cd/lp/tape etc. REVIEWS

[Andrew McIntosh]

REUNION SACRED IBIS/MITCHELL BRENNAN, split tape
Magik Crowbar/Trinidad & Tobago, 2010
RSI's side starts with "Free Energy", an interesting gurgling kind of sound like a rapid stream of lava or burning, crumbling electronics with a nice head of hissy foam. Nice close, crumbling tones with squirts of slimey gurgles and odd patches of static. It's fulsome and enjoyable and doesn't outstay it's welcome. "Valentine's Day" chops up a sample of female sexual (probably, she could be in pain) moaning with blurts of feedback that starts out low and gluggy and becomes more high pitched and raw. A stomping, sleazy sounding piece that invokes interesting imagery. These pieces are able to lean towards a nastier Noise sound without having to dive right in, and it's an interesting tension. Live, Cooper tends towards manipulating the sounds on a hand held electronic game machine through pedals, which may sound like simple cuteness but works extremely well (especially when he's paired up with Tommy Psychward) due to him taking his equipment seriously and not treating it like a gimmick, so I'm wondering if that's the method he used for these two pieces.
  Having seen Mr Brennan live a few times with his laptop and mixer I've had mixed feelings; the work he does is precise, technical, constantly changing and impressive but on a personal level leaves little for me to grasp onto (although at the gig he performed at where I got this tape from, I thought his set was too short by half). That's my problem, not his. But his untitled spiral on this album sounded to me greatly different from his live material. There are layers, one of which is a nice, smooth yet grainy tone that ascends and descends while the other sounds snarl and growl in static precision. What's more, there are no real gaps; live his sound rises and falls, accelerates and decelerates depending on mood. Here, the piece maintains momentum and moves at the same slow but progressive pace. The all up piece sounding very full and pleasurable, built up and constant, with an element of considered drama that contrasts, again, with the improvisation of his live work. It is not always necessary or desirable for an artist to replicate what they do live in recording, and visa versa.
  This tape is well worth getting; the material on both sides is considered and well recorded and serves as a good introduction to both artists, as well as representing Melbourne Noise to the world admirably.

[Andrew McIntosh]

TIM ELDRIDGE, Deceased Estates, cdr and download
Psoarearsis, 2010
With some material recorded "on site", presumably emptied houses, and other material added later, this is intended as a semi-improvised set of pieces taking in the atmosphere of the sites where the music was originally meant to be played. Deceased estates, homes that are abandoned because the owners have died, could be in any condition by the time Mr Eldridge entered them. The sounds here, I think, adequately reflect what one could imagine the feel of such places to be. Sparse, a sense of darkness that is present without overwhelming, the feel of growing decay and fading memory. A variety of instruments are used - guitars, percussion, computer effects - to create a slow, ambient, yet complete and precise sounds. Mercifully free of clever noodling or long passages of the same old thing, the pieces flow well as good ambient works should, compliment each other and neither outstay their welcome not come and go too quickly. The timing is very good with this. What's more, it imparts its desired effect and withstands repeated listens. The composition seems to me to be the strongest point, meaning that any improvisation is, in some ways, to be guessed at. I don't hear it as having much in the way of improvisation, but presumably it's there. It's a pity the original plan - to have a number of guest musicians recording in different locations yet reacting both to each other and their surroundings - didn't eventuate, but this end result is a complete and pleasurable work in itself and worth getting.

[Andrew McIntosh]

