Mikko mentioned something about good things going on in Australia.
Like what? Always thought the place was interesting so let's hear about the racket going on there.
Mr. Andrew Mac is a digger, is he not?
I haven't heard anything from Australia since Ulex Xane's projects. I'm curious to know what's happening down in that part of the world too.
Here's his quote from the "Peak..." thread: "I believe there is pretty intense stuff happening in Australia as we speak. "
I've seen some really good mountainbiking videos from Down Under and New Zealand (any noise in N.Z.?). Always liked stuff about Aussie-land b/c of the venomous snakes, crocs, & Wild West-type landscape. And huge killer razorbacks.
I'm also interested to know projects from australia so I hope someone can shed some light.
as of NZ, i'm a huge fan of The Dead C and the whole late 80s/early 90s scene of experimental music that developed mostly around that band with sideprojects and labels run by it's members like Bruce Russell with projects like A handful of dust, Omit and lately stuff under his own name and Michael Morley as Gate.
I recommend this cd for anyone who wants to get a taste: http://www.discogs.com/Various-Le-Jazz-Non-A-Compilation-Of-Nineties-NZ-Noise/release/301739
though this is "noise" that's definetly more in the free-improv side and coming more from albert ayler and lamonte young than from merzbow or spk.
The go-to man would be Mark Groves, who I'm sure is a member of this forum under some name or other. He helps run Sabbatical (http://www.sbbtcl.com/), which puts on lots of gigs in Melbourne, including a lot of inter-state artists, and does a lot of travelling himself. He would have the best view of what's happening here. Last year Sabbatical put out a great double-cd box set compilation of Melbourne projects called "Knife Culture" which would be an excellent start for anyone interested, really nice packaging and everything.
I know little, I hardly ever go out and have few contacts, although I'm lucky to be living in the Melbourne area as there's always been a lot of activity here for Noise and related. The thing is, there isn't really a Noise/PE "scene", such as there seems to be in places in the US and Europe. Things are very mixed. There's always been a great deal of experimental, sound-art, improvisational material here. The Make It Up Club (http://www.makeitupclub.com.au/), for example, has regular gigs every Tuesday night, for over a decade now, and everyone who's ever farted into a microphone has played there. It's an institution.
For some reason, we have a dearth of actual Power Electronics. I'm not sure why. Just about every other musical genre is pretty much ripped off and imitated here - Australians can be the most deplorable copy cats when it comes to music, and any other kind of culture really. Fortunately, what little PE there is here - basically Dead Boomers, Von Einem (both Groves projects, and I hope more people get a copy of Dead Boomers "The Pig In The Python" lp which came out this year, it's a pinnacle) and Ebola Disco who aren't playing much these days anyway - is pretty damn good. There seem to be a few Noise projects but not a lot of truly agro Harsh Noise, apart from Fuck, The Retarded Girl who plays traditional, cock-out, pedal-and-metal Noise. I also love the material that comes from Magik Crowbar (http://mindtimedestroy.blogspot.com.au/) tapes, which is usually Tommy Gunn and whomever he's gotten stoned with and jammed with (don't worry, no hippy shit). Tommy's in touch with a few other local, small tape labels too.
Shame File (http://www.shamefilemusic.com/) released two excellent compilations called Artifacts which documents Australian experimental music from 1930 onwards, from academic composers to post-punk pub stuff. Clinton Green is definitely another contact one would want if you want to know more about abstract sound from here.
I think most people have heard of Smell The Stench (http://www.smellthestench.net/diy.htm). Personally, I've fallen out with Leigh but admit he's still pretty active putting out shitty cdrs and tapes of pretty much everything he can get his hands on, particularly if it's Raw Black Metal/Black Noise related. Much of it is from overseas, though. The online section is handled in the US. The interview I did with Leigh (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LxVJz53PZY&list=UUYYFu8Bd0Zh18sebY4xjuFQ&index=6&feature=plcp) is still online, along with interviews of a few other locals. The information will be a little out-dated by now, but it might interest some - there's also a fair bit of live material as well.
