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Jazkamer – Matthew 28:17 (Pica Disk) 2010

Posted in Jazkamer, Lasse Marhaug, noise with tags , , , on July 12, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

Matthew 28:17 was the August release in Jazkamer’s fantastic monthly series of 2010. What sets this one apart from others (in addition to the awesome cover art by Government Alpha) in the series is the massive dose of drama  that makes it one of the best releases in Jazkamer’s entire catalogue. Here we find Jazkamer up to all sorts of noisy goodness. The epic drugged-out guitar of the first track, Psychedelic Buzz Aldrin and Pragmatic Albert Hoffman, is locked behind an impenetrable wall of fuzz and drone. The walls of noise become sentient, surging masses in Cosmic Cookies which envelop and almost strangle that same retro psychedelic guitar in a winner-takes-all death roll. There is an over riding “space” influence on Matthew 28:17 but their is no sign of the celestial bliss that might accompany such a theme. I own a lot of Jazkamer records and I can’t recall ever hearing them embrace psychedelic noise in such an overt way. In fact it is a very good starting point if you’ve ever wanted to dabble in the vast Jazkamer world.

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Dylan Nyoukis – Owl Tapes (Chocolate Monk) 2007

Posted in Dylan Nyoukis, Music, noise with tags , , on July 11, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

My favourite Invisible Jukebox feature in the Wire was when they asked Dylan Nyoukis to participate. If the transcript is correct then he seemed to get rather upset at the suggestion that his Chocolate Monk label has an aesthetic of some type. I couldn’t care less either way but for all of his protestations that his label is not an arbiter of taste the fact is that Chocolate Monk have released records by some great bands. In fact the Chocolate Monk website is where every fan of noise and other strange sounds should spend some time. Initially I went to his website to pick up a Family Battle Snake CDR that I had heard great things about. When it arrived this was also included.

As much as I like Family Battle Snake it is Nyoukis’s Owl Tapes that I found the morefascinating release.  Although he gets heaped in with the harsh noise crowd I reckon you could draw a line between the weirdo tape experiments of Nurse With Wound and Owl Tapes. Nyoukis uses his own voice to set the tone and his growls, mutters, breathes, screams and snorts certainly make for an uneasy listen. It also happens to be awonderfully compelling document of difficult experimental music.

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Merzbow – Yaho-Niwa (Nuun) 2011

Posted in Merzbow, Music, noise with tags , , on July 3, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

This is Merzbow’s first release on Nuun Records. Yaho-Niwa just happens to be the first release in their Climax series. I’m not sure what this means in the greater scheme of things or how Yaho-Niwa will fit in with the series as a whole, but it looks interesting and you should head over to their website to check it out.

As a stand alone Merzbow record I think Yaho-Niwa is excellent. Over the past couple of releases I’ve heard, he seems to have toned down the harshness factor without making any of those albums any easier to listen to. The identifiable noises and forms you may hear on the last few records might seem like a safe refuge in the sea of oscillations and noise, but those identifiable bits and pieces often sit within the tracks with little context to the rest of it. Yaho-Niwa like other records of the last few years such as Tombo or Kamadhenu are pretty difficult listens – they are not the type of Merzbow records that you just plunge yourself into and somehow get a buzz from the violence and ferocity of what is on offer. Nor do they offer something refreshingly tangible like his excursions through big beat, digital electronica, folk, jazz or grindcore.

These recent albums have had me  scratching my head but at the same time I’ve felt strangely compelled to come to terms with them – to classify them somewhere in my Merz -journery which is now over 100 discs long. My first impression of Yaho-Niwa is that there is a frightful melancholy on display here. Other Merzbow albums display anger, or a sense of humour or even an artistic intensity – Yaho-Nowa on the other hand is bleak. This bleakness is most acute on  the first and third tracks. The third track has that windswept tundra sound that may as well have come off Sunn O)))’s Black One. These are my two favourite tracks on the album which I think is a weird way of putting it when you consider that Yaho-Niwa was mixed after the horror of March’s tsunami. Is it any wonder that sadness has crept into his sound?

The second track seems to be the odd one out. This in itself not a particularly remarkable thing for a Merzbow record because more often that not there is no identifiable theme that links all of the tracks. The second track displays the effects are coming more and more common in his recent work. They are those 1950′s incidental science fiction bleeps and what not. I quite like them. What relationship this has to the  rather handsome poultry on the disc’s cover is anyone’s guess – unless of course they’re some sort of retro-alien chicken.

