RRR Record Store Record

RRR - Record Store Record.
RRR - RSR. LP + Tote Bag





I once had that Ron Lessard in my back bedroom you know.  It’s true. About seven years ago Steve Underwood needed somewhere for one of his star performers to kip during a UK tour and I was the chosen one. Ron had played Manchester under his Emil Beaulieau guise and had shown us that noise needn’t be someone leaning over a table full of gadgets trying to deafen everybody. Ron kipped in the back bedroom where I now type this. Before hitting the hay we spun some records and the day after, along with the Durgmeister, we killed some time before the Leeds show by watching an old Jacques Tati film.

What I liked about Ron was his boundless enthusiasm for all things noise related [except noise records at one in the morning after a hard day on the road that is] he showed me an Emil Beaulieau release in which the label responsible had made the covers from the cut centers of old vinyl records, ‘why didn’t I think of it before’ he said slapping his forehead. In the short space of time I was in his company he seemed to be forever on the look out for new ideas for his RRRecords label.

I’m not alone in having serious respect for Ron and his label. He’s single handedly released some of the most seriously outlandish and some would say insane, noise related releases ever; the 500 artist locked groove LP, the 1000 track locked groove LP, the Pure CD series, the state by American state series of box sets that kicked off with the 10LP California job, the Recycled cassette series, the hand made sleeves and inserts all of it released without much in the way of fanfare but all of it received with that knowing feeling that the Ronfather has done it for the noise cause once more.

Perhaps the Record Store Record may be seen as his most outlandish release yet. Not because of the bag that comes with it or the deluxe gatefold sleeve with inserts but because the Record Store Record is actually a record with only the sound of record shops on it. Lesser labels might have issued this on CD or cassette but then that would have lessened its effect. It had to be vinyl of course. This record then is, in essence, a portable record shop. If you’ve never been in a record shop, and I bet there’s plenty of people out there in far flung places who haven’t, then this is your chance to experience them in the comfort of your own home.

It will come as no surprise to those who’ve had the chance to visit some of the shops involved here that people do what people do in record shops; they talk shop, they talk shite, they answer the phone, they joke, order pizza, wrap packages, they even play records. Some try to make noises out of stretched Sellotape but if you hear as much of stretched Sellotape as I do then you’l know that this can become irritating very, very quickly. This is pure audio verite for those who’ve never shopped at five of the best record shops that cater to the noise record buying public. The shops involved were Second Layer in London, Hospital Productions in New York, Weirdo Records in Cambridge USA, Sarvilevyt in Lahti, Finland and of course Ron’s own shop in Lowell. You kind of get the idea without playing the damned thing of course which is all part of the beauty and the madness of it.


Its this over the top absurdity that makes this such a stand out release. Tote bag in RRR camo colours, deluxe sleeves .. no expense spared on something that for the most part will be played just the once and in some instances not at all. I can see people buying this just for the bag. Ron is also so unassuming as to put the photos of his RRR shop on the insert and in true ‘lets totally confuse em’ RRR fashion puts the photo of Second Layer on the cover, a shop that still carries the signage of its previous owner Sound 323.

Contact: http://www.rrrecords.com/

 

The New Blockaders - First Live Performance

The New Blockaders - First Live Performance
Hypnagogia CD. GIA06.
300 Copies.


First Live Performance was given the vinyl treatment by Vinyl On Demand a few years back and as with pretty much everything else with TNB’s name on it disappeared in an instant. I’ve just been looking at my own copy. I gently eased it from its bubble wrapped chrysalis and stroked its textured sleeve, my spine going all tingly and the hairs on the back of my neck stiffening. TNB have that effect on some people.

First Live Performance was June the 8th 1983 remember. A time when punk had stubbed out its last meaningful fag and Trevor Horn jacked in singing with Yes to form ZTT. Its worth bearing this in mind whilst listening back to these two eighteen minute tracks.

As ever its the sheer ferocity of the delivery that knocks you sideways. The junk noise chaos that emerges from your speakers is a staccato one, each painful spike in volume coming at you like heavyweight jabs whilst that undercurrent of discomforting shuffle and scrape forces you to rethink during its course. How did they do that? Why does it still sound so fresh and vital? This is head clearing junk noise and electronic squealing par excellence that even after all these years never fails to fill you with astonishment and admiration.

The sound quality and production on these two 18 minute outings far surpasses the live material that turned up on disc 4 of Gesamtnichtwerk it is also a far more forceful outing than Live at Hinoumea and Live at Anti-Fest.

Much has been written and said about TNB’s early work, some of it even by me, the only thing left to be said is this; if you don’t have these two live events, in whatever format you choose, you aren’t just missing a few pieces of the jigsaw you might as well not have it. Essential in every way.

Godspunk Volume 10

Godspunk Volume Ten.
Pumf CD. Pumf 686.
£5



Its not often that I find myself writing about celebrities but after what happened last week I find myself in the curious position of emulating the work of a tabloid journalist. Let me say from the outset that I have no interest in celebrities and their comings and goings and who shagged who and which footballer’s spent this on that and which MP’s been caught with his trousers down, I really couldn’t care less about any of it, but there we were on the last night of our holiday on Paxos sat at the table of an al fresco restaurant, the Ionian sea lapping the harbor wall,  me swirling the last of my wine and puffing on a post prandial gasper, when I heard American voices.

But first some information; We rented a villa in Loggos. Loggos is a small port on the tiny island of Paxos which is just off the island of Corfu in Greece. Paxos has the benefit of having its own built in lower order filters. First you have to get to Paxos by hydrofoil or ferry, then onward by car or bus or foot, the roads are tiny, steep and winding, the harbor is shallow and unsuitable for larger boats. There are no big screen sports bars, no all night nightclubs, two for one drinks offers, gangs of drunks in states of disarray chucking each other in the sea at four in the morning. In other words its very quiet and thats why we like it.

So there we are at around 10pm on Thursday evening at the back of a slowly emptying restaurant and these Americans come in. There’s three blokes who all look like they know which end of a surfboard is which and a blonde with big tits in what Mrs Fisher likes to call a ‘fairy dress’ - meaning all bits of tassels with lacing up the back - and after a small kerfuffle in which they moved from the harbor side of the restaurant they came and sat at the next table to us. The blonde was sat in profile about six feet away and I was damned if I didn’t know who she was. The waitress emerged and became excited, then she disappeared again only to re-emerge within seconds with her daughter by her side to ask the blonde if she could have her autograph. I sat swirling my wine and thought, well she must be someone famous and put the old grey matter to task. Mrs Fisher burbled in one ear about next years trip and alternative destinations whilst ‘awesomes’ and ‘dudes’ in west coast accents appeared in the other. And then a lightbulb came on and it struck me. I was sat but six feet away from Pamela Anderson.

