This text was originally posted in Finnish, for Sarvilevyt page, so its not just list, but describing a bit further
There's no order to the list and the criteria has primarily been the feature: Releases that demand and inspires immediate re-listening. Or multiple listenings. There are many albums that are great and could also be listened to more, but there is another album in the queue that is at least as good that you can listen to instead. Outside of these, there are albums that are not only great, but they have a certain individual feature that is also good. Not necessarily anything revolutionary special, but simply the kind of good album that you can't directly point to have easy replacement. Which therefore really requires listening it multiple times, as nothing else really gives you the same vibes. In some cases, there is not even vibe, just fact that for reason or another, I happened to listening something a lot without thinking why so.
Dead Door Unit "Abandon" CD
I've often talked about how essential good interviews are to me. Some people say that interviews suck because they reveal too much and take away all the mystery around the artists. Well, that's fine, but this just shows that either the interview was bad, or the artist is not very interesting in first place. Interesting stories or insights don't become uninteresting just because they're talked about! More so when it turns out that a band that made decent music on some level is just a bunch of ordinary idiots who have nothing interesting to say about anything and their interest in noise was also superficial and clueless, which obviously doesn't make you want to check it out.
In today's crowd, there's probably some kind of American nuance that "human interests" as such an everyday story has started to dominate interviews. Maybe I see it as American feature as I tend to read most interviews in English, often by Americans? I have often annoyed that.. ehm.. womens magazine approach about interviews, where the interesting "personal portrait" is that everyday rubbish that is everyone's common experience. Apparently it provides some kind of comfort, etc. Some survival story and or resolution of personal crises. It usually doesn't inspire me.
If talking about art and underground I personally prefer to read an interview with.. well, perhaps easy examples everybody knows is like Herzog, Burzum, etc. whatever. Someone with slightly unique views, visions and experiences. Doesn't have to be something I live through and have in common. Not at all. The list could of course be longer, but the topic now is noise and not the protagonists of a special culture.
Dead Door Unit, which had previously gone a little under the radar for me, seemed interesting based on the interview. There was nothing complicated or overly special about it, it just became clear that the man is busy with his own sound without any need for success and visibility associated with music culture. The publications are mainly extremely small editions, which perhaps on the scale of the music business are not publications at all. Actually more like personal communication with familiar like-minded people, which takes place outside of "commercial publishing". I was browsing the shelves and wondering what DDU tapes would be on the shelf and there were not many, because many of the cassettes are even less than 10 pieces in editions which I couldn't actually buy. A couple of cassettes where the editions were in double digits at least.
When I got the CD, it stayed in the player for a hell of a long time. Someone might ask what's really special about this and the answer would probably be nothing. Theoretically, "anyone" could do something like this. Technologically speaking. It would require very little financial investment. As opposite, it requires understanding and good taste! The man himself stated in an interview that at first his stuff was weaker, but now he knows for sure that he makes good stuff. That's right. In many songs, the equipment sounds as if there was some kind of source sound on a cassette or looper and often the mixer feedback or/and mixer gain input distortion blends into the source material. The tape loop, the ghostly sounds of the tape rewind speed and the mixer's "routing", whatever you want to call it. Often this is enough to create almost perfect noise when maker just can make that distinction what is good noise. Mixer feedback and bad loops can be also atrocious.
I often get questions from novice noise guys and often with expensive effects and synths, who are wondering why this is "like this". Why it doesn't sound like the good noise they are listening and try to make. Hah. Yep. I personally think that noise is not fundamentally a "hardware", but rather: a vision. The Dead Door Unit interview made fairly clear how the vision for the sound was passionately developed and practiced.
Sometimes the end result of making your own noise is something that makes you want to listen to your of stuff so much that eventually you might even question why even release it? To whom? It can be a perfect for your own ears, something that you can't really find anywhere else. Giving it to couple friends while talking to them can be also enough. I am glad through, that DDU stuff has been made available for "outsiders" so to say!
