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Secret Pyramid- The Silent March (Students of Decay) 2014

Posted in Drone, Secret Pyramid with tags , , on November 7, 2014 by noisenoisenoise

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Students of Decay released one of my favourite records of all time, Peter Wright’s At Last A New Dawn. That was all the way back in 2007 and since then they have been releasing appealing slabs of drone, ambient and experimental electronic music out into the world. This year I had the good fortune to get myself a copy of the shimmering beauty that is Kyle Bobby Dunn’s The Infinite Sadness of Kyle Bobby Dunn which if you haven’t head it is an absolute treat for those of us who enjoys our trips to the drone/ambient sector of experimental music.

A record that doesn’t stray too far from the drone ambient axis is this mesmerising dose of loveliness. Secret Pyramid is the name used by Canadian musician Amir Abbey. The Silent March was originally released in 2011 on cassette by a small Canadian label however after releasing Secret Pyramid’s Movements of Night last year Students of Decay thought it may be a good idea to give this a wider release.

I for one am glad I did. I only received my copy a few days ago and I can’t stop listening to it. The Silent March consists of seven slowly evolving drone tracks that somehow still manage a dull shimmer under some pretty overcast sky. Sadness can be a beautiful thing in music and this record is a prime example.  The acoustic guitar based Come Down Gently mines similar (although much more subtle) territory to Earth’s recent output over the last  few years ago. It sounds to me almost like Stars of the Lid  descending into western gothic territory. Quite lovely really. I’m a sucker for this kind of sound and if you do enjoy the drone work of Kevin Drumm, Stars of the Lid, Kyle Bobby Dunn or even Richard Skelton you’ll need to listen to this.

It will be officially released on 11 November in Vinyl and download formats. If you are extra smart can i suggest the two CD set which also includes Movements of Night as well.

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Machinefabriek – Secret Photographs (Important) 2013

Posted in Drone, Machinefabriek, Music with tags , , on March 9, 2014 by noisenoisenoise

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I’ve become a little obsessed with the works of Rutger Zuydervelt aka Machinefabriek over the past 18 months or so. It all started when I  first  heard the amazing Veldwerk compilation which was almost the perfect blend of field recordings, drone, noise, electronic manipulation and sonic experimentation. Since then I’ve tried to track down most of his readily available records and not once have I been disappointed.  I think the main reason for that is that Zuydervelt isn’t beholden to one particular sound. Although it was his processed field recordings that sucked me in, it is commissioned  works for dance and film that keep me coming back.

The soon to be released Episode 23 of The Antidote Podcast will feature two of his more recent works, the challenging Doepfer Worm  and the sublime piece written for the Moscow Ballet, Attention, the Doors Are Closing, and because this blog doesn’t necessarily focus on new releases I thought I’d start with Secret Photographs, the 2012 soundtrack to the film of the same  name.

I’m not sure if the film has seen the light of day as yet but it was to focus on the photographic obsession of Alvin “Creepy” Karpis, a 1930’s gangster that spent his final days in Spain. After he died a large  number of photographs were discovered and sold on ebay. The director of the film Mike Hoolboom managed to purchase them and the idea for the film began.

The soundtrack is made up of three long pieces which span a total of 70 minutes or so. Each of the tracks focuses on a minimal, shimmering drone. That seems to be a term I’ve used before but to further clarify – Secret Photographs is drone in a fragile, Stars of the Lid kind of way rather than the painfully pitched drone work of say Hototogisu. This album is a great staring point for anyone interested in minimal drone work. Indeed it is in a select group of records that manage to stay true to it’s ascetic without ever becoming boring. Simply stunning.