The fourth track feels quite emotional to me – I can’t help but feel sad because in the relentlessness of the noise and what sounds like metal rubbing and twisting together, all I can see is the video of  those huge waves roaring through that seaside town where massive buildings are just picked up and smashed into others.

Yaho-Niwa is a challenging listen but isn’t that the point of Merzbow in many ways? I reckon one of the tasks of noise is to make the listener define their own experience with the record. The intent and purpose of the artist is always up for interpretation but isn’t that so much better than being spoon fed? This one is worth tracking down, it just might take a little time to connect with.

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Werewolf Jerusalem – The Flies of Our Tragic Dear (Breathing Problem Productions) 2009

Posted in Music, noise, Richard Ramirez, Werewolf Jerusalem on June 26, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

By golly I’m enjoying this at  the moment. Werewolf Jerusalem is, as someone much cleverer than I  put it, Richard Ramirez’s “Wall of Static” noise project. What an apt description because these six tracks are meditations in the dynamics of static. This is my first experience with Ramirez’s work and the thing that strikes me about this record is the way that static can be used to create pieces of sound which somehow move and evolve and at time bloom. Static is  one of the harshest elements used in “noise” and the thought of an entire record of just that element might sound like a bit of a slog and frankly an unnecessary assault on the ears. The interesting thing about static is that by its very nature it is always moving, always kinetic. Ramirez manages to place  this element on a potter’s wheel and moulds and shapes  the sound as it continuously moves into both thick impenetrable walls and wafer thin slices of fragility. He layers it, stretches it and plays with its internal dynamics. I’m not sure if I understand the visceral theme displayed in the cover and the titles. I think that sometimes those things can be a distraction to just how good some of these records are. If you told me that a record based on walls of static would open up new ways of hearing sound I would have scoffed but this is immensely enjoyable and listening to it has lead to me approach “noise  in a new context.

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Sudden Infant – Radiorgasm: Reissue (Blossoming Noise/Harbinger Sound) 2006

Posted in Music, noise, Sudden Infant with tags , , on June 14, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

 

This was originally released in 1991. 15 years later those nice people at Blossoming Noise had the good sense to re-release it. The field of noise seems to be awash with reissues at the moment.  The almighty Merzbient, Necro Acoustic, the first two Kevin Drumm records, Nurse With Wound and Current 93 has all been released in the last couple of years. This as been a boon for me particular because I came to the genre of experimental/noise so late.  My first experience with Sudden Infant was the tragically overlooked Psychotic Einzelkind. The punk rock/noise on display there is a very different beast to  the sounds on display on Radiorgasm.

Radiorgasm is a very difficult record. It’s all experimental tape stuff and dada primal scream weirdness with added gibberish In fact it has much more to do with early Nurse With Wound that it does with many of his Noise contemporaries.  I’m not sure whether this is a good record. I’m not a huge fan of the more arty aspects of experimentalism and in some ways this record seems almost self conscious in its difficulty. On that basis I’m not recommending this but  I can’t stress how important it is to listen to his more recent offerings on Blossoming Noise. Those records are great. This has only mild interest.

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Merzbow – Kamadhenu (Hypnagogia) 2011

Posted in Merzbow, Music, noise on June 11, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

Alrighty then. This is the  first Merzbow I’ve dabbled  with since Merzbient and I suppose it is his first proper album since Marmo. Merzbow’s recent output has been sketchy to say the least. I think Ouroborous was great and I still stand by the second volume of the Japanese Birds series as another example when he gets it right. Marmo was meh and I didn’t bother with the collaboration with Z’ev. If I was to be truly honest the two albums that were amazing in the last three years are Another Merbow Records and Merzbient but considering they are both compilations or old material they probably don’t count.

When I first played Kamadhenu I was disappointed. Actually I was a little pissed. It struck me as mediocre and a little samey. Now eight listens later and the damn thing has grown on me. There is something wonderfully hypnotic about the surging, down tempo scree and throb of this record especially on the first track. Weaving in an out of the layers is a high pitched squeal which at times has an almost middle eastern flavour to it. It is a sound that returns to all three tracks  and sounds almost like a call to prayer. At other times it sounded like a snake charmer coaxing a dance out of a reluctant reptile. The first track  is a slow and unambiguously deliberate. Shards of industrial clatter are sparingly used and if I was to go out on a limb, I would say that this might be more ambient than much of what I heard on Merzbient.

