PLAYLIST with COMMENTS/REVIEWS

[FreakAnimalFinland]

My information may be more tainted by skinhead folklore where testimonies often included stories how Paul was walking around with his suitcase size portable phone at RAC gigs for huge amusement of lower class skins.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

YKSI "Cataclystic Reprogram" CD
AAD
While ago bought CCCC/BLJ CD. I liked it, but, there is also but. As much as I would love to praise CCCC return as amazing thing, this recording is ok. Even good. But nevertheless, especially the production falls into category of it is what it is. It's not like the veterans of genre would have been exceptionally good in production side of noise lately. Like when last time Hijokaidan, Incapacitants, Merzbow etc would have been exceptionally tasty and not just ok? Noise can be still good, but I mean the timbre or recording itself.
That resulted me saying to bunch of guys, that even if its is painful for CCCC fanboy to say, you might actually better check something like YKSI cd. I suppose CD on Freak Animal had more of psychedelic noise qualities, while this CD is amazing 70+ minutes harsh noise blast. It's not crunchy, but neither it feels digi gadget room recording nor flat direct to soundcard type of thing. It can be, but thing is that it doesn't feel like it. There is busy layers of all sorts of noise that creates one big monolithic piece, that is always on the move. Especially at the end, it feels you could have cut couple segments as individual tracks, while most of disc is most definitely one piece.

[k.p.g]

Worth - Ruination Assessment (Freak Animal Records)
Gave this one a couple spins the other day.  It's the first release by Worth that has not gripped me upon immediate impact. The material starts off LOUD and strong; very in your face.  Eventually though, things "drift out" and settle into the atmosphere previous tracks have created.  I have talked before about noise that reveals itself in its less driven moments, and glimpses of that do show here.  Only issue is perhaps the constraint of mini CD, as some tracks feel like they end just as they are starting to ramp up.  This may warrant a third listen later today, as typing this makes me want to try and absorb the sound with a more active listening mind.

December Magic - Could the Web Be Re-Spun (Hospital Productions)
A quick burst from one of my favorite Fernow off-shoots.  Got the tape in and immediately thought "maybe save this for Christmas, when it makes sense."  That thought quickly turned to "nah, no point in just letting a tape sit on a shelf that long."  It's dark and atmospheric PE that does not take your time to get to its point.  It wants to overwhelm and harrow your soul over the mystery of the subject matter being handled.  Good stuff.

[Tribe Tapes]

Brume "Recycled" K7 [RRRecords, 1990s]
Song oriented recycled, Renou compositions that float between new age spa music for the institutionalized bunch and more abstract notions, sounds like a vacuum cleaner being played in a fun house of mirrors, perceptions of "what I am hearing" shifting with every turn of the eye. B-side takes some turns into drum machine plinking which may / may not be totally necessary. I would have preferred it without, but Renou is an experimenter, and dear god is it an experiment all right. Maybe not the kind of thelemic experiment that turns your mobile home into a mobile grave but getting near-close to such territories

Bodycocktail "Many See Lies" K7 [Zidsic, 1996]
Noted Louisville noise whiz kid turned international troubadour Zan Hoffman has his contemporary style of New Romantic crooning taking form on this cassette. More evolved, more listenable than the bulk of early Grandbrother material which would often feel like the two roommates getting out their XTC worship tendencies at an open mic night. Many See Lies flows through uneven time signatures like a piece of sheet music folded onto itself and performed as such. "Woman Looking At A Vase Of Flowers" is particularly great, this kind of Avalon-era wave music completely devoid of Ferry's sex appeal. Other pieces with their synthesized tablas remind one of Muslimgauze in faux-exotic pastiche. Surely not for everyone. For me, a highlight of ZH's mountain of tapes

[moozz]

Vincent Dallas: De Gouden Klank
Vincent Dallas: Dwalen Door Het Bos In Mijn Hoofd
Both tapes are from this year and they are excellent. HARSH noise with a full-bodied sound with some nice lower end rumble. I feel like there are plenty of Vincent Dallas releases coming out but I am not complaining as they just seem to get better and better.

