Was talking with one friend and he was expressing question, where are the current equivalents of Smell & Quim, Cock ESP, Crank Sturgeon, etc. First of all - not imitators of the bands. No trying to be like them, but in spirit.
His conclusion was that these days, so much of material is uniform with collage artworks, explicit or seemingly serious content. Symbols, tough guy "fuck hipsters" -type of thing. Leaning towards metal scene state of mind. And so on. Pure harsh noise or pure heavy electronics or raw ripping power electronics.
But what would be the odd, artistic, weird, yet noisy material out there - if any? Something that is not only bunch of local dorks with funny hats doing shitty noise. But to have sort of ambition and focus in their work nevertheless. Producing good material, and being unique without trying it too hard?
I personally, have never been huge fan of humor noise, yet Smell & Quim, Crank Sturgeon, Gerogerigegege, and so on, of course they go well beyond being just lazy slapstick on stage or jokes on tape. Including absurd, bizarre and strange elements to it. I didn't consider it any problem that there would not be so much amusing noise, but now that question was made to me, it made me think that it is probably true that there has been shift to darker and rougher in general?
When looking to Finland, indeed there are bands who I would not file under "dark side of noise". Keränen, Umpio, Tyhjiö, KSNK, Rotat, Salakapakka Sound System and such. They may not dress up, and sound of most of them is actually pretty much straight out harshness, so it's perhaps not exactly in the level my friend was asking for. But nevertheless, putting projects like Pain Nail and Rotat next to eachother, it is clear, that latter one looks and sounds amusing, bizarre, odd and wild, compared to stylish, cold and bleak industrial aesthetics of the former.
Perhaps more to the subject could be other bands who may not be so familiar for readers of board: I was visiting local noisy show, where Electric Hobo played. Sound he created, was no less of value compared to most big shots of Finnish industrial-noise, but the name of project and sort of stoner'ish "making cool sounds" type of atmosphere in it, made one think there will be probably zero people interested to check it out. Even if music itself, certainly would be good, but due mundane and down the earth arty feel, it may remain local curiosity. Same could be said about Joulupukki (who does harsh noise dressed as santa claus, and from albums would probably make no sense) or Greatful Dad (who does noise with circuit bend toys). Grateful Dad is actually playing live quite a lot and has even LP out. It would be probably not as demented as Smell & Quim, yet still same kind of play-of-words based on mainstream music and goofing around yet succeeding to make actually good noise while doing so....