My first instinct was to keep this information from Mrs Fisher. Mrs Fisher was sat with a view of nothing but the back of her head and has terrible eyesight to boot, even with her glasses on. I reasoned that if I did tell her she would blurt out an inappropriate ‘WHO?’ in a voice loud enough to turn the heads of diners across the bay. My next thought was that I had my camera in my bag and that a photo of me and Pamela would not only make the blokes at work incredibly jealous [most of the blokes at work are of the kind who think that anything with blonde hair and big tits is proof of Gods existence] but that I would have something to email and a memento of the evening. And then the cogs went round once more. I became involved in my own reasoning batting ideas hither and thither and whilst Mrs Fisher bandied about ideas about next years return trip I thought my thoughts. At heart I couldn’t care less about celebrities and film stars but here I was sat six feet away from one of the most famous blondes of recent years. This would probably be the only opportunity in my entire life to get photographed with a famous blonde with big tits but still I dallied and thought on. Then I thought, why bother them? I wouldn’t like to be harassed during my meal. But then maybe she likes the recognition? Maybe she wallows in the adulation of the hoi poloi and has no qualms about strangers putting their arms round her for nothing more harmless than a split second snapped photo. But then what if she hates being photographed in such a way? Especially by English tourists with half a litre of white wine in them stinking of fags and Trumpers cologne. And on it went.
In the end I decided it was in the best interest of everyone to leave them be. Even if she was the kind of person that feted public affection I wasn’t going to pester her only to find out when it was too late that one of the surf dudes was really an employed body guard who has a black belt in everything and takes exception to Miss Anderson’s evening meals being interrupted. It could have all got very embarrassing. They ate their food, drank their beers and then they left and while they walked away all I could think to myself was ‘you used to suck on Tommy Lee’s todger’. Because I knew more about her than she knew about me. I had anonymity on my side and Pamela had none [a Google search for Pam returns 53 million returns] and ultimately I respected her privacy and even felt a little sad for her. She cant go anywhere without being recognised and I can go where the hell I want. Even now as I write about this I find myself feeling slightly uncomfortable in a sleazy journalist kind of way. After they’d left I told Mrs Fisher who’d been sat at the next table and she squinted at the couple now locked arm in romantic arm walking slowly back to their digs along the harbor road. ‘Fucking slapper’ she said folding her napkin ‘are we off or what?’

All this apropos of nothing. I’ve been listening to the new Godspunk comp as I typed those words and I get the same kind of feeling as when I’ve reviewed the previous nine - lots of throw-away guff and the odd diamond.
UNIT with their godawful xylophone agit punk bore me to tears now. I wish they’d go away. Even Howl In The Typewriter's form seems to have dipped - no ballsy pop anthems of silliness, just silliness. There are highlights amongst the 26 tracks, thirteen bands and 80 minutes but you’ve got to dig to find them. Foxhole UK with their guitar and drum raw punkyness lifted my spirits as did the fact that someone left UNIT to go on their own and dish up the best track of the lot - The Red Guards offer the comp what seems to be a straight lift of a Chinese approved pop tribute to Mao Tse-Tung. A bizarre thing in its own right and as anyone who has had to endure Chinese pop music will confirm, its forced enthusiasm and straight forward delivery is both irritating and catchy at the same time.

After that ... not much really and I did listen to it all including the hidden track at the end. Honest.

Hello Pam, where ever you are.



Contact:  www.pumf.net.

Lea Cummings

Revelations From The New Silence - Volume III - The New Astrology
Kovorox Sound. Kovo-062. CDR

Revelations From The New Silence - Volume IV - Human Potential Movement
Kovorox Sound. Kovo-063. CDR





There seems to be a big push from the electronics giants to get us to buy all manner of new fangled TV technology. It would appear that if by now you haven’t got a 60” plasma 3D HD Sky Box TV Plus wall mounted monster of plastic and glass then you are indeed living in the dark ages. Black and white tellies? 12” portables with bent wire coat hangers for ariels? Not quite but here at IFHQ we still make do with a hand-me-down CRT that comes complete with a busted vertical hold - all is well until you watch a rugby match and then the posts look like bananas. You get used to it though. It may be big, it may be bulky but when we sit down on a night to watch Breaking Bad it still all makes sense. Which had me wondering if these advances in visual technology are worth bothering with? Eraserhead is a classic film that no amount of TV wizardry could improve and I’m not hearing a big clamor for Laurel and Hardy to get the 3DHD treatment.

I would personally prefer advances in listening technology but there doesn’t seem to be a market for it. Most people seem to be quite happy listening to their music through anything they can get their hands on, a pair of tiny plastic ear plugs, the speaker on their mobile phones and for those modern sophisticates the the ipod docking station, a sterile piece of audio equipment that has pushed the barriers of sound quality about as far as the Mongolians have modern dance.

I’m no hi-fi buff but I know a decent sound when I hear one. I still use the main bits of a hi-fi system I bought nigh on thirty years ago. Its ugly and bulky but it still kills mp3 players dead in their tracks. When I crank it up all the tiles on the roof rattle and neighbours three doors down have to turn up their TV’s to compensate. Its the reason why I like to listen to most, if not all my review material on it at least once just to get that full effect.

Which brings me to Lea Cummings latest round of drone works which for some inexplicable reason sound better on a pair of PC speakers than that 30 year old hi-fi. I generally familiarise myself with review material on the PC before transferring it on to what Gary Simmons liked to call his ‘big one’, but for some strange reason the transition was a poor one. I’m fairly certain that when I listened to the first two volumes of this series my ears were in rapture but through which mode of digital transport I’m at a loss to remember. Either way, digitized through PC speakers equals good. Hi-fi bad. Shows what I know.

With 11 tracks spanning these two releases Lea Cummings takes a further break from his Kylie Minoise noise shenanigans to hold down synth chords in varying patterns thus building up drone works that wouldn’t seem out of place on Polish film soundtracks. Its all very filmic indeed and having just scoured my notes for the first two volumes I can’t help but concur with myself. Elixir Vitae sounds like a monged out Charlamange Palastine let loose on the organ at Cologne Cathedral, others rumble along like Arctic tumbleweed all cold and desolate. Shining Dream of Possible Reflection is the mirror image of a William Basinski shortwave piece - the  resemblance is uncanny. But its the filmic quality that lingers. My only small gripe is that I feel drone needs more space to work in and with these eleven tracks coming in at under ten minutes a piece they’re just getting going when the their times up. JLIAT created drone work similar to these and wasn’t afraid to let them run to over an hour in some instances. Maybe Mr. Cummings needs to spread his wings somewhat.



Contact: www.kovoroxsound.com

You Are Playing Like A Fuckin' Pub Band part II

You Are Playing Like A Fuckin’ Pub Band [2]
The 7.17 From West Wittering Is Late Again
Cassette. 30 copies each.