BLOOD OV THEE CHRIST, Behind Thee Bars, cd
Autarkeia, 2011
It's taken me a couple of listens to get my head around this. There were times, initially, where I'm not sure if the filthy, grimey production is really doing justice to the sound, weirdly enough, as it seems to be muted. But one's ears adjust. Although presented as a lengthy track it is in fact a selection of different material recorded between 2005 and last year. Mr. Honkaneimi's recent incarceration providing a kind of theme for the whole. The majority of this is vicious, live-recording Power Electronics of the more improvised variety; loads of feedback, quite a lot of vocals and voice samples going on from the sounds of it, and plenty of rushing, garage Noise underlining it all. In some parts of the album the elements work together in a nice psychedelic rush, very fulfilling in it's underground coarseness. No effort spared to make the sound as guttural and desperate as possible, to invoke the hate-filled passions that mark a life (an effort down to Kristian Olsson on production). There are some slower, softer parts which work very well by comparison, including, early in the piece, a sample segment of some fucked up junky for Jesus; all consistent with the kind of image Mr. Honkaneimi has put forward with his project. The cover is adorned with words and graphics from Harri's time inside, including some rather amusing, Dada-esque passages ("Hail Hitler Viva Las Vegas Sodom Gomorah (sic) Sadam Hussein"), reminding me of the packaging of Carpathian Forest's "Fuck You All!!!!!" album, of all things. I'm wondering who the Black Metal bloke on the inner cover is. This is an album that grows on one, rather than striking one immediately and for that I expect it to be one I return to more frequently. It's mood music for just the right kind of mood.

[Andrew McIntosh]

GELSOMINA/SQUAMATA split, cd
Freak Animal, 2007
In my own strange little personal history of Noise this album stands as one of the last great Harsh Noise albums. I know that's a weird way of looking at it. But for a while there Gelsomina was, to my mind, one of the greatest pure Harsh Noise projects going. He released a few albums that didn't grab so immediately, but albums like "Nostalgia" and "Disease With A Purpose" where a new high in the genre; high pitched, ear torturing layers of hissing feedback that did not stop. It was a sound that rivalled the best of the Japanese in terms of power, intensity and utter Noise pleasure. The sound seemed to get a little more "traditional" for a while, after that; then this, what I understand is Gelsomina's last, or one of the last, recordings before the project folded and Sick Seed began.
The layers have a nice, ragged, stressed sort of feel around the edges but it's still not the eardrum perforating screams of other albums. Nonetheless, this has an amazing sense of flow and technique, real drama, and the right mix of high, lower and middle levels of sound range that all fit neatly into a nice, hissing distortion, giving it a good, gutter appeal. The sound is undoubtedly Gelsomina, too, which is the real trick when producing quality Harsh Noise; how to make something that doesn't sound like everyone else? You just go ahead and do it, and if you're ideas are good enough, they'll stand out. That's how it is here. One long, twenty plus spiral of feedback hell.
Squamata have the unenviable honour of sharing the split but from the first I thought they did a great job holding up the standard set. Three spirals, with a, perhaps, less identifiable individual sound but nonetheless intensity and purpose. The violent, unadorned metal banging of "Poison On Poison" is a nice contrast to the jizz-filled electronics, giving the piece contrast. "Die Elisiere Des Teufels" and "Enslaved By Ants" seem to concentrate on the electronics more with the occasional hint of acoustic destruction, but for the most part fulfil the Harsh Noise urge with angry distortion. The sound is rich and well produced, and if this remained the standard it would already be high. I'd prefer to hear a bit more individual distinction, myself. If the un-released material does eventually appear in public, time will then tell.

[Andrew McIntosh]

VA, Cold Fire, 12" lp
Anarchymoon, 2010
Definitely worth getting for the Astro track, which starts side one; "The Omen Of Transformation" shows Mr Hasegawa in angrier, noisier mode, the synths dark and raging, ranging from low gurgling power drone to flat out hostile oscillating. I love it when he does shit like this.
Pulse Emitter are a project I've never really gotten into. Not sure why, but there's a kind of lack-of-feeling to previous pieces I've heard that's just put me off. Unfortunately "Wormhole" is much the same, simple synth oscillations that sound all very correct but not engaging. Very hard for me to explain why I can't get into this.
Acre's "8.03" seems rather inspired by Eleh as, like the latter project, "volume reveals detail". Drone, of a higher pitched variety, with interesting little slow changes throughout for those with ears to hear. A rather nice and well played piece, and it leaves an interesting, rippled pattern of grooves on the vynal surface that visually compares with the sound.
Monsturo offer a spiral with a title that I can't replicate on my keyboard here, but is the most "un-musical" of the lot. A low, tepid, slightly gutteral string of electronic pulse with some audio disturbances on top, this is a slightly challenging piece with a degree of individuality. Not exactly "enjoyable" but clearly not meant to be.

