Blue Collar is an improv trio consisting of Nate Wooley (trumpet, flugelhorn, voice), Steve Swell (trombone, voice), and Tatsuya Nakatani (percussion). This cd (apparently a companion to an earlier release on a different label, but about that I know little) contains nine slices of musical interaction with titles like "48/1," "110," "31/1," and "48/2." I have no idea what this means, unless it's some reference to time signatures or tempos... but that sure doesn't sound like any time signatures I ever heard of! The material on this disc was recorded in two sessions in September, 2003. The pieces range in length from approximately three to eight minutes, more than enough time in each case for the participants to rock the house. The trio meshes well; it definitely helps to have a percussionist as manic and skilled as Tatsuya to keep the beat under control while the windy ones bleat and chatter like geese honking at each other. I don't know what a flugelhorn looks like, but it sure is capable of making seriously demented sounds. As nifty as Wooley and Swell are, though, it's Tatsuya's imaginative percussion that prove to be the most riveting. Another fine document of unorthodox sound transmission from always-swank Public Eyesore. Big Whiskey, as far as I can tell, are three dudes from New Jersey (more or less) using guitar, keyboards, and drums to fashion surprisingly engaging anti-rock that still manages to rock (in its own peculiar way). They've played (infrequently) with the likes of Lightning Bolt, Nautical Almanac, Monotract, and others of a similar nature from the new wave of improv noise-rock bands, but -- possibly due to their age (I think these guys are largely "old men" like me) and their influences (sixties rock, psychedelia, and metal, along with all the obligatory skronk rock you find in the collections of players in bands such as this) -- they're a lot easier to listen to than many of those bands. They're less about making an unholy racket than they are about live improvisation and finding new, spaced-out ways to rock. For a band with only three members, they manage to make their sound pretty action-packed -- the drummer and the guitarists lock into interstellar hypnogrooves while bursts of sound (from samplers, tapes, and possibly other gadgets) revolve around them. It's not quite structured enough to be "rock," but it wouldn't drive my mama out of the room, either (although I'm pretty sure she wouldn't grok this) -- you can tell what the band is doing and while it frequently sounds out there, you can tell they're making music (extremely odd music, true) as opposed to pure freakout noise or something like that. They come up with a lot of cool sounds, especially the guitarists, and the drummer has some distinctly cool but peculiar ideas about rhythm and percussion. It would be interesting to know what was recorded live and what was recorded in some nameless basement, but alas, the liner notes (actually a folded color insert printed on both side) don't offer any pertinent information other than the titles of the four songs on side A (the other side is blank). This is worth seeking out if you're down with the whole live freakout improv thing. The band Biostatic is actually one of the players from the Seattle experimental electronica act Entropic Advance. Now in Colorado, he has released this limited-edition cd-r on his own label Symbolic Insight, which Parasomnic is helpfully distributing to a wider audience. And well they should, for this is excellent dark-ambient meditation on the ongoing struggle in Iraq, combining news samples, dark and noise-laden drones, tribal beats, chanting, and other layers of texture into a flowing series of brooding soundscapes. As for the quality and direction of the pieces, there are strong echoes of the work of Rapoon, Voice of Eye, Aube, and Scanner in particular. The main bulk of the sound is a vast and shifting sandstorm of electronic hiss and noise over an insistent, hypnotic tribal beat, with voices from the war, commentary from the outside, and sounds of destruction floating up from the background at times only to be sucked back into the bed of noise. What could have been a strident exercise in politics is made more timeless (and less tied to a particular geopolitical situation) by the decision to mix the audio commentary on an equal footing with the rest of the items competing for attention in the mix. The result is a steadily moving cyclone of sound that is not overshadowed by its political message -- if you heard the music without being aware of its origin, it would be possible to miss the political context entirely and just be absorbed by the complex layers of sound. The nifty packaging, a cd-r enclosed in camouflage paper and sealed in a plastic sleeve, is pretty swell too. Highly recommended. Awesome organ droney stuff at the beginning. Sparse percussion and weirdo noodling on various unknown instruments. Random excitements througout. Sounds like seriously stoned people fucking around in a basement, and that rules. Far out-out psych wanderings. More electronics further on in, just gets weirder and weirder. This is cool, I wanna hear more of this for sure. The total lack of info is rad too. Excellent release from Stoned Heath's Fag Tapes imprint. Best tape label since ZSF Produkt? [Dillon Tulk] This short ep (just under 26 minutes) from experimental guitarist Jorge Castro is anchored in heavy amp drone, especially on the opener "Immune." That throbbing drone gives way without warning to abrupt explosions of processed sound, followed by shifting layers of minimalist riffs and heavily repetitive sounds all enveloped in giant washes of delay and reverb. Slow waves of sound are punctuated by high-pitched peals that reverberate endlessly as the sound continues to mutate. "Impulse" is less infatuated with drone (although there's plenty of it there, along with heavy reverb) than with repetition, with a simple chord progression repeated at length and overlaid with digital processing. The sound of "Forward Movement" is harsher and more distorted, but every bit as anchored in drone and repetition, with overdriven feedback guitar and bursts of what sound like glitch electronica. More whole-grain goodness from one of the more consistently interesting guitar experimentalists around today. Charnel Valley is the old-school black metal duo of Czar and Worm, two metal journalists (you may have read their reviews in WORM GEAR and METAL MANIACS) who -- based on the audio evidence of this album -- apparently believe that early black metal is the best black metal. Their primitive, lo-fi sound is very reminiscent of early Sodom, Bathory, and Burzum -- lots of blurred fuzz, cryptic riffs, and tortured vocal bleating. The five songs on this album, sporting titles like "Demonic Science" and "The Beast of Six Thousand Bones," sound like they could have been recorded back in 1991 after ingesting too much caffiene and hearing too many early albums on Noise and Deathlike Silence. The recording, despite its humble bedroom origins and severely limited budget, is far more detailed and atmospheric than one might expect, and filled with a steady blast of no-frills necro sound enlivened by the occasional appearance of startling, mood-shifting riffs. Even the hand-drawn cover fills me with dark nostalgia for