cd/lp/tape etc. REVIEWS

[cipher chris]

I receive very little, and even less which I want to review.

[tisbor]

There's nothing wrong with negative reviews, if people can't take criticism it's none of my business.

[RyanWreck]

You who review at the scale of 'zines, do you receive a lot of promo material, or do you only mainly review the stuff you buy for yourselves?

Both. I get a lot of stuff in the mail weekly, from new up-and-comers to classic labels who I have already reviewed and interviewed. When I first opened the blog I felt bad not reviewing everything I got because people were sending me whole batches of like 5-6 cs's for free. Then I got over it and started doing what I felt was right for my blog. None of this has stopped me from buying stuff. I try to order something from labels who send me free stuff the next time around to keep everything on the up and up. I also make it a point to never trade or sell something I received for free, even if I don't like it. I don't think it matters much to the people who send me stuff but for me its an integrity thing. It's skittish for someone to be getting free material from the people who put the time into making it just to turn around and use it to get something else.

[Andrew McIntosh]

JAAKKO VANHALA, Feral Earth
CD, 2012
Freak Animal

HAL HUTCHINSON, Factory Of Metal Sound
cassette, 2011
Banned Production

Metal banging - is it the new Wall Noise? I ask this because it's become pretty conspicuous over the last year or so and therefore runs the risk of going down the same path - yet another element of Noise isolated and taken to extreme, and there by possible redundancy. A pity as I quite like it but if it's going to become a "thing" it's going to get ruined.
  Nonetheless, at the moment there is still hope. I'm reviewing both of these albums together as they both are examples of tecnique taken to extreme, but both different in execution and outcome.

To be fair, Vanhala doesn't rely exclusively on the use of metal objects, as there are various other acoustic objects being used and it's obvious that there are electronically generated sounds as well (the list on the back of the sleeve mentions "poisons" as well, not sure what they're supposed to sound like). But the hype for this album states "the finest of the metal object noise made in world today", so that seems like the selling point. The fidelity of the sound will definitely appeal to many - the recording is careful enough to allow every scrape, screech, clang and clamour to be captured and set against every other. The beginning of each of the two long spirals allows for the distinction of sound to be heard in best light, and this album is better heard with the volume up high. It's complex and crafted. As the pieces go on, other elements are introduced and previous elements taken away, and the build up of layers gives less room for sounds to breath but more for the entirety to course it's way.
  And yet, for all of that, I found the album un-engaging even after several listens. It wasn't so much that the crispness of the sound doesn't allow for intensity, it's just that after a while it sounds more like a sound study, a review of the possibilities of what the objects can sound like, rather than two cohesive pieces. I suppose they seemed somehow stripped bare, a bit too naked and obvious in their sources. I can see why this would appeal and it has definitely achieved its desired goal. But for mine, a bit too precise and - dare I suggest - academic?

Hutchinson, for his part, has already established his bona fides as a metal banger and I found it gratifying to note on the Banned Production site the blurb advertising this album read "soothing in a way" because what I've heard of his metal abuse has always affected me in the same way. I've referred to his work as "ambient metal" before and this is another good example - this is a tape I've listened to many times at the end of the day with the lights out. Rough but not harsh, the loose banging and clanging of metal objects sound is coated in a kind of fog that gives less clarity but more interest. Side two seems to introduce more screeching sounds that are almost like feedback and a slightly different fidelity but I imagine they where both more or less from the same recording session. It's just another notch in the bow for Hal, but at least you know what you're getting and wont be disappointed.

