Out now:
Uma 118 THE RITA - The Lilac Fairy 2LPPygmalion carved a beautiful woman from ivory and when he kissed his statue's cool white lips he found that Aphrodite had turned them pink and warm with life. From ephemera, from tulle and satin, THE RITA has assembled a fantasy woman; a ballerina, a fairy, a sex worker – violently she is animated into existence as a sonic monolith dense and menacing as Richard Serra's looming steel. With the double LP set THE LILAC FAIRY, THE RITA reaches an apex of fixation on the dancer's body. This obsession has grown simultaneously more focused and greater in scale; here the sonic object is not a dancer nor any of her parts, neither thigh nor ankle; THE LILAC FAIRY records the ritualized construction of a garment, THE LILAC FAIRY is a costume, a tutu empty of body altogether.
Tutu meaning "ass" in some archaic French lexicon, tutu encircling the hips and extending up into a bodice from which the woman rises like a blossom, tutu projecting from the body as a frothy, diaphanous frame for the genitals, tutu echoing the frilly labial folds. The sanctity of ballet as elite aristocratic high art has always been a thinly-veiled facade for blatant eroticism, where women are interchangeable pieces of scenery arranged in colonnades for the pleasure of the male gaze. The Lilac Fairy herself was originally choreographed by Imperial Master Marius Petipa for his unskilled but beautiful daughter Marie as a mime part, but has been modified over the past century to become one of the most taxing characters in the female dancer's repertoire, with a punishingly slow variation of repetitive steps that must all be executed without betraying any signs of effort or fatigue; in every iteration the dancer wears a wide and vacant smile. In the words of Prima Ballerina Assoluta Margot Fonteyn: "If audiences knew what pain the dancers were enduring, only people who like bullfights could bear to watch it."
THE LILAC FAIRY is a ricochet between fabrication and obliteration, degradation and ritualized exaltation. As the fantasy woman is assembled through the Total Fetish Object of the tutu, so she is reduced from personhood to the garment that encases and adorns her. The tutu is her Reliquary, to build it is both an act of worship and a proclamation of ownership. Only within the noise does she ascend, within the inimitable walls of THE RITA that choke every frequency, devour all and drown all, shatter every object. Everything is reduced to geometry, a cello attempts to accompany and is pulverized. Within the abstraction of harsh noise, THE RITA simultaneously brings to life and annihilates the Total Fetish Object, and in this performance of gestures she is elevated to the realm of non-objectivity, the Black Square of Malevich, Vessel and Void -- pure.
Listeners would be wise to note that Sam McKinlay has transcended the trope of the romanticized cult of genius surrounding solitary harsh noise, and THE RITA is now half-woman, with the integral presence of Arlie Doyle as both the embodiment of the objectified form/performative feminine and collaborator in the sonic deconstruction of her own body. Additionally, THE LILAC FAIRY utilizes the contributions of several skilled craftspeople and musicians, with the tutu constructed by Katherine Hotmer and fittings to Doyle's body performed by Rachel Hayward, Luke Tandy's assiduous recording of the process of construction, and cello accompaniment by Leila Bordeuil. The sound that has made McKinlay a modern master of harsh noise remains intact, but the expansive critical and collaborative scope of THE LILAC FAIRY makes it a hallmark in the oeuvre of THE RITA.
- Kristin Hayter
The records have been pressed on 140 gr black vinyl with black label and black inner sleeve and comes in a deluxe silver silkscreen on black cardboard sleeve with artwork collage by Sam McKinlay, limited to 199 hand numbered copies with six insert in black cardboard and silver ink and color poster.
Uma 119 EDWIGE LPThe intrinsic fandom tendency toward Eurotrash actress Edwige Fenech has possibly been one of the most encompassing examples of 'obsession' translating into layers of pummeling abrasive sound, especially in the building block heyday of the heavier OVMN and Incapacitants inspired style of International contemporary early 2000s harsh noise artists. EDWIGE FENECH – just the name sends the educated into a whirlwind of her cinematic stylizations, objectification, and glorious portrayal and generator of mandates for various Eurotrash genres.
The inconceivable layered work with Rosalba Neri in THE SEDUCERS. The cropped model shoot hair and painted skin of WHAT ARE STRANGE DROPS OF BLOOD ON THE BODY OF JENNIFER. The awe inspiring bobbed haircut and mannerisms of GENTLY BEFORE SHE DIES. The sex worker apparel and curly blonde wig from TAXI GIRL. The slicked and pinned back hair and nylon worship of DR. JEKYL LIKES THEM HOT. The crew cut haircut and bare feet glimpses from STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER. The 70s wavy, curly hair and the stockings during the sultry couch scenes from LOVER BOY. The courtesan role intense leg worship and playful mannerisms of GIOVANNONA LONG THIGH. The sun-tanning and fetish exercise programs of VICES IN THE FAMILY acting alongside Susan Scott. The medieval maiden and mistress aesthetic of UBALDA ALL NAKED AND WARM.