Featuring:

Dylan Nyoukis/Ryan Jewell

Onomatopoeia/Sudden Infant

Dieter Müh/Balinese Beast

Cheapmachines/Concrete Violin

BBBlood/Emil Beaulieau




To buy or not to buy? That is the question. Whether it be nobler to make holes in ones bank account on the off chance that what you’re buying will be listened to more than once or take solace in the fact that it might be worth a few bob on eBay in ten years time. I have to admit that I haven’t been spending much moolah on recorded medium of late. In fact I don’t think I’ve bought anything from my preferred retail outlets this year and to them I give my condolences. I don’t even download stuff anymore. I just don’t have the time to soak it up. It’s one of the reasons I jacked in the printed zine game. Lots of people want to see their name in print and will happily bung you their latest wares for review but after a while you end up floating in a sea of procrastination, anxiety and self doubt. That ever growing pile of review material becomes a monkey on your back. You end up not listening to things and when you do, not listening to them properly. One spin and a few words and its off to the next. After a few years of this you wonder where the joy went in actually receiving review material. That big fat package from America is now a lead brick that means you don’t get to go out of the house on Saturday [your only free day] and instead of soaking up some summer sunshine you find yourself in a small dark room trying to think up interesting things to say about the umpteenth noise release to cross your path this month. Since the demise of the paper wing of this venture review material has trickled to a crawl and for that I am  honestly grateful. It now means I can concentrate more on what I do get. The fact that I don’t buy that much material anymore means I can go back to what I used to buy and this time really listen to it. Because when you start treating music as background or as something to fill a space I feel it loses its potency. It becomes just another commodity. And I like to take my music seriously. This is an ongoing rant by the way, you’ll find different versions of the same whinge in previous posts.


If I’d have bought these upon release they would have cost me a tidy sum and I did consider coughing up the necessary nuggets but that anti-spendthrift jag digs deep so I decided to let these pass. After a previous post in which I commented that it was quite possible that an artists greatest work could lie in obscurity on a ridiculously limited release I did wonder if any of this lot had submitted a hidden magnum opus just for the sheer perversity of it. I think Onomatopoeia did.

For those that missed the boat there were six of these cassettes, all released for one day as part of a movement to get people back in to record shops. You could only get them in the shop on the day but by the miracle of reviewland the rest of the set arrived marked as ‘black copies - private collection’. I couldn’t have been happier. After careful perusal I don’t think that there’s a hidden classic but it did shine some light on to that enigmatic English project Onomatopoeia who after years in the wilderness has emerged with something quite startling. The rest veer from ‘I want to hear that again pretty soon’; to ‘I never want to hear that again’. One side has a UK based artist the other from shores afar. I’ve reviewed the Smell & Quim/Family Battle Snake so heres the rest:




Dylan Nyoukis/Ryan Jewell:

Nyoukis has been fraternizing with vocal deformity for a while now. I’ve seen him share stage with the likes of vocal juggler Phil Mintion and its a joy to behold. His shrine to Jaap Blonk fills an entire room. Here he sounds like someone with Down Syndrome straining to pass a hard turd. Its pretty funny. I hope the facial gurns matched what I heard. This is a positive review by the way.

Ryan Jewell attempts something similar to what Nurse With Wound did with ‘Rockett Morton’ in that a phrase of dialogue loops back on itself becoming slightly phased along the way. Oh hum.


Onomatopoeia/Sudden Infant:

Has Onomatopoeia been hankering for an IRCAM place? Has he been brushing up on his 50’s Stockhausen? We last found Ono Man resurfaced on another West Wittering release, a vinyl stretch of an old cassette where odd instruments became something else entirely. Ono Man is now all sonic swoops, analogue burbles, dreamy star dreaming, all Daphne Oram, all Astro, all spacey lost in space, floating in space, watch this space. We need to hear more of this new Onomatopoeia as it all sounds very promising.

Sudden Infant go all Jacopetti soundtrack on us but its still unmistakably a Sudden Infant track. A weird knocking of drums that could be a mock African tribal beat with car horn, scratchy records and a nice lady loosely tied to a tree in a leopard skin bikini going ooh ahh oh no you brute etc… mock live applause for and aft.


Dieter Müh/Balinese Beast

No mistaking the Mighty Müh. Ominous Industrial loop churns, unsettling atmospheres, malevolence hanging in a thick oppressive atmosphere. Even the audio limits imposed on cassette dubs cant hide the fact that the production levels here are of a distinctly high quality. Another one to add to the stupidly hard to get hold of DM catalogue.

Balinese Beast are new to me. A Greek. No doubt a friend at arms with Family Battle Snake Bill Kouligas. What’s it sound like?  Sounds like Jap noise screams, box abuse, jack socket destruction, silence, Evil Moisture, sonar beeps, gabba vocals, feedback, synth farts …

Cheapmachines/Concrete Violin

Cheapmachines by name cheap machines by nature. Phillip Julians project garners much praise and deservedly so. Here he comes over all TNB junk scrape but the Industrial whirr is never far away. A series of short excursions [on a series of tapes that aren’t very long to begin with] that showcase Mr. Julian’s penchant for experimental noise of a machine based nature.

Not heard much by Concrete Violin before. In fact this could be a first for me which seems odd since this American solo project has been around since 1999. Cue French dialogue and then lots of straight on noise coupled rather oddly to bird song, aircraft taking off and voices. I can’t say it set my heart a-skip but it was alright in a kind of luddite noise fashion.


BBBlood/Emil Beaulieau

I’m pretty sure BBBlood used to be Baron Bum Blood which links well with Emil Beaulieau’s alter ego Ron Lessard and his RRRecord label/shop/empire. Though what the two R’s in RRRecord stand for I don’t now … maybe Right Royal? Ripped Rectum? Regal Reginald? Robotic Ruminant? Real Round? Maybe Ron had a stammer? Both do noise of course. BBBlood chugging along quite nicely thank you with some found sounds and junk scrape coupled to a droney thing. Emil Beaulieau does cardigan noise. Would we have it any other way?


Like I said some of these tapes are on the short side, maybe C15’s or even C10’s. A gathering of their work on CD release wouldn’t go amiss somewhere down the line either.

Merzbow - Kamadhenu

Merzbow - Kamadhenu
Hypnogogia CD. GO01.
350 Copies.



To Dusseldorf to sup ale and meander along the Rhine footpath smoking cigars all the while wondering how vegetarians manage to feed themselves in a country where meat comes on every plate. I wonder where Masami eats when he tours here? What does the biggest veggie name in noise eat when he’s in sausage land? Does he bring his own pack up? And which are his better years? The analogue or the digital? I dare say that digital era Merzbow has its fans but those analogue releases seem to have more going for them. There’s more happening, more intent, more balls, more shock, more variety, more pain, even the covers were better. Now all we get are pictures of animals and noise made using Merzware. I imagine a Masami built software program that lets you create a noise work in real time - no editing, no mixing, no need to listen to it again - there’ll even be a track name generator. All of it designed to increase the productivity and decrease the involvement.

