Strict (US PE)

[Peterson]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax5MbFYeolY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frH1jxJuG7U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2NUlduerF0

US (?) power electronics active from around '93 to ??. Last release was "Kiss," an LP from Trash Ritual in 2008. Decided to open up a topic after stumbling upon some unnamed .MP3s on my computer - turned out to be from a CDr containing rips of Strict's "In Preparation" and "Impulsion" tapes. Really good shit! The links above are from the Trash Ritual LP.

On "Impulsion," most of the tracks I can recall have a solid PE approach, but with the more fluid, noisier tendencies of Ramleh and Sutcliffe Jugend. Everything is crunchy/distorted like most other American PE and noise, though the vocals are still fairly audible, in the high-pitched, hysterical "madman" style of SJ and early Whitehouse. However...there's a certain quality to the approach that brings this stuff above a lot of other PE, perhaps the more free-flowing, noisy tendencies again. The first couple tracks have a lot of high-pitched feedback with some pretty exhaustive screamed vocals, which made me think that "this is what Incapacitants and Hijokaidan would sound like were they PE and not HN."

Honestly can't differentiate between which tracks are from Impulsion and which are from In Preparation, because compared to the track listing on Discogs, I don't have the entirety of either release.

Turns out J. Kart, the main man behind all the sleaze, is pretty active on YouTube. He's got some good videos juxtaposing scenes of debauched behavior with appropriate sounds (SJ, Ramleh, The Velvet Underground), but best of all are when his Strict material is combined with these visuals. This is pretty much the extent of the information I've found on the project, except in a Slogun interview where Mr. Balisteri says that Kart is an expert on serial killers. I think I once saw an advertisement for a zine with some of the above-mentioned photos included. Any interviews or anything like that floating around out there?

Also, holy shit - the split with Taint! Pretty much takes the cake for an, erm, uh, "hands on" approach to PE. The fact that actual photographs are glued to the front is pretty suggestive. This is basically where the bar is set regarding psychosexual sadistic electronics, IMHO.

I'm really hoping someone here can enlighten things a bit more. Killer stuff, absolutely underrated, almost never mentioned, and why the fuck hasn't his ENTIRE DISCOGRAPHY been reissued on Industrial Recollections? Either FreakAnimal or someone else...be quick about it!

[vomitgore]

It is such a shame that "In Preparation" was never rereleased as a real CD. Such an essential album.

[Bleak Existence]

owned - in preparation - kiss and the split with Taint i remember the first time i listen to that one end on the 90's was completely blow away by it fucking sick stuff Taint & Strict was the best american PE ever period

[bitewerksMTB]

I think J. has some photos in a volume of Timeless.

Trash Ritual was suppose to do more releases but it all fell through for whatever reason. It may have been because Strict headed down to Peru (I think?) to aid the poor.

The 7" with Pain Jerk is pretty good, too.

Also, the info for "In Preparation" on Discogs is incorrect. I released the cd-r before Bizarre Audio Arts (both of his versions are listed as unofficial for some reason). And I made
less than 20. I lost the artwork when my hard drive crashed.  The release came about spur of the moment just because I came across the tape to transfer to my pc...

[PTM Jim]

Trash Ritual was suppose to do more releases but it all fell through for whatever reason. It may have been because Strict headed down to Peru (I think?) to aid the poor.

Yep, he's in Peru. I didn't know it was for that reason though.

Strict was the real deal when it came to sleazy 90s PE. It really is a shame that Trash Ritual completely fell off the face of the earth because there was a ton of reissue material and unreleased material in his hands from what I recall hearing.

[bitewerksMTB]

Trash Ritual was suppose to do more releases but it all fell through for whatever reason. It may have been because Strict headed down to Peru (I think?) to aid the poor.

Yep, he's in Peru. I didn't know it was for that reason though.

Strict was the real deal when it came to sleazy 90s PE. It really is a shame that Trash Ritual completely fell off the face of the earth because there was a ton of reissue material and unreleased material in his hands from what I recall hearing.

When I said "aid the poor", I don't mean aid as in help, like, in a good way.

I think the future Strict releases died long before TR dropped out. I had the impression that J. wasn't easy to work with.

[PTM Jim]

Trash Ritual was suppose to do more releases but it all fell through for whatever reason. It may have been because Strict headed down to Peru (I think?) to aid the poor.

Yep, he's in Peru. I didn't know it was for that reason though.

Strict was the real deal when it came to sleazy 90s PE. It really is a shame that Trash Ritual completely fell off the face of the earth because there was a ton of reissue material and unreleased material in his hands from what I recall hearing.

When I said "aid the poor", I don't mean aid as in help, like, in a good way.

Ha, I kind of thought that, but wasn't sure you meant it that way. I've heard some tales, all solidifying that he's the real deal.

