortly after the halfway point, the density follows suit, switching my focus to the dynamic noise. the slightly calmer outro of this track, like the rumbling of a train passing by, sounded great. pale acres of sand will pick up from where they left off, that is to say, a lot less tumultuous. there's a little bit of ambiance off in the distance, but the duo will forgo the dread that was scattered throughout a good deal of serum feast. pale acres centers around nuanced noises that are given a nice echoing treatment, adding to the already barren character of the piece. the disc ends with forced document release. this too, is light on the commotion; centering around synthy revs, a marginally darker aura and excellent static-wrapped sounds.
this was a rad disc that fans of tarantism would certainly be wise to check out. it's not really that noisy. the bulk of it relies on mood, and the duo conjuring up ways to shape the intangibility of mood into something concrete. it's an engaging listen throughout. if you like a little bleakness tossed in with your noisy experimentation, this is for you.

Gouts of Artificial Blood

sort of recently, stan thrilled me by giving me his latest batch of releases... which is a whole bunch. i'm going to attempt to juggle a few other packages from people, as well as recent purchases, while making my way through psychform's newest offerings. here we go...

fuchs-octubre c20
[2007, psychform]

ah, crank sturgeon. one of the weirder of experimental music's weirdos. actually, that's a pretty lofty assessment... there's a lot of weirdos out there. he likes to give his songs titles such as: suddenuncle, henry the car's loose and personal favorite, real real pockcity aka: reel aaa reelaba epii pocity old reamble and rendering better global. he's also fond of costumes, makes contact mics that you can buy and once performed a show in a bathroom whilst he was going number two. he resides in maine, so that might explain something...

as far as i'm concerned, crank sturgeon's one of the most unique artists around. his combination of folksier elements (complete with stream of consciousness lyrical nonsense) with straight up noise puts him head and shoulders above most of his peers. while the sillier aspects might not strike a chord with purists, if you've got more of an open mind, it will become clear that crank sturgeon is more than just an acquired taste.

fuchs-octubre (a bastard combination of deutsch and spanish perhaps, fox-october?) is an album that showcases more of matt's abstract side than say miss latimer's gift or motion pictsaur. both of those albums put the noise up in the forefront and then rounded things out with weirder elements (vocals and sounds). the general theme gets established rather quickly with pot and pan-esque clangery in conjunction with matt's singing. it's noise folk and i like it a lot. the addition of an acoustic guitar on the following song makes it even more folk-like. the third track is in an experimental noise vein. sounds like contact mic fuckery along with crank's stammered utterings. there might be a guitar in there, or at least a chord from a guitar. next is a two minute long field recording from a supermarket. i have to say, i was drawn to the repetitive beeping of products being scanned in. the side will close out with vocal noise at first, but that will eventually turn into matt repeating something (that probably isn't a word) over and over again, in his car, and then finish with him voicing his displeasure with a slow driver in front of him. who can't relate to that?
the vocals will once again be the feature for the beginning of the b side, starting off with the repeated singing of "put your jar(?) back in". after that is less than a minute of minimal clatter leading us into similar territory as we heard in the first part of this second side. the enigmatic spoken word which follows is a definite highlight. you can't help but at least grin at some of the shit that he's saying like: having your nightly taste of nipple and twelve will get you ten, seven will get you five, that is a dime on a dame or a lady. it doesn't make any sense, almost seeming like he's flipping through the stations of his mind and spewing out different bits at random. the legitimate noise that breaks up some of those abstractions was the perfect touch. the end of the tape starts off with a recording of a meet-up with some (seemingly drunken) friends and turns into a weird orgy of chants, hollering, screams and shouts giving it a surreal, primal, vibe. awesome.
if you're looking for traditional noise sounds from the sturg, you won't find them here. what you will get is something that highlights the experimental portion of experimental noise. definitely not for everyone, but if you don't mind some quirkiness mixed in with your music, you could probably appreciate this.

