Waking up into first morning of 2026 and put on PRIMITIVE ISOLATION TACTICS "All Pressure Past" tape material from bandcamp. It made me think is there topic like this already? And if yes, there must be hundred(s) of new people at the forum since, so doesn't really matter.
Listening to P.I.T. tape, it makes me think about what other people have commented about project. Some say boring, nothing happening, too slow and simple or whatever. Then other people are exact opposite. Praising textures and the details. I guess it depends on a release, but "all pressure past" is good example where it is not ultra simplistic crackle study, but neither high energy blast. More like slow paced experiment on rough noise surfaces. He won't be overdubbing and editing his work to be somehow technically advanced. Instead, there is simplicity of manually processing the sound. What makes it interesting, is indeed the nuance and detail of the sound. It's not maximal harsh noise blasting, where you would need cut ups and swift changes to "keep it interesting" so to say. Noise may appear in this as if it was broken cable hum and some sort of rotating device interacting. Or let's say something like 2nd track beginning. It reminds me of what I was doing with Grunt "Karike" -CD, where you simply need to strip down noise into pure elements, to be able to appreciate particular sounds. Beginning of tracks sounds as if it would be electric dry grass.. until more typical harsh noise jumps in.
There are masters in simple "one thing" noise approach. Can think of several The Haters works where very little happens. It is almost funny that GX was explaining that it really took until his warm up show for K2 and MSBR back in early 00's that he decided to buy meatbox pedal, as he didn't want to sound like crap next to Japanese sound masters.
I've talked to handful of guys who are nowadays way more into direction of not wanting to hear any tricks. Not wanting to hear technical advances, but prefer good forward driving noise. Sound you can hear being performed and slowly developed. Not "let's give them wow moments".
Of course I do like many types of noise, but the most I have preferred noise crafted live, focusing on sounds that stand out as sounds, rather than layering and editing bunch of things that make the track. Even if it would be power electronics, it is usually better that the sound itself being focused recognizable sounds instead of being build out of multi-layered generic synth sounds.
I would recommend Capers, that is the vibe I get from them. Slow and crude noise. Not sure technically how they make their music, but that is the feeling I get from it. Not much fun really, but when you are in the mood for it, it works fine.
Quote from: Krigsverk on Today at 11:25:06 AMI would recommend Capers (...) Not sure technically how they make their music, but that is the feeling I get from it.
There are a couple of one-layer-only tracks on the Lungs CD, but I usually work with a couple of layers. You are right though in that I want to keep it very stripped down and simple.
Big fan of Primitive Isolation Tactics! Always up to something interesting. All the releases are slightly different, but the red thread is this sort of tense investigation and firm steering of the few sounds at hand.
His stuff often reminds me of MSBR - Ultimate Ambience in that aspect. Not sure how Koji Tano recorded that album, but it sure is very simple, fierce and sharp.
I will make my New Years Day confession now:
Just as embarrassing as not realizing that Mikko is Grunt (until he had to tell me!), I did not know that Taylor at Scream + Writhe is Primitive Isolation Tactics, until just now. 😳
I'm slow, ok?
But I'm learning!
I don't know if it counts as "one layer" because i use at least 3 channels of my mixer (if not more), but i record everything live one tape and i barely edit (only the spoken samples are added later)