I can remember when I really used to like Merzbow. Some of his early works are amongst my favourite listens  - Batztoutai With Material Gadgets, the split 7” with Lasse Marhaug. Green Wheels is a classic even if the CD half of my release is buggered due to a fault a the pressing plant meaning it hits a recurring loop about twenty minutes in … actually, maybe thats an improvement. I even get a kick out of listening to the split with Ladybird - Japanese karaoke squawk in one channel and Merzbow squiggling away in the other. Where did all the fun go Masami? When I got to see Merzbow play for the first time he was already into the laptop as musical instrument and with the introduction of the laptop the beginning of the end of my interest in his work. At the 2007 No Fun Masami picked up a junk guitar and thrashed along with his laptops but for me it was too little too late. The laptops, the incessant release program, the way that labels line up to put out every last second of his Merzfarting leaves me feeling totally ambivalent towards Masami and his Merzbow outings. And whilst I’m here whats all this Merzbient ambient thing going on? Yours through Amazon.co.uk for just £102.49p.

When I was in paper mode Blossoming Noise used to send me Merzbow box sets to review and I gave them a fair crack of the whip. Whilst listening to them I tried to pick out the samples of chicken noises and found myself being drawn in and enjoying his work once more. The sounds were distinct, identifiable, most tracks coming with that great Merzbow underchug of throb with all manner of swirl and chaos laid on top. But I didn’t find myself going back to them. I eventually got tired of seeing them doing nothing and flogged the lot on eBay [I don’t do much eBaying but I reckon I’ve sold more Merzbow product on there than any other artist - there seems to be no lack of people willing to buy it either].

Kamadhenu is my first chance to catch up on Merzbow since those Blossoming Noise days and I can’t say I’m all that enthused. My first mistake was to play this through the PC. For Merzbow you need plenty of wallop [which makes the Merzbow iTunes page even more laughable] so to the stereo and volume please maestro. And after several spins only mild interest was detected. For this is noise by rote and only briefly engaging. In fact you’d be hard pushed to call it noise, for the most part it sounds like a 70’s sci-fi movie in which the the main computer room goes tits up, imagine lots of tape spools going jerkily backwards and forwards until smoke comes out of them. Hey ho.

I sincerely hope that there are ‘interesting’ Merzbow records out there but I have neither pockets deep enough nor time enough to discover them for myself.

Cock E.S.P.

Cock E.S.P. - Historia De La Musica Cock [A Tribute to Experimental Music 1910-2010]

Split release between:
Little Mafia [LM078],
Breathmint [BM330]
SunShip [Sun56].
CD.


When coming across a Cock E.S.P. release the thought often occurs to me that they’ve never played the UK. They’ve played a few European dates but for some reason the UK has never experienced their absurd, abrupt, chaotic and some may say even pointless live shows. Continual sole member Emil Hagstrom is a big man who likes to put a comedy chicken head over his own and along with his fellow band members [a varying quota depending on who isn’t injured, in jail or in hiding] destroy whatever equipment they’ve got by hurling it at each other, the walls, the floor and the audience. Writhing about in pools of beer, blood, bar stools and broken glass they produce what can only be described as noise in its purest sense. Noise as a racket, an unstructured, ramshackle blast of spew from which only the fit and the lucky emerge unscathed. Its in the live arena where they really blossom but only very briefly. Most of their shows are done and dusted in under five minutes this being the amount of time it takes them to make all their gear inoperable or lame someone so badly that urgent hospital treatment overrides any quest for noise nirvana. For some they’re still the best noise band around; loud, stupid, fun and never taking themselves too seriously. Their releases [both audio and visual] add much needed dashes of absurdist humour to a genre not entirely known for its ability to raise a smile and their ‘songs’ like their live shows are usually very, very short. The Cock E.S.P./Evil Moisture 5” single contained 381 tracks, this on a format that holds about five minutes of music. Each ‘song’ was but a series of clicks, blasts, grunts and screams [at least thats how I remember it]. I doubt that there’s a Topographic Oceans of noise lurking in Hagstrom’s mind.

Pity the poor bugger then who has the unenviable task of tapping in to Discogs all the details to the 99 tracks that constitute ‘Historia de la Musica Cock’. Billing itself grandly as ‘A Tribute to Experimental Music 1910-2010’ these 99 tracks are a series of short bursts of noise related fragmentation. Its like someone threw a hand grenade down the hole at Hospital Records and captured the sound of the debris as it landed in the street. The longest track is 44 seconds in duration, the shortest about eight seconds, the CD is further broken up into ten separate sections each being given a title [We Are the Duchampions, 4.33 Inches, Anal Fausting, Immature Ejaculation …] but here’s the deal, each track contains Hagstrom working with other people. Most tracks were recorded live between 2009 and 2010 and judging by the amount of people he worked with he’s been a very busy chap. Eighty two collaborators I made it, a disparate bunch including Blowfly, Andy Ortmann, Leslie Keffer, Ceramic Hobs, Rat Bastard, Suffering Bastard [maybe a relation?] and lots and lots of other people I’ve never even heard of including Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck [a band who can surely only dream of seeing their name in lights].

But what of the release itself. 99 tracks in 38 minutes means that the sounds come at you in a relentless switch back of noise related spazz. Track one is of course a full on blast of ear wax dislodgement there to let you know that Hagstrom really can do full on noise bit [this time with fellow Cock Matt Bacon] from there on in its like having eighty odd artists all demand your attention in a short space of time. At the time of typing track 60 is playing; ‘Betley Welcomes a Very Good Stinky Arse Fuck’ a Joincey Bastard [?] related tune which not only tips a hat to Phil Todd but Smell & Quim at the same time. Track 62 is Froggy Mountain Breakdown a 47 second Costes madrigal with distorted guitar solo and rapid string pluck. Its exhausting trying to cross reference each track so its best just to let them run over you and in this respect it manages to stand on its own 99 legs. Track 83 is 33 seconds of shamans lament, 84 is 24 seconds of some seriously high end sax squealing, track 85 comes in two parts, one part Astral Social Club shimmer the other some thrash. Track 36 is titled ‘Medley’ and manages to incorporate 14 blasts of noise within its 25 second time frame. Its around this time I began to appreciate the sheer amount of work that must have gone into this release, each track has a name, each track can be cross referenced so you can see who was working with Hagstrom, the cover art is great, the packaging shiny and fetching, you could even frame em. I kind of um … loved it in a daft sod way. Its not everyday you get 99 track noise CD’s through the post. And did Hagstrom call it a draw at 99 track because 99 was the maximum number of tracks a CD player could handle? I’d be interested to know. 