The second track I suspect  has hidden sounds of tabla and Merzbow also adds some of his celestial space vibe. It’s a much noisier track than the first and towards the end sounds like a tape being run backwards at speed. By the time the third track starts Merzbow has managed to coax a sub-bass effect that fucked around with the pressure in my ears. It is much more recognisably Merzbow if you know what I mean.

This is not a record for a casual listener. It is a record that the more I listened the more compelling it became. I might be the only nerd that has spent eight hours of my life trying to process it but I think it was worthwhile.  People are going to hate this but If you commit yourself to it then it might be one of the more enjoyable noise experiences you’ll have this year.

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Haters – Further (Transperency) 2008

Posted in Haters, Music, noise with tags , , on June 1, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

Here is another review from reader Adam. Thanks Mate!

It is not easy to write about The Haters, one of the longest running noise acts around. It is basically the project of one man, GX Jupitter-Larsen, although he has played with many people both live and on recorded material too. Writing about his work is not easy because it’s very conceptual – in fact, music is only a part of it; his concerts are performances too (and for a long time there actually wasn’t any music during his performances). I have to say I’m not exactly sure what Jupitter-Larsen is trying to express with his art, but my guess is it’s absurdity: absurdity that perhaps he sees as permeating life in general. Or perhaps he just loves absurdity. Or maybe he wants to show that he finds life and/or a lot of everyday actions meaningless. At least these are some of the ideas that come to my mind when I consider his obsession with counting sand grains, strange mathematical and time-space concepts, entropy and decay, making a blank video tape and then sending it to film festivals and so on. And of course, he’s obsessed with noise too – pure noise, such as the sound of glass breaking, fire crackling and cars crashing.

I guess you could say he’s just a snob or an idiot who claims to be an artist. As for me, I really like his ideas (even if I can’t claim I understand them fully): how he often mixes the absurd with the mundane, like making noise with shovels and suitcases, or having a noise generator built in a wrestling belt (he likes wrestling too). Everything he does is in his own style which was already pretty much fully developed around 1980, when he started releasing records. In 1983 he released a 7” which had no music on it and the instructions said to complete the record by scratching it so it could be listened to. Some “serious” avant-garde composers might have released similar records by 1983 but probably no one in the sort of underground that GX became a participant of.

There were more conceptual releases to follow and more regular releases too. Based on the roughly 15 CDs/records I know, the style of The Haters is harsh noise with no “musical” elements whatsoever for the most part. Monotony is typical too. Sometimes he loops the sound of car crashes; sometimes he amplifies the sound of stapling records together with a stapling gun, and so on. However, his Further CD is a great mix of his pure noise approach with more sound elements that ultimately make the CD more musical. The funny thing is, at the end of the day it’s still not musical at all. There’s a basic flow of electronic feedback, but in the background there are various sounds and effects such as screeching tyres and even synths. Somehow it creates the effect of being musical due to the contrast between the foreground and the background, but at the same time it’s still very much anti-music.

Probably a lot more could be written about the work of Jupitter-Larsen – for those who care, there’s a book about The Haters that was published by John Wiese not long ago. There’s a very nice career-spanning article by GX in the magazine As Loud As Possible too. For those who like the music of The Haters, Further is highly recommended. And for those who want to get to know his music, this album is a great starting point – but if you like it and want to hear more, prepare yourself for serious anti-easy listening that may well leave you scratching your head.

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Kevin Drumm – Kevin Drumm (Perdition Plastics) 1997

Posted in Kevin Drumm, Music, noise with tags , , on May 31, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

When I listen to records like this I just want to give up writing this blog. Must find words to describe sounds. Very hard. I suppose if I think of Kevin Drumm in terms of his recent output he takes on either the guises of the drone genius of Imperial Distortion and Organ fame or the noise beast on records like Sheer Hellish Miasma and Land of Lurches. When I first forked out my cash for his self-titled debut and the followup, Second, I was expecting something that, while I concede may not have sounded like those more familiar Drumm records, wouldn’t sound quite like this. This almost verges on sound art. The seven untitled tracks almost explore the vastness of silence and the listeners reaction to its disruption. There are long stretches of near silent amp buzz which are assaulted in various ways by what sounds like a plugged in guitar falling down a flight of stairs, strings being violently ripped out, an electrified pice of felt and … well you get the idea. Strange, uncomfortable and challenging. What does it all mean at the end of the day? I have no idea. I simply do not have the patience to work it out. Is it a good record? Sure. It’s a great record. I’m just not sure if it is an enjoyable one. It’s a very different experience to the normal record that Kevin Drumm has given us in the last 10 years or so. This is noise on an almost micro scale and the more I stretch my comfort zone to take in records such as this, the idea that what artists such as Kevin Drumm do is a series of noise rather than as a block of noise  makes sense. Maybe this  is what any noise record would sound like if you took a three second snippet, shaved off the layers and played it all separately as a long strand of sound. Maybe this is an exercise in unwinding noise DNA.  I’m keen to hear other people’s experience with it. Leave your thoughts in the comments.