Mostly, in Melbourne it's usually pretty smooth, abstracted material. Nothing wrong with that but unless there's been a big shift recently, not a great deal of rough stuff. I hope Mark can prove me wrong, though. One of the biggest issues is that because of geographics, it's very difficult for o.s. projects to come and play here. You'd think we'd be inundated with Japanoise due to the proximity but it's expensive for people to get here. We've hosted KKNull, Merzbow, Astro, Masonna and one or two others but to the best of my knowledge never The Incapacitants which is a crime. And of course it's near impossible for other nations to send their representatives for the most part. There was the International Noise Convention here last year (I think it was), Whitehouse played the What Is Music? festival a few years ago, Wolf Eyes have been here (of course), but a lot of the big names just can't get out here due to cost.
Yea, razorback pigs where introduced here along with a lot of other non-native animals and they've been wrecking havoc ever since, like the cain toads who will eventually become the master race and overthrow humanity - the US will have to negotiate having their military bases here with a bunch of poisonous frogs, which wouldn't be a great deal different from the politicians we have now. Although we're much prouder of our sharks, crocodiles, snakes and spiders. And alcoholism. We love drinking. The further north you go the higher the blood-alcohol content reading gets. In North Queensland they don't know that you can drink water at all.
I'm in Australia and don't really know of much in the way of good harsh noise or pe happening here except for Mark Groves' (as mentioned in the previous post) project Dead Boomers, who I saw last weekend and really impressed me. His previous project, Absoluten Calfeutrail was also top notch.
Surprised no one's mentioned Neckhold!
Quote from: HONOR_IS_KING! on July 19, 2012, 04:32:32 AM
Surprised no one's mentioned Neckhold!
The Turner brothers aren't residing in Australia at present to my knowledge. Dead Boomers played a show with them at the Red Light District in Far Rockaway back in February, and they had just moved to the US to study a few days prior. That said, Neckhold is one of the strongest recent projects to emerge from Australia - the violence of their approach is largely absent around here in general.
Andrew's post above is pretty much spot on - although I wouldn't refer to Dead Boomers as Power Electronics. The Knife Culture (http://www.discogs.com/Various-Knife-Culture-Buried-Melbourne/release/2919988) compilation we released on Sabbatical (http://www.sbbtcl.com) last year does provide a pretty good overview of Melbourne's current character - though it is not exhaustive. There are a few other labels worth investigating to get a sense of the actual character of Australia's racket: Altered States Tapes (http://alteredstatesofsound.blogspot.com.au/), Magik Crowbar (http://mindtimedestroy.blogspot.com.au/), Grog Pappy (http://grogpapp.blogspot.com.au/), Eternal Solitude (http://www.estapes.com/), Spanish Magic (http://www.spanishmagic.blogspot.com.au/), Inverted Crux, Cipher Productions (http://www.iheartnoise.com/cipherproductions/), Now... This (http://www.nowthis.com.au/other), Cantankerous (http://cantankerousrecords.blogspot.com.au/), Trapdoor Tapes (http://trapdoortapes.blogspot.com.au/), and of course Dual Plover (http://dualplover.blogspot.com.au/).
Right,
Rather than constantly lurking I will chime in with some quick info. There are couple of Australian acts worthy of a mention and who should at least be known by name to the list:
-: the now long running Isomer is still turning out really interesting stuff and the new direction on David's last MCD was great - industrial bordering on PE. Good to see that they got to play in Germany with G/O last year.
-: the dark ambient project Terra Sancta is still going, and I understand a new album is imminent on Malignant.
-: Nekrasov were also pretty damn good whilst they were around. B/M to noise crossover, but generally more noise than B/M. They issued a large number of album's in recent years - many on overseas labels before recently quitting. No idea of any new projects though.
Personally I was also behind Spectrum Magazine way back when (1998-2001), which seemed to reasonably regarded whilst it was around.
Right then - back to lurking.....
-Richard
Anyone know any more about the scene in Newcastle? There seems to have been a lot of activity there. Also, Brisbane has had a lot of good contributions over the years - one thinks of the Small Black Box scene. Apparently Agit8 is slowly getting back into movement which is good news - it wore the Harsh Noise crown for a few years in the late 1990's/early 00's. There's some material distributed on Cipher if people are interested.
Personally I'd be rapt if there was anything coming from the Northern Territory. Surely there would have to be at least one Noise/PE punter up there?!
Australia should look to Texas on wild hog eradication: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiHmYsyVniE
There's culls of all kinds of animals, including native animals. Kangaroos are considered a nuisance by farmers. But to Australian farmers, anything that isn't a cow or sheep or boundary fence is a nuisance.
