PLAYLIST with COMMENTS/REVIEWS

[k.p.g]

YU//F - Clouds Pass Stone Remains (Robert Fuchs)

I have had this cassette sitting up at my mother's house for a while during packing and moving to a new place.  Now that the stress of that is over (I hope! hah.), I can finally dig into this tape I have been waiting so anxiously to hear.  Beautiful work overall to spend the first sunny evening of the spring listening to.  A-Side plays out  in a very somber manner, with some tape murk working its way along, and some slight mangling added in.  Restraint is great here.  B-Side manages to create some weirder atmospheres to start, but eventually gives way to the beauty that this artist has been known to create throughout the years.  I am wondering when a larger edition YU//F will come out, as I think this is an act that will continue to go criminally underrated until such a release comes along.

Diagram:A - Untitled (Ultra Sound Probe Transducer)

Did not expect a spiritual revival of Sound Probe to be on the tables for 2025!  It is a welcomed one though.  Packaging is as raw and disgusting as ever, which is had me excited to check the actual sound.  I own some older Diagram:A discs, and they are amongst the LOUDEST pieces in my collection.  This one actually ended up sounding closer to the YU//F tape than intended!  Creepier zones of restrained synth make you feel trapped inside the machine they come from.  There are some rats scurrying about, maybe a wasp's nests.  Yet by the time you find a home in this filth, it starts to have some blissful comfort to it.

[death.appeal]

I caught up on a bunch of Malignant releases missing from my collection recently, and so can say the following about these two, at least:

URSCHMERZ - Death Hypnosis CS
Immensely oppressive, barren, ominous dark ambient/death industrial. I don't play tapes much these days, but this has got about 10 goes around in the last month or six weeks. I can't think of any direct comparisons, but a near-enough reference point could be early '90s Lustmord filtered through the same era of Brighter Death Now, but with a clearer, slightly more hi-fi production (not a complaint in this instance). Deep, distorted drones; distant rhythmic pulses; wailing, creeping synth.

SEKTOR 304 - Soul Cleansing CD
Likely no stranger to many here - old-school industrial clearly and proudly influenced by Kollaps-era Einstürzende Neubauten, early Swans, SPK etc. - just really well done, and somewhat of a rarity to find an industrial "band" ending up with such a focused effort that doesn't go down the more conventional rock-rooted arrangement path. Buzzsaws, clanging metal, distorted yells, pulsing bass, tastefully textured noise.

[ConcreteMascara]

SEKTOR 304 - Soul Cleansing CD
Likely no stranger to many here - old-school industrial clearly and proudly influenced by Kollaps-era Einstürzende Neubauten, early Swans, SPK etc. - just really well done, and somewhat of a rarity to find an industrial "band" ending up with such a focused effort that doesn't go down the more conventional rock-rooted arrangement path. Buzzsaws, clanging metal, distorted yells, pulsing bass, tastefully textured noise.

An album that never gets old for me.

[Mattias G]

Isn't it different recordings on the vinyl and CD versions of the Wolf Eyes/Prurient - The Warriors release? Or maybe I mixed them up with some other recordings?

[k.p.g]

Isn't it different recordings on the vinyl and CD versions of the Wolf Eyes/Prurient - The Warriors release? Or maybe I mixed them up with some other recordings?

The CD version contains a second Wolf Eyes track.  Prurient side remains the same throughout both.

[k.p.g]

Smegma & Wolf Eyes - Smegma & Wolf Eyes (American Tapes)

They should've named the sides "Smegma & Wolf Eyes" at that point.  Good collaboration to hear for a morning commute.  I have always thought of Smegma as "city music;" something about the mixture of sounds they got cooking around.  This one was going as the sun was starting to emerge for the day. 

[Phenol]

An ultra classic and possibly my favourite album of all time: SPK - Information Overload Unit. Original LP with the black cover. Not a bad moment on this one!

After that the new GO will be on again, this time on CD.

[Cranial Blast]

Dead Body Collection - I Am In Hell tape by Trapdoor Tapes.