Scathing: Petrol Banshees
Fantastic tape from this year. Goes from 1 to 100kmh during the first second. Great harsh noise with plenty of varied sounds. I have no idea what really came out this year but this would probably be in the top 10 for me.

The Gloria: D.D.D.D.
The Gloria: Paradoxal Undressing
The Gloria & The Rita: Sottana & Calze
Yes, I found The Gloria only because she released a split with The Rita earlier (the V.C.E. tape). I am not the biggest fan of The Rita's crackle study material and thought that The Gloria was much stronger on that release. And this year she's continued with strong material with these two solo tapes. Definitely approaching it from the HNW angle with careful attention on texture but it is never this unmoving monolithic wall but most of the time crisp rumbling with plenty of noticeable movement. The Sottana & Calze collaboration tape also came out this year. Here their material alternate, going from The Gloria's tasty HNW textures to The Rita's plain "isolated sound" material and then back again. I assume The Rita is using gunshots as a sound source, they sound a lot like the intro to Morbid Angel's song Blasphemy.

Commando 15: Arditi Moon
No longer relying that heavily on feedback (that was sometimes painful in a pleasurable way) but going for pretty much straight up harsh noise! Even with some laser sounds! Excellent!

[k.p.g]

Taint - Indecent Liberties (Freak Animal Records, reissue)
This one has been stuck on repeat in my car for the last few weeks.  It's the perfect length for any highway drive I may have for errands.  Really just a perfect mix of oppressive noise pummeling and weirder sound experiments that have usually been sidelined on the "studio albums" of Taint that I've heard.  It is interesting to see so many people of PE and "fucked up" side of noise gravitate to Keith's work yet really take none of what made it actually great into their own practice.  When I say that, I think of how weird and unnerving his sample chopping is; how he used vocals more as sound source than a layer atop the noise or even the subtle turntablism present on portions of this record (at least to my ears).  There is a lot more going on here than just scrap metal and synth, and that's really the stuff that keeps me coming back.  I guess different strokes for different folks on the same record?  Hah.  Excellent stuff either way.

Scathing - No Night Worth Saving (Phage Tapes)
More Texas heat, albeit from the newer breed of lone stardom.  While the record shines hard at certain points, I also felt like maybe it dragged on a bit longer than I would have personally wanted.  Although I am a fan of whenever Kenny slows things down and aims for something brooding, I found myself sort of thinking the penultimate track was the best way to end the record, rather than the extended outro.  While still good, I cannot help but think how much stronger it could have been by trimming a few minutes off.

John Olson & L. Sabatto - Artista Frustrado (American Tapes)
Oh god, now here's a shitnoise match made in heaven.  Talk about lo-fi; this thing sounds closer to your printer crashing in real time than any harsh noise.  But hey!  I don't mind a session like that.  Hah.  Can only imagine what kind of crude, homemade bullshit these two were both running for this.  More power to them for it though, as this sounds like they actually jammed it out in person, which not all mail collabs can achieve!

[Fistfuck Masonanie]

Borbetomagus - Songs Our Mother Taught Us (Agaric Records, 2003)

Throughout the 80s and 90s, there was more or less a release every year or two. However, in 1997, Borbeto release Live in Tokyo and the final collab CD with Voice Crack. Then silence for about 6 years until we get this album.

Donald Miller moved out of New York to New Orleans in 2001. Even with the distance, the band says they experienced a considerable slowdown about 5 years prior to Donald's move, which is exactly around the time the group recorded Live in Tokyo.

They also allude to the fact that it was difficult to draw out the audience in NYC to more than one big show a year in this Paris Transatlantic interview, https://paristransatlantic.com/magazine/interviews/borbetomagus.html.

Songs our Mother Taught Us is a collection of live recordings from a brief tour in the United Kingdom that the band did back in 1999. The first track was recorded in Glasgow and the second track was recorded in London. There unfortunately aren't any real liner notes to provide any further details other than a thank list of friends who helped put it together. I would have loved to have heard a few anecdotes from the tour. Ah well.