The examples and details listed above can be watched and mentally layered to achieve a generative aesthetic that pushes the visceral tendencies of the abrasive sound artist. Not unlike the pornography and the extreme lifestyle fascination of the 1990s Americanoise, the interests continued to be deconstructed and melded into harsh noise as the conscious and studious harsh noise artists of the 2000s continued to study the European cult film and its objectified actresses and fetish driven aspects. The experience is cumulative the more you watch, collect, and study the various genres that Edwige Fenech was featured in and that inspired the cumulative and layered aspects of the harsh noise project Edwige with the original line-up of Keith (MANIA), myself (THE RITA) and Dan Johansson (SEWER ELECTION) and later Nolan Throop (KAKERLAK) filling in for Keith on a 2008 American tour. Between the sets on the 2008 tour from myself, SEWER ELECTION, KAKERLAK and DOG HOLOCAUST (Nolan and Dan – maybe the loudest thing I have ever heard), the 90s rough American style harsh noise worship was palpable. It's only natural that a tape was generated as exemplary from the tour days of 2008 including later collaborations with the eventual line-up of Dan Johannson, Nolan Throop and myself.
Now available on vinyl from Urashima.
- Sam McKinlay
The record has been pressed on 140 gr black vinyl with black label and black inner sleeve and comes in a deluxe silver silkscreen on black cardboard sleeve, limited to 199 hand numbered copies w/ black & white poster.
Uma 120 DEAD BODY LOVE / ATRAX MORGUE LPIt feels like I've been writing about DEAD BODY LOVE for as long as I have been recording harsh noise. What else can be said? I can't express enough how much of an influence Italian harsh noise has had on my own personal works, but It also lets me and several peers investigate the techniques and styles of the 1990s harsh noise and the atmosphere that was created expressed from different regions of the world. The more I listen and revisit the material of 90s Japanese harsh noise, the 80s UK power electronics and the celebrated rougher tendencies of 90s Americanoise, the Italian material and different projects flare up that dictate a powerful 'Coles Notes' of harsh noise and how it can be deconstructed and eventually materialized into vivisected lines and layers of crumbling, throbbing, cracking and creaking sound.
I always trail back to MAUTHAUSEN ORCHESTRA and its insurmountable importance to abrasive sound and its developments, especially in sub sect harsh noise genres of the 2010s; the project's more minimalist and focused influence on later Italian projects such as the 1990s DEAD BODY LOVE as DBL's material exemplified aspects of crushing avalanches of crumbling sound, layered and sometimes delayed, a major player against and with the Americanoise sound of the 1990s expressed by MACRONYMPHA and SKIN CRIME to name a couple. Then you take the obsessions and the lines of moving sound and have them expressed by something like the fanatical ATRAX MORGUE.
Fearsome concentration and jarring meditation on lines of warbling and predatory analog synth work portray something invariably real about the obsession acted out from the Italian project ATRAX MORGUE. A different display of penetrative and studied sound seethes from ATRAX MORGUE as now the listener and 'fan' of Italian Industrial and harsh noise is confronted with another genre defining sound that pits throbbing and rough synth against haunting and manic vocalizations, disturbing the listener with its undeniable dedicated concentration. The resulting split tape with material from DEAD BODY LOVE and ATRAX MORGUE isn't as black and white as one might think. DEAD BODY LOVE makes use of dark and rough early industrial-like lines and meld into the eventual crushing forces that he is known for. In the vein of ATRAX MORGUE, samples are also manipulated and drawn out for the listener reminding us of his more delay heavy work. ATRAX MORGUE's material works with DBL's material almost seamlessly via further haunting and throbbing dark material, slowly churning and deconstructing into his own distinct sound of heavily concentrated focus and mania for singular sounds and how they can repeat, move and create total atmosphere.
A celebrated once in a lifetime example of a split release re-issued on vinyl by Urashima.
- Sam McKinlay
The record has been pressed on 140 gr black vinyl with black label and black inner sleeve and comes in a deluxe silver silkscreen on black cardboard sleeve, limited to 199 hand numbered copies w/sheet from The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology.
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