PLAYLIST with COMMENTS/REVIEWS

[P-K]

i usually don't go 'academic', but this is really good.....

One of contemporary music's greatest and most elusive mavericks returns to Tzadik with yet another CD of ear bending electronic sounds. A student of Stockhausen and close collaborator of John Cage and David Behrman, Amacher has been creating acoustic art, electronic soundscapes and site-specific installation work since 1967. A new CD of Amacher compositions is a true cause for celebration and Teo! Is one of her greatest works. The winner of Prix Ars Electronica in the Digital Musics category, Teo! premiered in the Esplanade of the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City and is a collaboration with scientists at the Sun Pyramid of Teotihuacan. An absolutely stunning electronic masterpiece!

[FreakAnimalFinland]

HAKARISTI tape (F&V) raw clumsy instruments and fierce vocals. Not really noisecore, nor punk. Just something. Short and to the point.

STAB ELECTRONICS "temple of self-disgust" tape (F&V) pretty much uniform release with previous tape. There are several good songs and couple lame. I think the ones with clearest voice are the strongest! One with strange slow phaser type of effect on voice sounds amusing. I think perhaps better than 2 tapes, would have been doing best track to one tape. These days one would think making one great release would make better impact than two good ones.

MANIA+BIZARRE UPROAR "charnel heap" tape (F&V). Finnish edition of this release is better. Better simple packaging, loud sound levels. Pro-dubbed tapes in standard f&v packaging. It is pretty much what you expect. When dealing with these two bands at the moment, you can only blame for one thing. No drastic suprices. They deliver the guaranteed job of heavy strong low end & metal junks as well as feedback & lo-fi amp damage screaming.

VAASANKATU SS two different 7"s. Helsinki drunk/drug punk. It's some guys who are known from tons of different bands in Helsinki area. Rockin' yet fierce sounding punk about robbing grannies, taking drugs, not giving a fuck. Pirihuorasta Perheenäidiksi is already such a classic song title, that alone for that, it seems essential!

CCCC "test tube fantasy" 7", sounds as pressing added extra layer of high pitched distortion, but no worries. two heavy bolts of later days sounding CCCC, athough it is 1993 live recording. From times when Ant-Zen was actually great label for noise fanatics!

LAST LAUGH  7", local label put this out. One could say interesting case. Singer of band is such a well spoken and talented guy, he actually hosts one huge national radio show and was one of the judges in Finnish version of X Factor program in TV. Tabloids hit him hard, when they realized he actually sang also in Wrongdoers, which was skinhead rock including Mistreat members. In middle of X Factor season, he resigned from band publicly. Now when his TV duties are done and none of tabloid care at the moment, Last Laugh 7" was published. Tight & fast hc punk with aggressive vocals. 11 sings on 7", one in Finnish (Vittu mitä paskaa) and 10 in english. Cover with POV car window cruising to hit & run to anti-war protest. "Old" bitter men giving middle finger to hippies, youth, pacifists,.. Was it 300 copies on Tritonus rec, so better to grab it while one can.

AGNIVOLOK "cherries" cd, israeli experimental neofolk. I guess half russian half english. One of the best music heard on Looking For Europe 4xCD neofolk introduction compilation, although one makes you think no wonder Europe is lost if Israeli bands are included? hah.. Well, Now in scene so full of "professional" hi-fi recordings of cliche's, this band with their old sounding rusty guitars, noisy dark experimental pieces and authentic sounding female vocals, it stands out enough to grab into collection even simply for matters of knowledge in the genre.

[Violent Noise Atrocities]

Daylight Dies - Live From the Relapse Contamination Festival
Canopy - Menhir
Merzbow- Fantail
Obscura- Cosmogenesis
Snuff - Male Supremacy
Atrax Morgue - Basic Autopsy Procedures
MGLA - Groza
Coma Detox - Concussed and Asphyxiated

[FreakAnimalFinland]

PAIN JERK + WIESE "nerima" mCD. Been listening to this few times. And I like it. But it goes to your ear so smoothly, what exactly happened? Basically from each listening I remember that songs start and stop very abruptly and are exxxxtremely distorted electronics. Real time studio live collaboration makes it different enough to justify release after 2 previous collaborations of these guys, but is it as memorable and intensive as the best works of these guys as solo? I doubt. Still good purchase for guaranteed noise blast.