the days of Nuclear Death and other fine, cult bands with cheap covers. For the old-school believers in all that is grim, true, and cult. Yes, Virginia... that really is the sound of an accordion sextet, an idea so frightening it fairly makes the mind reel, doesn't it? Fortunately, the boxes being squeezed on this disc are in the hands of sonic jesters Bob Marsh, Dan Cantrell, David Slusser, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, John Finkbeiner, and Ron Heglin, so you know it's probably not going to sound like your traditional polka party... and it doesn't, not even remotely. They spend the first fifteen minutes of the disc, on "Dance," "March," and "Meditation," improvising as a sextet with a surprisingly traditional sound (well, most of the time, anyway), but the rest of the album is devoted to stretching out over the lengthy (24:39) "Tender (Loin) Suite," during which their experimental natures become considerably more evident. The result is an album that's actually one of the more accessible releases in Public Eyesore's vastly eclectic (and often "difficult") catalog, one whose sound is far less ridiculous than the initial idea. It would be amusing to know just how many of the participants had actually played accordion extensively before recording this, but since the album is less about technique than the exploration of sound via unorthodox instruments, it doesn't matter anyway. Bonus points for the amusing name, which appears to have absolutely nothing to do with anything, but boy howdy it sure does sound real purty, doesn't it? I was very impressed with this. It's hard to tell what he's using. Mr. Cook has an excellent grasp on using little pops and hisses well. This whole album is a swirling trip through broken electronic sound... occasional, dare I say 'ambient' bassy tones pop up now and then, but for the most part this is looping, crackly electronics. Glitchy to the core. [Dillon Tulk] Strange noises and instrument abuse radiating from some apartment in the summer of 2005, recorded by Dillon Tulk and Erin Greer. Essentially junk noise, sometimes over intermittent beats. The noise is good, but the beats are great. No vocals (other than snippets looped for strange rhythms, maybe), no structure, no "songs," just muted sonic ugliness and buzzy, processed beats (not drum beats either, but pounding on various items that were probably never intended for use as percussion). Everything else is the liberating sound of noise for the sake of making funny noises.Lots of nice, fuzzed-out guitar sound (not that the guitar, if that's what it really is, ever plays anything one might recognize as actual music -- mostly it's the sound of strings being banged, whanged, and treated rudely in general). The cassette is about twenty minutes long, which is good -- this kind of noise works best in small doses. The brief "liner notes" note that this is the last recording; apparently they broke up, wup wah. Limited to twenty copies, so if it sounds intriguing you'd probably best hop on it.... Just so you know up front: This is a limited edition release of one copy (that's one more finger than no fingers, for those of you who were too busy peeking at the cheerleader's rack when you should have been paying attention to the math teacher), and I am in possession of that copy. So this is a review, then, of a cassette that nobody else will ever hear. Everything I am about to say could well be a complete and utter lie and who would ever know the difference? For all you know, the rumors that John Gavanti sat in on the recording sessions are absolutely true. (Since it would be ethically wrong of me to comment on a recording that could suddenly be worth hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of dollars on Ebay -- assuming, of course, that such a thing were true -- I am afraid my only response, on advice from qualified legal representation, must be "No comment.") Was this recorded on the day that Peter Brotzmann dropped by to borrow a paperback on metaphysics? Was Alicia Witt in the room when these sonic transmissions were recorded? We'll never know, because there's not much in the way of liner notes, alas.... The cassette (with spray-painted shell) comes with a cryptic insert that reveals nothing about the recordings; the shell is spray-painted, damaged, horribly burned with cigarettes; the shell is wrapped (and secured with rubber bands) with fishnet porn. On the back of said fishnet porn it says: "You have Number 1 of 1. Holy shit. Lucky you. Too bad this is a total bullshit waste of time. Recorded live to boombox." That is the sum total of all information given. What's on the tape turns out to be wild, fractured noise, high-pitched guitar bleating, wailing screech feedback from the same, what sounds like cds being destroyed in a trash compactor, and more, over a pleasing bed o' hiss. The next track is more out-of-control reverb+noise guitar howling, really devolved and bowel-shaking stuff, too. Then it turns into a crunchfest that just gets louder and louder in the vein of Macronympha after eating bad speed -- then the disgusting guitar squealing and the efx-pedal abuse begin to alternate, devolving into a wallowing cesspool of filth and sickness. This is followed by lots of tortured, muffled shouting (shades of Mouthus!) and more cryptic blocks of decimated sound, some of it repetitive, some totally freeform, all of it chaotic. Eventually it turns into a steady flow of dadist noise that cuts off abruptly around eighteen minutes. The other side is more devolved noise, natch. At approximately five minutes, just a taste o' the bass or something like that. Too bad you'll never hear it, huh? I was really looking forward to this thing. A trip through lurching feedback, groans, spits, hisses and assorted electronic rangling. Both John and Tovah work excellently off each other, laying down and subtracting bizarre noises in a truly hallucinatory manner. Sides build up and contort and confuse in delightful ways, waves of chirps and oscillations. Electronic wanderings. [Dillon Tulk] The thirteen audio collages on this disc (which comes packaged in a dvd case) is exactly what the title suggests, although perhaps not in the manner one might expect. DeLaurenti is best known for his work in the school of audio collage, and this collection is a series of pieces fashioned from what one assumes are field recordings of his attendance at the protest. (There are no liner notes, so it should be noted that this is an assumption.) Tape hiss and background sounds of traffic and the city frame and surround the fragments of conversation, orders from police, shouting, scanner reports, and other audio evidence of the convention and the protest. In the same manner that Robin Rimbaud used to create sonic collages and fragmentary soundscapes from scanner recordings -- using both conversation and the noisy static around the conversations -- DeLaurenti uses the raw location recordings as source material with which to create layered compositions that reflect the chaos surrounding the event. It's not music meant for casual listening, or even music at all, but rather an artfully arranged document designed to provide evidence of a particular political event. It works more as a carefully constructed document of evidence, available for future reference, than