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Jazkamer – Chestnut Thornback Tar (Pica Disk) 2010

Posted in Jazkamer, Music, noise with tags , , on May 30, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

Jazkamer’s 2010 monthly series was an absolute cracker. I say that even though I’ve only tracked  down five or six of the releases. The joy in any Jazkamer record besides the obvious quality of the noise, is the expectation of which style the record is going to take. I’m a big fan of Jazkamers grindcore records such as Metal Music Machine and I think they do minimalist noise very well. Chestnut Thornback Tar is a bit of everything. The 20 minute opener is as good a harsh drone track that you’ll hear. After that shit gets weird. There is rumbling free improv drums, electronic scree, rock n roll feedback, electronic malevolence, cut up field recordings and general noise weirdness. This is one of my favourite Jazkamer records probably because the sense of humour that first drew me towards them is in full effect here. The thing about Jazkamer is that I don’t think any casual listener let alone a nerd like myself can ever get a true handle on what they do. This afternoon I listened to this, the psychedelic something or other of Matthew 28:17, the perplexing almost Nurse with Woundish Spaghetti Western Rainbow (Marhaug solo record) and Peanuts. There is nothing to suggest that any of those records are from the same band except that they are all definitively non-music.  If noise is the pinnacle of rejecting musical conformity then Jazkamer add another layer of refusing to embrace a style or sound within that sound. They are one of the most transgressive noise bands right now. Take a dip.

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Demons – Evocation (No Fun Productions) 2007

Posted in Music, noise, Wolf Eyes with tags , on May 29, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

Demons are a duo of Wolf Eye’s Nate Young and noise dude Steve Kearny. I have had his post sitting in draft form for well over  a year. It is an awesome record and straddles that line between noise, midwestern decay, dark ambient and drone. It wasn’t until I read an old review by Bruce Russell who wrote that he wished that all black metal sounded like Evocation that it all started to click for me. I don’t like a lot of Bruce’s writing but that was right on point and Evocation sits nicely with the more difficult hauntology records that I have fallen head over heals for this year.

You see I have this difficult relationship with black metal. I love the idea of it but most of I have heard gives me the  giggles. I just can’t take it seriously. Mike Connelly, a fellow Wolf Eyes alum, has spoken about the real terror he felt was seeing the isolated farm-house in the Kentucky country side at night. I think his point is that  the true terror and fear isn’t getting eviscerated, it is the feeling that something terrible is near.  That is true horror. Not the cartoon darkness of much of what black metal pumps out. The records I’ve heard this year that have made me happy are those  by  Black Mountain Transmitter, Menche and Coultis and Failing Lights (on Evol’s recommendation) and if those records have worked for you like they have for me then it is well worth tracking this down. The four tracks on display here are all creepy wonderful non-music offerings. An embrace of the supernatural and unexplainable. An evocative excursion into darkness. Russell is right. If all black metal sounded like this the world would be a better place. Nothing to laugh about here.

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Government Alpha – Quaint Putrid Slag (Xerxes) 2008

Posted in Government Alpha, Merzbow, Music, noise with tags , , on May 22, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

Government Alpha is the name of the harsh noise Project of Yasutoshi Yoshida. In the past couple of months I’ve been trying to explore other Japanese noise artists besides Merzbow. The problem with this is that I keep wanting to reference Merzbow when I think about what I’m going to say about those records. On the face of it Government Alpha create a noise very much like Merzbow but I have listened to Quaint Putrid Slag  a bunch of times and I hadn’t been able to put my finger on why this is different to Merzbow until today.

