cd/lp/tape etc. REVIEWS

[Andrew McIntosh]

COSMIC COINCIDENCE (CCCC)/JUNK SICK, split
12" lathe cut, 2011,
Altered States

Cooper of AS warns that the sound level is somewhat low on this cut, particularly on the first part of side one, and also issues a free download of wave and mp3 files for this material, but interestingly I found the sound quite acceptable and, in fact when compared to the wave files, somewhat more enjoyable. The lathe cut seems to have added a kind of low fidelity grit to both sides which seems to enhance the actual pleasure of the music. This is particularly the case with Junk Sick - Cooper and long-time collaborator Tommy Gunja - who have created two messy, crude spirals of home-taped Noise that manage, with the first piece "Space Debris" to maintain a nice experimental feel with analogue synths, effects, tapes and contact microphones that features a lot of water-ish gurgling with spurts of static, underlined with synth humming and oscillating. The track features choppy bits of harsh sound over more rushing, dirtier layers that combine well and keep things moving without spazzing around. A fairly appropriately titled track, actually, invoking the idea of pieces of human-made shit clogging up space. "Black Dust" reminds me more of the kind of cassette improvisations put out by these people before, a rustier and more coagulated sound that gets more active and aggressive with a lot of nice dragging sounds and more intense synth. Both these pieces are great and I look forward to the up-coming "Rising Damp" tape.
  The Hasegawa party, for their part, start off with the usual slow building cosmic synth tones that mutate and evolve with more stressed sounding electronics, like something being stretched beyond its limits, and these sounds move together, the slow winding synth and burbling and gurgling electronics, building in intensity but maintaining dignity. Funnily, because of the building tension of "Apocalyptic Birdsong" it seems to be too short, despite being over sixteen minutes in length, but this project always did seem to excel in the spaced-out-jam method, rather than the concise hit. Still, the sound presented here is structured and strong and the download version can bring out details the lathe cut perhaps missed.

[Andrew McIntosh]

MONOLITH, self titled
cdr, 2011
Ice Age

Few things succeed like a simple idea done well and that is precisely what Monolith does. Taking samples from other, usually musical sources and effecting and processing them so heavily is one of the oldest ideas in the book, but here it's the blatancy and sheer single-mindedness of the re-worked material that is so effective. The end result of these tracks are dark, slow moving, softly distorted pieces of pure ambient noise that sound much more organic than the process would suggest. The pieces don't change much over their period and that's totally the point. These are slabs of sound that invoke the plain titles - "Bleak", "Tombs", "Sewers" - simply and effectively. The result is an undemanding listen that evokes more the pleasure of the actual sounds than any scrutinising of structure, intent or extraneous non-necessity - this is about the end result, the pure, perfect sound of rust, sludge, void and filth all slowly moving and indifferent to your existence. It's about evocation, not stylisation. Definitely an album I've been returning to many times - it's immediately catchy and enjoyable in the same way a good rock album is yet definitely based on the opposite mood, and that's a pretty impressive thing. A clear case of achieving, not attempting.

[Andrew McIntosh]

UNDECISIVE GOD, RPMs 3-4
cdr, 2011
Shame File

Clinton Green continues his experiments in organic looping - using barely-working turntables and very broken vynal albums to create repeating loops of sound - with this new release. "RPMs 3x3", as the name suggests, uses three different turntables and a host of albums, some more intact than others, and allows the stylus to jump, skip, scrape and draw what sounds abound from the material. Green's involvement is to adjust the speed and change the source as necessary, but allowing the output to speak for itself without the use of effects or editing. The result is an aleatory virtuosity, working with the chances of the output, making only what adjustments seem necessary to keep the piece moving. "RPMs 3x3" has a nice sense of drama and (illusion of) composition, whereas "RPMs 4 (Voice & Hardware)", being a longer piece, comes across much more psychedelically, having more space and air, contrasting with the bustling and hurried elements of "RPMs 3x3". The two featured spirals rely on the lovely, satisfying crackle, crunch and crumble of both broken recording and tactile audio of the actual materials. Live, Green has nothing to hide when he plays this material, once insisting that people come close to see what was going on. This is a welcoming, inclusive art that is at the same time distinctive and personal for the artist. A clear case of a concept that works.
 Also included are "Turntables Are Wrong", which, according to the liner notes, is an accident - the levels of the input recording where too high, giving a stressed, guttural crunch evokes the more recent work of Sam McKinlay. And "Summer Holiday 2010-11", a much quieter piece that is an audio collage of site recordings from various holiday activities, a Cagean experiment similar to Green's "A Year Of Silence" album and the track "Non Cricket" from the "Everything's Broken" album. These pieces feature Green's use of such "accidental" and incidental material to create new sound-scapes. "Summer Holiday 2010-11" does go some way to express the simple joys of family time and relaxation with it's softness and light and is a pleasant interlude for the album. But the main pieces are also positive, involving and, in the case of "RPMs 4 (Voices & Hardware)", relaxing and releasing. With some exceptions (the "Border Protection Policy" album, for example), Green has always preferred the more positive and least pretentious elements of modern abstract music and this album is another milestone.