Good CD that is worth grabbing. Not harsh noise rumble and rumble, but slower-paced and more experimental, sometimes it even reminds me of Merzbow from the early 90s combining with no-tech American tape noise. Very much the kind of "Behringer mixer in useful use" stuff, which can be unbearable at worst and in skilled hands, again, pretty much the best.
https://tribetapes.bandcamp.com/album/abandonKSNK "Murska 2" tape
Freak Animal released the "Murska" CD and the artist mentioned that there is a lot of material like this, but on the other hand, is it necessary to repeat the same idea too many times even though the sounds are different in themselves. Good thing he did proceed to second release of the style! KSNK is known for usually releasing very different releases. The Murska 2 cassette, on the other hand, is a direct continuation of the Murska CD. Dubbed onto a cassette, "field recordings", more like machine recordings, the crushing sound of the rock crushing machine lines is so nice. It's all released "as is", without any editing and effects or overdubs. Works damn well! The artist's job is mostly to put the microphone in the right place and select what becomes a "song". Dubbed onto a cassette, the sound gets that magic dust finishing touch and the end result is juicier than the bandcamp version. However, it's not bad to listen there, if you can't find a sold-out cassette anywhere!
https://satatuhatta.bandcamp.com/album/murska-2Abysse Des Âmes - Mielen Lujittama Hulluus LP
A.D.A., which operates with a relatively small profile, has only released one short split cassette before this album. A couple of gigs in Lahti, which may not have even been heard of in the noise scene. I haven't seen the gigs myself because I've been always same time somewhere els. Level of material can be considered also through fact that Satatuhatta was so convinced of the recording that they decided to do labels debut vinyl release out of this recording.
I've wondered about quite a few foreign labels how they only focus on re-releasing decades-old sure-fire hits. My own gut feeling is that the biggest hunger of people is not the yet another tape of known artist rigged from history, but would be for NEW and GOOD stuff they want to discover? Maybe Finland is an exception, as you don't have to look so hard for good experimental noise and it is not half assed substitutes, but artists who keep pushing things at least equally good as "classics", even if perhaps slightly different styles.
In fact, I could make this year top noise releases even merely looking the albums released by Freak Animal. Haha! Selfish, perhaps, but not really: They all have been released precisely because they were so good and preferred that over reissuing vintage relics.
A.D.A. is not exactly noise, but we go within the framework of this experimental sound, electro-acoustic, musique concrete and kind of higher achieving sound.. but clearly combined with a subculture perspective! The sound collage has features that would perhaps not be accepted among academic art music expression. There are rough and noisy elements, traditional instruments are used for rather unmusical ways, the work is built from short pieces often progress or change hectically. Many others would certainly be tempted to stay in great soundscape for longer times, but this album has a constant sense of progression and never stays still for long time.
I remember once name dropping that the album was suitable for Nurse With Wound fans. That doesn't mean much, since NWW has done so much and different things. Maybe comparison is good enough that one knows the focus is on interesting and great sounds that create a surreal and strange atmosphere that has the ultimate "sound of studio" feel, but also "work done by hand" feel. Not at all that academic vibe or "Finnish experimental underground" hobby activity. Here we have the level should most likely result that in the future the album will definitely be a cult release and any time people talk about will include words like "underrated" etc.
https://satatuhatta.bandcamp.com/album/mielen-lujittama-hulluusKommando "Wage of Wrath" LP
I've been wondering what's actually so good about this album? It's hard to say, but there's something that made me listen to the album many times. Every time the side ends, I put the needle back to the beginning of the side and listen again. Or flip it and do that for a while. A long-standing German heavy electronics artist, a modest 100 copies edition LP. At its most violent, a very traditional German heavy electronics pulse and a shouting through a flanger/phaser. Sometimes it calms down to slower flowing synths and rhythmic elements. Not dancey, but dark!
Kommando was a project that preceded Thorofon. The early Thorofon vinyls were quite a technological step forward in the genre. It may not be so obvious today, but at that time the band was clearly one of the forces that renewed the genre. After a excellent debut, they soon progressed to an almost danceable SPK-vibe industrial beat and my own interest quickly faded. They made a comeback under the name Kommando in 2007 and out of a few albums, this latest one is hard and at times the aggression even reaches Thorofon's best years! 25 years ago the sound that was fresh. Now it's kind of "fresh retro", heh! Despite certain new sounds made possible by modern technology, its still pretty 90's feel - which is fresh because this kind of stuff is no longer done well in so frequently as it used to be?
https://ant-zen.bandcamp.com/album/wage-of-wrathNuori Veri "NVV" tape
There don't seem to be any music samples from this online and the cassette itself was an annoyingly small edition compared to domestic demand here in Finland! A strong guess is that with the Finnish language being such a significant element, the demand for cassettes would be the highest here and would be nice to get enough copies to Finland, hah.
Of course, NV music can be listened to purely as a great sound, without understanding what recordings are about. Then the multilayered nature of the material and the significance of the sounds remain unperceived. It is by no means self-evident that the sounds on the record are somehow meaningful.