as a recreational listening experience. Having said that, you're probably more likely to get a well-rounded and voluminous picture of the experience by listening to this than by watching CNN. (Had CNN produced this, it would have been thirteen copies of the same track, each minimally "remixed" to be "different" in a vain attempt to hide the fact they're playing the same damn thing over and over, with the narrator promising "breaking new developments any moment now." But I digress.) The run is limited to 100 copies. This is one of the latest releases in Hand/Eye's "Folklore of the Moon" series, a subscription-only run of releases limited to a thousand copies each, released every month from March 2005-March 2006 on every full moon. Each of these releases is an EP recorded on a three-inch cd-r single, making them short and to the point. This outing finds Neddal (guitar, piano, drones / effects, vox) and Carol (vox) assisted by Rome Venier (recording, technical assistance) and Pete Dominas (recording, keyboards, drums, and more technical assistance) in getting that blues-laden, drone-soaked experimental sound down just right. The opener, "cold," sounds like Robert Fripp getting mugged by Hubert Sumlin in a back alley a few hundred yards downwind of an electronica festival with the DJ's cd player stuck on repeat; "devil's light" is basically Carol singing over a lot of loud, diabolical riffing and strange electronic sounds -- all of which segues into "over," an insistent rhythmic shuffle that occupies a strange triangle of sound bounded by pop, techno, and drone, when it's not being broken apart by electronic frippery. Following the brief reprise of "cold," the final track "starlight" is built around piano and vocals and sparsely leavened with glitch electronica. I have no idea how the disc compares with the rest of the series, but this one is certainly an interesting example of the band's continuing evolution in sound. Ahhh, another offering from the Double Leopards. This is a nice one. The first track "Inmost Light" wades on in a very nice manner. Sluuuuuudgey fucking bass tones kind of pulsating in the background... murky tape loops... while weird mechanical insect hums and buzzes fly all around... feedback breathing through. Excellent. The second track "Chemical Wedding" offers more of the same. I assume these were all recorded in a close period of time. This one offers different dynamics, with more chirpy strangeness bleeping everywhere... watery burps. Brass instruments drone and build. "white cadillac," the 20 minute close is a force to be reckoned with. An ever-changing mess of feedback clatter, and droning subliminal rhythyms. Human voices break through the fog occasionally. A warped and murky vision of another time and place. [Dillon Tulk] No telling who's responsible for the devolved sounds on this disc, since no info is given outside of the titles, but there are interesting moments in the chaos-theory approach here. The sound is a mix of abused instruments, collage, ambient drone, and random clattering, sometimes with shouting over the top, sometimes not. Diseased rhythms that sound like they're folding back on themselves are the only real nod to structure -- the rest of the time it's all about unpredictability and chaos, more antimusic than anything conventional. The quieter, more ambient moments are a welcome surprise, though, and do nicely to provide momentary respite from the manic bursts of damaged sound. The tinny toy piano on "Dear Razel" is nice too, but unfortunately doesn't last anywhere near long enough. Some of their sounds are peculiar enough to invite speculation as to the nature of their origins, although the vocalist's "quirky" (to put it mildly) style may be the ultimate barrier for some listeners. Is this the sound of asylum inmates demolishing disco? Could be.... This is not "new" in any sense of the word. In fact, the music on these two discs is quite a bit less than new, dating back to material recorded from 1978-1980. Nevertheless, this reissue is a pretty essential item. For those not familiar with the Roky Erickson story, the former singer for the legendary Texas psychedelic band The Thirteenth Floor Elevators tried to avoid doing time over a marijuana bust in the early seventies by spending a few years in the psych ward at Rusk instead. He emerged from the institution in even worse shape than when he had first entered, and spent the next couple of decades being written off as the American answer to British acid-casualty Syd Barrett, living in government-subsidized housing with a dozen televisions turned up full blast to drown out the voices in his head. In similar fashion to the way Jim O'Rourke managed to kickstart John Fahey's career by rescuing him from oblivion and homelessness to record his 1997 landmark album WOMBLIFE, King Coffey (Butthole Surfers, Trance Syndicate) and various other concerned parties in a position to make a difference started taking steps to put Roky back in control of his back catalog for the first time. Shortly thereafter, Roky's brother Sumner took over his guardianship and Roky began to show marked signs of improvement, even making public appearances again and doing interviews. One of the most welcome developments in all of this activity has been the reissue of Roky's back catalog (or some of it, at least) in a respectable manner. Prior to the recent spate of reissues, most -- if not all -- of Roky's output has been out of print, save for the possible exception of two low-key solo albums on Trance Syndicate and Emperor Jones, or available only as mediocre bootlegs or questionable import albums. THE EVIL ONE, the album Roky cut for CBS that was released in Europe in 1980 (then in the States on 415, with a different track listing), remains probably his best and most coherent single artistic statement, not to mention one of the greatest pure rock and roll albums of all time... and it's been out of print for nearly two decades, thanks to all the murky legal issues surrounding Roky's career for so long. Until now. Thanks to Sympathy for the Record Industry, this double-disc compilation is now available, featuring the original album in its entirety (including tracks from the US and UK versions) on one disc and a recording of the band appearing live on THE MODERN HUMANS RADIO SHOW on August 20, 1979. It also comes with a nice summary of Roky's career and the circumstances surrounding the recording of the original material, which is nice, but you don't need the liner notes to recognize the signs of genius when the band starts to play and Roky opens his mouth. I don't know much about the original running order of the album (which appeared in two very different versions, each with a completely different cover, on CBS in the UK and 415 Records in the US), but the combined track listing works nicely. The first disc opens up with the staggering triple-threat of "Two Headed Dog," "I Think of Demons," and "Creature with the Atom Brain"; the rest of the album is one track after another of good to genuinely great psychedlic rock, including classics like "Don't Shake Me Lucifer," "Bloody Hammer," "I Walked with a Zombie," and the mesmerizing "Stand for the Fire Demon." The entire compilation is worth owning just for this disc alone. The sound is brilliant (I'm guessing they remastered