 

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Slomo – The Bog (Important) 2008

Posted in Doom, Drone, Music, Slomo with tags , , , on April 7, 2013 by noisenoisenoise

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Now here is a band that should be much more well known than they are. Towards the end of last year they released their new record The Grain and when I found out, well – let’s just say that I was pretty excited. You see Slomo have released two of my favourite records – 2005’s The Creep and The Bog which came out on Important in 2008. Since then though, nothing, absolutely fuck all until now  of course. But first I think  The Bog is worth bringing to people’s attention. I reckon it may be  one of the strangest things that Important ever  released. Slomo are a duo from England who specialise in a slow moving, doom/ambient/creepy vibe – think what it would sound like if Mike Connelly asked Steven O’Malley to help out on a Failing Lights record. The band describe their sound as highly ritualised glumbient. I love the term glumbient but it may not quite encapsulate how sinister the music can be. The album itself is a  one hour long meditation in blackened dreamscapes and the threat of the unseen. I don’t listen to that much doom or black metal anymore but The Bog has been something I have gone back to  again and again. If you stumble over a copy on your travels it might just be worth picking up.

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Joe Panzner – Clearing, Polluted (Copy for Your Records) 2011

Posted in Drone, Joe Panzner, Music, noise with tags , , on April 6, 2013 by noisenoisenoise

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I first heard Joe Panzner last year when he released the absolutely amazing Recollect Reconstruct split cassette with Mike Shiflet. That record was only edged out by Mike Shiflet’s indispensable The Choir, The Army from being my favourite record of 2012. I decided to do a little bit of further exploring into Panzner’s output – the only problem is that there is not a great deal out there. Besides the split with Mike Shiflet he has released two albums proper, this in 2011 and Polished Rocks in 2006 (which you  can get from Panzner’s bandcamp store for a couple of bucks.

Clearing, Polluted is actually a great title for this record because, especially on the first track, there is a counterbalance between micro-static noodling (think very early Kevin Drumm) and absolutely exquisite showers of volume-basted static noise which is quite extraordinary to experience. I won’t lie, I had a couple of tries coming to terms with this record before it suddenly clicked – it is certainly pitched at the more difficult end of the experimental electronic/noise spectrum but  I always think that it is those “more difficult” records that have the biggest payout for the listener in the long term. There is a shit tonne of things going on here from long form drones to John Wiese style noise hyperactivity and if you decide to give this a play and think that the “silent” noise of the first few minutes of the first track are representative of what you are going to experience then  you are in for an absolute treat. I just wish he’d make more records.

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Mike Shiflet – Blurred and Scorched (Wachsender Prozess) 2012

Posted in Drone, Mike Shiflet, Music, noise with tags , , , on February 25, 2013 by noisenoisenoise

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Hey did you know that Mike Shiflet snuck out another CDr in 2012? Me Neither. But thanks to the power of the twitter and the majesty of bandcamp you can snaffle a copy either digitally or a physical CDr if you so choose. I would have got myself the CDr but there is no international shipping so usnon-american noise people will have to make do with the digital version. It should not be a real mystery to anyone who reads this blog regularly that I appreciate Shiflet’s art. In fact he produced my two favourite records of last year. There is just something about the gritty, intense drones that Shiflet produces which do for something for me. Although Blurred and Scorched may lack some of the shimmering epicness of The Choir, The Army, it’s ten tracks are great examples of agitated experimental drone music. It’s the type of sound that is meditative and challenging at the same time. If I had heard it last year it would certainly have sneaked into my top 10. Shiflet along with Aaron Dilloway and Kevin Drumm are currently making up my unholy trinity of US experimental artists right now.

At the moment (until the end of February) Mike is using the proceeds of the sale of Blurred and Scorched to help some fellow Ohian musicians with their medical bills. Coming from a country with universal healthcare I find the thought of that kind of depressing but please make sure you pick up a copy before March and while your there get yourself a copy of Llanos and Omnivores. Both classics.

www.mikeshiflet.bandcamp.com

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Locrian & Christoph Heemann – S/T (Handmade Birds) 2012

Posted in Christoph Heemann, Doom, Drone, Locrian, Music with tags , , , , on October 16, 2012 by noisenoisenoise