The first track from the Glasgow gig has quite a bit of manipulation and effects that took me by surprise. It works well! Feels psychedelic, and unlike much of the earlier releases. Donald's guitar is very present and up front, and there is definitely string scraping, and I swear almost bluesy twang in the first minute or so. Great track, but it goes by incredibly quickly even though it's 11 minutes long.

The second track, the London gig, is more of a beast. A 34+ minute performance. There is more of the heavier electronic manipulation heard in the first performance here as well. The first few minutes are more traditional horn trilling, but then the saxophones and the guitars start to bend and distort in unusual ways. I would also guess that they are pushing all of their signals through a single amp like they started doing on Experience The Magic. Everything feels mangled together like the signals have been squeezed through a thin mesh wire. More than any other release before this, the effects and manipulation take center stage to melt the guitar and saxophones down into a mangled mutant sound.

Definitely not the most harsh or feral performance from the band, but unique in the way that it sounds very fried. All of the signals from the saxophones and guitar are battling for dominance and all of the while, their sounds are being manipulated, bent, and contorted in unusual ways. They seem to have found a new kind of ugly!

[NedOik]

Hermit - Political Shitnoise Cassette (Recordings For The Summer, DE, 2026)

I only met Michael Barthel once, and when I did, I asked him to do what I ask every German I meet - to pronounce Einstürzende Neubauten, as I get a kick out hearing it pronounced correctly, I myself have never been able to get near this level of linguistic excellence. Anyway, Michael has released a Hermit transmission on his Recordings For The Summer kassettenlabel, entitled 'Political Shitnoise'. Haven't got my hands on the K7 yet, but the samples are up on his website, you have to put your ear close to the wall hear it. As I understand it, Hermit prepared a score, distributed it among the audience at one of his gigs and left them to get on with it. The resulting tape apparently contains the live audience performance alongside a version by Hermit himself which was played back to the audience. Back when I was loafing around the art world, I believe they called this sort of thing sound poetry. This is more like a bicycle being rammed down a pigeon's throat while the bird's internal organs attempt to communicate with the outside world or pig being strangled by a malfunctioning bicycle pump. The pigeon is/was having a very bad afternoon, I am not sure about the pig - I think he likes it.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DcjnrLzEt4G/

Uncanny Editions America  - The Last House at the End of the Road (Swamplands, USA, 2026)

The sales pitch, delivered by some unidentified man, woman or roadkill, is: "An audio love letter to bonfire tales and exploitation flicks." Well, there you have it. For those who like things explained before they enter the building. There's also a picture in the CD insert bearing the inscription Ted T. Pacewicz 1954–2024, alongside a photograph of a man who looks like GG Allin after a good night out. If you can unravel the Ted T. Pacewicz mystery, you're a better man than I am. Apparently Ted is the voice on the standout track, 'The Hook', where he tells a creepy little tale over a backing track that sounds like somebody washing their intestines in a sewer pipe. Strange thing is, the voice itself is rather friendly - I imagine a smiling fellow in a baseball cap perched against the door of a pickup doing the thumbs up. I'd quite happily have a beer with this fellow - even tho I dont drink. The rest of the release is top drawer, stuck-in-a-lift-on-the-13th-floor business - or stuck in the drawer.

https://swamplandswampland.bandcamp.com/album/the-last-house-at-the-end-of-the-road

Slacking, Private Collector - end of the floor (2026)

Disco never got quite so good, quite so bad, or quite so mashed into the heels of John Travolta as when he comes striding down the street in that opening sequence of Saturday Night Fever. This is an "End of the Floor Tour Split available at shows", it says here. Slacking - Massive echo jabs, disembodied whoops of prostitutes being hurled from malfunctioning rollercoasters, whiplash cracks like rocks splitting open by death row chain gang. Somewhere in the distance a growling ogre is barking out the Bible backwards, over and over, as motivation. Private Collector - Hacking cough man - not him again - attempts getaway from a bank robbery aboard a lawnmower, but it wont start, so he just stands around staring at it hoping the sun will melt him into the ether, he hacks up phlegm... tries it again and again and again whilst the ambient sounds of the baked desert town creep into first his left and then right ear then cause his whole head to buzz like a raver on his 31st ecstacy pill. You will be pleased to hear he finally gets it going, and then carrers through the town shouting at pedestrians to get the fuck out the way in the dog pack language from Vernor Vinge's 'A Fire Upon The Deep'.