Perhaps then, the ultimate noise album to give to your ADHD affected cousin? Lots of cocks, lots of fnarr fnarr track titles and if you look really, really closely theres even a knob on the back cover. Where would we be without knobs in noise.



Contact: www.cockesp.com

Hyster

Various Artists - Second One
Hyster. Hyster09.
C60 Cassette.
100 copies. €2



I must admit to having rather a soft spot for Hyster. A tape only label for whom the word prolific has no meaning. Eleven releases in ten years. All of them on recycled cassettes and all of them damned cheap. Some people may assume Hyster to be a lazy bastard mustering the energy but once a year to spit out whatever it is lurking in the cassette deck whilst others may think ‘oh how quaint’. I fall into the latter category. Even the website is bog standard, a one page homage to basic HTML with no picshas or nuffink. One of their first releases was a live Dieter Müh affair which was damned near one of the bands best outings - I quite like the perversity in finding what could be a bands best work lying in obscurity on a recycled cassette. Besides Dieter Müh and the mighty Culver much of what appears on Hyster is a mystery to me - all of it [or at least all of what I’ve heard] seems to carry with it an air of loss and solitude, an atmosphere aided an abetted of course by the decaying nature of recycled cassettes they appear on. The last Hyster tape I reviewed was the 2009 Re-Clip affair, a slightly messy release it must be said with analogue beats escaping like loose GMT time signals, all of it dubbed onto a particularly dodgy tape - it comes with the territory I suppose.
The prosaically titled ‘Second One’ though is a real winner, a far more upbeat affair for the most part with some fine head bobbing moments and a classic track from the ever groovy Crank Sturgeon. Five tracks on one side and a side long outing on the other. Aiko kick things off with some sample madness and what sounds like photocopier noises layered on to amp buzz and a gently strummed acoustic guitar refrain. Cleavage pump out eight minutes of murky heavy duty arms out straight, jab em into the keys Emeralds like synth throb. Crank Sturgeon provides some garbled Schimpfluch lunacy in which un-synced hand claps and Dada verbals mix with someone trying to talk whilst drinking and having a piss at the same time. Re-Clip meanwhile appear to have morphed into some kind of Mego tinged slow analogue beat machine. Not bad in a swaying, meditative Midwich kind of way. Which on side one leaves Hiss Nausea and almost four minutes worth of distorted to buggery gabba beats.
This comp would have been just about perfect had it not been for the last ten minutes of the Varropas track ‘Moln pa Drift 1978’. A gorgeously fragile side of crumbling drone in which a small and recurring wobbly hit string motif is pulled through a landscape of wheezing machines and outer space burbles. Even the deterioration in tape quality at the onset adds to the all round ambience, as it continues upon its wavering path it grows in volume until the tape runs out.  If it had carried on with its miserable start to the very end I’d have been happier but you can’t have everything can you?


Contact:

plaa [a] pcuf.fi
http://www.pcuf.fi/~plaa/hyster.html

You Are Playin' Like A Fuckin' Pub Band

Smell & Quim / Family Battle Snake
You Are Playing Like A Fuckin’ Pub Band.
Split Tape
The 7.17 From West Wittering Is Late Again.
30 Copies.



On a recent sojourn up the North East coast I found myself in Newcastle. Its one of those places that feels to me like it didn’t really like having its face scrubbed. There’s still plenty of guano covering the supports on the Tyne Bridge but all those tapas bars and bits of fancy new architecture look like they’ve been stuck there deliberately in a bid to make the place feel a bit more European, a bit more cosmopolitan, a bit more Biarritz than brown ale. There’s still a few decent pubs left [and no visit to Newcastle is complete with a jar or several in the Crown Posada] but I always leave feeling like I’m glad I don’t have to live there. Not that where I live now is anything special of course. The recent spate of stabbings [including the death of a local drug dealer] does give Cleck a certain piquancy I’ll admit, but I’m still quite happy here thank you very much.
I mention the North East as on my way back I passed through Middlesborough. A place made out of six inch piping, pumps and gantries. Its another place I wouldn’t choose to live but Michael Gillham seems to find himself there. After listening to the Smell & Quim track on You Are Playing Like A Fuckin’ Pub Band, I can only conclude that theres not much else to do there except smash things up. I’ve seen Gillham ply his wares with Smell & Quim and with his own band Snotnosed and Its an impressive sight; a tall scary bloke with a shaved head and piercing eyes wrecking pubs and venues with hammers and whatever else comes to hand. ‘More Tea Vicar?’ is a twin assault with Srdenovic laying on the industrial sludge beats and Gillham destroying all things metal and domestic. The end result sounds like a free for all with a sledgehammer in a pan lid factory. Every assured blow seems to be synced with a madman's screams while a whistling, screeching tornado of torment prevails throughout until the whole thing eventually sinks under its own weight. Impressive stuff.
There’s six of these split tapes in all with the other five featuring artists working in similar areas. Released to coincide with Record Shop Day 2011 they’re part of a wider scheme to get people to ditch their clicking on things mp3/buy it in Tesco’s habits and get them back in to record shops. I’m all for this of course but being an idle sod I rarely venture into vinyl emporiums, not that I’m tripping up over them in West Yorkshire. They were made available for one day only and you had to physically go in to the shop yourself to buy them but I got my copy sneaked out the back door. Judging by the small amounts that have found their way online I can only assume that it must have been a bit of a slack day on visit your local record shop day. But I digress.
On the flip we find Family Battle Snake in contemplative drone form. Battling Bill has produced some fine work of late. Most of what I’ve heard has been made using analogue technology; synths, reel to reel etc but what this has been made with I can barely make out. A one finger held down key drone folds out into some exploratory night sky soundtracking. Radar bleeps, shortwave blips and an oscillating waveform build up to a small tumescence of noise at the climax of which some kind of electronic violin like squawk rears its head. Both these tracks run to about ten to fifteen minutes though I didn’t time em boss. Tapes y’see. A cracking format and nice to see the The 7.17 From West Wittering surface again.

Agdam

Agdam / Various Artists

Agdam Records. CD

Contact: [chortle, smirk, titter]

Agdam Records

PO Box 254

Agdam

Azerbaijan

It seems appropriate that a selection of obscure recordings charting the ‘English Underground Circa 1990 And Slightly Before’ should appear on an Azerbaijani label. Try Googling the Azeri city Agdam though and you’re greeted with images of a desolate place - its not exactly somewhere you’d want to go to on your jollies. Maybe they could twin it with Mirfield and send Neil Campbell out on a diplomatic mission to create greater understanding between differing cultures. You give us some Azeri oud players going at it hammer and tongs for an hour and we’ll give you Neil Campbell, two cymbals and a bottle of whiskey. Just a thought. Or maybe this is all some elaborate joke? Has anybody been foolhardy enough to send anything to Agdam? I bet they haven’t got anything back. Research reveals that Agdam is actually a ghost town its inhabitants having fled the Armenian army, looters doing the rest. Oh ... and Agdam is Turkish for ‘white house’. Draw your own conclusions. I sense much mischief but I’m happy to be proven wrong.