[P-K]

I'm wondering who the Black Metal bloke on the inner cover is.

Kristian Olsson  ;-)

[DBL]

I didn't find it approperiate to make a topic about our site here, but instead decided to post the suitable ones of our new reviews to this topic. This one's a review I wrote of the tape-compilation "Nyrkki & Kyrpä II", released by Filth & Violence. You can find our site here or through my signature, and the album info here.

V/A - Nyrkki & Kyrpä II (Filth & Violence, MC)
This is the second compilation-release by the label Filth & Violence. Whereas the first compilation was focused on Finnish power electronics, this features more foreign acts and quite a bit of harsh noise as well.

The first track is a live-collaboration between Sick Seed and Above Suspicion. It's style is primitive oldschool power electonics, with the main focus on the high, noisy, and randomly varying screeches with occasional lower rumbles. The two male vocalists add a good dose of hostility to the crude filth, and I wouldn't have minded if the debauchery lasted longer. The song's end doesn't feature any vocals, just a messy of noisy rumbles, and is thus a bit powerless in comparison to it's beginning. It's just a minor flaw, though. Snuff is the original reason on me purchasing this compilation, and their track is simply superb. Really sharp high screeches vary in simple but effective patterns, and the distorted and though-out vocals add a final touch of oppression to the song. It's really minimalistic and primitive, mostly consisting of the high screeches and the vocals only, but it wouldn't need anything else either. All my expectations were fulfilled.

The untitled song by Last Rape begins with a dull and really grainy sample, and continues with even more grainy and messy mass of white noise and crude, rumbling distortion. It's a mass of grit with a little backing assistance from some lower humming, and despite it's simplisticity it's quite enjoyable for a spin or two. I just wish the samples were used for a greater effect. The track from Concrete Mascara is more reliant on analogue noise and a low and pulsating electronic loop, which gives the track a good part of it's character. It's a mess of harsh noise with some crude and distorted beats and other noises serving as the mass, and some clearer and electronic loops serving as the contrast which keeps the noise effective. It's a good and aggressive tune, but as it's predecessor, it doesn't offer much new.

Wince executes some really raw and crude metal junk noise, with a hint of screeching thrown in. It almost sounds as if the recording is broken because it constantly breaks, but it only makes the track sound more lo-fi and violent. The track is a quality snippet of harsh noise, and I would've gladly listened to more of it. After its cut-out ending we get to Bizarre Uproar's compilation material from '07, which operates roughly in the same waters as it's predecessor. The untitled song presents a dense wall of crude distortion and metal junk noise, with a couple of sudden PE-twists and breaks. The material doesn't really present anything new, but is high-quality traditional noise nonetheless. I really like how the sharpest sounds and the few vocal lines push through the distorted mess, making the track sound deeper and more original. After (again) a cut-out we get to the final band of side A. It begins with steady rumbling in the back, with equally steady drumming in the front accompanied by some pretty bizarre growling vocal bursts. The drums sound pleasantly heavy due to their echoed sound and lo-fi recording equipment, and the analogue drone in the back fills the soundscape so that nothing else is needed. As it's title "At one's own peaceful pace," the track continues forward with minimal variation for it's few minutes of lenght, and when the end comes I don't really know how I should feel about what I just heard. The track sticks out in a good way on the compilation and provides a good ending to the A-side, but as an individual track it doesn't offer much. It got me curious to hear more from the artist, though.

Mortuario opens up the B-side. After a short sample the song continues with low, echoed speaking in the distance, while some looping mid-pitch analogue synths provide the music. The songs's highly minimal and repetitive, but stays pleasing for it's whole length due to its shady and even perverse feel. Quality filth overall. Halthan continues with even stronger, looped rhythms and grainy, droning noise, all of which slowly turn into messier form as the track progresses. The track's pretty controlled despite it's structure, and the muddy vocals and samples further add to this feel. The song gives a dedicated and perfected image, and I'm very glad that the compilation features this end of the (compositional) spectrum as well.