it from the original tapes, but the liner notes provide no clue, so it's strictly a guess), the songs are great, and Roky sounds completely possessed -- what more could you ask for? The second disc is taken from a radio show on KJSO radio, recorded after the sessions but before the album was released, and is essentially a run-through of most of the material on the first disc, played live and sometimes different arrangements. The songs are broken up by segments from the show featuring the DJ and the band. This disc is interesting, but nowhere near as essential as the first disc. The sound is really good, though, so it's nice that they included it in the package. If you're not yet familiar with Roky's world of creatures, demons, and zombies, this is definitely the place to start. Growing's contribution to this disc is a twenty-odd minute piece entitled "Firmament." Apparently it was recorded back in 2002, which makes sense, as it recalls the burbling drone of the more serene songs on THE SKY'S RUN INTO THE SEA. Mark Evan Burden's (Get Hustle, Glass Candy, The Sileatist) slightly shorter piece (fifteen-odd minutes), entitled "10/24/02," steals the show. Burden opens with some squalling feedback before jumping into some absolutely insane piano (keyboard) runs. I'm not entirely sure, but it sounds to me as if the first "movement" may have been sped up; if not -- fuck! The second section continues the intense playing, but at a more human (yet no less impressive) tempo. The third movement devolves into noodling and feedback before running into more melodic territory, with Burden playing a pretty minor key theme. The piece moves into a more minimalist direction with Burden playing a handful of notes before taking up a darker, more ominous progression. Burden ends the piece by moving back into more melodic, almost pretty territory. It's quite a ride. The two pieces complement each other quite nicely. The Growing track is quite good, but isn't much of a departure from the material that appears on their albums. The Burden track blew me away and I'm anxious to hear more. [n/a] This is a bizarre idea, to put it mildly: Erik Hinds (of Athens, GA) an improvisational musician who normally plays improvised music on quartertone electric guitar, Big Red harp guitar, and most importantly -- since it's the sole instrument employed on this album -- the "devil cello" (actually the H'arpeggione, an upright twelve-stringed acoustic instrument), has recorded a tribute to Slayer's landmark album REIGN IN BLOOD. The ten pieces on this album are not so much straightforward covers (which probably wouldn't be all that recognizable anyway, given the vast differences in instrumentation between the original album and this one) as they are inspired reworkings of each song's general rhythmic and melodic palette. In the process of interpreting pieces written around drums and electric guitars for a solo player on the H'arpeggione, he throws away some parts, combines others, and improvises from there; the result are songs that share some of the basic building blocks of the originals, but have a much, much different sound than the Slayer album. Those expecting a standard-issue recreation of the current standard-bearer of thrash metal will be severely disappointed. Aside from the vast difference in sound between metal guitars and drums versus one lonesome unamplified devil cello, only a handful of these reinterpretations are even remotely recognizable -- most notably "necrophobic," "reborn," and "postmortem" (the intro to "raining blood" will be immediately familiar to those who have heard the original album, but after that things start getting tricky in a hurry). This is not the violent, amp-frying sound of heavy metal, but the sound of enthusiastic hillbillies infatuated with heavy metal. If DELIVERANCE had been filmed in the nineties rather than this seventies, this is what they would have been playing at the beginning of the movie instead of "Dueling Banjos." If you're not so hung up on rigidly faithful covers, though, you'll find that the music is pretty interesting and that Hinds is a highly skilled player. Fans of Jeff Hannemann's metronome-like melodic riffing while appreciate the way Hinds flaps his fingers across the frets of his devil cello. I suppose this would be a good point to note that the album is entirely instrumental -- no pained devil shrieks here, which is probably just as well. This album would be interesting even without the Slayer tie-in; Agent Smolken would approve of this disc. Slayer fans in the improv community (and fans of h'arpeggione music in general) should find this of interest. On this, their sixth release, Duluth, Minnesota's If Thousands deliver fifteen stark, haunting dronescapes that evoke the loneliness (and beauty) inherent in wide open spaces. The album opens with "Push," a track whose droning organ and chattering guitars brings to mind Ry Cooder's work on the PARIS, TEXAS soundtrack. "Providence" is a dark, brooding piece, which sets up the flying saucer landing electronic flourishes of "Cymbal" nicely. "Children with Horns" (great title, and potentially a great band name) is more layered, with a horn section skronking over a drone bed. Within the context of the rest of the album the carnivalesque organ and upbeat, percussive plucking of "Crispin Glover" may seem slightly out of place, but again, the short piece serves to prepare the listener for another surprise; after a dronefest entitled "Alpha," the album ends with a sidestep into some high-lonesome banjo picking courtesy of Paul Metzger. Had If Thousands main-men Christian McShane and Aaron Melina just strung these songs together, they would have had a kick-ass disc. Their close attention to sequencing and the ebb and flow of the songs makes it brilliant. [n/a] The trio I sometimes like to think of as the unofficial Public Eyesore house band returns with an album disguised as a series of motives and a cryptic title. The trio, of course, remains: Michael Khoury (violin), Jason Shearer (clarinet), and Benjamin Hall (percussion). The seven pieces here, with titles like "Motive 8" and "Motive 4," are essentially tonal exercises in abstract expressionism with the violin and clarinet interacting freely (sometimes violently) over an unusual (and frequently unpredictable) bed of irregular percussion, creating lively and unexpected tones and patterns. The squeaking, rasping violin is often the backbone of a given piece, while the clarinet provides counterpoint in the form of frenzied bursts of notes and sometimes pure noise. Some of the album's most entertaining sounds come exploding from the clarinet, which gets quite a beating in Shearer's hands and mouth over the seven outings. Throughout it all, Hall's percussion is both assured and unfathomable, and about as predictable as the wind. No information is given on the circumstances behind the recordings, although given the presence of applause at the end of "Motive 8," it's safe to assume at least some of these are live performances. Another swell outing for the trio. Kumisuru is a new name to me, and I'm still not completely sure how this turned up in my review pile -- I think it came with the Public Eyesore discs, but don't quote me on that -- but that's all right: I know good, down-home acid-friend Japanese psychedelic