[Andrew McIntosh]

ISOMER, Nil By Mouth
cd, 2011
Cipher Productions

My initial reaction to this was not positive. In fact, I was surprised. I knew that Dave was heading in a more Power Electronics direction, but going by a rare live performance assumed it to be a lot heavier and noisier. This album, however, has a more clinical element to it, but that's not the issue. The issue is how derivative it sounds. Australians for years have laboured with a tendency to imitate overseas efforts and I was quite disappointed to hear that one of my favourite local projects, one I've been following for years, was succumbing. The influences on this are far too obvious - if you like any kind of European PE, you'll know what this sounds like without hearing it.
  After a few listens, my feelings started to turn. As with anything Dave does, there is a lot of care taken to put things together, the production is exemplary, and there is a completeness to the material that allows me to relax a bit more with it. So it's clear that for the time being Isomer is going to be in this mode - crisp yet warm, harsher elements becoming more prevalent, throbbing synth lines, sparser arrangements, more vocals, samples. Certainly a change from the deep, lush, movie soundtrack-esque sound of previous Isomer elements. It's not that such elements weren't present before, particularly the use of samples and the more precise length of tracks, but on this album their synthesis becomes more pastiche. And having adjusted somewhat more, I think this album could be recommended to PE fans without much qualification. It's certainly more than mere "workman-like" - the production is to be admired - although there's a lack of emotional impact I find disturbing, but that is in keeping with the clinicism of the influences. It's after the fourth track, "Regaining Our Faith", that I find the album beings to work better for me, the soft crunch of that piece (I imagine the contribution from Mark Groves) appealing to me. Followed by the very Genocide Organ sounding "When We Burn", a simple modulated synth tone graced with some electronic filth, with vocals hinting at IRM coming across quite well. The final track, "Infant Promise" is also in collaboration with Groves and his distinct sparse, electronic nihilism is well to the fore on this piece, finishing the album on a more original note and probably my favourite on the album.
  In the end, it's better to have an album that is at least good at what it does than fails to connect on any level. This is a straight forward, well-made, average Power Electronics release, in an edition of two hundred, mainly released for Isomer's support gig with Genocide Organ's performances in Germany this year.

[Andrew McIntosh]

2673, What Reveals The Heavens Can Be Found On Earth
cd, 2011
Cipher Productions

Minimalism is an essential element in Noise (gazillions of "static wall noise" pastichers notwithstanding), and this album highlights a very hard-edged kind of minimalism. It sounds to me like the majority of sounds where generated with a mixing desk, although there are clearly synths of some kind involved. Most of the album depends upon hard, carefully recorded, pure electronic tones that are very gradually modulated over the length of their time. The result is cold and un-moving. Any emotional connection, I think, will be polarised between those who feel it immediately and those who probably never will, and I have to confess I'm in the later camp. The first and last of these untitled pieces being the exceptions - in the first case, the track opens with warm, gently settling synthesiser drones like pure liquids that are then buoying sharp yet restrained crackling electronic line. The two sounds work together well and the track is pleasant yet involving to listen to. In the last track, there is a cold, clear electronic tone that has a warmer undertone and again, the contrast works. But for the most part, the album gives away very little, particularly the barely audible (for the most part, to the end) fourth track. What bugs me about this album is how it's more like an exploration of tones rather than a use of tones - it suggests a lack of inspiration and imagination. Yet the album is packaged to give the impression that this is something personal for the artist - it's a plain, brown cardboard package with photos of a woman playing with a live bird. And surely the album title is meant to mean something (a quote of some kind?)? Evidentially there are emotions here the artist is trying to convey, but not to me. The minimalism doesn't have the kind of softness and frailty I would expect from such personal imagery and seems more remote and uncaring of any response from a listener. Whether that is the artist's intention or not is moot.
  Does this make the album a failure? Perhaps not, as I expect there will be listeners more adept at these kinds of sounds who could pick up the emotions that may well be there. To me, this is too distant and too clinical, but as an experimental and challenging work, it can certainly be recommended.