I’m not sure how many of you are aware of William Burroughs “cut-up” technique. He spent a good deal of his career literally cutting up his written text and then rearranging it and fixing up the punctuation. I think the theory was that great art often comes about through accident and randomness. What it often did was made everything he subjected to the technique not make any sense but hey, what the fuck would I know. With Quaint Putrid Slag what it sounds like is Yoshida getting the basic building blocks of a Merzbow harsh, noise  record, deconstructing the layers and then having a chop at cutting it up and assembling it again. What it means for you as a listener is a slightly left field take on Merzbow-style noise. Still as brutal and harsh as hell but I think he adds something new to the genre. It is one of those records that gets better the more I listened. One of those great noise records that you can explore and always hear new things.  I’m going to track down a few more Government Alpha records and see where they take me – should be an interesting ride.

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Daniel Menche – Feral (Sub Rosa) 2011

Posted in Daniel Menche, Drone, Music, noise with tags , , , on May 11, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

Since Menche reactivated as a recording artist last year he has produced some of the strongest and strangest work in his catalogue. There are four tracks on offer here. Two being some of the nastiest recordings I’ve heard Menche make and the other two much more mellow – if you’re idea of mellow is the creeping realisation that the world will end.  What I think Menche does on the second track is explore a much more dark place than he has in the past. This isn’t so much about the blood and energy  flowing through nature but more an exploration of the blacker, hidden side both in its dark recesses and its ultimate destruction. The word “desolate’ gnaws at me when I listen to Feral. Devastated, forsaken, hopeless, ravaged.  The thing to listen to on Feral is the  lower registers. This is where I think Menche excels. Feral One is all noise nastiness with emphasis on giants swarms of static and enveloping clouds of blackness but underneath all of that  is a bass level. There is life underneath the noise but it requires some deep listening. The spooky, chalky, bone  fossicking which made an appearance on his Coultis collaboration is on display  in Feral Three but only lasts momentarily before what sounds like the digestive process of Cthulu takes over  before changing into what sounds like a field recording of a wind, sleet and hail event in Menche’s beloved forests.   Feral Four sees him bringing a lighter touch once again but somehow the creep factor delves into dark ambient territory and is one of my favourite Menche tracks period. Feral is one of the most diverse records of his catalogue. Worth tracking down.

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Merzbow – Space Metalizer (Alien 8) 1997

Posted in Merzbow, Music, noise on May 7, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

If you frequent Merzbow and noise forums on even a casual basis you will most likely find Space Metalizer in a lot or people’s Top 5 Merzbow records. A reader from Brooklyn got me onto this and it has fast become a favourite of mine. The difficulty I have is where to place it in the contest of Merzbow’s discography. I know that Merzbow has said that his titles have no relation to the actual noise he releases but there is something psychedelic, metallic and vaguely futurist about the squall and scree he unleashes on us with this one. If I compare it  to the albums that he released around the same period such as Oersted, Pulse Demon and Venerology I think it is fair to say that Space Metalizer is a little friendlier on the ears. I’m not sure whether it is because it feels less dense or whether I have a greater comfort level because there are smatterings of things that some of us might recognise as instruments (I won’t go as far as to say music). It’s hard to say really. What is important is to tell you that many of the tracks display the same brutality but  for whatever reason it is a lot more listenable than some of the other records he produced around the same time. In between the brutal assaults there are some quite gothic bubble-pulse moments like the first couple of minutes of Son of Zechen but like all good Merzbow he obliterates that light with layers of what sounds like a very loud faulty phaser. If you are going to delve into Merzbow’s back catalogue then you probably need to add this one. Like everything else he has released on Alien 8, Space Metalizer is very good Merzbow indeed.

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Merzbow – Vibractance (E(r)ostrate) 1998

Posted in Merzbow, Music, noise on April 22, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

Here is another review from Adam. I agree with him. An extraordinary album. Cheers Adam.

Vibractance is the most unusual Merzbow album from 1990 onwards that I know. Needless to say, there’s heaps of albums from that period (too) that I haven’t heard, so there may be more albums that are as different from the big majority of his output as this one.

