PLAYLIST with COMMENTS/REVIEWS

[Skin Flick]

Anenzephalia - LURKING IN THE SHADOW OF THE BROADCAST EMPIRE (2026, Tesco)

Was already excited when I saw the announcement for this go up, then became even more excited when it finally hit digital to tide me over till the CD came. Threw this on while driving with my partner and initially we started laughing over the opening sample...how quickly that faded. This album is grim, claustrophobic and VERY European. Just how I like my death industrial. It's full of amazing transitions to the point I didn't realize when the songs ended, it flows seamlessly which I am a massive sucker for on albums. I also could be mistaken, but isn't this the most vocals B. Moloch has done on an Anenz album? It seems like a great mixture of equipment as well, some sounds are clearly the MS-20 and others are just mysteries as to what's being used. Perfect sample placement, perfect themes and yet another masterclass from the legend.

10/10

[Balor/SS1535]

Merzbow - Nine Studies of Ephemeral Resonance: resonating echoes of auditory noise explorations

My listening today was interrupted by a brief dinner break, so that might account for some of the differences in my thoughts on the first and second half of the album.  Continuing with the darker turn that Akita seemed to have taken in these recordings beginning in December 2024, some portions of this CD almost sound like Alfarmania!  Dense layers of rather simple sounds, but recorded with a weird, muffled, resonance.  The final track departs from this a bit and becomes, in one instance (the piano), probably the most "musical" I have ever heard Merzbow.  Varied and interesting overall.

[k.p.g]

Across - Soft Drift (self-released)
Across - Waiting in a Hole (self-released)
On my drive back home yesterday, I decided to check out some noise works of the man who is primarily known as  Lil Ugly Mane.  Next to Head Molt, this project would probably be his most well known work in the world of noise.  Releases for Across are short and very lo-fi.  Seems like some mix of tape chopping and vocal shrieks.  There are moments that are a little more introspective than others, but it is overall very crude.  I liked this stuff plenty.  I wish that the project had continued, but obviously the man moved onto bigger and better things.  That being said, a few years back, I did see a Lil Ugly Mane set that was billed as a "noise set," and have to say it was pretty solid.  Leaned more into the garbled chopping side of Across and bordered into some plunderphonics hell.

Chloroform Gay Sex Fantasies - Tour 2026 (NJMA)
Tour tape I picked up from the group after they played my living room the other weekend.  File it under that kind of noisecore that just sounds like a huge wall of sound.  Very rarely does the blur break, except when the bass peaks out to play a couple high end notes.  It's irreverent and filthy; just how it should be!

None Survive - Discography (self-released)
The full discography of noisecore side project for Hand & Knee.  Leans very heavily into a more "blackened" approach to the genre, with booming percussion and echo'd vocals.  Solid stuff.  Think the material is a decade old at this point, but believe it would still stand out in today's current landscape of noisecore.

[Fistfuck Masonanie]

Borbetomagus – Borbetomagus (Agaric Records, 1980)

The Essential Noise Thread led me to revisit the Noise Canon thread. Thanks to the person that posted that!

The mention of Borbetomagus had me thinking that I had a huge blind spot for the group. The only CD I owned was the Live in Tokyo disc on Alchemy. So I ordered some older Borbetomagus titles to become more familiar with the band.

I started with the debut self-titled album from 1980. I wanted to start at the beginning and work through chronologically.

I was surprised to find that the famous trio actually started as a quartet! Rounding out Jim, Don, and Donald is Brian! Brian Doherty is featured on a number of early releases performing "electronics."

The liner notes written by Hank Berman reference the emergence of electronic music and more specifically, musique concrete, and the new landscape created with the use of electronic and acoustic instruments. Pierre Schaffer and Stockhausen get a shout out. There is certainly more of an air of influence from those artists on this album than the all out skronkfest I expected.

The work on this disc is very dynamic and exploratory. Each player offers plenty of space to the others. The first track in particular is a strong showcase for the group's listening and improvisational techniques with texture and color. Brian's electronics and Donald's guitar add some of the most interesting details. However, each player adds their own flavor and plays off each other well.