[Andrew McIntosh]

PRAYING FOR OBLIVION, Facade
tape, 2011
Cipher Productions

Once again, the virtues of Average Noise (that's not an invitation to turn it into a genre!) are brought home with this fine release. The first of a series of such tape releases that Chris intends with specific, home-made packaging. This one comes strapped via plastic mesh to a fine square of sturdy card, coated nicely on the non-tape side with nice, chunky slop of mashed paper, paint, plastic mesh again and, apparently, pieces of video tape. The result is nicely even yet still satisfyingly course, and amply reflects the sounds on the tape. Side one is a live assault, and it is very much straight forward feedback and distortion manipulated through heavy delay, along with shouted (what else?) vocals. Sounds too familiar? Fuck it, it works well, having the low fidelity sheen of live recording without sacrificing any impact or heaviness. Messy, aggressive Power Electronics that harkens to earlier history by being more on the side of barely structured Noise than precise, crisp, synthesised elements. You'll need to turn your stereo up for this. Side two has basically the same elements in a non-live recorded environment with a more chaotic and sharper turn, happily going berserk through the simple effects. "Facade" has a few distinct changes to its structure while "Torture Chamber" is more blatantly minimalist. It's as "fuck you" as it gets. The synthesis between packaging and sound is in this case quite even, simple yet well made and therefore effective and enjoyable. Total, unpretentious, powerful Noise.

[Andrew McIntosh]

MONOLITH, Spectres
cdr, 2011
Ice Age Productions

Spreading a single spiral over thirty six minutes is not something one should attempt if one has no ideas and no talent. No such problems from Monolith. A single tone is fluctuated heavily through slow phasing and allowed to pass through a variety of effected stages, ranging from gritty distortion to smooth, pure feedback to foggy sludge to booming, up-front speaker blow to, finally, what sounds like chains being dragged across a metal floor. Rather than a boring going-through-the-motions of different effects it's a much more exciting manipulation of carefully chosen sounds that follow from one to the other with adequate pacing and compliment each other nicely. It's a diverse, delightful spiral that matches well the sound Monolith have on their self-titled album while not going through the same motions. I'm still not sure how these sounds are generated which is really another advantage as there's nothing obvious to peg onto - the sound is all. It's spacious, ambitious without over-reaching, well structured and pleasurable to listen to.

[Andrew McIntosh]

MSHING & PSYCHWARD, collaboration
Tape, 2011
Magik Crowbar/Trapdoor Tapes

Pure, rushing, up-front Noise. The sound on the tape is very good, not quite the lower fidelity rust I was expecting, more fulsome, lots of middle end. Harsh. Nice lines of static-y, white/pink noise distortion, cloudy skerricks of clarity amidst the rush. A roaring, burnt tone something very like a motor bike engine on pierces the thickened din. Both sides sound the same but there are subtle differences that mark them both as different parts of the same piece. Nonetheless, there is the slightest pause in the middle of both sides giving an impression similar to Blod. The main sound is the mid pitched white noise, constantly moving and often revealing different details - deeper tones, crackling electronics, oscillation, and sometimes just pure rush. But it is not static, it is constantly moving at a furious pace, and the sound is big and full enough to push everything through. Pure, simple, unexceptional Harsh Noise - the world always needs this.

