the herbst silo 7" (one-sided)
[2007, hanson]

when i was out at easy street dropping far too much money on records, i happened to randomly pick this one up because i liked the artwork on it. i'd never heard of the nevari butchers before, so when i turned it over to see which label put it out, i was stoked to find that it was hanson. after i got home, i looked this release up and now i know that this project is a collaboration between aaron dilloway and michael travis. i'm not sure if travis does anything outside of his medusa label. the line-up for earlier incarnations of the nevari butchers appears to be dilloway and ram maharjan, but it seems like he's no longer involved. with google as my only indicator, it also appears that ram maharjan is a popular nepali name.
the etching on the vinyl says "rural phantasm". i think that should've been the title. the herbst silo, named after the place where this joint was recorded, centers mainly around some drones, with an organ drone being the most dominant. the other one is lighter and undulates really softly. i love the combination of the two. as for the noisier elements, at first, there's a little build-up, the sound of someone rustling about in the background, i think i heard a door opening, too. a little more rustling, and then comes the wash of distortion and it's glorious. there's still random thuds and bangs that pop up every now and again. the kind of choppy effect that eases the herbst silo out was a nice touch, as was the sudden boom that finishes things off.when i listen to this from an analytical standpoint, i like the noise that they're producing quite a bit. when i listen to it more casually, i find that the drones are what i'm most attracted to, and then the noise ends up being more like a weird ambiance. this is a rad little seven inch that i definitely could've stood to hear a second side of. according to hanson's discography, there's a double lp by these guys that's cataloged after this record. i'm not sure if it's out yet, or out and long gone, but it's worth keeping a look out for it.

The Herbst Silo (Excerpt) (from 1:57 to 2:57)

blue tarp 7"
[2007, rehab]

seattle's trashies (jesse cody, billy brownnote, ricky trash and ron wolfman) have been winning me over ever since i h8 u motherfuckers from life sucks trash fuck. their name is definitely fitting for their musical style, but what makes them stand out from their peers is that despite how lewd and classless their songs are (some titles: sweatpants boner, too drunk to jerk off, innumerate, illiterate, the cps took my baby away...), they're about having fun. it's obvious that they don't take themselves that seriously. on the aforementioned i h8 u motherfuckers, they manage to twist something misanthropic into an infectious, bouncy sing-along. the trashies are endearingly vulgar, and way too fun to be offensive.

while their first album showed flashes of brilliance, the follow-up release what makes a man get trashed? was better by leaps and bounds. they didn't lose any of their brashness, but instead, came out with a new sense of focus. this time out, the riffs rocked harder, the tunes were catchier and everything just sounded better.

for their latest offering, the trashies aren't missing a fucking beat because both sides of this seven inch are fantastic. the a-side's blue tarp is dedicated to the wonderfulness of said fabric. i guess tarp can be considered a fabric: "blue tarp is my rain poncho and my contraceptive". this one's musically perfect and really showcases the band's (not so) secret weapon: jesse cody's keyboard playing. so fucking good. the descending guitar riffs during the chorus are great and they're even better when ricky starts pounding away on the drums.
alternately, side b's ricky don't feel is dedicated to the awesomeness / nonhumanness of the trashie's drummer: "...ricky plays drums like a drum machine, ricky's not a product of society, ricky was born in a la-boratory". there's no keys on this one, but instead some memorable riffage and drumming (makes sense).

having a low-brow sense of humor might help you appreciate this band's lyricism, but one thing that should be universal is the fact that they play some really rad garage rock. easily my favorite (current) local rock band that's not named the intelligence. let it be trashed.

Blue Tarp
(apparently, the band will hook you up with a free cd-r if you ask 'em on their myspace)

the trashies from live eye tv

by the river / turbo boost 7"
[2007, important]

one of the things that i dig the most about important records, outside of the endearingly pretentious name, is how fucking schizo their releases are. they refuse to be typecast as being merely a (fill in the blank) label. that's commendable. they've put out a ton of albums spanning such genres as industrial noise, anti-folk (kimya dawson and the awesome diane cluck), space rock, harsh noise, electronic indie (piano magic), drone, folk (steven r. smith), more conventional rock sounds (major stars) and, um, noam chomsky.

this seven inch is a split between two more popular individuals in the american noise / experimental scene, both of which have ties to providence, rhode island: dominick fernow, whose harsh noise project, prurient, is one of the most popular ones around. i was going to say that this is strange to me, but i remembered that pitchfork and tiny mixtapes have both reviewed albums by him, so now it makes sense. next is brian chippendale, more known for his work behind the drum kit of lightning bolt. mindflayer sees him joined by matt brinkman, aka meerk puffy (who is additionally in forcefield), also from providence.