Fuchs-Octubre 1

crank sturgeon at prince albert, brighton, uk, 8/13/06

bryan tholl (is) from chicago, sent a few of his new releases to me. bryan's older work under this name was more akin to what fellow chicago sound artist vertonen does, but these newer albums see him taking on a more noise first approach.

* the 3" cd-r that i received is doing weird things to my disc drive, like freezing it up, so for now i'll just review the tape.

rose dustings c30
[2007, nurse etiquette]

the first couple of minutes of rose dustings will fool you into thinking that all you're in for is suffocating dense noise, but that's just the storm before the calm. then more storm, but that's later. after those initial hundred and fifty seconds, things get kinda eerie with affected moans in the background over crackling static. the vocals sound like what i'd imagine redrot would sound like if he decided to focus his efforts on making those haunted house soundtracks. i dig it. soon the noise will start to swell again, rekindling the density but with the addition of the ghostly wails trapped in the background. towards the end of the first side the vocals are in a shouted state. one of the best moments was when all of the other dissonance drops off and there's just a higher pitched tone building up to a shriek that gets capped off by bryan's screaming, which is then followed up by one final hurrah of dense rumbles.
flip the cassette over and you're greeted by more dense noise, but its duration is very short-lived. is follows that up with atmospheric roars and shrill noise. when the thicker distortion comes back around like a boomerang, it will graciously bring some dynamism along with it. the other track on the b side, may 3rd, 2007 (era-ended), begins with the great addition of tone work to the noise. i love the little back and forth between the two different aspects. afterwards, tholl rips through a couple of minutes of concentrated noise. beneath this fracas you can vaguely hear some nicer sounding music and once the noise knocks off for a bit, that music, choral, is played in all its crackling vinyl glory. he won't let the record play unaffected for too long and tweaks the speed for a bit, before deciding that those heavenly vocals would sound better underneath layers of noise and piercing frequencies. in this instance, i'd have to support his decision. really great ending to a rad tape.

May 3rd, 2007 (Era-Ended)

ah, like so many of my intentions, this one came a little later than i planned. it's my goal to post new episodes on a bi-weekly basis (on fridays), but the way that i was putting my podcast together wasn't agreeable with audacity, so i had to scrap a few hours work on friday and start over again. i've figured out how to do it better, so i should be golden from here on out.

this episode is all over the place, figuratively and literally.

essay #2



cpc gangbangs - i want blood / life support
(0:00 to 5:35)
the trashies - the cps took my baby away
(5:36 to 7:23)
tractor sex fatality - live it down
(7:24 to 10:03)
cococoma - 6 1/4 125
(10:04 to 12:02)
ruth white - owls
(12:30 to 15:12)
gator surprise - a friendship
(15:13 to 16:04)
mother tongue - the humble man
(16:05 to 20:33)
nackt insecten - tunnel vision
(20:34 to 22:31)
midmight - seconds here and there
(22:32 to 24:37)
orphan fairytale - speaking spooky #2
(24:38 to 28:13)
6majik9 - jessica simpson
(28:43 to 32:35)
weak sisters - i wanna fuck myself
(32:36 to 36:02)
the casket sinkers - baked beans, brains and spiders side a
(36:03 to 38:55)
olivia block - heave to, part one (excerpt)
(38:56 to 43:38)
charlotte hug - dweller
(44:07 to 46:43)
kelvin pittman - split with joe foster (excerpt)
(46:44 to 49:14)
fred lonberg-holm, jason roebke & glenn kotche - the squimp
(49:15 to 51:09)
françoise hardy - fleur de lune
(51:10 to 54:10)
liz allbee - leisure sport overlords 5/06
(54:39 to 57:53)
newage panther mistique - untitled #1
(57:54 to 60:15)
begum akhtar - balamwa tum kya jano preet
(60:16 to 65:23)
lockweld - abbeyville rd.
(65:24 to 66:22)
hexmorb - careless young masters #1
(66:42 to 75:19)