improv when I hear it. Kumisuru, it appears, is a trio of Yagihashi Tsukasa (alto saxophone), Sato Yukie (electric guitar, "electro-goods"), and Higo Hiroshi (electric bass, "electro"). The disc contains six relatively lengthy freeform psych jams, all recorded in the studio by Fujita Satoshi on March 5, 2003. The sound that results is something akin to Acid Mothers Temple after taking downers and kicking out all the vocalists, then drinking acid-spiked smart drinks and disassembling their instruments while still plugged in. The trio, at the core, are an improv band of the variety that could easily be found on a Public Eyesore disc, but with considerably more of a psychedelic bent than most of their American and European improv contemporaries. The presence of the alto sax keeps the proceedings firmly grounded in free-jazz tradition, but the guitar and bass are definitely getting their marching orders from the psych wing of the improvisational school. It's an interesting listening experience; I had never given thought to the possibilities of a merger of free-jazz and psych, but it turns out to be a most interesting sound. I can't get over how ridiculous this band is. Everything I hear from them is different and completely crazy. Is there a fucking GOAT on the first track? I have no idea how they do this. It's noise, but there are so many bizzarre things going on, comforting sounds, silly sounds, gross sounds...they lay songs together in a way most noise acts can't...This is a CATCHY album, I'll say that. I could probably even play this for people I know that don't listen to noise and they'd be interested, at the very least, by the schizophrenic song-arrangements and pop feel. "Bored" is going to be in my fucking head all week.Track 3 sounds like a teen-pop song being covered by two teenage girls on cough-syrup...with all the wrong instruments. The album closes with this epic... and I mean EPIC crawler. Rumbling static and all sorts of creeping, sneaky feedback in the mix. Have to give them credit on the mixing... overwhelmingly hallucinatory to satisfying results. [Dillon Tulk] Canadian multi-instrumentalist Aidan Baker began releasing doom-ambient epics under the name Nadja in 2003, after several similiar but far less metallic and doomlike solo albums under his own name; at some point Leah Buckareff joined on bass and vocals. Now the duo is best known for a kind of droning ambient doom metal distantly related to the kind of slo-mo churn being put out in buckets lately by the likes of Sunn O))) and Pelican. While Nadja shares the same fondness for epic length, cloud-speed tempos, and rumbling low end as most of the current crop of drone-metal bands (and in fact has issued splits with Moss and Methadrone), their use of electronics sets them apart from the rest. Their references points are probably a bit different as well; while I'm sure they're just as hep to Earth's second album and PURE-era Godflesh as everyone else, I have the feeling they're just as equally influenced by the likes of Lamonte Young and Tod Dockstader. On this particular album, the drones are huge, deep, and plentiful, shot through with unusual electronic soundscapes, although the vocals are really only upfront in "breakpoint." Those entranced by all things epic will approve that the album has only three lengthy songs. The opening track, "bug/golem," is by far the heaviest of the bunch and the closest to anything resembling "traditional" doom, while "memory leak" strikes an interesting balance between doom and experimental electronics. The sound of "breakpoint" moves a bit further from doom and into more experimental realms, without ever totally abandoning the doom aesthetic. All of the songs are slow, enveloped in layers of pure sound and heavy reverb, and designed to make your speakers shake their way off the shelf one excruciating millimeter at a time. This is way better than the whole bunch of new slo-mo doom metal practitioners currently being fawned over in the mainstream press. You'll be sorry later if you don't at least check it out, you know that, don't you? This is definitely the most fractured, drugged Nautical album I've ever heard. There is so much shit going on... it definitely freaked me out. The mixing/editing on this is superb... they take away and give you just what you need, panned in trippy ways... I didn't know what to expect while listening to this. And there is a recurring like... skipping kind of sound. I can't describe it, it sounds like Twig's voice is 'losing power' or something sometimes. Not even past the first song and I'm never going to be the same again. This is an excellent album, maybe my favorite of 2005. This is a genre of it's own. Nautical are one of those bands that successfully create their own little world with their music...this can't be described in human terms. A totally engrossing and frightening album, simultaneously jarring and comforting... the psychedelic experience in a musical embodiment. [Dillon Tulk] Imagine 13 if they had stretched their songs out to ten plus minutes, pounding the same simple chord progressions monotonously until they became the mantric, ceremonial soundtrack to rituals of solvent huffing and obsessively watching nth-generation dubbed copies of unedited Italian cannibal movies (a solemn metal tradition the current generation of pissy "aryan" black metallers miss in their avowedly dull, drug-free lifestyle). Or Hellhammer if they had had the balls to really pound the living shit out of "Triumph of Death." Such is Obskure Torture, a one band from Denmark full of the sort of epic misanthropy most often associated with the unemployable band of once and future ex-cons who write for DEAD ANGEL. I've accepted that the world is probably going to end in the next five years and I sure as fuck hope I can get to a cd player and put on "Summon the Spirits of War" before it does. Three descending chords, lugubriously pounding drums and a bridge that could only be called uptempo if you're a fan of drinking cough syrup and listening to the screwed and chopped version of Winter's INTO DARKNESS. If you've ever heard Countess' amazing track "Totenkopf (Satan's Soldaten)" (from SHINING SWORDS OF HATE) and wanted something similarly nihilistic and swathed in a fog of toxic guitar huzz, well, here you go. [gafne rostow] I don't even know what to say about this. I highly reccomend picking this up. Two people named Lisi and Dino making some of the fucking WIERDEST music ever. It sounds like little kids improvising actual songs... cheap synth sounds and drum machine fuckery... childlike voices singing about some interesting stuff... doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Some parts get really wild and harsh... but for the most part it's just silly "songs" improvised on random equipment. Sounds Casio-heavy but I'm sure they've got a lot of tricks up their sleeves. I was really impressed with this album, never heard of anything like it... it's like being in a video game on DMT or something! [Dillon Tulk] Never heard lick one of this guy's music til now but this is delicious. The [animal] + [body part] name had me thinking Wolf Eyes (I lack imagination), but the sound here is a sickly, washed out hum of damaged radio and tape hiss-static with distant thrums and hisses that sound like a disturbingly