This was actually one of the very first Merzbows I got, back in early 2000 I think. Back then I had only heard maybe 5 of his CDs. I remember I sent cash to the label that released it [E(r)ostrate, a small French label that’s now defunct I believe], well hidden in an envelope – this was a time way before Paypal and I remember ordering quite a few CDs like this (not having a credit card of my own). Not that I miss this payment method (once or twice my money got lost in the post), but looking back it had its special atmosphere, especially as it was part of my discovering noise – mainly Merzbow, I admit. But enough rambling: you might ask, how is this album different? Well, it’s a lot less noisy and a lot more subtle. There’s more of a composed feel to it and there are a lot of differences in volume and the kinds of sounds. I know Merzbow has some laptop albums that are more varied than his ‘90s work (especially his mid ‘90s stuff), but this one is different from them, not the least because it’s analogue.

It starts with a droning sound (which returns a couple times in the piece) and I suggest you listen to this album either on headphones or really loud on speakers or else you won’t hear the subtle sound events happening in the background here and there. In a couple minutes things get noisier and from then on it’s a ride through sounds varying in volume, harshness, dimension and atmosphere. There’s a strong electroacoustic feel to the album: if you know classic electroacoustic music created in state-funded electronic music labs (often within universities) in the ‘60s and ‘70s, you’ll recognize its influence on Vibractance. Somewhere I have read someone saying electroacoustic music is “cinema for the ears” (I think it was Keith Rowe of AMM) and, in a way, this applies to this album as well. It’s got a peculiar atmosphere that I haven’t experienced with other Merzbow albums (yet). The defining quality isn’t harshness but an almost playful variety on a larger scale than what we are used to from Merzbow. Most likely it’s still unlistenable to those not into more radical experimental music, but hopefully you get what I’m saying.

If anyone can suggest other Merzbows that are this different from the rest, I’d love to hear from them. I heard the Decomposition double CD that came with a limited number of Merzboxes is similar – anyone heard that one?

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Dove Yellow Swans – Live During War Crimes 3 (Release the Bats) 2009

Posted in Drone, Music, noise, yellow swans with tags , , , on April 17, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

After the Yellow Swans broke up they released the final chapter in the excellent Live During War Crimes series. Like the first two records, Live During War Crimes 3 captures the band in full frontal assault, harsh drone territory. The four untitled tracks on display here are almost overwhelming. They each churn away as if the shimmering transcendencies of their later work got taken over by the forces of evil. The first track in particular is something so brutally oppressive listening through the full 25 minutes seems foolish in retrospect.

It is only on the fourth track that light and oxygen are allowed to filter through the noise and its 25 minutes strikes a fantastic balance between noise, experimentalism and drone. In many ways it is closer to the tracks on Burning Star Core’s Papercuts Theater – a record that is undoubtably heavy going but ultimately  rewarding …. once my ears were able to tease out the subtlety.

Live During War Crimes 3 is not a place to start if you’ve never heard the band before but for Yellow Swans tragics, this tricky to track down, final hurrah is worthwhile getting. Track 4 especially made me miss them all over again.

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Zbigniew Karkowski and Daniel Menche – Unleash (Alien 8) 2008

Posted in Daniel Menche, Music, noise with tags , , , on April 12, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

This is my favourite noise record. Period. I’m not saying it’s the best noise record, merely my favourite.

Much of Menche’s best work (like Kevin Drumm and Merzbow) occurs in collaboration. Here the combined force of Menche’s processed, percussive, drone and the electronic squall and decay of Karkowski make for a heady mix. The six tracks on display here are in fact one long real time improvisation split up as it glides seamlessly into different movements. I’m much more familiar with Menche’s work so the striking aspect for me is his percussion which both stabilise and propel the collaboration. By the time I reached the half way point in the second track that percussion had been essentially buried. The promise of the title bore fruit. It is a torrent … a hurricane of noise – this time anchored by a tense, tonal undercurrent. As track 3 starts the sounds morph again and what is essentially released is very ugly indeed – like tar being flooded with electricity.

The two disparate elements that Menche and Karkwoski bring to the collaboration is what creates this very fine record. I think Unleash is a pretty essential record but seems to have been ignored in noise circles. Neither artist is particularly trendy in a noise sense but ignore this record to your detriment. Brutal and compelling.

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Kevin Drumm – Land Of Lurches (Hanson) 2003

Posted in Drone, Kevin Drumm, Music, noise with tags , , on March 24, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

I like Kevin Drumm. I like the fact that he never puts out the same record twice. His explorations of processed guitar  are never less than fascinating. Land of Lurches is now out of print but is pretty  easy to track down and if you like your noise with a dose of heaviness then, friends, this is the record for you.