Up next is Coma Detox with two tunes. The first one begins with something sounding like slow and really grainy electric guitar notes, backed by a mass of improvised-sounding analogue noise and as well as harsher sounds. The track continues in a relatively calm manner until it's similar follower; distorted vocals, backed by a mass of not-too-violent noise slush with some sharper electronic sounds pushing through the mass to reach the surface. Even though the songs sound even "neutral" in some aspects, they carry a lot of determination and power hidden under their surface. The tunes are not the most memorable ones, but are otherwise really good.

Pogrom opens up with sharp layers of distortion clashing together with harsher ones, while some really odd, high-pitched and manipulated vocals are on top giving the track a more experimental feel. Aside of it's vocals, the track is quite a basic PE/harsh noise-tune; it's good and shows the artist's talent, but not especially memorable. I like the artist's daring though, as he employed some cleaner electronics to the track to break its structure of lo-fi grit. The songs's just too lenghty.

The compilation's final song is performed by Mania. The song has a clearer soundscape than most of the other stuff on the compilation, so it's good it was reserved as the ending one. It's shaped from some sharp screeches, really low and messy rumbling, and anguished vocals in the distance. The track sticks out in a good way due to its clear structure and amount of violence, but it's clear it would've worked a lot better if it was surrounded by similar songs instead of a lot more lo-fi material. When viewed from this point, it's good that the song wasn't any longer.

I guess it should by pretty clear to anyone by now, but to sum it up: this compilation is of overall good quality, has a good flow, and presents a rather wide variety of artists. I can warmly recommend it to anyone with a soft spot for noise filth, aside of the easily offended.

8½ / 10

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Something noteworthy from our most recent update. This one's somewhere between harsh noise and power electronics.

Hippycrack - F48.1 (self-released, MC)

Direct link to the review
Release info
Sample

Hippycrack is a solo-project from the man who's behind Mucophiliac Narcolepsy as well. It made its first two demo-releases in 2008, and a split with the Russian noisecore-project Pissdeads followed the next year. Hippycrack published its most recent and refined offering, meaning this one, in the late 2010.

The music has drifted further away from power electronics and moreso into the realms of harsh noise when compared with the earlier releases, but it seems to have been the right choice since what the music lost in structure and violence, it gained in steady power and content. The songs (or "songs") mix really harsh static hiss, rhythms and white noise together with some clearer sounds, such as even spacy modular synth drones and sharp screeches. The main weight is clearly on the harshness with some primitive clanging and screeches here and there, but the clearer sounds have enough room to make the soundscape more detailed, structured and personal in addition to them serving as contrast-providers.

There's a good dose of variation between the different parts, from the opening one's mix of metal scrap noise and other chaotic beatings to less offensive parts that rely on various layers of primitive PE-sounds and cruder noise, all the way to the B-side's lenghty movie sample that ends to the most chaotic material on the whole tape. Both sides evolve very naturally at their own pace, and it even surprised me how boldly but still naturally the songs progress. They have a steady pace that lets you hear everything you want to before going forward, but without having the time to get stale. A few short moments of thinner and simpler sounds were left amidst the soundscape to serve as breathing pauses as well as sudden twists, which also show how well these tunes have been thought out.

This tape truly surprised me with its refinement. It relies on primitive sounds, a lot of which you've heard before, but when they've been put together this well it doesn't matter at all. My hope is that the artist succeeds in making his next work more overpowering , perhaps through bolder use of the different approaches of noise-making, as now the tape sounds just a bit too thought-out and reliant on safe choices to be a true killer. Still worth checking out, for sure.

8- / 10

[DBL]

If you enjoy chiptune or martial industrial, click my signature for a couple of new reviews.

Videotrage - Signaltures (tape)

Direct link to the review
Release info
Samples

Videotrage is a Finnish Duo and this is debut album, released after one EP. I haven't heard that one, but this particular tape is somewhere between minimalistic power electronics-noise and spacy electronic music, as well as sound collage and what-not, all of which flows through a strong retro-filter.