There is a lot of noise, majority of it, that is formless and shapeless and even" meaningless" - except within its own framework. Those familiar with all kinds of abstract art know that a painting or sculpture, for example, does not have to represent anything or tell about anything, but the work itself IS. Not reference, just is what it is. The same thing with shapeless sound. It does not have to refer to something outside itself to justify its existence. Asking and pondering what it means or what should be "understood" from it is something that I myself sometimes fall into. More often it is a painfully dull question. If it has probably been completely obvious way of expression for a hundred years, that an art object can be purely independent, and not just a figurative representation referring to the existing world.. to go back to same basic questions feels a bit weird. Sometimes you have to wonder if that idea is too difficult, or too poorly articulated, when it doesn't seem to be understood very broadly even after a century?!!?
On the other hand, it is no surprise when I often say that figurative noise in particular is close to my taste! That is, sounds that tell about this world, evoke images and visions, perhaps surreal soundscapes where the volume, object or situation can be recognized, but it takes place in some... unreal world that is detached from reality. Nuori Veri has been masterful in a way where all the songs tell about something, describe something, usually something not mundane. Even the "ensimmäinen miekka", which starts the album, is very nice. It deals with the idea of ��objects made by people. Axes, spears, bows, all kinds of objects have had uses related to hunting, survival, perhaps construction, and finally when the first sword is forged, its only use is to: kill another person. It does nothing else really. It is weapon to kill humans. When "noise" work from these starting points, evoking ideas you may have not formerly even thought about, even if they may be sort of obvious, it has the ability to speak to you in a very different way than, for example, just an aesthetic experience. An no, NV is not brutal noise focusing on killing people, but far more. Good luck hunting for the cassette. Let's hope that someday there will be a new edition!
Giärmäi "Ratapölkkymme" tape
When the samples was online, the feeling was like "yeah, I could take it when I get the chance". Then when I actually got the chance and didn't just listen to it from some online stream, the feeling is much stronger! This operates strongly in the direction of the "rural noise" work that has gained momentum in Finland. There is a bit of "anima arctica" and a bit of "brown hill scene" here at the same time, but it is unlikely that the artist has actually set out to copy anyone. Old reel-to-reel tapes, blurry handmade sound processing. Of course, there is modern technology, but the end result sounds dusty and handmade, which is emphasized by the artist's desire to dub the tapes himself and assemble the packaging that differs from mass products. That's it!
https://giarmai.bandcamp.com/album/ratap-lkkymmeAmek-Maj CD
There are a handful of bands in Finland that don't let the listener in easily. Especially foreign ones. Strange names that you can't really remember. If someone from abroad is wondering which band someone recommended, was it SSRI, KSNK, RMSS, KITU, AMEK-MAJ, GIÄRMÄI, PALOKORO, METSÄKIRKKO, etc etc... what the hell! Several dozen releases are released every year and it's not necessarily possible to remember the names correctly without checking online. Not to mention that you could pronounce names to your friend while talking.
The name of the new Amek-Maj CD album is apparently some kind of hyphen sign, but I wouldn't doubt that many people will confuse this 2024 CD album with the previously untitled CD released by Freak Animal, heh! Well, if you don't own them, it's worth buying everything, so you can go for it.
The 2024 album was released by Hiisi productions and due to the minimal edition, it might be out of stock when reading this? Combining rugged and handmade harsh noise with somehow strange ideas, makes it hard to describe. Wet and broken, happening in space but on the other hand containing synthetic elements that feel to be.. not in that room space. A very unique album from an artist whose albums are so different that even if you own something, you can safely grab more of them. The less than minute sample below doesn't give an idea of ��what the album as a whole is about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUdSxBlRf4QLettera 22 "Salvado" CD
Technically released in late December 2023, but for me it's good enough for this year's albums as who would have gotten it before 2024?! A friend mentioned that the CD isn't very good, but what the hell!! This is absolutely amazing! A long recording of a strange noisy experimental set. Just one long tape loop that runs through several reel-to-reel tape recorders and a couple of microphones in the room recording the process. Hard to put into words what this is. I agree that this is not aggressive harsh noise, but I still consider this some kind of noise, and not "experimental music" and it also manages to evade the sonic shiftiness of a lot of conceptual art. The noise levels are so high that it works as an album, and not as a bland museum piece. Of course, the guys from Lettera 22 are not exactly shirt & tie types, I suppose, so the starting point must have been that it had to be a really good noise album, and not just a good arty idea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=popiQTH0U8I