https://prvtcllctr.bandcamp.com/track/private-collector-is-repeating-your-scenery-repeating-your-actual-house

[Phenol]

Rasthof Dachau - Prison Poems. What can I say? Heavy, throbbing, good sound, well executed. Just a solid release that gives me everything I'm looking for in this genre.

[k.p.g]

Anal Birth - Ultimo Mondo Aborto (Reanimated Miscarriage)
Gorenoise, am I right?  What's so fun about listening to it?  As this tapes length indicates, there is probably more Anal Birth out in the world than there needs to be.  I mean, outside of the occasional outlier of a drum fill, what we have here is essentially the same blast of drums, bass/noise, vocals.  How many of us would be able to tell the difference if Mr. Rotella simply reused the same material across all of these releases?  Fun thought exercise!
But to return to my original question, I guess what makes this such an enjoyable listen for me personally is that you are essentially hearing a man who has mastered his craft and pioneered a subgenre from right out the jump.  I may have been riding the formula earlier of being derivative, but that doesn't mean it isn't anything short of excellent.  Hah.  Oh yes, gorenoise is fun because guys like Adam make every burst of sound as intense and raw as possible.  No care for fidelity present here; if some releases sound shittier than the other, just call it some "experimental audio techniques."  Fun stuff.

[k.p.g]

MSBR & Blazen Y Sharp - Dirty Knobby (Gender-Less Kibbutz)
Well, damn.  I guess they realized there was no topping the A-Side on that one.  Hah!  Just a perfect blast of tribal pulsations and gutter metal being scraped across the mix with these two playing off of each other masterfully.  With this track clocking in at 4 minutes, playing it twice was no brainer.  I would venture to say this might be the best 7" of noise I have now.  I mean, I can't think of a track that better fits the format than this.  Not having a B-Side to take away from the power of it is an impressive move too.

Confounder + Respirator - Confounder + Respirator (Hack Court)
With most vinyl, you would be able to tell when it's clearly too fast or too slow, but the sounds here are crooked and loose enough where they will work either way.  Falls in line with the kind of American Tapes style of vinyl.  Right now, I have it at 33RPM.  Animalistic sounds are churning amongst a sea of garbled turntablism and perhaps some oscillator sputters.  It's never too busy but the sounds all find a way to fill the room.  In my next listen, I will have to try it at 45RPM to see if my opinions or observations change.  I'm sure it will be good stuff regardless.