[Andrew McIntosh]

GREG DAVIS AND JEPH JERMAN, Ku
CD, 206
Room 40

An album on constant play for me. Three strong, well built, well recorded pieces of acoustic music utilising everything non musical possible. "First Strata" features soft water sounds and re-assuring cracks and scratches with just a hint of hissing sheen in the background, a piece that is full of sound but requiring minute listening and attention. "Second Strata" is busier, noisier, more built up, sounding very much like going through old, possibly abandoned barns and sheds, forcing open and shutting rusted, decayed doors, rifling through unusable tools and implements, bumping into dust and hay covered objects on the floors, disturbing things hanging on the walls, always moving and searching, sometimes with the wind distorting the microphone and the sound of dogs in the background (hard to tell if it's the recording or next door, sometimes). "Third Strata" brings it back down again with meditative bowl sounds humming softly when struck, letting patches of silence through before other soft, concentrated sounds are added slowly and leave softly, The fidelity is perfect, the structure of the "stratas" just right, there are no boring or let-down moments on this album. The difference between sound and silence is what I particularly love, the ability to play silence as a component, rather than try to bury it or to leave it in undignified blocks, bringing sound and silence together - this is what I find the most exciting about these recordings. But as a whole, this is just a well played and well executed record of acoustic sound sculpture.

[Andrew McIntosh]

DEAD BOOMERS, The Pig In The Python
12" vynal, 2012
Sabbatical

Cassettes, cdrs and overseas tours later, Dead Boomers declair their intent. It's hard for me to be objective here since I know and like this band but there is much to recommend. For one, Dead Boomers have a particular weapon on their side, the Boomer Bar, a metre or so length of industrial girder steel strung with guitar strings and a pickup. It can be struck, strummed, scraped and have anything done to it to help produce a sound that is exclusive to the band, in addition to a carry case of clapped out effects units, all played through the Phallic Totem Pole Of Death amp stack they carry. This album captures their dark, gritty sound on multi track tape mixed onto vynal, so it's analogue all the way. So much for background details.
  The real issue is the sound. It is, indeed, dark and gritty, and tracks are quite short for the most part. Groves vocals, harsh and groaning, feature mainly on the first side, leaving side two "instrumental". Each track is immaculately structured, but without sounding too clinical or contrived. In fact, the minimal structure and pacing is worked to bring out the best of the sounds; the Boomer Bar's explicit thumping at the introduction of "The Hammer", followed by a thick, grainy block of Noise over which Groves shouts - the sparse, harmonic strum of "Leave Flowers Now", reducing human life to a series of bureaucratic instructions (not to keen on the vocals on this one, they sound too contrived) - the stark, very dark hissing and thumping of "Sundowners". There's a serious grit over the whole production that gives strength to the album, the combined elements of harsh, paced rhythms, grating Noise, aching feedback and dark sparseness that end up blurring distinctions between usually divided elements of PE. The sound is thick and dark, yet the paced structure of each piece allows for clarity over confusion.
  There's meant to be a concept with this album, the passing of previously affluent generations to less certain old age, the anxieties of rising prices and populations, the middle aged startled to find their all important youth gone, old age as something no one, especially those living it, wants. A life time of nervous fear and fighting to fit in, only to be shunted away at the end. Life sucks then you die, they say.

[Andrew McIntosh]

PESTDEMON, Helvetesljuset
12" vynal, 2011
Unrest

And so ends the saga. Andreas has retired Pestdemon to concentrate on Arkhe, and Unrest do the honours by releasing the ultimate supper. Pestdemon is the perfect example of what happens when you don't just try to fit into one thing or the other but simply follow your own muse to whatever ends. Sample manipulation, feedback, metal and objects, electronics, the source is not the issue, what matters is the music, the creation of sound and atmosphere. Anyone familiar with this project knows about it's heaviness, the slowness of pacing and build up, and the importance of both structure and chaos. None of those elements are lacking here. Slow groaning sound is paced up and escalated to intensity, combining the elements until hell breaks loose. The production is perfect, not gritty or grainy but murky and grey, yet without drowning the distinctions. "Att Blidka Djavulen Dar Inne" does seem to concentrate on metal abuse, a sign of the times perhaps, but with dull electronic droning at the base and strained feedback gracing the sulphur air above. A superb spiral. The title track on side two retains much of the same style as on previous releases, perhaps a tad more restrained than side one but with more consistency and flow. And as with other releases from this project, there is a lot to listen to and explore, a lot that is not obvious at first few listens but needs continuous attention to find. Even so, this is not cerebral, but concentrated, psychedelic summoning, the forming of true sound-scapes as interior journeys, the music of black drugs.
  Without a doubt, this is picturesque, evocative music, Romantic Noise, and Pestdemon triumphs again. If you're going to go out, go out right. Delicious packaging, by the way - you wont get the full sense of it from just photos unfortunately.

