cd/lp/tape etc. REVIEWS

[Ritual]

I haven't heard Black Tunnels, but as mentioned, the split with Sewer Election is great, and also another tape from 2009, Eremiten on Klorofyll Kassetter, is great... especially the A side, which is material recorded in 2009.

[Borellus]

Dachau Grammophon - Ton Des Todes tape
Filth & Violence, 2009

Dachau Grammophon's tape "Ton Des Todes" consists of two pieces, both presenting grinding and crushing harsh noise layers. Most appear to be manipulated turntable sounds, therefore the name of the project? Dachau Grammophon seems obscure, since no information is given in the release about the people behind this terror.
   The artwork is Filth & Violence style black and white print, featuring nazi concentration camps and other filth. The visuals match well with the audio. The atmosphere is bleak and oppressive. The variety of sounds ranging from hissing, buzzing, crackling and such meld together into a planar and controlled entity regardless of how abrupt and broken they sometimes are. I also like how the sounds aren't so highly distorted, but instead rely more on their broken nature. In my opinion the best listening experience came with a loud volume level and some extra bass boost. Somehow the low end felt a little too thin otherwise.
   This release is not at all energetic nor positive, but very unsettling and uneasy to listen through. The length was very much suitable for such a gloomy release. I'm guessing its somewhere around 40 minutes? It nevertheless managed to hold me in its grip during the whole playtime. Instead of taking the listener to some place, Ton Des Todes builds the place around the listener.

[heretogo]

Kemialliset Ystävät - Untitled LP (Fonal Records, 2007)

Kemialliset Ystävät is main man Jan Anderzén + whatever friends join him for the session. For more than 10 years already, he has been the leading man (at least if you ask me) within the Finnish free/forest/psych-folk scene (which includes bands like Avarus, Lau Nau, Islaja etc.). Some great sounds have come forth from that scene but consistency has maybe not been their trademark… sometimes I get the impression that they are content with the quasi-pastoral hippie style and don’t put enough attention into the sounds themselves. Anyway, Kemialliset Ystävät is usually the real thing. The releases are always good, even if the proper masterpiece has been missing from his discography. This one might be it.
Album is formally divided into 12 songs but they flow so seamlessly to each other that any track-by-track analysis seems futile. Surreal collage work is interleaved with oriental melodies, these elements shifting smoothly between back- and foreground. Vocal snippets, lo-fi samples, organic acoustic sounds working beautifully with cheesy synths. The sound field is full of material and still it feels like everything is in its proper time and place. A very delicate balance between the pretty melodies and the semi-chaotic surrealism. Like tip-toeing a fine line between a dream and reality. It’s hard to say what dominates, maybe you can find here whatever you desire? It doesn’t really sound like Nurse With Wound but somehow there is a connection.
So, it’s an excellent album. But more importantly, I would recommend this even to people who are normally not into “this sort of thing”. You might be surprised.

[MT]

Gordon Mumma - THE DRESDEN INTERLEAF 13 FEBRUARY 1945/MUSIC FROM THE VENEZIA SPACE THEATRE/MEGATON FOR WM.BURROUGHS

I've had this vinyl for years, bought it for maybe 2 euros from library sale. Anyway, I don't know how many of you would categorize this, but I find this very interesting piece of 60's avantgarde music. I reckon this album has clear industrial and even noise elements. Instruments seem to be mostly self built so I don't have exact idea what kind of instruments were used to record these songs. But the sound itself is interesting and concidering the time when it was made gives it certain value, echoing from the past. I can't tell where one song ends and another one begins, because there is a lot of pauses in between.The first song "Dresden..." is decent, a soundscape to Dresden bombing. At times very industriali'ish and sometimes just quiet droning sounds. "Music from Venezia..." sounds like a classic Whitehouse track, hissing sounds pitching up and down, waving around. Then it changes to some kind of beeping and such, giving the idea of space I think? But there is samples played at diffrent speeds on the background and the song ends with noise, hissing, crashing sounds nearly like junk and finally silent sound vibrating. "Megaton..." begins with big loud noise bombasting your ears, very nice listening. Slowly starting to wave and finally pitches a bit up from bass sounds. Rest of the song seems to be just string noises, and sounds like ice breaking in the spring. Then there is a aeroplane like sample with speaking sounds, and the track ends with normal instrumentation, drum beat playing.

