REVIEWS!
HOMF006 - TORBA / DOTÅBÅTÅ split c31:
Sore Throat, Nausea & Headache Blog:
Torba is a German-emigrated Italian which deals with a cool mixture of drone, noise, ambient. This side features four songs, one being a remix, which switch between droning and quite evocative parts to pure noise sections. The droning parts are quite ethereal, even in their distorted way, and reminded me a lot of early Sunn O))) (Flight Of The Behemoth). When things start getting harsher Torba starts to sound similar to Bastard Noise, with strong digital noises that clamp the structure of the songs parasites. They're not so harsh and add a disturbing feeling to the analogue parts. The third track, Arduino, (which is, by the way, a surname really common in my hometown ahahah) deals with HNW aspects, torturing your earpads with a strong and hard square waves loop. The last song, #6 (Extreme Noise Remix) is a white noise filled black/drone track, sounding like the ItTookTheNightToBelieve Sunn O))) jammed with the InUmbraMalitiaeAmbulabo,InAeternumInTriumphoTenebrarum Abrutum. Nice stuff.
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Influences : Dirt, fire & rain. I think this is one of the fittest describtion I've ever found about a band. Dotåbåtå is an Aussie one mand band which deals with a really cool mix of drone, ambient and harsh noise. Carey Knight describes himself also as black metal and I think it's not wrong, feeling-wise. This long track (about 15 minutes long) is created by melting two recording session and it's very cool in its way of changing mood. It starts with a great bass droning section, coupled with noises and harsh burstes. Evrything outside the bass notes is liek whispered, it doesn't overwhelm the analogue chords and fits perfectly in a disturbing way of music concepts. Music-wise it reminds me a lot something like Black Boned Angel or EGB, just darker. Little by little the noise increases, just to explode around the sixth minute in an orgy of chaos waves and distortion. The disturbing feeling is greater now, with the bass guitar that drones in the background, just to come back to his magnificent dilated arpeggios at the end of the song. It's really cool how the compositions starts in a creepy and humble way, climax in noise at the middle and then turns out in its intimate droning end. Really cool band and really cool song. They've made a lot of releases and it should be your, and mine, objective to pursue some of them!
HOMF007: THE BLACKMOOR STRANGLER "The Mark of M" c80:
Sore Throat, Nausea & Headache Blog:
I'm not much into harsh noise. It's a kind of "music" that lures me, but I still miss my good ol' instruments when I listen to most of it. Anyway, I find it really fascinating and I like to spend some of time listening to a lot of good artists within the genre, like Hal Hutchinson, Richard Ramirez, Masonna, Takeshi Okawa, Maurizio Bianchi and so on. Dwelling in the noisecore area, I've encountered a lot of noise bands that sometimes go apeshit and record harsh stuff, like Gorgonized Dorks or Disleksick, so I can say that I'm not a total outcomer to harsh noise music. Anyway, wall was something I've never dealt so much. Being a huge listener of drone music I think I wouldn't have problems in dealing with HNW, since I've always thought of it as harsh noise thrown in a drone way of composing. The Blackmoor Strangler is a musician ensamble hailing from Texas; they've made a bunch of releases prior to this, three tapes for being more precisely, called Choke Or Slit, Murder At Dawn and Knife Fucked, but this is the first one I've ever listened from them. They deliver two tracks of HNW, one called Dinner Party Murders, the other The Mark Of M. I've said just above that this band is formed by an ensamble of musicians and the website says that different musician were involved during the history of the project, but talking about this release, the artists performing are Richard Ramirez, Geoff Markoff and Rachel Rasmussen. Not bad at all, isn't it? Each track lasts for 38:50 minutes, circa and, as expected from this kind of music, features little changes in structure. On the A side we have a monotonic distorted white noise track, which is a little bit sneaky, not so harsh at all. It creeps in your ears, working underneath your consciouness level and it slips away very easily. I've found very interesting listening to an HNW track that flows like water and it doesn't pinches your ears like a spider pinches your skin when trapped under the t-shirt! Very fun, indeed. On the flipside we have the title track, The Mark Of M, and things start getting harshier. White noise morphs in an endless sequence of square waves, with an electronic sound put in infinte loop, just for added annoying factor. From the half of the song a low and disturbing drone kicks in, creating a cool anxyety feeling. The aesthetic of The Blackmoore Strangler is really cool, all dealing with the almost eponymous movie from teh sixties and recreating the creepy black & white feeling of that flick. In the end, a very nice release that can be liked also by those who don't dig HNW so much. The musicians involved and the fact that each tape is handpainted add value to this fine piece of plastic.