[Andrew McIntosh]

NORD, Ego Trip & LSD
12" vynal, 2008(?)
PCP records (bootlegs, apparently)

These albums are supposed to be "bootleg" re-releases, replicating the cover and packaging in every way possible, due to the impossibility of contacting Oikawa Hiroshi (although Nord started as a duo, it was Hiroshi who recorded these albums. Satoshi Katayama, the other of the twain, continued also under the name Nord and apparently continues so today). It is a good service to we lovers of electronic music, as these are classics, but I wonder how Hiroshi would feel about it. I know I feel it's a bit much to have to pay serious bucks for vynal when a decently priced and released CD would have done, but of course without the artist's approval anyway, it's academic.

Putting scruples aside for the moment, it is good to have these great recordings available in some form. Recorded in the mid Eighties, this is thick, heavy analogue synth, blatantly minimal, with a lot of adornment, sometimes with electric guitar, sometimes with additional synths and effects modulations. Primitive, stripped down, often heavily monotonous, this is the dark panacea to the kind of easy listening "new age" synth crap that was becoming current during that decade.

"LSD", with its ridiculous pencil-drawn melting pixie on the cover, starts with a track of plastic-hard synth pulsing, barely modulating and barely changing except for an odd key change or two. It's the closest to "music" the album gets. This short introduction finishes for the title track, a long, slow pulsing synth tone, throbbing away like a science fiction film sound effect, gradually building tones, electronic warbles and a steady, chiming strum of a heavily effected electronic guitar. Over the course of the piece the pulse speeds up and moves up keys, getting more frantic without loosing it's impulse. That pretty much describes it but the effect of the whole thing is trip-like, only up-front and aggressive instead of distant and dreamy. Side two features what's also called "LSD", starting with a sample of a pretty groovy sounding 60's/70's rock tune I don't recognise, before a faster pace synth pulse comes in. The process is much the same as previous only more minimal, also featuring some sample, a deep, cracked male voice a bit like William Burroughs, repeating un-definable sentences like a wrecked drunk lying on the side of a footpath, uttering urban prophecies doomed to be ignored. The final track (can't translate the Japanese writing unfortunately) is a simple, dark ambient touching of the synth keys, quiet and cold, the recovery after the trip. He must have had the brown acid.

"Ego Trip", with its plain black packaging with a black rectangle of course sandpaper stuck on the front, follows the same formula - pulsing synth adorned with extra effects and sounds. Only there's more a sense of controlled tension than blatant mind-fuck, the coursing length of "Ego Trip 1" changing with more purpose. "Chloroform 1" and "2" bracket both the end of side one and beginning of side two despite it being clear it's the same piece chopped in half to accommodate the vynal release, and this is a softer, more spaced out little piece again reminiscent of science fiction movies, this time like floating in a capsule in space, looking out at the universe through thick glass, machinery pinging away around one, stars and matter moving slowly an infinity away. "Ego Trip 2", the main piece on side two, follows the formula yet again - little need to physically describe it. Just switch on the synth, fiddle with the knobs, and find your mind.

What the hell was going on in Hiroshi's head? Was he really as drug-fucked as the titles and graphics hint, or just trying to give the impression he was? I like to think that these are, in fact, the recordings of someone who just didn't give a fuck. There are moments when it's something like an endurance test getting through them, either that or blatant boredom, any sense of composition or editing pretty much unheeded, or at least so it seems. But there's a definite sense of competency that places this well above simple synth noodling (a brief stern glance to those skinny, bearded, glasses-wearing young tossers who are wanking out tapes and cdrs of exactly that) - these are the personal head trips of someone who really didn't care if anyone else dug it or not. It's dark, hard, unrelenting and ideally one wouldn't be falling over one's self in praise of it. But I can't help but love it.

Fun fact - an earlier album of the original duo, simply called "Nord", was re-released on cdr in 2004 on a Japanese label called...Hospital.