The archives of ‘The English Underground Circa 1990 And Slightly Before’ [as we now have to legally call it] are ever so slowly beginning to see the light of day and not before time. They’ve been appearing in fits and starts but of late seem to be gathering pace. Agdam appears only weeks after the Walden brothers Strolling Ones lunacy hit these ears and with the press release mentioning several unreleased LP’s out there it would be logical to assume that plenty more of these kind of documents stand stage left awaiting their big day.

 

But its to the A Band that we are drawn. They appear to be emerging from their ever so slightly eccentric shell and why not. Its taken them a while but the clamor to hear more of their freewheeling, spontaneous music seems genuinely warm. They actually get invited to things these days. Maybe they really were ahead of their time? The A Band embrace non-conformity, improvisation and fun by having an ever changing line up and creating a different name for each performance. The A Band are the A Band but only in name and never on paper. Each live performance has to begin with the letter ‘A’ too and that's what the band’s called on the day. Too damned clever for me.

There’s dozens of A Band members scattered about the UK most of them crawling from the wreckage of the 80’s. Some of them, I dare say, supped from a fountain that spurted industrial culture, Krautrock, mad jazz, Fluxus, Japanese noise, Folk music and English comedy. Its no surprise to anyone at all that the results are akin to an explosion in a saucepan lid factory, a wild and uncontrollable ride through improv land unclassifiable to all but the likes of Dave Keenan and earnest scribes alike [as an aside this release won the coveted Dave Keenan’s Volcanic Tongue ‘Tip of the Tongue’ award. I’m a fan of alliteration though and wish Keenan would make use of the ‘K’ in his surname and give his reviews ‘K’ ratings like they do in Kerrang, which would make this a Keenan Klassik KKKKK].

Agdam begins in 1986 and ends in 2007 with a reformed [after 15 years hiatus] A Band performance and some of it is very good and some it is utter nonsense and a bit of it drove me to the drinks cabinet. But its the utter nonsense and its ability to annoy that I actually came to find the most appealing. The ability to annoy is all part of the madness of course. ‘Well Crucial’s track recorded in 1986 is a rolling snatch of two second 80’s synth pop sample intermingled with gormless DJ chatter and words spoken by Martin Walden. Its so annoying I actually began to like it for its ability to annoy. The other Walden, Stewart, begins proceedings with ‘Mmmmmorning’ a 1990 piece of Dada Casio plod in which Walden bemoans the fact that he cant stay in bed all day, all delivered in a convincing, yawning gremlin fashion. ‘Walden/Campbell/Plaistow’ don various hippy gear to run through an acoustic guitar tinged Ash Ra Tempel fling called Moron [‘its easy to have fun when you’re a moron’] with all three of them taking at once [about each other I think] over a gentle six string melody whilst a moan wanders around in the background, this in 1990. ‘Sepopeplel’ is Stewart Greenwood and Minty Cracknell captured at the 13th Note in Glasgow 1998 -  five minutes of accordion wheezes and tunnel noise. Gay Animal Women dish out 23 minutes [oh naturlich] of PTV inspired cod reggae as recorded live in Nottingham in 1989. Cut from a longer hour long show its a genuflecting reverbed to hell pean to all things Genesis P Orridge and not something I found myself warming to despite numerous attempts. Filling in but two meagre minutes of space comes Neil Campbell with a snatch of live celestial shimmer drone from 2004, a period when his involvement with Vibracathedral Orchestra was coming to an end and his solo work with Astral Social Club was just beginning. All too brief.

The whole disc sits on its best track. A 30 odd minute A Band romp going under the title of Afterclap as captured live in Warrington in 2007. Twelve individuals took part including a certain 14 year old Megan Fletcher-Cutts who played in the last previous A Band performance as a six month old baby.  Joincey also took part, a man whose own meanderings not only sound very similar to what Stewart Walden was doing in 1990 but who should be included on merit alone seeing as how he’s an equally peripatetic form who  has several solo modes coupled to several band projects constantly on the go. A Band stalwarts Sticky Foster, Neil Campbell and Stewart Keith [nee Stewart Walden] join forces with Dylan Bates, Dave Higginson and Jon Larder amongst others for a rawk-fest that begins with the introduction of band members and ends with a twanging jaws harp. In between it somehow manages to sound like a dodgy metal band with a trumpet player instead of a singer deliberately doing it all wrong before collapsing in on itself in utter chaos and hilarity. I can hear swannee whistles [or electronic equivalents thereof], parps and squeaks, crap guitar solos, unidentified horns, vocal noise, strange strings being plucked, scraping. The first half is pinned to a barreling heavy footed thud stomp before it disintegrates into true ‘we don’t know what we’re doing but we’re enjoying it’ A Band style um ..mess.

Afterclap is a rollicking beast of musical insanity and for sheer freedom of musical expression its up there with the best. I loved it. More archive digging please.

Spon

SPON
Dumb Cunt Comcs
A4 Zine. No idea of cost of trade status.

Contact:

Dr. Adolf Steg
1 St Hildas Road
St Annes-on-Sea
Lancashire
FY8 2PT





Two issues of SPON appear. One contains nothing but Dr Steg’s paintings, collages and montages some of which I’ve reproduced here. The reason I’m getting excited though is issue 3 which has an interview with the Ceramic Hobs main-man Simon Harris. For anyone even half interested in the Hobs this is essential. Harris’s deep understanding of serial killers, conspiracy theories, Phillip K Dick and Power Electronics are all brought to the fore whilst for long time Hobs fans there’s the chance to discover the hidden meanings in a number of Hobs releases and why Harris’s relationship with long time Hobs collaborator and guitarist Stan Batcow soured. The paintings aren’t half bad either. These publications may be slight - eight pages at most - but that doesn’t make them unimportant. Seek out.

TDOTEP

TDOTEP - Force Feeding The People Locusts
Studio 5 Recordings. S5R 003. CDR. 50 Copies.



I don’t know why I feel this way but whenever I listen to a TDOTEP release [an acronym for The Death Of The Enlightenment Project] I feel like a kindly uncle passing on pointers in life to a confused teenage cousin whose just experienced his first ejaculation. Maybe thats because TDOTEP releases usually arrive with a note saying ‘heres my latest piece of crap’ or somesuch and then you listen to them and whaddyaknow? theres a not half bad noise album lurking in there. Despite the self deprecation the last TDOTEP release that came this way [Temple of Wounds - Pumf] went some way to convincing me that TDOTEP was heading in the right direction but after feeding myself with the locusts I’m not sure if that gravity defying trajectory has gone all limp and is now terra firma bound with just a sudden bump waiting for it.