Halflings - Self Esteem (RRRecords)
Jumping from 7" to LP, as this record has been sitting on my "listen to" stack for a couple of months now.  RRRon seemingly still has a hefty supply of these in his shop and I wonder why.  Maybe he pressed a high amount or maybe he just didn't promote it too heavily, as this was one of the last LPs for the label.  But with how the cultish fascination for Yellow Tears has only strengthened over time, I guess having something of theirs in stock anywhere is what surprises me.
Examining the LP itself, I think it stands as an interesting look into 2000s PE before the artform was almost entirely consumed by true crime fascination.  Artwork is a bizarre digital hellscape, which is pretty par the course for Redlight District crew.  You have babies and cheerleaders altered to a miserable and color-saturated muck.  Front cover looks like it was ripped from some bizarro Nancy Drew novel.  It's a far cry from xerox land but is probably more of an eyesore to look at than mutilated corpse.
The sound here is definitively PE, as vocals are leading the mix with their robotic echo.  The demonic yells are pretty self-serious.  I would say that it shows only glimpses of the absurdism Yellow Tears would work later on to perfect, and this is mostly present in the backing noise.  The B-Side is where the majority of weirdness comes from, and is head and shoulders above the first half of the record in terms of quality and enjoyment. 
So now I stand back and look at the record as a whole, leaving with more respect for it than overwhelming enjoyment.  It presents this interesting intersection for noise as the 2010s loomed, with PE at-large taking a decidedly darker and grittier shift from what this LP presents.  On the other hand, you have material that is equally as interested in absurdism of the digital age, which has also evolved into a topic of exploration for noise as we delve further into technological horrors people probably thought were worst case scenario back in 2009.  And to see that come out on RRR just as the label was taking its final lap around also proves to be pretty interesting.  Everything discussed seems like stuff RRRon just wouldn't gravitate towards, and yet he did.  Maybe he didn't truly understood it, but wanted this to come out for those who would.  I may keep this in mind for a future question during my next visit.
It really is like "take your pick" as far as what you derive from this record.  As previously stated, I like how weird things become when the B-Side comes.  I see a Discogs review that praises the A-Side as some of the best modern PE around.  Halflings really did get to have their cake and eat it too.  It wasn't some head over heels mind blower for me, and I may not return to it any time soon, but I do respect the hell out of it in a way I did not previously.

[NedOik]

Aonghus McEvoy & Adam Campbell  - Dazzle Coherence (Krim Kram, 2026)

This is one example where the spraff accompanying the relase is so good that it puts any wannabe David Kennan's out of a job. Example 1 : "Dazzle Coherence pisses from the roof down on to you with the backdrop of charming giggles." So I will pick out the most potent bits and hope the copyright lawyers do not jump off the third rung and clatter me on the noggin. Example 2 : "Saturated and gristled synthesis harkens to evenings awash with pint informed tinnitus". A little aside before I continue - its been said that tape hiss gives recordings soul viz a viz Wolfgang Ernst, indexicality and all that... and this instance we have to ask if the use of the fuzz pedal is like taking photographs with a camera. Example 3 : "The listener is firmly supplanted in a scenario that leaves little room for fence sitting, instead are confronted with wash over wash of burnt audio vocabulary."

https://krimkram.bandcamp.com/album/dazzle-coherence

Schistosoma Japonica - Liberated Pain (UFO CREAtions, 2026)

If you were one of the many idiots who looked up at the meteor shower in 'Day Of The Triffids', then this release will not mean as much as it should, as you need to clock the artwork. Drawn by Wataru Kasahara, who also "led" the group - describing his sound in a recent interview as "scum-textured" - it shows a small globular creature giving head to a massive, contorted alien John Merrick whilst it's spread out on the autopsy table. In the same room we can see a schoolboy/girl comforting themself in a foetal position, like, when is someone going to take me out of this nightmare? Then you notice the tubes connected to the table and the slight grin on the monster's face, tongue lolling out, and realise – wait, it's alive and digging this. Being a cheapskate, I opted for the digital edition rather than the sprawling handmade multi CD box set, which includes their 2009 PSF release (itself a compilation of their early-90s tape releases), unreleased recordings, signed artwork and various handmade objects. One has to draw the line somewhere.

https://ufocreations.bandcamp.com/album/--9

Cunning Folk – Eschaton In Ultraviolet cassette (Circle Of Solstice, 2026)

In my hood - every year, there's a rite at the end of spring involving enormous wooden male and female figures (géants) parading around the neighbourhood before a straw effigy is burnt to mark the end of the celebrations. I say this because the cover of this release features a similarly imposing, wooden female figure leering out at the viewer, immediately conjuring up a distinctly folk-horror atmosphere. Then you notice the ordinary suburban house in the background, complete with a waving English flag, which takes the sinister vibe down a notch or two. The music is Neo-Folk as it should be - reel to reel handed from mother to son to wife to cousin, dropped in the road, run over by a horse and then salvaged for your ears. Includes a cover of Long Lankin which trounces Steeleye Span.

https://www.discogs.com/release/37784460-Cunning-Folk-Eschaton-In-Ultraviolet