the first half of by the river has prurient returning to his black metal roots, if only in the sinisterly affected vocals. it's reminiscent of mikko aspa's work with nicole 12, whom prurient did a split with, coincidentally. the latter half of the track finds dom in a more traditional setting, first with a bit of reverberated (but otherwise unaffected) spoken word, and then unholy screaming accompanied by feedback. nice, nice. the noise is a wavey synth buzz, combined with a layer of drone, and multiple channels of overdriven static muck, all of which will fluctuate in intensity throughout the duration. fantastic.
distant percussive cacophony confined to the left speaker is all you get for the first forty seconds of turbo boost, but after that, brinkman's electronic squeals snatch your attention as brian's drumming simultaneously blares to the forefront. once this duo gets going it's a rapid fire kit beatdown going to war with dense electronic skree. fun times.as with most releases that have the name prurient on them, this is pretty pricey. i got mine for nine bucks. what you're really paying for is the whole package, music and artwork. this one features a great silk-screening job with artful abstractions, which i presume were done by chippendale, on mindflayer's side of the cover, and nice rural scenery for prurient's. then there's the vinyl; the first hundred and twenty-five copies came with one color for each side, with the additional three hundred and seventy-five coming in a red and blue swirl, which still looks cool.

Mindflayer - Turbo Boost

prurient @ skylab; columbus, ohio

apologies to nicholas, since i've had his cd for awhile now, but better late than never, right?

astilbe rubra
[2007, small doses]

prior to silver spring, maryland's szczepanik (i'm choosing to pronounce it as zuhpanic, but feel free to deviate) getting in touch with me on myspace, i was unfamiliar with his work. i do know a wee bit about this record label, though. namely, that they've released a few things by warmth, including the cleverly named killing is my business (business card cd-r subscription series, which is sold out, suckers). there's also some releases by a few recognizable names in culver and aidan baker. suffice to say that i didn't think this release would be horrible.

astilbe rubra takes those rather meager expectations and slaps me in the face with them. it turns out that this disc is pretty really fucking good. at the very least, i was hoping for just some noncommittal ambiance or delicate drone, nothing too adventurous, but nicholas will really show a flair for composition, a sense of rhythm, beauty and experimentation; incorporating a lot of ideas, even within the same piece of music, whilst having everything work together harmoniously.

after beginning the opening track, tire, with a pairing of noisy drone and the faintest touch of ambiance, nicholas will smoothly transition into mellower ground. the ambiance is much more pervasive and the background sounds (bringing to mind the tide washing up onto the shore) build up the atmosphere even more. following a few minutes of that, it will take a turn for the droney. there's a buzzing drone up front, along with a more grinding one (still pleasant to listen to, like a nice droning table saw), both of which are wrapped up in gorgeous atmospheric synth work. at around the nine minute mark, only one of those layers of drone will be retained as things get noisier with multiple of channels of great distortion-filled synth tweaks. this is a prime example of szczepanik exhausting a multitude of sounds and techniques, all while having everything bleed together flawlessly. i really appreciate how organic tire's progression is.
bringer kind of works in reverse, this time starting off with a noisier foray. again, what he's doing is interesting noise, more of an experimentation with sound than anything prototypical. lurking in the back is another fine ambient drone. there's a lot of really nice multi-channel tracking going on in bringer. eventually, a catchy loop will emerge from the initial static. the thing that i love about it is how it's the same sound in both speakers, but there appears to be a little disjunct to it, creating a really great auditory effect.

the focus of convivencia is on field recordings and samples. at first, there's multiple layers (panned) of different samples of people speaking. both are treated with slight manipulations, and bask in airy atmospherics. as has been the theme throughout these three tracks, that'll be short-lived. the ambiance remains in place as spring-like field recordings of chirping birds meet a little bit of guitar fuckery with chord plucks shooting back and forth between the two stereo channels. he switches things up again, abandoning all previous layers for recordings of running water and nice explosive sounds off in the distance. it will settle down soon enough as the springtime field recordings (from a park, i'd reckon) make their reentry.echoes is easily the loudest piece of music, and it also features a return to rhythmic looping. there's actually three catchy layers which are fighting back against the overbearing distortion. this short (by the album's standards) track will end its second half with a terrific droning buzz that kevin shields (the real kevin shields, mind you, not eva aguila) would be proud of. conversely, the following track, merci manu & sophie is the mellowest and most minimal of the lot. warm, gorgeous synth tones lazily drifting by on this one. it strikes me as a bit of a heavenly refrain from complexity; less cerebral and more spiritual.

it's not quite business as usual on the only other track to hit the eleven minute plateau, delays - interference. the title for this piece has a very literal meaning. expect a few different delayed drones and some light distortion, static and white noise. i dig this one a lot and there's some very nice guitar noise attached to the end of it. the disc will end with shimmer and features droney guitar noise for the first two minutes, before switching into minimal static play.

well, what can i say, astilbe rubra surprised the hell out of me. in my list of 2007 favorites, which is in my head, this disc is definitely on there. recommended, obviously.