Here are two artists I don’t know a lot about. I knew about Heemann from his collaboration with Merzbow and work with Nurse With Wound and the Chicago duo Locrian have made a previous  appearance on this site with their Rain of Ashes record. Before listening to this record I kind of knew that Locrian mined a drone metal sort of sound palette. That sort of sound  feels very stale to me now. The  number of submissions I receive from bands who still play it have not instilled me with a great deal of confidence that there is anyone thinking freshly about metal in a drone  context. When this arrived I was in two minds whether I would listen to it but I did and I’m glad I did. This is a truly great record. It is also a pretty difficult sound to pin down.  There is a shit load going on on this records four lengthy tracks. The first track Hecatomb is one of my favourite pieces of music mright now. It’s roots are obviously firmly in a drone metal context yet it is the injection of Necks style piano and  a feeling of improvised abandon with the guitars which lend the music an open, expansive feel. The second track lifts its skirts to reveal its blackened metal soul whilst the third track Edgeless City is an excursion through ambient drone with a sinister edge that gradually becomes much more oppressive.The final track, The Drowned Forest sees the artists getting their inner druid on for some ritualistic vocal action which become more intense as it progresses. It’s strangely beautiful and overwhelming all at once.

2012 has seen some excellent collaborations and split LP’s. Swanson and Shiflet, Dilloway and Lescalleet, Shiflet and Panzner, Blankenship and Reed have all produced amazing records this year. Add this too the pile.  This record has restored my faith in  bleak metal.

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Bee Mask – Elegy For Beach Friday (Spectrum Spools) 2011

Posted in Bee Mask, Drone, Music with tags , , , on October 10, 2012 by noisenoisenoise

I have seen some unbelievably great shows this year. One of my absolute favourites was back in July when Rites Wild and a rather unimpressive local act supported the great Bee Mask aka Chris Madak. Of course with any great show there is always great merch and I just so happened to get myself a copy of Elegy For Beach Friday before I left.

It is difficult to describe the experimental  electronica that Bee Mask produces. It is fair to say that on this record, the foundations of the  sound is rooted firmly in drone territory but infused throughout are Caretaker-style nostalgia, bubbling electronica, buzzing insect-like sounds, broad sweeping elegiac passages of sheer beauty, synth excursions and clouds of opaque and menacing drone. As an album, Elegy works extraordinarily well notwithstanding that it is a compilation of rare vinyl and tape tracks from 2003 to 2010. In fact rarely has a record had such an effect on me as this. It is one of those records that seeps into the consciousness and is an almost perfect rendering of great electronica that explores  beauty, menace and sadness. Bee Mask has a new EP on Room 40 and his new Spectrum Spools release of new material arrives in a few weeks. Don’t be surprised to see either of those reviewed hear soon. Elegy is mesmerising and fantastic.

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Mike Shiflet – Sufferers (Type) 2011

Posted in Drone, Mike Shiflet, Music, noise with tags , , , on August 10, 2012 by noisenoisenoise

Type records have been releasing some absolutely cracking records in 2011/2012. Two of the finest are the Mike Shiflet records Sufferers and Merciless. Both records were recorded just before Shiflet’s ground breaking Llanos record of last year. Sufferers came out at the end of last year and is my favourite of the two. It’s always hard to categorise Shiflet’s music. I suppose the starting point is to call the tracks on Sufferers drone but I just feel that the use of that term is just not quite right. There is a melancholic deliberateness to the work here.The sound moves incrementally and  in some ways it has the overall feel of an ambient version of Wolf Eye’s  Burned Mind record of a few years back. There is a lurching post apocalyptic field recording quality to the first few tracks but it’s Shiflet’s use of volume and intensity of the sounds that makes Sufferers a couple of steps away form an ordinary drone listening experience. This is drone for the rust-belt noise guys – the sort of thing which seeps into your consciousness to leave you just a little creeped out and extremely unsettled.  Tremendous.