The four minutes long opening tune actually lives up to its name; it sounds like browsing through different radio frequencies from the past, with the different samples overlapping with each other in a surprising but peaceful way. These samples have a bit of covering from vintage modular synths that are the main element of the second tune the thirteen-minuter "Timewarp." The synths create a dense but very soft and slow wave with just a bit of a sharp and noisy edge, which flows forward with little disturbance for a few minutes until it's replaced with some cruder synth notes with a similarly worn sound. There's some analogue grit in the background and the notes have an improvisation-like nature to slowly drift towards greater noisiness, but overall the track sounds moreso alien than dangerous in any way. The synths mutate into a looping, delay-reliant pattern which brought images of really old sci-fi movies to my mind. The track sounds interesting and its slow mutation process keeps the listener on his/her toes for the whole time, despite the calm pace.

The songs are fittingly titled, for sure; the five minutes long track A3 is based on a Finnish lecture about thermal weapons, with some bubbling and soft screeches added on top of it. It might not sound like much on paper, but the lecturer's low, monotonal voice and the simple effects make the tune pretty enjoyable and interesting piece, and a good, calm closer for the A-side.

Side B has just one lenghty track (around 18 minutes long) about allegiance to the higher order and its leaders, for the common good. This one is the most versatile and seemingly planned one, and has the most instruments as well. Aside of the calm modular synths creating a field of sound in the beginning, it has some monotonal speaking and even a bit of a percussion beat to give the track a nice start, and to prevent the listener from being incapacitated. There's even a modulated voice speaking about the song's theme, and this voice is the most cliché element on the whole album - it doesn't stop it from suiting the album perfectly, though, and at least I found it to fittingly deepen the sci-fi mood. The song progresses from calm and thought-out waving to more rhythmic type of music, to some faster, louder, more improvised and almost hypnotizing direction, ending up sounding like a soundtrack for brainwashing. It took me a while to get fully adjusted to this song, but after a few try-outs I was sucked into its world.

Aside of some fumbling and slightly overdone improvisation (or moreso lack of direction) on the A-side, this tape is warmly recommended for those who enjoy vintage modular synths or retro sci-fi-soundscapes with a bold attitude. "Allegiance" shows that the band has some ideas and tricks that they didn't really reveal on the three previous tunes, so I'll eagerly be waiting to see what the duo comes up with next - while hoping that they manage to knit their mixture of sound collages and such experiments a wee bit tighter (but still naturally) together with the more controlled and composed moments. An extra thumbs-up is awarded for the minimalistic but nonetheless plain splendid artwork.

8- / 10

[Andrew McIntosh]

CONTROLLED PROPERTY, No Innocent Civilians, cdr
412 Recordings, 2010

Hal Hutchinson is churning them out, having hit the scene like a brick since last year. The deliberate control, sparsity and cold up-front production harkens to a more psycho Attrax Morgue in some ways, each track being a hostile blast of raw electronics and feedback, modulated basically throughout each piece but basically staying within its brief. The sounds tend towards a clean, cutting, higher pitched harshness that has an essential minimalism that bedrocks any movement each piece may have. The tracks are not long, so there's no real endurance test to be had. This is very basic and straight up but eschewing any "lo-fi" pretensions, the sound instead being loud and imposing. In a way, each piece is like a simple sound study, but the purpose with each, and with the whole album, brings it more forward, away from any chin-stroking experimentation. Sturdy, basic, effective Noise, for those moments when you just want something loud, harsh and fuck you.

[Andrew McIntosh]

IRGUN Z'WAI LEUMI, Klirrfaktor, lp
Verlautbarung, 2008

I'll be honest; the first half of side one confounded me. The rickety sounding pulse, like a squeaky toy laser gun, goes through a few phases in a dry, clacking monotone that tries the listener. It's intriguing, although annoying, but just as the mind becomes accustomed to it, the squeakiness dies down and a more sombre, glitch-like pulse is left to de-construct the feedback being generated. It's from here, I think, that the album gets interesting. The sound becomes muted, twisted, raw but suffocating, a gritty, small scale crackle with stressed, winding feedback in the distance like wind at night. Instead of blasting your face with volume it draws your mind in slowly through a funnel. A despairing but determined state of mind is suggested with this sound. Side two continues in this manner, the sounds rising and falling slowly and softly, the crackle of electronics being manipulated almost like waves on a shore. This sounds is built upon and modified, ranging from slower, wave like flow to a softly crunching pulsing with the strained feedback stretched out again in the background. Taken as a whole the album starts off with a challenge to the listener then gradually evolves into something perhaps more gratifying but no less challenging. Although the album lists both sides as separate pieces it sounds to me like they came from the same session and the continuity from start to finish is really remarkable. Sinister, insistent and never dull, this is a high water mark for experimental Noise.