Maybe I’m being too harsh?

Things for:

There’s some good noise on here: First track [Underlying Resentment] kicks in with some Emil Beaulieau style looped lock groove treatments. Third track [Arcade Fire Helicopter Tragedy]  kicks off in fine Incaps territory.

There’s no Charles Manson sample.

Kate Fear from the Ceramic Hobs appears on track two [though what she’s up to I couldn’t tell you].

Things against:

Comes in a half size DVD cases with art work that drops out and is ill fitting. This may sound pedantic but if you’re going to go handmade then make it handmade not some halfway house between handmade and made to look like it was bought in a shop made.

Segueing all the tracks into one long track and then printing the running times in chronological order.

Track three doesn’t end in Incaps territory, it ends with some horrible industrial death scream beats.

Track five [Of Shit Subliminal Message] sounds like a Slogun outing crossed with the Predator soundtrack.

Track nine [The Priestly Unit] Like Non gone wrong rather than the real Emil.


Yes, maybe I am being too harsh but these things need to be said. TDOTEP has greatness within itself its just that somewhere along the line its all going wrong.





Contact:

www.TDOTEP.blogspot.com

TDOTEP [at] gmail.com

www.studio5recordings.blogspot.com

Schuster

Schuster - Blac Flies Resplendent On Blak Moon
Adeptsound CDR. ADSCDR03.

Available now for pre-order. Release date: 18th of April 2011

[Also available via Licht Und Stahl in an extremely limited run of 20 cassettes.]


Blac Flies Resplendent On Blak Moon is one of those highly polished Industrial Ambient outings where upon playback you start to count off the Industrial samples on your fingertips only to quickly realise that you’d need the hands of a dozen TG acolytes to finnish the job off properly. Within eleven tracks and almost an hours worth of material I was indeed transported and whilst sat crossed legged in the middle of my inverted star [thigh bone in one hand, fly whisk in the other] I was submerged into that familiar world of murderers monologues, house flies trapped in bottles, Paul McCarthy groans, bowl rings, vocals treated to sound like Darth Vader crossed with a Tibetan shaman, water bubbling underground, vinyl surface noise, machine blasts, sonar bleeps, reverbed vocals, astronaut chatter, street rioting … there they all were, waiting for me to check em off and write em down. Now where’s my I-Spy book of Industrial samples when I need it?

This may enlighten you further: Blac Flies name checks Rudolf J. Mund, an obscure member of an obscure Nazi occult outfit, Andrew McAuley who disappeared one day in his Kayak off the coast of New Zealand in 2007, contract killer Richard Kulkinski, reggae star Dr. Alimantado [?] and others too obscure even for Google. Here are some other things to think about: track four ‘Esbat’ isn’t just 30 seconds of insect chatter its also the name of the Wiccan full moon festival. First track ‘Bellerophon’ is also the name of a mythical Greek hero. Third track mentions “Sepharial’, the chosen name of English Occultist Walter Gorn Old. Seventh track; Blakk Bile, meaning, I assume melancholia, depression or maybe some kind of Masonic ritual. Wrap all these occult/pagan trappings into some bleak Industrial landscapes and you have yourself a damned good Industrial/Pagan/Occultist/Ambient workout.

But first lets go back: the previous Schuster release ‘Breaking Down Into His Own Oblivion’ [also on Adeptsound] had the outstanding track ‘I Am Living In My Own Corpse’, a backbone track, a bleak masterpiece of desolation the likes of which gave you some idea of what it must be like to be dumped onto the barren surface of a dead and windswept lonely planet. This is what ‘Blac Flies’ is really missing, a solid twenty minute track that pins it all together. Too much is gone before it has time to settle. I personally wouldn’t have minded the 10th and best track on here ‘Giving’ expanded up to the twenty minute mark but after six minutes and 43 seconds its all too sadly gone. 

You can’t deny the heritage though - English Industrial down to their [thigh] bones and no doubt sporting bad haircuts and a healthy dose of misanthropy to boot. A couple of releases in 1988 and then nothing for nigh on twenty years. I think I know one member. The Adept website mentions Dieter Müh and the sleeve mentions SC. Step forward Mr. Cammack. Discogs gives the rest away by naming Tim Bayes who I think I’m right in saying was a fringe member of DM in their formative years and is the man behind Adeptsound. But back to the music.

My big complaint of Blac Flies is that its hardly treading new ground. The mumbled vocal on ‘Sulk’ is so close to TG’s Weeping that its hard not to think of anything else whilst listening to it. The strings that see out ‘The Second Moon [Sepharial]’ could have been plucked straight from one of Arvo Pärt’s sacred minimalist pieces. The Industrial pummel on ‘Stubborn’ is Pan Sonic mutating into Paul MaCarthy grumbles and moans. The murders confession on ‘Giving [who I’m guessing is the afore mentioned contract killer  Richard Kulkinski] plays out to a background of cicadas and distant ritual drums and whilst this is highly effective [‘the rats used to eat them’] it was almost as if I was half expecting it.

I now find myself in the curious and slightly embarrassing position of playing down what is obviously a classic piece of Industrial music - which probably says more about me than it does about Blac Flies. Having said that and put an ever so slight damper on it, I have to say in its defence  that this is still a criminally good release made with perfectly weighted hands - Grade A Prime Industrial Ambience with a soupcon of ritualism and the occult thrown in for good measure. Blac Flies Resplendent On Blak Moon may not be progress but neither is it Industrial music by numbers. Just don’t give Chris Bohn a copy.



Contact:

www.adeptsound.net


PO Box 3760
Success
Perth 6164
WA
Australia



http://lichtundstahl.blogspot.com/

Kali-Yuga Karma - The New Blockaders / Merzbow / aNoMaLi

 

Kali-Yuga Karma
The New Blockaders / Merzbow / aNoMaLi
Hypnagogia CD. GIA05. 300 Copies.