Good play every now and then. It is interesting to hear very old noise/industrial like experiments.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

THE RITA "beyond the milfoil" 7"
Self Abuse
This release, is pretty much the "culmination" of project what I need. I did just sell away plenty of CDR's, which in my opinion did pretty much the same as this did, but I decided to sell them away and instead get one of these for myself. It's hard to say more. It's just wall of noise in the style Rita perhaps best known for? Minimalistic in changes, very typical brutal pedal distortion sound rumbling. Both sides pretty much the same. All movement what there is, happens on almost microscopic level. I don't need 60 minutes disc. This 7" is perfect for what it is. It leaves little hunger for more, but it isn't long enough to question your motivations of listening the stuff.

LASSE MARHAUG "the quiet north" CD
Second Layer
Well, as opposed to The Rita, Lasse is the guy who is doing certainly harsh noise. Damn harsh. But it's restless. There are no cut ups, there are no changes what comes to overall spectrum of sound. It is non stop brutally saturated gigantic wall of noise. But it goes on. As opposed to plenty of regular wall noise minimalists one hears now, this isn't THAT. This is more of what harsh noise walls perhaps were before they were separated into subgenre itself. This is just plain old good noise. Thing is, that Lasse is incredibly talented in what he does, and despite movement of piece is restricted to something which I may assume to be table full of gear, it is going forward all the time. New elements are flowing in, new slightly different sounds or sources bombard you from all directions. Sound is indeed incredibly distorted and saturated, but not like The Rita above. You can still hear many details and many elements what generate the bigger thundering sound. 30 minutes is pretty damn good length for it. I think even 20 minutes would have done it. If it was longer than this, I would have probably started to ask for stepping outside the frame of track, and do more drastic changes. Change the whole pallette of sounds at hand. But now, it's not necessary. 1 piece, 30 minutes. It's everything else but "quiet north"! Cover images are amazing, and Second Layer haven't saved ££ on doing nice multi panelled cardboard sleeve.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

KEIJI HAINO / KK NULL "Mamono" CD
Blossoming Noise
Well, I was tempted to check out what these guys can do in 2009. And in some ways, it makes my prejudices stronger, in some ways it shatters them. In one hand, you can hear that they seem to have the vision what they want to do, and how to do it, but for my ears, it's perhaps no more than 30% of time successful. 10 minutes opening piece sounds as if Haino would be in his element of yelps, yells, screams, etc via extremely huge reverb. Every vocal sound kind of cuts it off, and the massive decay follows with some delay in attacktime. But the electronics... pffff.. I mean, how more "plastic" lazer zone chaos pad jerkoff it could get? Well, lets say, that in 2 track you will hear how much more. But then little later album changes its nature a bit, when Haino enters behind drumkit and lets Null handle vocals and more lo-fi electronics. Sadly 5 minutes piece only, but it's kind of electrified free/improv. type of material. 4th track with Haino on guitar and kk on drums is most conventional piece of them. Guitar sounds sharp and clean, making the storms of guitar strings very dynamic and loud, when it isn't all the time "downtuned and heaviest" like many modern day guitar based things seem to be? 6th song is the massive 22 minutes piece, where Haino handles drum machine and vocals and electronics.  Null with vocals and electronics. It goes into more spacey ambient/drone realms, but it has the digital feeling in electronics. Last c. 16 minutes piece combines drum machines, real drums, vocals and electronics. And it is like free jazz goofiness going into amusing digital drones and echoing spastic electronic sweeps. This is not BAD, but I have hard time thinking the circumstances when it would be played again. While the best works of both of artists don't require such questions. Answer with some memorable Jap artists is: any day, any time. This release, unfortunately sounds to me more of something that could be sold to modern day audience who don't have clue how much better things could be.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