[Andrew McIntosh]

CHOP SHOP, Discrete Emissions
7" vynal
Banned Productions

Taking sound out of virtually nothing, putting forward the sound of decay and disintegration, recording the sound of blatant nullity and making something out of it, all encapsulated in a neat little double a sided 7" - one side cut in the usual way, the other cut flowing outward (try getting your record needle to start on it). Meant to be played at 45", but the great thing is playing it at 33" gives you extra value for your purchase. The sound is, of course, grit and course air going through specially made speakers (a print on fine metal of a photograph of one is part of the packaging; it looks like part of a Martian tripod from "War Of The Worlds"; it probably is), starting with a soft flow, then a brief blast of fuck-you, then an even softer, almost loop-sounding rustle that is the best part of the piece, something one would want to listen to many times longer than it actually is. Complete with thick, course paper riveted together so you have to tear the inner sleeve to get to the album proper, it is a complete fetish package, consumer conceptual art. While I'm always much more interested in the sounds than the packaging, I appreciate this little effort.

[RyanWreck]

HAL HUTCHINSON, Factory Of Metal Sound
cassette, 2011
Banned Production

Metal banging - is it the new Wall Noise? I ask this because it's become pretty conspicuous over the last year or so and therefore runs the risk of going down the same path - yet another element of Noise isolated and taken to extreme, and there by possible redundancy. A pity as I quite like it but if it's going to become a "thing" it's going to get ruined.

That's a good point. I didn't think of it like that but you are right, in the past year or 2 a lot of pure acoustic junk/metal Noise has been hitting the labels. It is one of my favorite forms of Noise but it can get played out and I really hope it doesn't.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

I think it is very true, BUT, same could be said about many things. Lets say synth noise? A lot of the american synth noise - be it the Bloodlust kind of related or the Hanson kind of... or Chrondritic Sound kind of and I'm often "aarrghh!!! No more oscillating synth layers!!".  But in reality, there is A LOT to be done with synths and electronics - as well as countless ways to treat metal junk - even if stripped to bare naked acoustics..  There is always danger of someones big muff HNW, korg synth noise and pure acoustic sheet of metal sounding impersonal and same. Yet it wouldn't remove possibility of doing it well and inspiring way.

Most of all I wait for artists with good noise "songs". Not side side long or 20+ min pieces, but getting thing done well in 3-7 mins and moving to next good piece!

SHIVER "Born To lose" 3"CDr
Diazepam

This is the 2011 power electronics in good and bad. The good is, that if you like typical modern PE, consisting solid steady noise layers, distorted aggressive vocals with delay, sometimes few spoken word clips and songs remaining at 5-7 min length, it does deliver just that. But there is absolutely nothing more.
It is unfortunate that vast majority of modern PE makers fail to find really interesting sounds. Like so many nowadays, this sounds flat, like finalized with computer with maximum compression?
None of the noise layers sound particularly charming or interesting. There hardly is textures that would grab your attention. Everything is overblown little too much. Throbbing bassy noise is pure distortion. Like mentioned above, good stuff doesn't need to be revolutionary. Simply made in interesting way. There is no interesting synth modulations. There are no physical or texturally interesting noise sounds. Use of feedback is the only element which is nice. Everything else falls into category where "PE" is treated as backing noise for vocals - like rock set up. Not where sound of noise itself would be good enough. I need amps. I needs tape decks decaying. I need well crafted synth sounds. I need broken electronics. I need field recordings. etc etc... At this point I don't need some vague rumbling distortion with yelling. (MA)

[Andrew McIntosh]

One of the big issues I have with Wall Noise is how overdone it is by taking the easy way out. Takes nothing at all to set a pedal to stun and record it for half an hour. Metal banging, one would hope, would take a bit more to organise and accomplish - I know Hutchinson has suffered for his art with the odd trip to the doctor. Nonetheless, I'd hate to see it go down the same easy, lazy road as "HWN" (I'm even getting to hate those damn letters), and one would hope that the fact it involves physical labour would be a good hedge against the bludgers. But when reviewing an item, one must refer to the item and it's components.

