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.
Ducks Battle Satan 