DANIEL MENCHE "kataract" CD
Mego
So what is this Mego? I heard many people talk about how Mego is so huge and popular, and I was asking myself.. Megowhat ? Well, it's 2010 and I have first Mego release in my hands. Label has been around since 1995 and done about 100 releases. I know I should at least try to get Prurient "Arrowhead" cd (curiously originally foolishly rejected master by myself! Could have been FA release years before..) which is really intense and hard-to-digest PE assault. But anyways, finally to release itself. 3 panel cardboard sleeve with nice graphics. Very professional quality in all design. This c. 40 minutes piece is create from waterfall recordings and electronics. And for most of the time it is pretty much sheer wall of noise. You can sense the certain hi-tech feeling, which may be just feeling, or reality. It has no brutal pedal distortion and it's not lo-fi at all, but extremely full sound where all the frequencies are collapsing into your ear at once. Smoothly and relatively clean, but just utmost noise nevertheless. I think, that the best moments of discs are however the less in-your-face. Which is sadly quite short. But for example few minutes in end of disc might be the best. It calms down from massive flood of waterfall noise into easier to grasp textures and sounds. Menche is the master of his craft, no doubts about it. And when you think of it, his tracks on recently re-issued "Nihilist Assaultcore" and "Terror Campaign" are supreme. And he has just been growing as artist. Mego is probably in totally opposite side of genre where I feel like being, but suddenly it is amusing to see such a close connections.

[heretogo]

Urauschwitz - Zirkuszerfall cd

It's nice to find new unknown (to me, at least) stuff that transcends the level of mediocrity that rules the land. I got this based on a recommendation on this board and I wasn't disappointed.
A Russian group/artist (?) and it surely sounds like it! Lots of vocal snippets, some spoken, some sung. Soviet style propaganda hovers beneath the surface, along with old-time German schlager sounds. It's all layered in such a way that the listener is propmptly trasported to some strange place in the past, somewhere imagined, not quite real. The disc starts out very strongly, the samples and background music work beautifully together. It's not just ambiance that is created, it's a "proper" piece of composition. Not filthy, not harsh in any way, maybe one could call the overall sound rusty? Something that reeks of old times and deterioration. I don't know if the spoken texts/songs form some kind of narrative, it doesn't really feel like that. Anyway, after a while the artitst(s) lose their grasp on the proceedings, the sound declines to "just" ambient. It's still ok but most of the substance that made the first part of the disc great is missing. It picks up slightly towards the end but the moment is irrevocably lost.
The strangeness of the sounds is amplified by the mystifying (and great!) packaging of the disc. A nice & thick cardboad fold-out sleeve with curious (and stylish) masonic & judaic symbols. The disc itself is placed insided a many-folded piece of paper with more symbolism & some Russian text snippets. My Russian has deteriorated over the years so I cannot tell much of what is said but the state of Israel is referenced along with jews & negros. Maybe there is some political agenda here but really I don't want to know... would spoil my enjoyment of this.
It's not perfect by any means, but still highly recommended. Are there more of these small Russian gems out there? This really makes me want to explore...

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Bizarre Uproar / Will Over Matter split LP
Filth & Violence + Bestial Burst
BU shows their most recent style. Even more into focused and costructed power electronics, but not giving up at all for level of sheer violence. Call from the minarets, raw screaming vocals with delay effect. Suffocating static hum and fierce noise made out of piercing feedback and nastiest possible noise frequencies. One side long piece, what flows perfectly from one thing to another. No abrupt cuts, I guess no editing either, but just studio-live piece well planned & executed?
WOM goes deep into pretty unique material. It's hard to say who else would be doing this kind of thing nowadays? It is so simple and raw. Half of the side basically goes with slow bounding drum machine beat on back, giving bassy structure. High pitched oscillations on top and kind of black metal type of vocals on top. Artistic values and all that is pretty minimal. They won't play with nice effects or special compositions. Their tools at hand are cheap small boxes. WOM operates only though very basic elements, and the crudeness of whole thing is what brings the charm. I've heard this song performed live before. 2nd track is better and noiser, though. It's also very simple. Imagine the primitive creations of oldest Esplendor Geometrico for example. There is strange drum machine loop and kult figure Leo Meller talking about number of the beast on top. Balance of mix is strange, where clear and loud speach comes mostly from one channel. Leo goes into utmost obscurities about number of the beast. I'm sure Finnish listener gets more out of this than the foreign ones. Loop is very tasty and even if it last probably close to 10 minutes (half of LP side) it is simply capturing.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