I enjoyed this album immensely. It has the adventurous spirit of an earlier, less formed era of improvised music. However, you can feel the kinetic energy of the band and their special connection from the start. This has me excited to work through the rest of their music.

Also, I love that the CD comes with a bright orange hype-sticker that reads, "Includes their Smash Hit Concordt 4."

[Balor/SS1535]

Merzbow - Nine Studies of Ephemeral Resonance: new fractals in the labyrinth of experimental noise

While I think this might be my favorite title out of the box, this might be my least favorite disc---or at least the most internally inconsistent.  The "musical" portions mostly fell flat for me, but the harsh noise was everything that it should be.  Even though this is roughly the same length as the other CDs, the experience of this one was also differentiated by its being broken up into four tracks rather than just two or three.  That's a minor difference, all things considered, but it made the album feel like it ran by much faster.

[Fistfuck Masonanie]

Borbetomagus – Borbetomagus 2 (Agaric Records, 1982)

This is the second album from the group. Also, self-titled just like the debut from 1980, which I'm sure causes confusion. So I'm going to call it "Borbetomagus 2."

This time, the group is already trimmed down from the quartet formation featured on the debut, which previously featured Brian Doherty on electronics, to the classic trio of Jim, Don, and Donald. Well, on at least 3 out of the 4 tracks.

Where the debut album was an exploration in tone, texture, and space, this one is noisier. From the onset, the saxophones of Jim and Don contain vigor. Skronks and tonal screeches give way from time to time to more Coltrane-esque sheets of sound. Runs up and down scales and maybe even the occasional accidental melody?

That isn't to say there aren't dynamics and space like the first self-titled, but the first track certainly pronounces itself with more force than anything on the debut.

The liner notes paraphrase an explanation by Jim Sauter that, "the group is aimed at total group sound in which individual parts merge into the whole." This album certainly showcases that. Donald Miller's guitar work in particular complements Jim and Don wonderfully, and it's often easy to forget he is there, as his sounds blend so well with the sounds of the saxophones. Whether it's screeching feedback or a blanket of grizzly amplifier buzz that blankets the tones of the saxophones.

This album is quite the example of improvisational prowess. This one definitely sits somewhere in between European Free Improvisation and very noisy Electro-Acoustic Improvisation, with a heavier leaning to the noisier side than the debut.

[Balor/SS1535]

Merzbow - Nine Studies of Ephemeral Resonance: harmonic sonatas in the language of electronic noise

Now noise is not only music, but language too?  I'm beginning to get the sense that the titles are meant to be self-contradictory (which I think is fantastic).  In regards to sound sources, this disc continued what has come before, spending most of the opening track returning to the musical jingling of the early installments before progressing to harsher territories charted by the later, darker ones.  While this did mean that it took me a bit longer to "get into" this one, I did think it was distinguished from its predecessors by its having a much stronger sense of directionality.  Instead of alternating between lighter, musical sounds and harsher noise tones for the sake of variety, there was a gradual progression from the musical to the decidedly formless.  At the end, the noise abruptly terminates in silence.  I have really come to appreciate this way of concluding a noise track because it gives the whole composition a sense of infinity---as if the noise could have gone on forever, if not for the artificial cutting enacted by Merzbow.

In a way, this feels like a very fitting way to finish off the entire set.  Presented as it is as "nine studies of ephemeral resonance" with explicitly musical implications, the return to noise at the end seems to mark Merzbow's return to more familiar (?) deterritorialized sonic realms.  Each disc was a brief stop-over in musical experimentation and exploration, floating up out of a more fundamental sea of noise and ultimately sinking back into it.  Music is/as organized noise, rather than noise "music" as a deviation from form.

[k.p.g]

Being - White Knight in Rotting Armor (Skeleton Dust Records)
This is the kind of harsh noise that really makes the move for me; dynamic, cacophonous and very well-paced.  Certain moments are quick to jump from one idea as soon as it arrives, while other sections slither across the stereo mix like some nasty anaconda on the prowl.  I think I just heard some sort of musical loop jump out quickly on Side B, only to evaporate in mere seconds after it arrived.  Love that kind of shit.

Despite having roughly 20 years worth of sound source to pick from, all of this material fits very well together.  Great stuff.