[DBL]

Nyodene D - I Have No Mouth, Yet I Must Scream (tape)
Label: Obscurex

Direct link to the review
Release info

Nyodene is an American solo-project of one Aaron Vilk. It was founded in 2008 to create industrial ambient, but over time evolved into a noisier project focusing on death industrial, power electronics, and strong social and cultural criticism and questioning.

"The Hand of Oblivion" opens up the tape with a grainy, slowly waving drone, with a slow metallic rhythm in the background and a spoken male sample on top, but after reaching four minutes the song turns into a mash-up of metal beats and scrap metal noise which is tied together by a pulsating mass of grainy and oppressive distortion. This overwhelming force is topped with really violent, distorted and dedicated male shouts, that should sound great to everyone who appreciates the vocals of Grunt for example. After the song's short and calm outro, we get to "Horror Vacui" which starts right away with it's violent metal junk noise-chaos. The recording equipment and the songs' mastering mashes the sounds up a bit and gives them a good and sturdy low end, which makes the songs fleshier and gives them the dark feel that suits the album's agitating nature. The third tune takes the soundscape to a bit calmer waters through putting together some dense and low drones and strongly beating rhythms, and, although the slightly lo-fi recording equipment shines through here, the track conjures up an oppressive atmosphere.

After the listener has relaxed a bit and turned the tape around, we get another calm start of harsh, gritty and droning noise which is topped by a sample of someone speaking. These more fragile layers of noise entwine with each other to create an interesting and detailed backdrop for the hostile shouting vocals, and serve as a nice change from the full-fledged violence. B2 is one of my personal highlights of this album. It's otherwise very similar to it's predecessor, but has harsh and screeching layers of noise on top of the more detailed and "quieter" action, and features a crude and catchy drum loop, which brings a whole new musical dimension to the tune. I found it to be just a bit too repetitive and eventually boring in its simplisticity, and would have needed a slightly altered sound to fully function. Still, it's an interesting add. The last song is almost melancholic due to its less violent vocals and more dark ambient-like approach, and shows yet another side to Nyodene D's expression. Stylish, for sure.

Nyodene D is not a mere musical experience, but also a lyrical one. The strong lyrics deal with lack of freedom, the current political system, and overall around the topic on how people being enchained and oppressed, and with the reasons and means to break these chains. The lyrics blend in perfectly with the dark and violent tunes, and clearly display the artist's zeal for his art and its message. It's a shame that the crude and simplistic visual side isn't up to par with either of these. The tape's sides aren't labeled either, but you can follow the songs by keeping the lyrics-sheet at hand - whether this was intentional or not, I can't tell.

The album shows many sides to the artist's approach and surely makes an impact, both musically and lyrically. It's just a bit too scattered for it's own good, and the songs don't come together the way they should. I think the whole could've been better if it was a bit longer, as then the songs would've had more time to blend together and to reach further towards their own limits; now it seems that some of the songs end too short, or didn't manage achieve to their deepest core. To sum it up, Nyodene D seems to be a noteworthy artist.

8- / 10

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hhhhh - Brick Walker (tape)
Label: Love Torture Records

Direct link to the review
Release info

hhhhh (which should be pronounced as a "heavy outward breath" according to the band's instructions) is a one-man noise- and power electronics-project of one Mike Wulf from the United States. The project made its first release in 2009, and has conjured a whole of five splits and six own releases since; this supposedly being the newest one, as of the date 03/2011.

The EP opens up with harsh and grainy noise-grit, which is backed by some reversed analogue synth waves to give the track more personality, character, and a pleasantly disturbing feel. It has a nice mid-part of tape loops of some metal beats and such, and it gives the track a nice boost. The follower is a total harsh noise-tune with rumbling grainy distortion and some lower-pitch irregular rhythm in the background, and with a couple breaks kicking it into motion it's pretty much flawless in its simplisticity. It has some cleaner synth in the end to keep it from becoming stale, but, sadly, it also softens the tune a bit. The third song is the cleanest and lightest one, but with a soundscape this lo-fi it fits in perfectly. It relies on some manipulated speech samples and analogue notes, with some drones and noise-bursts further feeding the track's chaos. It's a stylish end to side A.