AKIO SUZUKI / DAVID TOOP "breath taking" CD
Another east west combo. If one would have to find just about exact opposite of above, could it be this? Its digitally crisp live recording, but quiet acoustic music. No effects, no real amplification. Just instruments a'la stone flute, stones, pan pipe, ireba, bone whistles, dog whistles,...etc. And why I say no real amplification? Well, David does use besides multitude of physical and acoustic elements also "feedback device", but its sound is as quiet as any whistle they use. Just like collaboration above, this is packaged to neat professional 1 panel digipak, with professional lay-out. It already indicates that one shouldn't expect typical "underground drone" muzak even when tools would allow. Since all the echo effects, all the gloomy lo-fi hum isn't there, you'll be just listening 2 guys improvise. Majority of recording is quiet. You'll hear sound of small stones and high pitched dog whistle in middle of total silence. But when half hour mark is approaching, duo starts to increase intensity and suddenly it reminds more typical improvised music. Not really reaching jazzy tones, though. I could say this is hard to digest. My main interest in the album is focused on how different it is from stuff what I normally listen to. When this was actually captured on recording and put out on CD you can amplify through your stereo system, it seems to make sense. When I think how it must have been withness this as member of audience, I'm thinking how bored I would have been. They thank audience, but you can hear none.

[mystikum]

macronympha -  pryopus
pestdemon - vexations

[RyanWreck]

Dorchester Library - Summer Incest (IOPS)
This is put together really well and every piece of it, the Noise, Guitar (?) and the drums, have clear definition all of them stand out as individual pieces which is rare with Drum and Guitar oriented Noise which is usually a bad cluster-fuck of noises that ends up just sounding like a wind tunnel during a tornado. Vocals would have been really nice here and I am hoping that this project releases more material in the future. Because this was the only thing I had time to put on my mp3 player before I went to work this morning I ended up listening to it almost non-stop for the past 6 hours. With IOPS material it seems that there is always an underlying theme that relates back to the subject matter but I cannot pin-point the Incest theme here at all, it's there I assume, it is just disguised very well.

Mania - If They Move... Kill Them - (Vemod Records)
This is one of the better Mania releases in my opinion. To me it feels a lot less sporadic and dissonant than most of the other material but still insanely tense, especially Side A where there is never a moment of relaxation after the Noise ruptures, it all just bleeds into itself and forms one big, ugly entity. Side B, "Hate for Hate", is a step away from Side A; it is fairly minimal at first and then it gradually shapes itself with effect saturated vocals, feedback, crunch, all the good stuff. This track actually reminds me of Snuff for a little bit.

[MR STAB]

STAB ELECTRONICS "temple of self-disgust" tape (F&V) pretty much uniform release with previous tape. There are several good songs and couple lame. I think the ones with clearest voice are the strongest! One with strange slow phaser type of effect on voice sounds amusing. I think perhaps better than 2 tapes, would have been doing best track to one tape. These days one would think making one great release would make better impact than two good ones.

I do Agree with what you say Mikko! There are some tracks i was not happy with on the tapes,though I thank Passi for the opotunity to get my stuff heard And of course for Shift for messing with and improving the recordings!
The new STAB Recordings are Much much harsher with clearer vocals! Working title baptised in brown water!

[FreakAnimalFinland]

MINAMATA "cyclator" CD+dvd
despite quite clean & dull digipak packaging and the modern digital sound that lacks certain amount of punch and saturation, I find this quite good album! It is experimental industrial. Vocals, spoken word, electronics, keyboards...  Occasionally one wonders how much better would it be if the nearly glitchy quality of some sounds would be driven through amps of analogue recorder? If you get over that, the album itself offers more inspiring creations due diversity & composition.

ZFK "robochiy Kontrol" CD
Russian industrial noise done years ago by Teito Sound Company. Never heard people talk about it, but it's a good release. One long, nearly 50 minutes monster track. Harsh and noisy, yet also with gloomy and heavy elements.

KADAVER "Automatic Autopsy" CD
This artists is good in mixing together wide variety of sources. One may think it would be some blatant "death industrial" imitations, but infact it has very little, if anything, to do with BDN copycats or such. 10 tracks on the album layer together good selection of sounds from droning & humming machinery to spoken word, electronics, various noises. Despite occasional "noise walls" included in mix, it is most of all atmospheric. Never falling in trap of boredom of trad. ambient or "drone". Most of the time it simply lacks the crunchy bass and sense of loudness, and operates in thinner layers of sounds. When thinking this is a real CD album.. why in earth such a crappy pixelated cover booklet? With better packaging and perhaps some better artwork, than artists(?) displaying his tattoos, would rise album to much higher!

[kettu]

knurl - scyamine (troniks, 2006)
this one is a really heavy sounding album. I liked it a lot. you could hear its made with metal unlike nervescrap which sounded like pedal wank material. ive only heard these two but im keen to hear more.

any suggestions which ones are more metal sounds and less fx?