The first track, Samson’s Cold Minotaurs might start as a heavy duty drone track, but the tsunami of blackness that builds in the distance and crushes everything in its path, might just be of the thrilling noise moments I’ve ever had … and it only gets better from there.

I might be howled down for this but I think that Land of Lurches is a direct challenge to the Sheer Hellish Miasma tragics. Is Land of Lurches actually a better record?

A fair bit of Drumm’s back catalogue has been rereleased in the past couple of years. This one may not have the reputation of Sheer Hellish Miasma or even his self titled debut but it would be great to see Land of Lurches get the same reissue treatment. Noise nerd heaven in less than 40 minutes.

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Xela – The Dead Sea (Type) 2006

Posted in Drone, Music, noise with tags , , on March 13, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

I’m a bit in love with Type records at the moment. Besides releasing one of the two best records released last year , the mighty Going Places, Type is also home to Black to Comm, Grouper, Helios and Xela, one of my latest discoveries. I know I’m late to the party on Xela, but I’m mildly hooked on his variant of free improvised drone with avant garde interludes. Think of Daniel Menche crossed with the Vibracathedral Orchestra.

On The Dead Sea, Xela displays his fascination with the films of Italian horror auteurs. It’s a creepy, unsettling  experience but only peripherally so. Xela toys with the suggestion of horror, foreboding, unease, sadness and  grief. Even when he encapsulates beauty such as on the second track Linseed, the layers of effects and other instruments which are added  means that as a listener I can’t just relax. There is something not quite right – the memory of wind chimes, the trickle of an isolated creek, a child’s music box. This is a lush treat of soundtrack style composition. Equally lovely and unsettling, Xela is one of the artists I’m going to try to listen to more of this year.

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Kevin Drumm – Imperial Distortion (Hospital) 2008

Posted in Drone, Kevin Drumm, Music, noise with tags , , , on March 9, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

The problem with discovering a new artist is that it might be entirely possible that the first record that you hear might not exactly be representative of the work that the artist is known for. Take for example Kevin Drumm. I had listened to his great split with Daniel Menche some time earlier but Imperial Distortion was my first experience of solo Drumm. Most sensible people would have started with Sheer Hellish Miasma which is considered by many (including me) to be one of the finest noise records ever made. On SHM, Drumm produces a harsh electronic guitar masterpiece. Imperial Distortion is a much more muted ride.

In a recent interview, Drumm said that he created the sounds of Imperial Distortion from discarded work that he rediscovered. Pieces that had a less dense quality about them. So in effect this record is made from work produced between 1995 and 2008 which has been processed, tampered and played with to create one of the finest meditative drone records I own. Hardcore Drumm fans might tend to be a bit dismissive of Imperial Distortion due to an absence of noise per se, but if you pick you way through his back catalogue the drone has always been there; usually sheathed in layers of blistering distortion or fuzzed out walls of extreme volume but they were there. Drumm called these “go nowhere tracks” but you know, sometimes the fun is is staying in the same place.

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Merzbow – Tentacle (Alchemy) 1999

Posted in Merzbow, Music, noise with tags , , on March 8, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

Has anyone else noticed how the absolute arse has fallen out of the CD market? Stuff that I thought I’d never get the chance to own has become infinitely affordable. I won’t brag about the $14.00 copy of Green Wheels I tracked down last week (yet) but Merzbow’s back catalogue, which had been shockingly expensive has now come within reach.

Last year a reader tipped me off to a guy on Discogs who was offloading his Merzbow collection pretty cheaply. I really wanted Sha Mo 3000 and Vibractance (Adam – do you want to review that one?) but I also picked up Tentacle for shits and giggles. Tentacle is one of Merzbow’s laptop recordings and in many ways it has a lot in common with the uncompromising harshness of the mid-1990′s output like Oersted and Pulse Demon. Some  of the tracks are pretty short by Merzbow standards and for what is essentially a harsh noise record, pretty varied.

The two tracks that worked best for me are Stormy Tuesday and Stormy Monday. Stormy Tuesday is a style of noise that I can hear reflected in the work of Russell Haswell and is a track that reveals the level of control required to make great noise. The second Stormy track is the pick of the record. What starts out like the Kakadu field recordings of KK Null’s Fertile morphs into  pop Merzbow, speed metal Merzbow and all points in-between. It’s like the entirety of 1930 and Space Metalizer crammed into 26 minutes. If you find this in your travels pick it up. Another great Merzbow record. About a 7.5 on the harshness scale I reckon.

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