Side B is a calmer one, and serves as a natural step forward from "Default Champion"-song's lighter approach. "Floral Pattern" opens up with some hoarse but light metallic droning, which is followed by a looped and odd-sounding, reversed melody. It's followed by some calm and soft noise sounds that come one at a time to keep up the "safe" atmosphere. Eventually this progress leads to calm ambient, with some additional edge and other small reminders of hhhhh's noisy and experimental tendencies scattered here and there. Avantgardey lo-fi ambient.

The visual side is rather boring. The blue-hued cover is pretty incomprehensible collage of walking people, and the printer-paper covers are one-sided so that's all you're getting. The tape holds the basic infos and a separate download-code, although it seems to have gotten old.

I found the tape enjoyable, and its two-sided structure well describes the artist's level of skill. The lo-fi soundscape makes the different sounds nicely unified and allows the artist to really experiment with his equipment, but also makes the songs a bit too flattened for them to really cause an impact. The aforementioned also makes the songs sound a bit safe, even though they (especially the ones on the B-side) have some avantgarde-influence. Overall the tape is too improvisation-based, and especially the B-side seems to suffer from this; the tracks almost completely let go of the listener a couple of times, and the mixture of "listener-friendly" noise, avantgarde and ambient could've been executed with more personality and effort. On the flipside, this unpredictability and crudeness makes the primitive A-side more interesting and detailed.

Both the sides are a good listen, for sure, and last in listening surprisingly well when thinking of their short lenght. They just don't present enough of concentrated effort from this capable artist, nor make an enough lasting impact. I was left unsure about his goals with the different choices he made with the songs, meaning if he had a target atmosphere or a style; and, frankly, I'm rather certain he had no precise idea either, and because of that he ended up operating somewhere in the midway of different extremes. I'll be waiting to see what he comes up with in the future, and keep on hoping that it will be something as bold.

7½ / 10

[Andrew McIntosh]

MARTIN BLADH, Umbilical Cords, cd
Sergehuva, 2005

Drone, even more than HWN, is ubiquitous to the point of ridiculous and it's too easy for me to turn off anything connected to it. But not this. Mr. Bladh knows that drone is not some cosy, too-easy cop-out but a serious component that can and should be utilised properly. The use of acoustic string instruments, particularly on the lengthy, doomy opening track gives the impression of some kind of "modern orchestral" sound. The strings are stroked slowly, savouring their deep, low, organic tones, while others fiddle impatiently and aggressively above them; all the while, softly hissing cymbals lace the growling, dark red soundscape with mist. The second track allows the high-pitched, creaking and squeaking violins to take the centre as various tones from a low cello to more mid-ranged sounds (organ? electronics?) take turns supporting them. "Cord 3" seems to reprise the same formula of the first piece but with more modulation of the sounds, a definite electronic buzzing tone becoming more apparent as well. The paced sediment of the first piece is distorted, giving a hazier atmosphere. At the end is an odd little guitar-vocal addendum, an off-key paean to screaming bodies. The final piece is made up mostly of slowly paced and presented deep drone tones that could be either from strings or brass, with different tones, electronic I'd say, accompanying and changing. The recording ensures that the very solemn and stand-alone sounds that make these pieces are pristine enough to appreciate the nuances and the changes they go through, demanding a rigorous listen that, nonetheless does not feel like a challenge but actually do attract willing attention. It may be the simplicity of the pieces, but it's no problem at all to put this album on and feel drawn in by it immediately, rather than something that either sits there smugly ignoring the listener or extracts brow-wrinkling thought. It is definitely a stand-out album, brilliantly composed, conceived and recorded.