[manuel-ronf]

knurl - scyamine (troniks, 2006)
this one is a really heavy sounding album. I liked it a lot. you could hear its made with metal unlike nervescrap which sounded like pedal wank material. ive only heard these two but im keen to hear more.

any suggestions which ones are more metal sounds and less fx?

I am just spinning the "Mesosoma" CDR in Impulsy Stetoskopu which is quite a frenzy intense Harsh album with lots of feedback and steel manipulated into noise walls sounding actually to me very alike the Knurl sound on "Scyamine" cd, totally recommended... besides that I am at the same point having heard before to just those 2 you mention but itching to get more and more of Knurl, I am really curious to get my ears on the recent "Thiocarbamide" CD put out by Phage Tapes

[kettu]

"Thiocarbamide" CD put out by Phage Tapes

looks like thats available from FA so ill have to look in to it. I think im either going to like a knurl album or not so much depending on how metallic it is. maybe the mood wasnt right but I didnt get anything out of the heavily effected style.

[ConcreteMascara]

Satanic Warmaster - Nachzehrer LP
I haven't heard all of SW material but this LP along with new 7" are my favorite so far. This album just instantly clicked. The production is kind weird, fuzzy and bass-y but it works really well. There are also some fierce solos to be found too. And the vocals kill. I honestly have no complaint with this album. Perfect playing time, great songs, no filler. Highly recommended.

Satanic Warmaster - Ondskapens Makt / Forgotten Graves 7"
Raw and uncompromising. The first track has great acoustic intro too. A great compliment to the LP.

Heinz Hopf - Heinz Hopf cassette
Vicious filthy harsh noise. Exactly what I expected, exactly what I wanted.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

SW 7" is part of the series of 3. All recorded with walkman at rehearsal. 2nd is already done and expected to be released later this year. Really good tracks on that.

[bogskaggmannen]

WERKBUND "Neue rungholter tänze" LP [Walter Ulbricht] 2010

Continuing on the Mechthild Von Leusch project, which originally was released as two separate albums in the early 90's. It is pretty far away from other Werkbund works in the sense that its primary focus is based around rhytms intertwining, with little or none interference of traditional melody. Don't expect hard rhytmic industrial or anything like that though, I think it is made up mostly from altered drummachine patterns, manipulated and digitalized. Very laidback and "modern" in sound to make a soft whole - could be very stiff and geeky (I had a hard time with it upon first listen) but I think it works well and it holds a aura which I don't think is very easy to find these days. In very handsome green rough cover, insert with information (in German) about the project.

[RyanWreck]

Mikko, would you be able to answer my analytical statement a few posts down in my Dorchester Library review? I quoted it here and marked the section I am speaking of.

Dorchester Library - Summer Incest (IOPS)
This is put together really well and every piece of it, the Noise, Guitar (?) and the drums, have clear definition all of them stand out as individual pieces which is rare with Drum and Guitar oriented Noise which is usually a bad cluster-fuck of noises that ends up just sounding like a wind tunnel during a tornado. Vocals would have been really nice here and I am hoping that this project releases more material in the future. Because this was the only thing I had time to put on my mp3 player before I went to work this morning I ended up listening to it almost non-stop for the past 6 hours. With IOPS material it seems that there is always an underlying theme that relates back to the subject matter but I cannot pin-point the Incest theme here at all, it's there I assume, it is just disguised very well.

Am I simply over analyzing it? It seems that every IOPS release drags the subject matter through the songs themselves not to mention the art and very direct album title. I know that Clinic of Torture has a sound that is based around pornography's "idealist view on subject matter" and the choice of sounds reflects those old S&M videos that uses, as you said, "one camera, one take" so CoT does the same in audio format = "No edit, no overdub." I also get Silence of Vacuum (I hope) in that it observes "the stillness of passive rubberfetishist" and by once again using sounds on this tape to perfectly illustrate the idea of being in a full enclosed rubber/latex/PVC/etc piece. All of the compilations tend to follow suit as well, i.e. "The End of Simulation For Procreation", "Hated Perversions", "Animal Bizarre 1", "Gender With No Purpose Other Than", and they are very obvious and specific in their aim, most of it can be discerned quite easily. But how about Dorchester Library? I can't find the theme anywhere outsides of the art and title. I also have a hard time with Golden Geissel. I'm probably looking far too much into this but I was bored, plus I was listening to it yesterday for 6 hours straight at work sitting there trying to "get it" and not being able to grasp it in that amount of time is frustrating for me. So I figured I would come to the source, the man behind it and ask him.

I know that may have been a bit of a dumb question but any recording I have will always sound so much better to me once I can understand it as a whole album instead of playing it out piece-by-piece.