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Pete Swanson – Man With Potential (Type) 2011

Posted in Drone, Music, Pete Swanson, yellow swans with tags , , on July 31, 2012 by noisenoisenoise

Sorry I haven’t been around. Life has kind of gotten in the way of updating this site as much as I would like to. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t been listening to a shit-ton of great music but in between the impending arrival of my third son, selling our house and a fucking horrible bout of Influenza A, the desire to type out my thoughts on records kind of collapsed. I even had to miss Keith Fullertom-Whitman’s recent show at the IMA because of the evil flu. One show I won’t be missing no matter whether I get sick, my kid gets born early or some other life issue is Pete Swanson’s gig at the Judith Wright Centre in August. The Yellow Swans are my favourite band –  period. I think for the last Yellow Swans record I reviewed here, Going Places, I said that the band just kept going from strength to strength wit this continual ability to make a better record that their last. I think Pete Swanson has managed to continue this quality into his solo work.

There are records of the past few years that i call my “Holy Shit” record. Albums that are just so flawlessly fantastic that  they attain the right to be called instant classics. In that group I place Black To Comm’s Alphabet 1968. Burning Star Core’s Challenger, Yellow Swans Going Places, Mike Shiflet’s Llanos, Daniel Menche and Kevin Drumm’s Gauntlet, Cane Swords’ Big Warmup In The Mouth Of Eternity. I also think that Man With Potential is up there with those records. Man With Potential sees Swanson embrace electronica and variations of techno, dub and minimalist beats and inject it with a giant dose of melancholia to replicate the rave at the end of the world. It’s stunning stuff. An album that is such a leap to the left of the  tremendous guitar  drones of the  I Don’t Rock At All. This is vinyl only but for a couple of bucks boomkat will sell you the mp3. One of the best records you’ll ever buy.

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Mike Shiflet – Gutter Divas (Dokuro) 2010

Posted in Drone, Mike Shiflet, Music, noise with tags , , , on June 5, 2012 by noisenoisenoise

Mike Shiflet has had a great run of releases recently and I promise I’ll get around to posting on them soon but I really wanted to write about this one. Gutter Divas was a cassette only release from 2010 which appeared in very limited quantities on an Italian label, Dokuro. There are still copies floating around on the internets but you need not  worry about such things because for  couple  of bucks you can get your own copy straight of Mike’s bandcamp site. I actually find it extraordinarily difficult to write about Shiflet’s music. He has graciously agreed to an interview but  for  a man who makes a living  cross examining witnesses I’m really struggling to come up with a set of questions that don’t sound lame.

Anyway, Gutter Divas is a two track release which focuses on static-heavy drone. The first track Gutter Divas uses sudden changes in volume to, I don’t know, raise  the tension and  … look what I think he does is smash the passiveness of the usual listening experience that tends to be the fall back position of people like me who are huge fans of the meditative qualities of drone. Drone is an overused term on this blog  and it has a many variants as any other genre but I suppose what Shiflet achieves is a more restless, industrial, overt form which is like a caffeinated ambience. The second track, They Don’t Have The Heart to Tell You is the type of straight up drone record where the subtle insertions of other frequencies and sounds and variations in volume keep the track from being purely static. Although it feels like much less is going  on than the first track, it is far more aggressive in the fact that the drone used is the type that changes the  listener’s ear pressure (which I actually like a fair bit). Gutter Divas is the Shiflet record I listen to the most and a pretty neat starting for those that have never heard him before.

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CM Von Hausswolff – 800 000 Seconds in Harar (Touch) 2011

Posted in CM Von Hausswolf, Drone, Music with tags , , , on June 4, 2012 by noisenoisenoise

I the last few years of his life, Arthur Rimbaud, lived in Harar Ethiopia where he made his living as a coffee merchant and arms dealer. It was the place where he first started suffering the symptoms of cancer which would later claim his life at the age of 37. A playwright, Ullrich Hillebrad sent Swedish sound artist and composer  CM Von Hausswolff to Harar to record sounds for some music that he wanted Von Hausswolf to develop for a play based on a letter written by Rimbaud.

