I was out of town visiting a friend in Ohio this weekend. I elected to not fly with the rest of my friends that came on the trip, seeing as I enjoy driving more/could get some quality listening time in throughout the back roads of rural PA. So making up for tons of lost time here.
Kiran Arora - Wormwood Scrubs (Tordon Ljud)
Since its release, I have heard this disc praised pretty consistently as being a masterpiece. First time I heard it, I thought "... It's fine." No sounds really gripped me too hard. So when I saw it posted again for the first time in a while on Facebook, I decided this would be a good disc to begin my drive. Let's see if my opinion changes.
I came away from this round of listening thoroughly impressed with how Kiran is able to make dense harsh noise flow so well for such long durations of time. It is not an easy thing to do. I found myself asking "how is making these sounds?" quite a few times throughout. It is better not to know though, as I feel like the answer would ruin the magic here.
While it was not a life-changing record to come back to, I think it is a very great piece of harsh noise that does not waste your time. It's only 30 minutes, and it is 30 minutes well spent!
Sawn Half - Faults (Tribe Tapes)
Sawn Half came out the gate swinging with the Sink disc last year. After much consideration, I would say that was my Album of the Year for 2024; perfect mix of tape work and crushing harsh noise. This disc comes out on Tribe now, so of course I have to listen... during a snowstorm. What a trip that is.
It is too early for me to tell if Faults is better than Sink. At the same time though, it is unfair to compare the two. The latter experiments much more with full on ambient moments, successfully extending the range of the Sawn Half sound. Sitting yet again at half an hour, this disc does not waste time. It keeps you guessing where the sounds will take you with some short track lengths (I believe two tracks clock in around the 2 and a half minute mark). More listening sessions will be mandatory for this.
If you need a new artist in the harsh noise landscape to keep an eye on though, here he is. I am excited for whatever comes next.
Atrax Morgue - Negative Frequencies (Slaughter Productions)
No artist slides back-and-forth between "masterful" and "horrific" quite like Atrax Morgue. It really is either the perfect shade of darkness or amateur dogshit when you put on his work; "a flip of the coin," as they say. That is both the blessing and the curse of recording on the spot like he did... Honestly, a lot of the low points come down to his vocals for me. As soon as I hear him scream, I'm out.
With that being said, Negative Frequencies is one of those records that falls into "masterful." As I prepared to head back home in the early hours of yesterday morning, I had no idea how cold -1 degree Farenheit was going to be. Having to jam ice out of my gas cap with no gloves on was a pretty miserable experience. I would say that Negative Frequencies captures that misery to perfection. I need to pack gloves next time I go out though.
M.B. - Armaghedon (M.B.)
M.B. - The Plain Truth (Broken Flag)
Electing to lump these two together, as they came out relatively close to one another, and are both lean on the side of M.B.'s heavy synth work. I would say both ramp up their quality significantly by the time the B-Side rolls around. Not to say they have disposable A-Sides, but as is the case with most good works of synth-based recordings, it takes a while to really hit "the zone." When they do though, OH BOY. You just can't beat 'em then. Exploring M.B. in general is a relatively new phase, and I thought I would be a true believer of his more turntable/tape stylings more than the synth stuff. I don't know though... these two make a pretty compelling case for the other end.
Tornado Boys - Untitled (American Tapes)
7 minutes of midwest bliss. I doubt I need to explain what that is like to anyone on here. Though I will say, this 7 minutes is very, very good.