Synth noodling is well and truly out of hand and has been for a few years now, leaving aside the Bloodlust and Chondritic scene. It's been flavour of the month for a lot of artists for too damn long. As much as I love a good analogue oscillation, it, like "HWN", is just too easy to do, so of course there's too many lazy idiots doing it. Still, there is virtue out there and I'm always keen to hear it when it occurs; I'm a bit of a sucker for it but not, I hope, a pushover.

What I like is hearing Noise done well. One of the things I really love about Andreas's Pestdemon project is how he's not leaning on one source or another, he's getting the sounds he wants together to create the music he wants to create. For him, the music comes first, that's obvious. There's a gulf of difference between that and any particular genre/style fetishising (and especially fifth-rate genre/style fetishising). If there's going to be any of that, I'd prefer the originality of Jupitter-Larsen's "Big Time Crash Bang" or Vagina Dentata Organ's "Music For The Hashishins", or something like that.

[Bloated Slutbag]

yet how do I measure someone else's worth of an object when I don't know what they find worthless?

One potential answer is to try to find reviews they've written of things you are familiar with. That was in fact how I approached the first edition of Night Science. The more I find myself nodding in agreement, or pausing with intriguement - as opposed to shaking my head with disgust and/or bewilderment - the more willing I am to consider reading reviews of things with which I am less familiar.

Failing that, the shit should at the very least entertain. And in all honesty, entertainment is the first and often only real consideration. (Whether that would be laughing at you or with you is not in the equation.)

[FreakAnimalFinland]

This is actually the thing I generally do first. Read reviews of bands I know, and often even releases I know & have heard. I don't think function of review is merely promote the new, but also open new angles. Reading 100 reviews of releases you don't know, by bands you never heard, often becomes annoying, since there is no possibility to really get perspective.

INCAPACITANTS "mon, ma? Mon!!!" CD
New CD from Incapacitants is something what always makes me enthusiastic. While vast majority of noise makers from Japan has slowly become less and less exciting than at their best, Incapacitants is among the final powers of noise who simply have not failed. Perhaps one could say it's thanks to crystal clear vision what they want to do, and the formula they repeat from album to album. This is perhaps the only flaw generally found on Incapacitants albums.

How many albums has been the 1 or 2 studio tracks + one live show -approach? Hmm... Feedback Of N.M.S. (1991) 2 studio tracks + live track. Fabrication (1992) 1 studio, 1 live track. As Loud As Possible .. Assets Without Liability.. Default Standard.... etc etc etc.. until quite recent "Tight" LP with one side studio, one side live. One could guess it's about half of releases!

I guess the experts have already many times analyzed the subtle variation of approaches, from crunch to high pitched feedback to heavy electronics filled dense walls to.. whatever. The current approach seems to be more electronics, more digital sounds? 30 years wasted or Live at Urga 2011 doesn't offer much of surprises, merely some chaos pad type filter  "woosh", but PIIGS' Revenge is something else. I guess that is quite morbid humor actually: PIIGS = specific eurozone area economies. Revenge? When european economy is falling, the Incapacitants track is perhaps the most joyful and toy-like piece they have ever recorded! It's the electronic swirl going up and down with quick pace. It's hard to say if there was a concept here, but suddenly track makes a sense! While musically it clearly is a weaker link in album, conceptually it appears to open whole new angle - although the financial matters and bank culture has been present in their work since very early days.

[cipher chris]

yet how do I measure someone else's worth of an object when I don't know what they find worthless?

One potential answer is to try to find reviews they've written of things you are familiar with. That was in fact how I approached the first edition of Night Science. The more I find myself nodding in agreement, or pausing with intriguement - as opposed to shaking my head with disgust and/or bewilderment - the more willing I am to consider reading reviews of things with which I am less familiar.

Failing that, the shit should at the very least entertain. And in all honesty, entertainment is the first and often only real consideration. (Whether that would be laughing at you or with you is not in the equation.)

that was actually part of my implied answer. :)
if you can gain an insight into what someone likes and dislikes through their reviewing of something you're familiar with, then you have a starting point on which to approach their review of something you're unacquainted with.  BUT I think the trust which arises there requires the reviewer to be candid and able to negatively critique.