[Andrew McIntosh]

SICK LLAMA/MSHING, split
Tape, 2011
Magik Crowbar/Trapdoor Tapes

Side one (there's no indication on the j-card which project is actually on which side so I'm going to assume from the spine label it's Sick Llama) is a wonderful, mechanical-metal-istic loop-based spiral of current Industrial filth. Squeaking, rusting machinery croaks in the near background as other metallic sounds are smashed in sequence in front of it. Feedback squeals compliment the rhythmic bashing of materials. This is the basis of it. These elements move in an aleatory manner, allowing other small sounds to be introduced to the palate, sometimes briefly stopping the machines for some feedback to generate sickeningly, but it all conforms to the death factory driven mechanics of the piece's specifics. Filthy, raw, Industrial Noise, and a very fine example of.
  Side two doesn't let the filth down. A more tape-hissy sound, it sounds pretty much like feedback manipulation. You get shards of pure tone clashing with harsher yet dirtier gratings. Starts with a single tone alternating between it's elements and builds up, filling the sound with more dirt. But after a good dose of this the piece suddenly transforms (or it ends and a new one turns) into a static, distant sounding veil of soft distortion like the aftermath of a nuclear explosion (as you know). There's really not much more to describe, it's what you reach for when you want just unadulterated, dirty Noise.
  Both projects pretty much achieve what they obviously seek and this album is extremely satisfying.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

HALTHAN "Live (the) dis-ease" tape
Filth & Violence
I'm kind of half'n'half, thinking this should be good idea, but not sure. I recall the there was idea that Halthan will do recording at F&V bunker to make more brutal release? I thought it was this, but not.  This is actually live recording in Bunker camputer by mr. Deplano? In some of older Halthan, I missed the live aggression and noisiness that is in live assaults. And hope they'll do it on recordings too, but this has kind of too many flaws to be entirely satisfactory. It has noise, it has in-you-face vocals, but there's lots of clumsy moments, like random noise jumping up that is quickly turned down in volume. Or vocal effects changing random.. I recall it might have been slightly drunken stepping on pedals? And vocals that in some old tapes are effect mangled, are here kind of pissed crust type shouting with no possibility to have any idea what really is being said. Not bad, yet I have always had feeling that Halthan is able to do much more, but they just haven't fully done it yet. Live shows often end up in drunken disorder and tapes leave you impression they're heading good way, but just don't get it done. For those who like for example later days BOTC or raw noisy electronics with shouting will probably like this anyways, but I really hope when they make the first proper "real" album, it will be all hits, no misses.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

UMPIO / SSRI split tape
Fuck!!! This is prime example on good old harsh noise! Time before things got too "militant" or too wall, to concept, or too digital. In a way, it's kind of leap towards 90's, yet at the same time so timeless, that it is also fresh. Umpio could be filed somewhere close K2 at his metal junk era, Knurl at his more hectic noises, Sickness at his less hi-fi days, and so on. It goes on fast, with lots of cuts and stop & go's, whirlwind of metal junks, distortions, feedback, and overall crunchyness.. yet overall sound range focus on pretty rusty and rotten dirty mid-range. It lacks the hi-fi edge of Japanese dynamic noise masters (a'la Pain Jerk or Kazumoto Endo), but this is in no way failure. Brilliant material!
SSRI has bad position to try clean up after sonic cum-shots. This is the Private Bunker live show from january 1st. I remember I was not utterly charmed by the sounds at the location, but there is something magical about analogue tape. Material works much much better when you are not there, but hear perhaps just remotely accurately captured lo-fi version of already most suffocated garbage noise experiments. I still think the guitar doesn't sound good, but everything else blends into mix very nicely. I guess label sold this out, and so did I, but I recommend to approach for example Umpio for copies. It will be worth it!