irregular, viscous tide. Like having a subway tunnel through your brain full of angry bees howling "KILL! SLEEP! KILL!" as you hallucinate on the black and sandy shores of a 300 degree desert. Or the soundtrack to a 30-minute version of BEGOTTEN that is somehow edited into an interesting movie. I've listened to this thing six or seven times over the past two days. It's really fucking good. [gafne rostow] Rarefaction is a minimalist duo from NYC, singer Mad Tristan and multi-instrumentalist Jerold H. Their sonic palette is derived from a healthy range of influences, mostly electronic and punk in nature, but the major component of their sound is a trinity of sparse arrangements, elegant vocals, and a bass sound that owes a huge debt to New Order-era Peter Hook. The sound of the songs on this cd-r (a sampler of tunes available for download to the public on their Myspace page) remind me a lot of late-eighties records like the Cure's PORNOGRAPHY, early New Order, Kate Bush, Wire, This Mortal Coil, Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins... in other words, bands with a sound built around minimal arrangements and maximum tone / atmosphere. The production is really sparse but atmospheric, and the songs are stripped-down but well-constructed. I like this a lot. I'm looking forward to hearing the band's debut album, scheduled to appear sometime in 2006. Exactly as the name implies, what we have here is a collection of unreleased recordings of Scissortail in action, both live and in the bedroom. Said action, for those not already aware, entails the sound of pedals being tortured to death. Jolts of harsh electronic death meet Casio tones and are swept away in tides of feedback. There's some creative pedal abuse happening here, and the different recording environments and ever-changing pile of pedals make the individual pieces (short, mostly) sound distinctively different from track to track, which is nice. There are no titles, track listings, or other unnecessary information to get in the way of feeding your ears. The recording environments are generally a bit on the lo-fi side, but that just makes the sound crunchier, if not necessarily louder (then again, some of these sounds at full volume might permanently damage your inner ear, so maybe that's not such a bad thing). Like most outbursts, this one is short -- about twenty minutes, just enough for some full-on destruction, not long enough to grow boring. Swell, swell stuff, especially if you're down with old-school power electronics. Looooow feedback boggler. Scraping sounds over endless low. Wait, now theres a slowly morphing clipping sound. The looping high pitched creek sneaking around is freaking me out. Now its in the foreground and it almost feels like something is whispering. Here comes that sweet rumble! The other side is kind of the same fare... with some sweet slowlow delay weirdness and field-recording tripping at the end. Excellent offering from Aaron Dilloway's Hanson imprint. [Dillon Tulk] I'm rarely as impressed with Sunn O))) as I am with Khanate, but this is a really good album. The band, by now (rightly or wrongly) the most popular exponent of groaning, droning doom, continues the experimentation they started on the WHITE series, but this time delving far more deeply into black metal and noise territory. Inviting guests to contribute to the sonic chaos certainly doesn't hurt either, particularly when said guests are Wrest (black metal vocalist and member of Leviathan, Twilight, etc.), Oren Ambarchi (drums, electronics, etc.), Malefic (Xasthur, Twilight), and noisehead John Weise of Bastard Noise. As a result of the involvement of said luminaries, two things immediately elevate this to a higher plateau than previous releases: One, the black metal vocalists bring a dark and forbidding feel to material that would have previously been more amorphous; two, the additional instrumentation and textures provided by Ambarchi and Weise contribute greatly to adding texture and heft to the throbbing bed of drone. They also get bonus points on "Bathory Erszebet" for slowing a Hellhammer riff down immensely and having Malefic deliver his suffocating vocals from inside a coffin. The fact that the band has been playing live a lot shows as well, namely in an improved sense of dynamics and pacing. Rarely has the band been this consistently loud, noisy, and disturbing. And no, I have no idea why twelve of the booklet's sixteen pages are completely blank save for one small, cryptic piece of art in the corner. Perhaps the typesetter got drunk and "lost" the liner notes. Perhaps the band really likes the color black. We'll never know and it doesn't particularly matter, does it? Sunn O))) -- BLACK ONE [Southern Lord] How does one even begin to describe this? It's less music than an impression of sounds: wind, the earth rumbling, the skies cracking and falling -- sounds of an apocalypse of slow and creeping inevitability. There is no hope for future survival, all is doomed to the eventual and fateful annihilation of the very essence of life. Nothing can exist here except a noxious, quivering and impenetrable fog, lit by great towers of flame like some bleeding tear in the fabric of even the fog's ephemeral body. The earth no longer lives, all is ash and dust and fire. A roaring wind overlays it all, blowing endlessly, intent on rooting out any living things that remain and tearing them apart, throwing them into the maw of the fire-wounded fog. The voices emanating from the fog on occasion are as the howls of the doomed, the dead, the dying begins sacrificed on the altar of oblivion, crying out in a last agony, praying less for the return of their life than for the quick cessation of it. The monotony is pounding and insistent -- not the sort you can ignore, it instead demands you pay full mind to it. And in truth would you really want to turn your back on your own impending doom? Better to stare it in the face as it slithers towards you, seeking to extinguish your tiny flame. Mercilessly, growling with the hunger of ages, it moves onwards, dragging you with it, forcing you to watch. This ageless and consciousless sludge is nevertheless a many textured beast: the sorrowful cries of despair in "It Took the Night to Believe," the glacial atmosphere of "Sin Nanna," and there's nothing one can say to do justice to "Orthodox Caveman" -- words fall appallingly short. In the end truly The End we are left alone on a plain of ash and fire, surrounded by the encroaching fog, our ears full of the moaning wind. Without the will to fight, one can only surrender to the monstrous hunger of The Void. [Amanda] The debut from Austin's Charles Sweatt is an odd one: Dark-sounding rhythmic noise like metallic howling over loops, game sounds, and other sonic effluvia, accompanied by muffled grunting / shouting / weird mouth noises. Much of the time the many and varied background noises are overrun by an out-of-control demon shrieker, some diabolical device or input turned up real loud and distorted in such a fashion as to sound like a shrieking metal bellows. As the piece progresses, there are unsettling dropouts in addition to the increased cacaphony, adding to the listener's disorientation. The sound eventually returns to the strategy of muffled voices, crashing about, and largely random noise in