Von Hauswolff manages to  get a large number of field recordings from his stay in Harar as well as some notes from an ethiopian string  instrument called a krar which he then creates into pieces of the most exquisite minimalist drone. The first two tracks, Day and Night,are like a perfect amalgam of two of my favourite records, Russell Haswell’s Wild Tracks and Kevin Drumm’s Imperial Horizon.  The remaining two tracks are not quite as strong as the two openers, but the third track Alas! is what I reckon Stars of the Lid would sound like if they scored a horror film. Glacial tension if you can imagine such a thing. I suppose another way to hear it is  as an interesting link to Von Hausswolff’s interest in EVP’s and other  spooky things.  The final track is much more challenging.   A Sleeper in the Valley is an oscillator overlaying a morse code rendition of one of Rimbaud’s poems. Awesome? Shit yeah! And pretentious as fuck I might add but when the record sounds this good I  don’t really care.

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Pete Swanson – I Don’t Rock At All (Three Lobed) 2011

Posted in Drone, Music, Pete Swanson, yellow swans on May 15, 2012 by noisenoisenoise

This short album by former Yellow Swan, Pete Swanson, came out as a bonus disc for those who bought a 4 x LP Three Lobed compilation. There were only 500 copies of this made and I was lucky enough to snaffle this on Discogs. As many regular readers may know, Yellow Swans were one of my favourite bands. I loved the shit out of them whether they were in their nasty noise mode or their cascading emotional drone guise.  I’m being honest when I say that that I was a little depressed when I found out a few years ago that they were splitting up. Yet Peter Swanson has been releasing some fine records since his former band’s swan song, the majority of them coming out on vinyl. For those of us who don’t own record players, I Don’t Rock At All is one of the few releases that  have come out on CD. The three tracks on this record are slices of shimmering guitar drone which expand, in a much simpler form, the emotional experimentalism of the last few Yellow Swans records. Swanson’s music is warm and moving without ever descending into sentimentality. This record is absolutely fantastic. I checked Discogs just now and there are copies available. It is worth your money buying a copy of this. Experimental guitar music doesn’t get much better than this.

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Chord – Gmaj7 (Mie Music) 2012

Posted in Chord, Drone, Music with tags , on May 14, 2012 by noisenoisenoise

Chord last made an appearance on this blog several years ago when they released the superb Flora. That record was one of my first experiences with post-doom drone metal. Chord are a  bit of a Chicago drone super-group with members of Pelican and the drummer from US Maple. Chord’s method is to use a single chord and explore it harmonically. The two tracks on Gmaj7 offer very different interpretations of the chord in question. The first track Stasis had me asking myself whether drone could actually be aggressive. For the most part those who explore drone musically end up with a passive, meditative work.Although there are several layers of drone in the track the  top layer felt like it was  being pushed to an extremity, so much so that the drone actually lost form at some point to start reverberating.The most startling moment was around 10 minutes in where everything faded to white and the creep factor set in. It created a truly remarkable effect and only got better when after a few minutes the band’s metal roots began to show as a darkening doom spread through the rest of the track. The second track Kinesis is  much more rock orientated with a great live feel. Drums make an appearance and the repetitive guitar phrases make the track feel much more accessible than the first. There is a quasi post-rock flavour to it that is particularly engaging without being corny in the slightest. I prefer Gmaj7 to their earlier work on Flora. Chord have a wonderful sound that doesn’t pander to fashion or tries to be deliberately obtuse for the sake of it. In fact Stasis may be my favourite instrumental track of the year so far. An album suited to teh long Antipodean winter ahead.