[caveman]

Slogun/Strict collaboration coming out sometime this year, maybe?

From Slogun's site:

"These are some of the projects I have planned for the near future. Keep an eye out for more info as they develop:

"T.B.D."- Slogun / Strict: Collaboration release. T.B.D. Early 2016"

[Fluid Fetish]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI8emaFo-Uw

FUCK! This is the track that made me think of Japanese HN, I think. Not because of the sample. Anyway, the vocals are the most whacked-out shit I've heard this side of Mauthausen Orchestra. I can make out the words "fuckin' whoooorrreeeeeeeyyyyeeaaahhh" toward the end. Sounds like it was recorded in a truck stop men's restroom.

This shit is fantastic, this song ESPECIALLY.

[Coma Detox]

A STRICT box set would be nice.

[monotome]

Didn't know him, but this is some good shit.

[Bloated Slutbag]

My first exposure to Strict was via the seminal Underground USA comp and I was hooked. Tripped over myself in struggling to avow Strict's superiority over, yes, Mauthausen Orchestra... which (for me, at that time, a certified MO asslicker) was saying plenty. In a nutshell, I felt that Strict were delivering what MO could have had Zoppo vested his very raw sound with with a bit more direction, or focus. Maybe. I used the word "agency" (a word more open to interpretation), compared with the more "passive" MO. Here's me reading me twenty years later... Never thought to compare Strict to Japanese noise, but at least as far as Incapacitants... "Inverted Yield Curve" or (better) Sarin Will Kill Every Bad Aum!!! or some of the pre-Kosakai Pariah Tapes stuff ... I can hear it.

The split with Taint is plain rough.

[audiodissection]

My first exposure to Strict was via the seminal Underground USA comp and I was hooked. Tripped over myself in struggling to avow Strict's superiority over, yes, Mauthausen Orchestra... which (for me, at that time, a certified MO asslicker) was saying plenty. In a nutshell, I felt that Strict were delivering what MO could have had Zoppo vested his very raw sound with with a bit more direction, or focus. Maybe. I used the word "agency" (a word more open to interpretation), compared with the more "passive" MO. Here's me reading me twenty years later... Never thought to compare Strict to Japanese noise, but at least as far as Incapacitants... "Inverted Yield Curve" or (better) Sarin Will Kill Every Bad Aum!!! or some of the pre-Kosakai Pariah Tapes stuff ... I can hear it.

The split with Taint is plain rough.

Amen.

[Fluid Fetish]

My first exposure to Strict was via the seminal Underground USA comp and I was hooked. Tripped over myself in struggling to avow Strict's superiority over, yes, Mauthausen Orchestra... which (for me, at that time, a certified MO asslicker) was saying plenty. In a nutshell, I felt that Strict were delivering what MO could have had Zoppo vested his very raw sound with with a bit more direction, or focus. Maybe. I used the word "agency" (a word more open to interpretation), compared with the more "passive" MO. Here's me reading me twenty years later... Never thought to compare Strict to Japanese noise, but at least as far as Incapacitants... "Inverted Yield Curve" or (better) Sarin Will Kill Every Bad Aum!!! or some of the pre-Kosakai Pariah Tapes stuff ... I can hear it.

The split with Taint is plain rough.

Off topic here but which MO would you recommend to start off with?

[Bloated Slutbag]

Off topic here but which MO would you recommend to start off with?

You ask any given set of fans and they'll collectively direct you in along any number of absolutely conflicted avenues. With that in mind, the easy answer is: 5 Years Of Slaughters, which collects choice cuts selected by Mr Sodality from prime era MO.  Pretty good overview of the project's many and varied (anal) perversions, if not really one to get you stuck into a good and involving shitmosphere the way you might in the full lengths.

Most (all?) of the premier full-length material has now been reissued on Urashima. My personal pick is Necrofellatio – simply because it was my first. (And one I'm sure I picked up exclusively for the title, along with Host Sodomy; I was fifteen.) But I also like how it slides from the sheer vicious rawness of the first side into a kind of heavy-handed, grim, and, um, melancholic pe on the second. Just a very well structured release. The first half of Murderfuck also does the same thing for me, for similar reasons. This would lead quite naturally into Marfarka, which to me is kind of an extension and development – a perfecting -  of this approach. Probably the one I've most frequently returned to. A bit more of this can be tasted in the rather earhole-scorching flavors of They Never Learn.

For more of that studied melancholic sound, a good choice might be From Homicide To Slaughter.

For sheer brutality and what sounds at times like an extremely agitated 11-year old doing pe, check out Vernichtung Lebenunwerten Leben.

Dedicated To J. Goebbels is a decent overall grab bag of sounds with a solid thematic base. Ditto Anal Perversions.

Kiss The Carpet was an unexpected and unexpectedly good, and raw, reissue. MO burnt to shit. Perhaps something for the Strict fans?