the background before abruptly segueing into barely-audible field recordings of the neighborhood... then someone picks up the recorder and starts futzing around, and before too long scrabbling bursts of harsh noise, loops, and overamplified sound blocks have crashed the party for good. What follows is lots of crunchy noise (and plenty of unexpected dropouts) and , toward the end, ridiculously distorted bass riffing and a toy-keyboard finale, along with more heavy bass tones and other electronic / guitar abuse. The entire cassette is filled with plenty of moments of thunderous noise and plenty of unexpected surprises, but the most interesting thing about this recording is its tone -- harsh but not overly metallic (at least when the demon shrieker is hiding), loud without being totally over-the-top, with a darker, more dubbed-out tone than I normally expect to hear from a noise cassette. in This was recorded in one afternoon by Sweatt with assistance from Scissortail noisemaker Dillon Tulk and incorporates old recordings from Sweatt's childhood, recent recordings (solo and accompanied), and material featuring Gina Gutierrez making other noises. "The stalker's tread." We've all read about it, seen it in the movies -- the steady and slow footsteps of a deranged and slobbering murderer slowly yet inexorably closing the gap between knife / machete / hydraulic cyborg jaw / rake) and throat. Sword Heaven seem to base their entire aesthetic around it, from the lopsided stutter of processed acoustic drums to the scrape of shards of broken metal, the spare and taunting electronics and slurred, gibberish mumbling chants. Like death coming up the stairs; you can't tear yourself away. SEE THEM LIVE. (Maybe I just inordinately love this band because they've got song titles like "Cults of New Jersey" and "Take Shelter Nordic Howlers." But, you know, what the hell? They're heavy as two tons of fuck and they don't play instruments. Drums aren't an instrument!) [gafne rostow] Shades of Aube -- here Tsukasa, who plays alto sax on the Kumisuru disc reviewed elsewhere in this issue, serves up twelve cryptic blocks of sound made from the heavily-processed sound of pen on paper. One would expect such a simple and minimal sound transmission device would result in a static series of monochromatic sounds, but no, the pieces are distinctly varied. The pieces were recorded from April to June of 2004 in Chiba, Japan, and I suspect the cover drawings are samples of the original source material. Those familiar with Aube's early strategies with the use of one unusual sound source to create many varied soundscapes will recognize the technique at work here, although Tsukasa's preference for reverb and unpredictable movements drag the pieces out of the realm of pure noise and into the borderlands of improv. No matter what you call it, this is definitely not pop music, and the tones can get harsh -- turn this up too loud and some of the more grotesque sounds may turn your speakers into toast. For bonus points and an additional good time, play this on your boombox while walking down the street and see what happens. Probably the easiest way to get a grasp on Tunnel of Love's eccentric sound is to imagine the Cramps, only obsessed with trashy pop and obscure film soundtracks rather than rockabilly and exotica. Essentially the solo work of San Francisco artist Jeff Wagner, a multi-instrumentalist with a voice somewhere between Lux Interior's sleazy yelp and Jim Carroll's hyperactive sneer, the average Tunnel of Love album is a funhouse ride through primitive pop that sounds tailor-made for low-budget exploitation flicks. The seventeen tracks here are mostly pop tunes and soundtrack bits driven by insanely cheap keyboards and an overdriven guitar sound that shouldn't work in this context, but does marvelously nevertheless; the songs are catchy and well-crafted, and Wagner's ideas about the juxtaposition of the perfect techno-rhythm in the perfect pop song with truly grotesque and dissonant sounds echo the disturbed pop genius of Cheer Accident's THE WHY ALBUM. The noisy element makes more sense when you realize that Wagner played in noisy bands like Sharking Teeth and Jumpknuckle in the nineties, but while the skillful application of diseased sounds and teeth-grinding guitar dissonance are fun to hear, it's the unabashed catchy pop at the core of these songs that make the album worthy of attention. What the world obviously needs is a touring double-bill of Flaming Fire and Tunnel of Love, just to shake up the masses in need of dazing and confusing. Syndromes- Playful psychedelic twitters, chirps. Some cool sneaky layers moving around. Droney and trippy. The introduction of various weird mangled loops enchances the journey. I think this is the first in the EARS ONLY cd-r series from Spring Garden Music, but then again, it's awfully recent -- the improvised sounds of this trio (Paul Neidhardt on percussion, Jack Wright on soprano and alto sax, and Andy Hayleck on saw) were recorded in Neidhardt's loft in Baltimore on September 12, 2005. (That's one of the nice things about cd-r labels -- the span between an album's recording and release can be very short indeed, when the label's so inclined.) Neidhardt is "known for his work with rosined rods on the drumhead at Hi Zero performances" and was once in a math-rock band, not that you'd ever know it from this recording; he's also apparently down with John Cage, which is considerably more evident. Wright's contribution of soprano and alto sax generally takes a back seat to the bizarre sonic possibilities of Hayleck's use of a "saw" (actually bowing cymbals in such a fashion as to emulate the sound of sheet metal in general and saw-flexing sound in particular). The music that results often sounds like stunted, hiccuping drones; sawtooth waves and edgy sounds prevail in dense, elongated trills of sound that are abruptly punctuated by minimal percussion. The sound they get on this album is genuinely strange and disorienting, mostly due to the saw's distinctive and otherworldly sound. Bone-rattling experiments in the borderlands between harsh noise and free jazz. This, the second in the EARS ONLY cd-r series from Spring Garden Music, is the documentation of recordings made in 1999 by Todd Whitman (alto, baritone saxes) and Jack Wright (soprano, alto, tenor saxes) to preserve a record of their playing as a duo and separately. (According to the liner notes, Wright attempted recordings on several occasions that were plagued by technical complications before apparently managing to capture their sound successfully in 1999.) Whitman contributes three solo pieces (two alto, one baritone) and Wright contributes one tenor solo ("balled"), and the remaining ten pieces are the two of them playing in various combinations. The results are spirited and largely steeped in the tradition of European free jazz. The recording nicely captures the sound of the artists at work; the revealing liner notes from Jack Wright are a nice touch as well. The packaging is uncluttered and functional -- a folded sleeve with liner notes, art, and a cd fastener, plus an insert with the track listing and dispensation of solos / duets, all in a resealable clear vinyl sleeve. A simple but elegant (and economical) way to continue your exploration of improvised sound.