Received this tape in the mail today from an online order from Overuse distro in Tasmania. I was attracted to cover of cenobite sadist "pinhead" and I was curious to hear what this tape would sound like, especially after having picked up some other tapes by this HWN entity and I got to say I quite enjoyed this one and perhaps my favorite Dead Body Collection tape. From sides A to sides B, is a wall of torture and pain, it's almost like what I was coming to expect in a way, but I wasn't expecting some of the great Hellrasier samples from the both Hellraiser and Hellbound to be present on the recording, in which some samples were present just adding further to this ominous wall of being tortured for all eternity. Tapes like this one, definitely rekindle some HWN interest for me. This tape definitely delivered some hellish moments under a wall monolithic static, under sadistic punishment! ALL HAIL LEVIATHAN...LORD OF THE LABYRINTH!

[FreakAnimalFinland]

SNUFF "VI" CD
F&V
I was given advance recording of this to check out and comment. Of course I gave honest feedback, with main message being "you can do better!", haha.. It wasn't meant too critical or malicious, but simply notion that Snuff has probably their best album since 2nd full length -almost-, but just that little notch of saturation of last punch was missing from some of the tracks. Little adjustments later, even if they were really small, they now make me conclude: Best Snuff album since the early days!  If you had hard time without endurance test of previous album, this one is disturbing and fierce, but with its 9 songs and plenty of variation, it is not merely endurance test, but actually power electronics to be listened to - frequently!

[k.p.g]

Various Artists - Horrifying Benign Existence (Easy Listening)

A compilation of some old  & new lo-fi jammers from what I assume is all Michigan-area stuff.  While some of it falls more firmly into "electronic" music realm than noise, it is very good!  B-Side has much more hazy passages of deep synth; perfect for sitting down midday to.

Evil Moisture - All Bone Shockers (Chocolate Monk)

Andy Bolus in fine form here.  Some tracks were recorded on a field trip to a "supposedly haunted castle?"  I am sure there are some stories to tell surrounding that one.  Anyways, this one so far has a lot more oscillator work than I may have anticipated initially.  Let's see how the rest of it turns out.

[Theodore]

Fermenta - Our Gift To You CS [Chemical Independence] : When you see an unknown name / release in a distro list, do you search, do you ask ? Not that often, eh ? Me neither, but some things just 'smell' good. So I did the work. And got my reward. What is Fermenta ? The swedish answer to BLJ. Supergroup. Here we have their first session. ~ 60min. And the title is a good description. Only con is the poor packaging but when I am receiving good gifts I don't care about their wrap around. Noise is the gift. Satatuhatta still has it, or try at the source https://chemical-independence.blogspot.com/ . Not convinced ? OK. Johansson and Nystrand are members of the group with 3 more guys. Now ?

Heppakirjat - Free Wheelin CS : Rural industrial noise from Finland, 'physical' , what's not to like ?! Above I told about packaging. The hand-made J-Card here is noteworthy beautiful. That's how I like my tapes. I contradict myself in just a few sentences, but I am both right.

[k.p.g]

PBK - Warfare State (PBK Recordings)

First active noise listening after a particularly rough weekend.  This was a good one to ease me back into this practice, as well as easing into the world of PBK.  As I have stated before, his PURE disc is great, but that is a split/collab hodgepodge.  This is true PBK alone.

The A-Side sounds a lot like the construction happening outside my office building is being run through a couple effect racks; gnarly and hypnotic.

Really enjoy the weirder synth zones that Side B takes.  Excited to dig into more of his work.

[dodsxuegen]

Snuff "V"(CD, Filth And Violence)
CD arrived today, so this is the first time listening! I feel the approach is slightly different to "IV". High frequencies dominate the first two tracks with a constant texture going through the whole "Pressed Against Glass"-track. Really liking this so far!

[Phenol]

Listened to LJDLP - Aux Petits Enfants De France yesterday evening and my 5 year old son said it sounded like a mixture of the Donald Duck theme song and Harry Potter, haha, he's not completely wrong... NP Ex.Order - The Law of Heresy while working from home. All Ex.Order is good, this one is no exception. I like how it takes its time and is restrained yet not afraid to be noisy. The sound is very detailed and sculpted, but not too complex. Some parts are quite heavy and defined while others are more swirly and psychedelic giving some nice variation. Ex.Order really are masters of their craft which was evident already on this early material.

[k.p.g]

Empty Set - No Solution Set One (American Tapes)

An Olson one-off that has some of the best synth and turntable sounds from the man period.  On the other hand, it also has some of the most generic "mixer blip" sounds that crawls under your skin in the worst way possible.  It is the nature of ripping live for stuff like this to happen, but it just sucks when these moments take over some stellar looping.  Still, good way to start the morning.