Bringer

forgiveness c12
[2007, monorail trespassing]

the last cassette in my package from monorail trespassing is from the powerful pairing of labelhead jon borges and like-minded jeff witscher (look out for another project featuring jeff: secret abuse). this duo first came together (on recordings, at least) in 2005 with a release on witscher's callow god, and their collaboration made total sense to me. from a sonic standpoint, these guys' main projects: pedestrian deposit (currently on hiatus while gears have shifted for emaciator) and impregnable, are fairly far apart on the noise spectrum; pedestrian deposit matched unique dynamics with his harsh noise, while impregnable prefers to level everything in front of him with a denser variation that might lack in dynamics, but never comes up short on brutality. well, unless he was eschewing noise entirely, like with beauty stone. despite those differences, the common musical thread between jon and jeff is that they're fans of using subtler, more beautiful moments of ambiance, to clash against their harshness. outside of their sound art, there's the fact that both artists' respective labels share an affinity for eye catching visuals and / or packaging, though jeff's tend to revolve more around sexuality (especially light bondage and sadomasochism). speaking of which, the l.o.d. compilation, which was recently put out on callow god, boasts, quite possibly, the best cover art that i've seen all year. lastly, these two have been known to employ sad, reflective or beautifully depressive, yet simple, names for their releases and track titles.if you've ever seen a video of an atomic bomb going off, you'll know that it's not the main explosion that does all the damage, but rather that explosive ring that radiates from it, obliterating everything its path. that's what this sounds like. sound-wise, forgiveness feels like something more in impregnable's comfort zone (à la the glass body cassette) than any of borges' solo endeavors. it's very much inline with the previous releases from this project: solace and the without belonging double tape. forgiveness is straight up dense noise and is far less dynamically charged than either are capable of, but that really isn't the point. the point is destruction, plain and simple. with that goal in mind, these two have succeeded. loud, turbulent and unrelenting. both sides appear to be from the same session, so there's a lot of commonality between the two. while the density is loud and grating, it isn't wholly encompassing. buried underneath the fracas you can pick up on different noises which gives the huge sound of these works some much needed texture. add to that the occasional shards of feedback and repetitious grinding noises which scream out from the albatross and you've got a real nice tape.

Forgiveness, Side B

secret abuse @ st. louis noise fest '07

next up is disc one of three sent in by oks recordings' bill byrne, from brooklyn, ny.

the quicker are the encumbered 3" cd-r
[2007, lona]

the brooklynite husband and wife duo of bill and suzanne byrne won't stray too far from familiar ground for their release on hong kong's lona records. the biggest change that i'm noticing is how there's far less emphasis placed upon cold, textural compositions, which used to be their bread and butter. following their first release, backwards, broken and incorrectly, the noisy drone thing seemed to be an afterthought (though it really peaked with their tracks on the men in white coats compilation). in its place has been much busier experimentation. actually, i shouldn't say "in its place", because pli's still kind of implementing a cold layer of drone, but it's being buried under a multitude of off kilter instrumentation and sounds.
the strongest vibe that i get from the quick are the encumbered is a spacey one. most of the six tracks on this disc have one or two elements that just give it an alien feel. after an ice cream truck flipped over and we all got some begins with whirling, helicopterish noise, it will slowly retract from the denseness and open up for a few separate layers (some panned) of random tinkering sounds. one of those layers has a weird extraterrestrialesque warble to it. eventually, the noise will start to rise up just in time for the track to... run out of time. the broken elevator's spiral descent has a really appropriate title. this introduces something i hadn't noticed in pli's music before, spastic drum beats. this is matched up perfectly by spacey ambiance and additional sci-fi sounds. it's oddly reminiscent of naked city, sans vocal freak-outs. there's even a bit of saxophone at the end. trippy track, and probably my favorite out of the sextet. they'll follow that one up with a life by the high tension wire, and this one makes me think of lightning bolt. just a little bit. it's really in the musical progression of the main layer. it'll shift focus again to random sounds and percussion, trying to see just how many different things they can throw into one track before the bottom falls out completely. i do find myself wishing that they'd take a less is more approach with some of the tracks. i'm all for layering, but sometimes it just seems a tad excessive. it could also be the fact that i'm hard pressed to pick out key bits which are more memorable and bring about a level of replayability. i am, however, more drawn to the subtler moments like suzanne's affected cello towards the end of everything that comes in stages left in a birthday hat, during the relatively calmer final portion of that track.
the quick are the encumbered is a mini-album that's not short on ideas. that's not always for the best, though. it's not a bad disc, by any stretch of the imagination, but sometimes the jumble of sounds detracted from the more focused moments.

The Broken Elevator's Spiral Descent