All reviews are by RKF unless noted at the end. Other reviewers are: Amanda, Frankenstoner, Gafne Rostow, Dillon Tulk, and Neddal Ayad (n/a).
Public Eyesore
Blue Collar -- LOVELY HAZEL [Public Eyesore]
White Tapes
Big Whiskey
Big Whiskey -- HATS OFF TO (RYAN) TAYLOR [White Tapes]
Parasomnic Records
Biostatic
biostatic -- BLOOD FOR OIL [Symbolic Insight / Parasomnic Records]
Fag Tapes
The Cases -- S/T 1 [Fag Tapes]
Public Eyesore
Jorge Castro
Jorge Castro -- CINETICA [Public Eyesore]
Paragon Records
Charnel Valley
Charnel Valley -- THE DARK ARCHIVES [Paragon Records]
Public Eyesore
Bob Marsh
Dan Cantrell
David Slusser
Ernesto Diaz-Infante
John Finkbeiner
Ron Heglin
The Che Guevara Memorial Marching (and Stationary) Accordion Band -- s/t [Public Eyesore]
Public Eyesore
Eric Cook
Eric Cook -- ASYMPTOSY [Public Eyesore]
Green Ox Sound
Coyote Necks -- BROKEN HOLES [Green Ox Sound]
Green Ox Sound
Coyote Necks -- RECORD # 2 [Green Ox Sound]
Hanson Records
Dead Machines -- MINISTER TO A MIND DISEASED [Hanson Records]
Christopher DeLaurenti
Christopher DeLaurenti -- LIVE IN NEW YORK AT THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION PROTEST (September 2 - August 28, 2004) [Real Change]
Hand/Eye
the does
The Does -- FULL BEAVER MOON (Folklore of the Moon series, Vol. IX) [Hand/Eye]
Troubleman Unlimited
Double Leopards
Double Leopards -- A HOLE IS TRUE [Troubleman Unlimited]
Public Eyesore
Eftus Spectun
Fetus Spectun -- THE TOCKS CLICKING [Public Eyesore]
SFTRI
Roky Erickson
Roky Erickson and the Aliens -- THE EVIL ONE (PLUS ONE) [SFTRI]
Zum Records
Growing
Mark Evan Burden
Growing / Mark Evan Burden -- split cd [Zum Records]
Solponticello
Erik Hinds
Erik Hinds -- REIGN IN BLOOD [Solponticello]
Silber Records
If Thousands
If Thousands -- I HAVE NOTHING [Silber Records]
Public Eyesore
Khoury / Shearer / Hall -- BRAILLE [Public Eyesore]
Jab Rec
Sato Yukie
Higo Hiroshi
Kumisuru -- s/t [Jab Rec Label]
Public Eyesore
The Machine Gun TV -- GO [Public Eyesore]
Alien 8 Recordings
Nadja
Nadja -- TRUTH BECOMES DEATH [Alien 8 Recordings]
Here See
Nautical Almanac
Nautical Almanac -- COVER THE EARTH [Here See]
Time Before Time
Obskure Torture -- NECRO RITUALS [Time Before Time]
Public Eyesore
ONID
ISIL
ONID + ISIL -- s/t [Public Eyesore]
SNSE
Panther Skull -- SLOTH WAVE [SNSE]
Rarefaction
Rarefaction -- VOX DEMOS [self-released]
Green Ox Sound
Scissortail
Scissortail -- OUTBURSTS: PUBLIC + HIDDEN VOL. 1 [Green Ox Sound]
Hanson Records
Spine Scavenger -- S/T [Hanson Records]
Southern Lord
Sunn O)))
Sunn O))) -- BLACK ONE [Southern Lord]
Green Ox Sound
Charles Sweatt -- PAC SHROOM FEVER [Green Ox Sound]
Sword Heaven
Sword Heaven -- SACRED DOOR [self-released]
Public Eyesore
Yagihashi Tsukasa -- AUTOMATIC [Public Eyesore]
Glorious Alchemical
Tunnel of Love
Tunnel of Love -- FURY TOWN [Glorious Alchemical Co.]
Hanson Records
v/a -- UNDERGROUND SERIES VOL. 1 [Hanson Records]
The Nevari Butchers - Intense cruddy raging. Who knows what's going on. A real thick, hammering loop comes in with some blooming feedback accompaniment and really sweetens up the feel... lulling you into a state of stoned possession as voices from seemingly nowhere start to creep into the place. Excellent.
Raionbashi - Gross. Manipulated tapes of vocal tortures (by Mr. R. Eb.er). Various ugly mouth sounds arranged and reconfigured (by Mr. T. Harper) into a pretty unsettling but exciting track full of moaning and choking and stuff.
Lee Rockey - Chirping electronics and violin. Interesting. The electronic mess gets weirder as it goes.
John Wiese - Oh Shit. Excellent. Confusing intro then full-on into a lulling black hole of high tones and a wavering moaning sound. Joined by blippy flutters and totally trippy and amazing like all Wiese. Leads into an echoey plink buzz hum madhouse. So good.
Twig Parker- Weirdo crud. All sorts of wacky stuff going on. Voice and electronics magician mess. Really awesome and more and more bizarre through till the end.
All in all, a really fucking rad release from Hanson! Can't wait for number two with Oubliette, Smegma, Sick Llama and other awesome shit! [Dillon Tulk]
Spring Garden Music
Wright / Neidehart / Hayleck -- WHOOSH [Spring Garden Music]
Spring Garden Music
Wright / Whitman -- TWIST AND THRALL [Spring Garden Music]