[Andrew McIntosh]

GOH LEE-KWANG, The Lost Testimony Of Rashomon, cd
Herbal International, 2010

I have little information with me about this work, other than the obvious. It's the soundtrack to a live performance, and there are credits to video on the cover but for some reason this is just audio. I would have thought a dvd would have been a much more appropriate format for a release like this. In any case, we have the audio. Considering it's incidental music, it makes sense that it's somewhat slow, ambient, and minimal. Mostly electronic, although the album is book-ended with the acoustic recoding of a storm. The material is solemn, slow, giving a near-ambivalent sense of anxiety and anticipation, perhaps a quality needed to underscore the drama. The sounds range from semi-musical tone clusters, paced appropriately, to somewhat distorted and distant tones and sounds converging and separating. It does get somewhat wall-paperish, not that the sounds themselves are not welcome, but again, this is meant to be incidental music. Electro-acoustic, abstracted, minimal material of a dark and often sinister nature (this is not a feel-good performance, clearly) that occasionally engages the listener but more often exists for the sake of it's role; without the visual element it does feel like something is missing, but there is a slow but certain sense of composition that suggests movement on stage as well as in the mind.

[Andrew McIntosh]

REDGLAER, American Masonry, cd
Anarchymoon, 2007

Received as a generous extra when ordering the "Cold Fire" 12", this sounds like strained, deep, calloused feedback manipulation that prefers the lower end of the tonal scale. It's loud, dark, very dark in fact, with a sound that teeters between all out harshness and cold, imposing drone. It's this nice, stressed disparity that gives this album power. The sound suggest a live, or at least one take, recording. The manipulation allows each element to give it's all before changing, meaning that pacing is everything and here the pacing is successful. It think it's good here that the levels aren't mastered so loudly that it just jumps at you, it allows the sounds to work on their own merit. The first two pieces share pretty much the same sound and textures, the second a lot more "relaxed" than the first, while the final twenty minute third piece ranges through different manipulations of the sound, although still with a slow sparsity, different effects added, and the introduction of additional layers of sound - manipulated voices, pipe-like horns. This piece becomes busier and more agitated than the previous. A very distinct flange effect is put to good use, adding an unreal, almost psychedelic sheen. The heavy, glutinous feedback from the first piece makes an occasional appearance here as things are pushed into the red. But the busy sounds are dispersed half-way though the piece, leaving a single layer of feedback to push itself though the phaser with the same grim determination as the beginning of the album. In the end it moves off into a much higher pitch, winding itself up into space to leave.

[Andrew McIntosh]

ASTRO & CORNUCOPIA, Deep Winds, cd
Quasi Pop Records, 2010

For a while I've been reluctant to explore the work of Chilean project Cornucopia, mainly due to hearing some earlier works that didn't impress me at the time and due to a dislike of the actual name. This album rectifies that as Mr Castro, on the first spiral "Deep Wind I", takes sounds produced by Mr Hasegawa and forms them into a well moulded, well paced and well produced spiral that takes drone as a backbone and fleshes it with balanced sounds. There are grating hisses, hums and soft shifts of white-to-pink noise, all moved slowly yet without dragging them to bored extinction, and it's not so much a matter of either leading up to a climactic point (although the more rhythmic pulse towards the end may give a whiff of such) or just whacking sound on a canvas and hoping for the best. This has the much welcomed mark of control that makes listening enjoyable without renouncing any conscious challenge. One Claudio Chea is credited on "(a)dditional recording and mastering", and one wonders how much of his impression is made on the whole.
  Unfortunately I find that I've been burning out somewhat on Mr Hasegawa's increasing output, and his main contribution to this album, "Deep Wind II (Multicellular Dream)", doesn't really bring me out of that rut. Although well recorded with a nice, clear, deep sound, the actual piece doesn't seem to have much dynamism. The few minutes of crackling stuffing-about didn't bode well for the rest of the piece, and it takes a bit of a while before the guts is kicked and we are presented with fairly standard Astro Noise. I've never thought it too important for an artist who's main mode of operation is to put out as many releases as possible to be great every time, and one should not expect that. This piece does redeem itself in workman-like fashion, and as mentioned, the mix (in this case, re-mixed and re-mastered) is well done, but the lack of complexity and direction does leave it as a fairly "all right" spiral, nothing less or more. Perhaps, at this moment, more cannot be expected.