I understand in New Zealand they hunt wild pigs with knives. I've been given to believe that some Maoris (who can be big buggers sometimes) just stride into the bush with a knife and come out with a pig corpse. Could be bullshit but it' a nice image. You don't fuck with Maoris.
Have you seen "Wake In Fright"?
Some recent Australian action here if you're interested. (http://www.special-interests.net/forum/index.php?topic=2806.0)
Terra Sancta is top shelf.
part of the Knife Culture review (SI 8):
Bleachboys does wonderful textures of lo-fi physical sounds and drones.
Judith Hamann crafts amazing string improvisation. Multi-layered violin string abuse belongs to some of the best I've come across!
James Rushford & Joe Talia provide some of the darkest - yet most likely acoustic drone! Didgeridoo, bow cymbals, metal objects and such usual instruments most likely here, yet it works like dream and intensity grows almost into levels of noise.
Kristan M. Roberts is treating field recordings and rough electronics to become cascading layers of beautiful noises. Some micro-sound crackles and ultra boosted crispiness may not always be advantage, but works out here perfectly.
Steve Law takes the goofy experimental and digital processing into extremes. Thinking of Evil Moisture or some moments of Sudden Infant, but with clarity of digital technology.
Sean Baxter crafts metal objects in artistic and delicate manner. Far from filthy harshness. With such approach revealing the immense potential of frequencies and subtle sound elements.
Aux Assembly relies on simple, yet somehow suffocating guitar ambience. It's ethereal, but lacking all the cheesy Aidan Baker style multi-effect showcasing.
Default Jamerson manages to capture essence of spacey drones, more in tradition of vintage electronic music than contemporary dopy jams.
Screwtape is probably on harsher noise band who manages to deliver top notch piece on this comp. Heavy, multilayered, at the same time harsh overall impression, yet soothing undercurrent!
When talking about Sweden or Denmark "peaking", it doesn't mean just harsh noise or PE, but also in those scene a lot of different approaches are combined. From rugged post-punk to raw bm to tape manipulation, industrial and noise. Yet instead of artificially fitting things together, they ACTUALLY co-exists within very narrow range and fit in together. Certainly it means only fraction of "bm" or "punk", which appears to be kind of "outsider" stuff compared to main current of such styles.
So when talking Australia peaking, I don't mean just PE or harsh noise, but like mentioned above, also drone, improv, field recordings, etc. If Terra Sancta is mentioned, one should not forget ISOMER (known from Tesco release) and his later project in collaboration with Ebola Disco guy: Bordel Militaire (cd out on Neuropa label).
I think situation is similar in many countries. They have vast field of activity going on, but perhaps missing someone (or something) who will pull it together to appear almost as movement, not just unrelated guys with their hobbies. Have label, venue, festival, magazine, something what allows things to become more than it is.
I must say I have been quite isolated within small fraction of genre. While internationally, my interests are wide, domestically it has been hard to team up with artsy or academic. I have been toying around with idea, what would be Finnish experimental fest like, if it gathers anything from Grunt to Hetero Skeleton, from Bizarre Uproar to Grey Park, from Keränen to Vainio, from Reijo Pami to Arktau Eos... Either chaos nobody likes, or simply brilliant.
Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on November 01, 2012, 08:50:02 AMI have been toying around with idea, what would be Finnish experimental fest like, if it gathers anything from Grunt to Hetero Skeleton, from Bizarre Uproar to Grey Park, from Keränen to Vainio, from Reijo Pami to Arktau Eos... Either chaos nobody likes, or simply brilliant.
I think that would be a very good idea. Like a early 90's compilation brought to a live situation!
I can vouch for Smell The Stench as he's put out two of my projects, one drone/ambient, the other noise/industrial. Leigh is a good man
Personally, I think the most interesting label in Australia / a good place to start for absurd sounds is Grog Pappy from Newcastle (http://grogpapp.blogspot.com.au/ (http://grogpapp.blogspot.com.au/)). Newcastle has the best noise scene in Australia in my opinion, just in terms of it being no bullshit and Newcastle being a generally weird place to begin with, therefore producing genuinely unique noise. I also run a tape label called Altered States Tapes, there's a few out of print releases that can be downloaded here for anyone that's interested:
http://alteredstatesofsound.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/download-out-of-print-ast-releases.html (http://alteredstatesofsound.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/download-out-of-print-ast-releases.html)