[manuel-ronf]

UMPIO / SSRI split tape
Fuck!!! This is prime example on good old harsh noise! Time before things got too "militant" or too wall, to concept, or too digital. In a way, it's kind of leap towards 90's, yet at the same time so timeless, that it is also fresh. Umpio could be filed somewhere close K2 at his metal junk era, Knurl at his more hectic noises, Sickness at his less hi-fi days, and so on. It goes on fast, with lots of cuts and stop & go's, whirlwind of metal junks, distortions, feedback, and overall crunchyness.. yet overall sound range focus on pretty rusty and rotten dirty mid-range. It lacks the hi-fi edge of Japanese dynamic noise masters (a'la Pain Jerk or Kazumoto Endo), but this is in no way failure. Brilliant material!
SSRI has bad position to try clean up after sonic cum-shots. This is the Private Bunker live show from january 1st. I remember I was not utterly charmed by the sounds at the location, but there is something magical about analogue tape. Material works much much better when you are not there, but hear perhaps just remotely accurately captured lo-fi version of already most suffocated garbage noise experiments. I still think the guitar doesn't sound good, but everything else blends into mix very nicely. I guess label sold this out, and so did I, but I recommend to approach for example Umpio for copies. It will be worth it!

I feel so lucky that I got one copy for myself....

[RyanWreck]

I still need to listen to that split, don't know why I haven't got around to it yet. That Chloroform Rapist tape was the best of that batch so far (well Concrete Mascara sounded very tight and put together too). Half way through Side A of Chloroform Rapist I began to smell fire and then noticed that my head had exploded. Total MB/Manthausen Orchestra/Felony Sexual Assault sound that turns into slow rotting decay. A++++

[Andrew McIntosh]

DEAD BODY LOVE, 10 Louglio 1979
cassette, 2011
Terror

Despite being claimed by some as a precursor to the Wall Noise thing, I've never heard Dead Body Love as much more than straight up Harsh Noise and I don't think it's ever been presented in any other way, that I know of. Certainly the material on this album couldn't be confused for anything else. In fact, it almost stands as an acme for Harsh Noise, of a certain kind - the main source being electronics and the main sound being a mid-fidelity hiss, drenched in distortion. It moves constantly and angrily through it's three "Zona"s, replete with confidence and sans any stale point. The frequency seems to favour the middle to higher range without particularly ear shattering shrieks and certainly without a lot of lower grumbling, crunching and a lot of the more usual audio features of a lot of this kind of built up, layered Harsh Noise (it's pleasant to me to hear more than one source going through the pieces) - pure pedal power from what I can ascertain. The "theme" it seems is the Seveso disaster which is more adequately illustrated by the dark and grim collage and drawing pieces of the tasteful graphic included with the album. To be blunt, there's little else to add - this is straight up, powerful and effective Harsh Noise, of the kind I call "Average Noise"; Noise that seeks little else but it's own power and brutality within it's own set parameters. In fact there's almost an "old school" ethos here in that it's Harsh Noise with a theme attached, yet standing on it's own regardless of any theme. Fortunately the pace and impact is maintained throughout the entire album and it's hardly surprising it's sold out already - an argument for a re-press, I would think.

[Andrew McIntosh]

MB, "Industrial Murder/Menstrual Bleeding"
CD, 2011
Phage/R.O.N.F

Had enough MB yet? If, like myself, not, there's this particularly fine example of his earlier material released originally in 1992. Both pieces feature a heavily distorted synthesiser improvised over a heavily distorted drum machine of some kind. The sound is glum, gritty, heavy on the low fidelity but not submerged in tape hiss. The mood is pure Industrial - the rhythms come across as metallic and mechanical and often dominate the sound. The synthesiser is abrasive, without any attempt at melody or even notes. The pieces, although long, sustain intense interest with changing rhythms and prolonged synth tones. In short, these two spirals are MB at the hight of his powers. There is a real sense of purpose here, a clarity of concept. The simplicity of the set up is used to best effect and MB uses his instruments extremely well - this is far from simple farting around with home taping gear, this is well played anti-music. It's stark, taking the Krautrock influences that helped put MB on his path but draining them of any warm, psychedelic nice-ness and cosmic otherness - the mood is rooted in modern day grim-ness, despair and hopelessness. Even when he makes his synth do some of the more traditional modulating sounds, it doesn't bring to mind visions of nebulas or space ships. Endless streets of factories and council flats are evoked, shrouded in grey pollution, offering nothing, not even a decent park or playground, yet the sound is not only of despair but also a bitter, accepting invocation of the constant realities that shape it. This is the clean break of Industrial from it's musical influences, leaving nothing but noise and a burnt taste. This is the real MB and demonstrates just why that name, despite it's association with so many half-arsed and tepid releases, has remained so enduring. Go to the source and get with the strength.