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Gate – The Dew Line (Mie Music) 2012

Posted in Drone, Gate, Music, The Dead C with tags , on April 11, 2012 by noisenoisenoise

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Gate is the name used for the Dead C’s Michael Morley’s solo output. A few years ago I was lucky enough  to get a copy of his remarkable electronica infused record, Republic of Sadness. That record was a strange yet totally compelling blend of Morley’s wonky, codeine-infused, lo-fi vocals with almost Hot Chip style electronica. On paper it shouldn’t have worked but it was one of my favourite records of 2010. The excellent Mie Music have taken it upon themselves to re-release The Dew Line which originally came out in 1994 and is a very different from his most recent work. Mie Music have put a lot of thought into rereleasing this record and it now appears as a double vinyl set, remastered, with its initial seven tracks expanded to twelve to include some other previously unreleased material recorded about the same time. If you are a Dead C fan there is a treat in store with the unreleased tracks because three of them ended up as Dead C tracks  including the almighty Bitcher (from 1995’s Whitehouse)yet on The Dew Line  appear in a prototype form. This record has a great deal in common with the Dead C’s material from the same time period which I have always considered to be among their best. The Dew Line find Morley exploring his repetitive guitar lines and outsider vocals which no one could mistake for anybody else. Yet throughout these utterly unique songs  there are glimmers of Sonic Youth style tunings  and even a little Pavement-like song craft. Beyond those thoughts it very difficult to describe this claustrophobic, chaotic, almost on the brink of collapse experimental rock music. It is music that has to be experienced to appreciate and I recommend you do just that. The Dew Line is  an absolute pleasure from beginning to end and is well worth tracking down in it’s remastered form.

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Max Bondi – Convolution (Tartaruga) 2012

Posted in Drone, Max Bondi, Music with tags , , , on March 13, 2012 by noisenoisenoise

Tartaruga records make beautifully packaged CD’s of weird electronica and experimental goodness. Max Bondi’s Convolution is their latest release and is due out on 28 March 2012.  Convolution is Max Bondi’s second full length and is another reason why 2012 is  starting out as one of the best years for experimental music. Records like Convolution are difficult to pigeon-hole. Each of the tracks explore a single theme. The first two give variations to low end, slightly animated electronic drone but track three, Overcoding, give a burst of Oneohtrix-style bubbling synths. Other tracks explore dark ambient drone (Ori) and the hard to define electronica of Tim Hecker. All of the tracks are tightly defined, you won’t find anything hidden in the layers here but each track seems to build on the one that has come before and the album is most successful on tracks like Faltung which combines constantly repeating synth lines with undercurrents of drone. Repetition is one of the big themes of Convolution and it may be why Boomkat compared this record to the abstract minimalism of snd. There is a lot here to enjoy and if your thing is challenging electronica then Convolution is well worth a listen. If you are keen to hear what all the fuss us about you can listen to Convolutions here.

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Gyps – Den (Self Released) 2012

Posted in Drone, Gyps, Music with tags , , on March 12, 2012 by noisenoisenoise

Sorry I haven’t been around but I’ve been a bit preoccupied with trolling through bandcamp looking for undiscovered gems. This is the first record I want to bring to your attention from my new obsession – Gyps amazing record, Den. Gyps is the side project of  Xander Witt, a musician based in Athens, Georgia. Xander also plays in the very fine Muuy Biien (which is also worth your time tracking down). On Den, Xander manages to concoct a glacial, guitar based drone in a similar vein to Stars of The Lid. But whilst Star of The Lid manage to evoke a feeling of calm, Gyps creates an atmosphere of shattering sadness. He is also not afraid to abandon the formula half way through a track to pile more emotional bleakness and a certain dark ambience. If you love the style of drone that Stars of the  Lid produce you are going to wet yourself when you hear this. Den is already destined to be one of my picks for 2012. A shockingly, brilliant, strange, sad record. You can pick it up here.

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Cane Swords – Big Warmup In The Mouth Of Eternity (Rubber City Noise) 2011

Posted in Cane Swords, Drone, Music, noise with tags , , , , on February 20, 2012 by noisenoisenoise

At the end of last year I stopped posting as much as I should have. I’m not sure why. It may have had much to do with the lack of sleep that my kids inflict on me on a regular basis. So sometimes I feel a bit of a prick because there are records that get sent to me that really blow me away. When I first heard this I emailed the  band to get some further info. I certainly don’t post on everything that gets sent my way but I do listen to all of it. Cane Sword’s Big Warmup In The Mouth Of Eternity was a record I fell hard for and one that should have been in my top five of last year. So I feel really shitty that after telling the band how much I dig their record I didn’t end up posting on it – and that was March 2011. Again, I can’t stress this enough, I feel like a prick.

