PLAYLIST with COMMENTS/REVIEWS

[k.p.g]

Oscillating Innards - Nadir Emergence (Troniks)
A fairly monolithic record in scope and composition.  Once I put it on, it's hard to turn it off without getting over the finish line.  Parts flow in and out seamlessly, great use of a variety of methods from crushing harsh, power electronic, field recording, ambient, etc.  There's one other thing to this too, which is its overt emotional core.  Lately, I cannot stand that strand of 2000's, emotionally stricken strand of the harsh noise scene.  Once was my speed, now it isn't, happens.  A lot of that has to do with what feels like forcing an emotion (often negative) onto the listener, as opposed to letting them determine it.  I get no feeling of this when I put on Oscillating Innards.  This record especially can work for a variety of moods.  It's good stuff.

[Fistfuck Masonanie]

A.A.M.D.

Anonymous noise collaboration project. Two tape releases in 2025. I should have included them in my year end list as it's one of my favorite new projects.

Lo-fi and dirty tape and perhaps vinyl abuse. I imagine Max has something to do with this since one of the two released tapes is on Purveyors/Tribe and the audio fingerprint has his DNA all over it. Curious who else is involved...

This is an educated guess, I truly don't know, but someone close to this wheelhouse in sound is Confounder, who just so happens to also have an excellent album on Tribe this year. I could be wrong here.

Really great textures and audio dissection.

A.A.M.D. -  12/05/1921 (Inauguration Day)

Red cover tape. Starts off harsh, but it's a more exploratory and nuanced release which I really loved. Great use of dynamics. Great use of tension. Harsh in all of the right places and quietly tickles your ears in others.

A.A.M.D. - 13/08/1910 (Lexington)

Yellow cover tape. More straight-ahead and visceral abuse done well. Not overtly harsh, but active and energetic.

Not sure if this will be a one-off project, but hope to hear more from whoever is involved.

[Fistfuck Masonanie]

Various Artists - Clinical Research Study (Purveyors)

Purveyors / Tribe Tape compilations have been one of my favorite things in the noise scene in the last couple of years.

One of the situations where you might not recognize most, if any of the names sometimes, but everyone brings their A game. They also flow really well, where sometimes it's difficult to tell one artist from the rest which works incredibly well for these comps. Some of it definitely has to do with how it's all mixed down to create an amorphous beast of sounds.

Max starts this one off with the perfectly titled "Ozempic Village." Plunderphonics and tape nightmare fuel.

She Walks Crooked segues into crumbly analogue textural territories.

Expose Your Eyes divulges into maniacal tape loops.

The second half really takes things to the next level for me. I lost track of the artists, but at some point later in the comp, one of the tracks created a very vivid image in my mind of Victorian grave diggers drunkenly excavating a corpse in the darkness with orbs of light dancing about.

The next sounds like concrete tombs scraping across one another. Then the next track sounds like plunging into volatile and hostile realms of post-corporal existence.

Really excellent comp and every single one on the label is worth checking out. The new Psychic Welfare Omnibus comes very highly recommended as well. I should do a review at some point.

[Stipsi]

Human Virus Transmission
Virus 12 (self released, 2016).

I'm probably not much objective because Mattia is the other half of North Central, but i really love how he stays minimal and repetitive without being boring.

 I know for sure he only used contact cables, a behringer multifx v amp, a mixer and a microphone in all of his releases.

[k.p.g]

Phantom Selector - You Are Your Own Apparition (self-released)
Tense & patient Jersey noise of the late night variety.  The project just decided to revive itself after an 11 year hiatus, and this makes for a good comeback.  This disc is one you put on and close your eyes to, as it doesn't ever burst through too harshly.  Like waves gently crashing on the shore...

Wolf Eyes - Intrusion (Gods of Tundra)
Connelly-era murk; it's dark and to the point.  I find this period of the band to be marked by how much of a downer releases are.  Stuff with Dilloway had those moments, but there is so much joy in the exploration of the sound to be had.  Feels more like three dudes getting too high and trying to freak each other out; party noise maybe?  When it comes to the Mike stuff though, it's all pretty dour, maybe a bit formulaic.  Fuck it, when it works, it works really well, and this is a case of it working really really well.

[k.p.g]

Worth - Blinder (Prose Nagge)
To have something this fully realized is truly special; a beautiful LP that gives you all angles of this project without wasting a moment of time.  I'd venture to call this a perfect record.  A habit so many of us possess within noise is to fill a format's maximum allotted time (see: C90s, 80-minute CDs).  Worth side steps this notion with the LP format but giving us a total of 25 minutes, when a standard LP side tends to be just a little shorter than that.  Awesome.  Restraint shows power.  I'm really sad we won't be getting any more from this project now...

[k.p.g]

I recently moved an old boombox to my mother's house.  There are a ton of tapes I plan to sell right next to it, so I figured I would listen to some in order to break up holiday monotony.  Results so far...

Universal Cell Unlock - The Power of Misunderstanding (No Rent)
As of late, I find myself returning to the works of CF.  Kites is pretty magical, and Mark Lord releases prove to be a great listen when I can find a rip online.  Universal Cell Unlock feels like a culmination of all these projects reaching a very mature end point.  There is a lot of strange oscillator work that appears to be working in tandem with some Midi-controlled devices.  While it made for a good listen at the time, there is some sort of polish that I cannot get behind here.  I think previous projects I mentioned had an element of chaos embedded in them, and UCU can have those moments too.  Not here though.  Maybe leans closer to the psychedelic Kites material, with a dash of No Rent sleekness added on.  It's still a solid listen.

Evil Moisture/Shredded Nerve/Jackson-Pratt - ??? (Royal Sperm... or maybe self-released?)
This is a weird find.  It contains art that Bolus has already used on another Royal Sperm release, but with a different color scheme this time.  Only reason I can remember the players involved is because I bought this on the tour these 3 had 2 years ago, with Jackson-Pratt informing me that it was Andy mixing the source of the other 2.  Yup, sounds exactly like that.  So what is the end result?
Tough to say -- I find myself realizing more and more that new Bolus projects lack the meticulous editing of the old stuff.  Take the CDr he did on Chocolate Monk this year; mostly just some continuous oscillator blaring.  Not much else to sink your teeth into; kind of boring as a result.  This one also lacks that editing, and sounds more like Bolus just hit "record" and went for it.  Results here are much better though.  It's pretty creepy at points, which make the portions of absolute dead air easier to sit through.  Maybe I wasn't in the right mindset for it at the time but I found this a lot more enjoyable in revisit.

[Fistfuck Masonanie]

Richard Ramirez / T.E.F. - Split (Deadline)

These two long-time collaborators share a new split in 2025. Kevin has been a member/contributor of Black Leather Jesus since about 2006, but they haven't done a split between their solo works since the 2001 Magnified Healing with Prurient.

Richard's side is one long 15-minute piece. Steeped in cable hum, feedback, and metal junk abuse. The hum and feedback are shaped into a kind of harsh droning backdrop to the active metal abuse. However, only expertly crafted like Richard could do. A solid track from Richard.

T.E.F. side features Kevin's fast-paced slice and dice he is known for. The whole release is good, but the final T.E.F. track "Sloughing" truly shines. An absolute scorcher and stunning showcase of technical prowess and harshness. The industrial metal banging on the last minute and a half goes so hard. Kevin's already proven himself time and time again. He just pokes his head out every few years to remind us that he can still absolutely kill.

Two of the best in the game show us they still got it, and they only needed 15 minutes each to do so.