COMMANDO 15 - Inner Insurgency Manual CD (Freak Animal, 2024)
Third release from C15, and yet another step in his very own direction. The restrained room recorded hiss drenched feedback and simple pulsating loops are still around, but here coupled with ripping old timey noise. The latter, while definitely wild, is still held in a leash, so to speak, the bursts violent yet brief, keeping the album fairly coherent even though it swings inbetween extremes. And it's the inbetween moments which really sing, although I wouldn't want to be without anything on offer here. The label blurb mentions something about early euro noise and power electronics in a contemporary "broken noise" context, and yeah, that sums it up rather well. Consumer Electronics, S°Core at its bleakest and most simple, and Krang come to this mind, but still not too close to either of them. And the sound; perfect! A very "close" room recording which really brings out everything, perhaps more than there actually might have been, from the few sound sources at play. Lends an element of instability and surprise to it all.
Eager to hear where C15 will go from here. It's far from a perfect album, and I do have complaints, but the fact that this doesn't sound like much else, and that I'm certain there are even better albums ahead... kinda makes it perfect anyway.
F/I / BOY DIRT CAR - Split LP (RRR, 1986)
F/i's side is all over the place. From synthy, almost melodic, sample heavy industrial to monotonous three chord rock with wah wah soloing, with no definite distinction between. It's charming and it works for being so careless. I'm sure they had an audience, but I can't imagine the band had it in mind.
Boy Dirt Car is fantastic. Percussion, rumbling bass, acoustic clang and bang, humming and snarling vocals, and hopelessly 1980's sounds. In the (extremely charming and enlightening) Noisextra interview from a couple of years back, Eric Lunde downplays his role in the group a bit. But Lunde is such a massive presence in whatever context he's in, and while BDC does differ alot from his later solo work, the bridges between are plenty.
ASHLEY C - Timeless Reality CD (Freak Animal, 2011)
Been sinking into this quite a few times this week. Junk and mangled tape, an ancient recipe by now. Sewer Election's Vidöppna Sår LP comes to mind straight away. But as the tracks pass by, Timeless Reality gradually opens up, spirals off into more hazy dream like vistas. A bouncy synth loop in the midst of acoustic wreckage in track 6 immediately makes me think of the much more recent album Hangman Cut Himself Loose by Kyle Flanagan from 2022. Love this CD. Definitely a product of its time, but simultaneously it gravitates elsewhere, in its own direction.
BIZARRE UPROAR - Sikiöasento 2CD (Filth & Violence, 2017)
Great longform loop driven noise with some healthy restraint here. The dryness of the first disc wins me over. Takes some craft to keep a piece like that maintaining its momentum, but the core loop, or whatever you might want to call it, immediately sets its hooks in. The similar but more varied second disc is just as great. A slow but steady tumble of earthy texture and motion. The occasional vocals obscures the view for me at times - not bad per se, but were they really needed? - but still, it has me sitting deep in the couch. Not a big consumer of Bizarre Uproar, but I've dipped my toes now and then. Seems like this era is more of my thing, than the earlier period(s).