So, anyway, with that out of the way lets talk about Cane Swords. Cane Swords are the “house band” of Rubber City Noise a record label/performance space/equipment manufacturer run by Curt and Karl from Akron Ohio. Big Warmup was originally released on cassette but you can download it for free from here (and while you’re there click on all of the  Black Unicorn stuff – amazing). Cane Swords record their material live and in one take. They have some idea of the theme when they start  but the sound is built through live experimentation. In my email exchanges with the band they pointed to the strong cathartic and hypnotic thread and when I first heard it I was reminded of the Yellow Swans, the sci-fi B movie records of Merzbow and maybe a bit of Oneohtrix Point Never. But that only tells part of the  story because Big Warmup contains influences in drone, noise, experimentation, dark ambience, pop and  hypnogogic electronica. It is a complex, immense record which contains everything I like about experimental music. I may be a prick for not posting earlier but you’d be a prick not to hear it.

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Russell Haswell – Wild Tracks (Mego) 2009

Posted in Drone, Music, noise, Russell Haswell with tags , , , on October 14, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

Russell Haswell is not exactly a prolific artist but when he manages to release a record it is usually something worth tracking down. Since my early adventures into noise and experimental music I have been fascinated by the use of field recordings to create something that can be brutal or beautiful or simply unrecognisable. The later work of Daniel Menche is a  brilliant example of this approach. I’ve always found Haswell’s approach  a much louder, more difficult but no less rewarding experience. Wild Track is tremendously interesting. Here Haswell allows us to hear to his source recordings. Exceptionally Loud Propane Gas Cannon Bird Scarer and Helicopter Trip are exactly that. There is no editing or overdubs. My favourite was the recordings of an ant colony which almost provide the perfect organic  drone track. These type of recordings are probably not for everyone but for those of you, who like me, have a strange fascination for such things, Wild Tracks is experimental sound heaven.

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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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Daniel Menche & Anla Courtis – Yagua Ovy (MIE Music) 2011

Posted in Daniel Menche, Drone, Music with tags , , , , on April 27, 2011 by noisenoisenoise

Yet another helping of Menche-y goodness – this time on vinyl and scheduled to be released in June. I am a huge fan of Menche’s collaborative work and this time he gets together with Anla Courtis, the Argentinian  experimental guitarist. I’m a tad embarrassed that this is the first time I’ve heard a record featuring Courtis. After hearing this, it certainly won’t be my last.

Yagua Ovy is based on an Argentinian Werewolf myth  of the “blue dog”. The two tracks are an amalgam of Menche’s processed field recordings and Courtis’s instrumental experimentation. The two work very well together. Menche’s treated nature recordings are always disorienting. Actually strike that – most of what Menche does full stop is disorienting. To hear and then try to process the sounds of nature after Menche has finished often leaves me with the feeling that something sinister had been created. Nowhere have I had that effect more than on the first track, Runa-Uturunco,  where walls of static and squall wash over and often intimidate the creepy ambience created by Courtis. What Courtis does has to be heard to be fully appreciated. It is almost like someone is walking through fields of discarded bones – a chalky, hollow, percussive effect which lasts for the first seven minutes before yielding to  cacophony. I almost felt that I was being stalked.

The second track El Relincho has Courtis’s guitar experimentation overlaying what initially sounded like static but once the track progressed, revealed itself to be akin to someone struggling through banks of snow. If I felt like being stalked on the first track, the second is all about fear and flight. It’s both ominous and terrifying.

Menche says that the sound he creates is very controlled and is designed to provoke the listeners imagination. I think this is one of the best representations of that intent. Excellent. If you are lucky enough to have kept your record player then Yagua Ovy can be pre-ordered from www.miemusic.co.uk

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