PRURIENT / COLD CAVE "stars explode" LP
Hospital productions
"vinyl edition of the collaboration tape for the first uk tour originally limited to 100. pulsing heavy ambient electronics. alternate cover art and one new track exclusive to the vinyl release. " That's what label says. And what I should add? Maybe that I wouldn't call this "heavy ambient". I find most of tracks more like soft and light ambient. Not that it would be necessarily negative, but if someone would say heavy pulsing ambient, it brings to my mind the standards of deep bassy humming and monotony of suffocating hiss and monolith hum. And what we have here, is often actually slow melodic, nearly new-age'ish electro-ambient. Songs actual play melodic patterns, even if it is drenched in wet reverb. It's about middle of B-side when perhaps more cold cave'ish drum machine beat with pretty fast tempo is introduced, and heavily reverbed noisier synth waves on top create more unmusical sound waves. This is possibly the best part of the LP, so it is highly unfortunate that it last merely couple of minutes. Last short track is melodic electronic music. Kind of vintage sounds and pretty good melody/harmony. And when I said the previous track was possibly the best track, it's just because the short added distorted voice and floating subtle details on this piece pretty much makes it another candidate. But Again, it's over almost before it properly starts. Being 45rpm release, I wonder does it qualify to be "LP" nowadays? Shouldn't it be sold as 12" mLP or maxi? Nevertheless, last track is only one giving kind of reference to modern day Prurient. So for fans of noisier Prurient solo material, this could be hard to digest. Those who want decent light weight electronic ambient, it will be pretty guaranteed craftmanship from these popular bands.

[bogskaggmannen]

I haven't heard Cold Cave but could it be "heavy" to the people who normally listen to them? I was fooled once to listen to the last album by The Knife (electronic pop group here in Sweden), someone told me it was REALLY dark etc. But was it really "dark" for someone who listens to Archon Satani? No, not a bit.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Well, on Prurient standards, this is very soft. I'm sure regular Prurient fan has used to some of the most disturbing sounds. Cold Cave - I would say old stuff sounds pretty raw and dark (of course not Archon Satani..), while some of these stuff I heard on their myspace site, I was pretty disturbed by the cheap vintage electronica pop. Which seemed something that if they'd play in Finland, it should be Tavastia with warm up by Le Corps Mince de Françoise.

[RyanWreck]

Are there any reviews of Dorchester Library or Silence of Vacuum floating around that you are aware of?

[FreakAnimalFinland]

You mean you'd like to see reviews to know how they are? Or do I care if they are reviewed or not?
Well, I think there isn't any reviews. Dorchester Library is incest literature topic, with proper inbreed freeform jazzy percussions and loud feedback noise. Link it to Hijokaidan or such rather than any "PE".
SOV 1st and 2nd tape quite hard minimalism. Often no harsh noise, no "wall of noise", more of electronic minimalism of certain frequencies and tones with barely any motion. 3rd tape has longer playtime and perhaps even little "ambient" quality, yet it's all about the feeling as laying inside full enclosure rubber mask, listening the sound of your bloodflow, restricted breathing. Nothing happens on those tapes. It starts in beginning and ends in end. But if such "nothing" is ones interest, I'd recommend to start from #3. Then #1, and last #2.  Comp appearances are harsher, yet still minimalistic.

[RyanWreck]

You mean you'd like to see reviews to know how they are?

Yes, that's pretty much it. I am planning on ordering the DVD's and new Animal tape compilation and some other material I have been meaning to get for awhile now and Dorchester and Silence of Vacuum were my two choices but I can probably only afford one or the other along with the 3 DVD's and new compilation tape. Maybe I should just get "The End For Simulation Of Pro-Creation" since it has both on it (assuming there are any left). And Golden Geissel doesn't sound like it would interest me all too much.

How about Dale Gordon - "Sex In The Family"? Is that something like Dorchester Library? I see on the Discogs.com page that it says "Dale Gordon" was on a Free-Jazz/Experimental tape back in the 90's, is that the same Dale Gordon?