Paul Coates is the quiet man behind Hypnagogia and the even quieter man behind noise project aNoMaLi.  Hypnagogia is a spasmodic affair which since the early 90’s has released items of a discordant nature but which I think is mostly remembered as the home to some the best of The New Blockaders output - the apex arguably being the mighty 4CD anthology ‘Gesamtnichtswerk’. That’s not to treat everything else Hypnagogia has released lightly though. During 2003 and 2004 Hypnagogia released three ten inch platters that were Falten by The New Blockaders, Oumagatoki, a collaboration between TNB and Merzbow and Nitya-Baddha a solo aNoMaLi outing. Kali-Yuga Karma brings them all together and as an added bonus/dangling carrot/cynical marketing ploy [select which ever reasoning fits your preference] a track called Kali-Yuga Karma that is a 5 minute and 38 seconds collaboration between all of the above. Its best to start here ... with a cow mooing. It also ends with a cow mooing, apart from some almost insignificant squiggle that appears a second before the track ends which I cant for the life of me think has been put there except as some kind of listener test. After the first cow moo comes the playing of the last post and gun shots [probably lifted from a 50’s cowboy movie] and then a countdown from 5 to 1 before a full on face rubbing, ear pounding, head bashing swirling torrent of noise. It couldn’t have been anything else really and if it had I think I may have been a little disappointed.
Its not as full on as Oumagatoki though which is a slow to build beast featuring some lovely low end Merzbow wobbles and some close up decay ear fracture from TNB. Very similar to the Merzbow/TNB CD Ten Foot Square Hut which appeared around the same time and which no doubt came from the same sessions. Falten finds TNB in sparse decay mode - all needle fluff, scraping sledgehammers on concrete floors, galvanised bin destruction. Certainly one of their better outings and comparable to the best of their earlier work. Amongst these titans of noise we find aNoMaLi whose Nitya-Baddha sits between them like a naughty schoolboy with ink on his fingers. aNoMaLi achieves his sounds by mixing samples of North East dj’s and dart scorers cut off in their prime [ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT], Indian movie soundtracks, murky conversations, all of this loaded onto prime noise detritus: dentists suction pumps, buzzing noise drones, TNB like rain clatter, reversed church choirs, reversed vocals, 60’s pop. Its not a million miles away from that other TNB involvement Mixed Band Philanthropist in that it has humour at its heart whilst enlightening and rewarding the ear with a multitude of sounds. It’s a pity theres so little aNoMaLi about. Two releases as far as I can ascertain.
Paul Coates may be a reclusive figure in the world of noise but his label does release the occasional gem. And although this may be just a bit of archive gathering with a dollop of cream on top that doesn’t mean you should pass it off lightly. I’ve reviewed all these before upon original release, I enjoyed them then and they still stand the test of time now. A useful release for those who missed out on the original vinyl and those TNB/Merzbow nutters who must have everything.

Blue Sabbath Black Cheer / Wicked King Wicker / Irr.App.[Ext]

Blue Sabbath Black Cheer & Irr. App. [Ext.]
Skeletal Copula Remains
Gnarled Forest Recordings [GF42] / Errata In Excelsis [eie010]
LP. 500 copies. Comes with 18” x 35” poster and insert

Blue Sabbath Black Cheer/Wicked King Wicker
Gnarled Forest Recordings [GF43] / Noiseville 95
Split LP. 300 copies plus insert.


Theres only so much you can do with a guitar tuned all the way down to ‘e’. It’s a great sounding doomy chord but If you want to further explore the deepest corners of doom and desolation then you need something else to get you there. I guess thats why bands like Wicked King Wicker and Blue Sabbath Black Cheer exist. Taking the premise that dark is good, noise is good, death is good, destruction is good and all things black are good they take that darkness mix it with a noise aesthetic and create whole new worlds of sonic nihilism and swirling vortexes of despair into which the likes of Earth and Sunn O))) get sucked only to be spat out the other end with with their monks cowls torn and dripping wet.

To be honest I never got my head round those early doom heavy bands - wave after wave of ululating low end hum, dry ice and expensive double albums - if I wanted something heavy to listen to then I’d dig out an old Sabbath album. I remember seeing a John Fahey interview in which he said he’d been experimenting with tuning all his guitar strings down to e and hawking the results round various shops and labels only to be told that the genre was called doom metal and was already quite popular. Listening to the odd doom related album does me no harm though. I theoretically place my back to the wall, turn up the volume and get down with the low end vibes. Its mutating though and mutating into something far more interesting.

Blue Sabbath Black Cheer have graced these pages before, their collaboration with The Nihilist Assault Group went down well here. It was an interesting construct with both artists striving for the same result whilst coming from different angles of the noise spectrum. Sadly I feel it doesn't work with Irr. App. [Ext.].  Irr. App. [Ext.] come from a background linked with Nurse With Wound not doom and destruction. Skeletal Copula Remains feels like a case of too many cooks too. Throw in the guitar of Mason Jones and the synth of John Lukeman [albeit on one track] and you can almost feel the claustrophobia. Theres four tracks with the titles giving you clues; ‘Subterranean [Insurgence]’, ‘Brennschluss --> Extinction’, ‘Crawling Eruptions’ and the side long ‘Glutton’. Couple all this to the black and white art work of viscera, bones. ethereal creatures and the enormous fold out poster and you have somebody going all out to make a big impression. And then you play it and it all seems a bit messy. Death, doom and destruction are there in spades but it feels like everybody involved here tried to cram in every one of their nuances and it makes for an unbalanced listen. Starting with a gong crash the three tracks on side one do their best to create symphonic death ambience with hyenas tearing flesh apart and the squealing noise guitar of Mason Jones [which comes at you like a thousand squeaky gates all banging together at three in the morning] but it never quite gets off the ground. The side long ‘Glutton’ works best but spoils itself by introducing actually introducing those low e tuned guitars when it would do better to dispense with. Thrum thrum thrum thrum slow steady droney thumps and then a suction pump stuck into the open gut wound of a dying alien, stalking music, guttural wolf growls, limbs being twisted apart, cartilage popping, it gets louder then cuts to the sound of animals chewing, zoo screams, someones shooting all the parrots whilst someone else plays with a squeaky door. Door shuts. Record ends. Its hard to engage with much of this with one sound being replaced by another before it has chance to make an impression. The second half of Glutton contains some genuinely ear teasing sounds though but all the posters and fancy art work in the world doesn’t make up for the fact that is only half way there.


The split LP proves to be far more rewarding. Blue Sabbath Black Cheer’s ‘March Of The Damned’ is like being stuck halfway down a subway tunnel with the cars hurtling past two inches from your nose. Its Earth crossed with the low end rumble of a Merzbow gig. Sunspots erupt, Howler monkeys scream, demented souls are tortured for eternity, as it ebbs away slowly rotting bodies swing on charred tree limbs. The shorter ‘Into Nothing’ is even more sublime, it captures desolation perfectly; cold iron on stone, creaking boat timbers, dying breaths, distant bombs.
Utilising bass guitar and noise Wicked King Wicker create walls of noise doom. Its the next step up the evolving noise ladder with doom metal at its heart but with noise treatments giving it the room to unfold into ever more fractured and discordant patterns. On ‘Now That We’re Dead To You’ tumbling chords of ultra distorted bass guitar and noise gadgets create a claustrophobic atmosphere that builds to a wayward crescendo. Bass notes become muffled screams, noises become ever more disorientating the whole thing rupturing revealing its component parts on ending. Given a side each and left to their own devices both BSBC and WKW produce far more cohesive works. I think I may be a fan.



Contact:


http://gnarledforest.blogspot.com/


http://www.noiseville.com/home.html


http://www.myspace.com/irrappext

Midwich

Midwich - Months, Years
Midwich - Raised Ironworks

3” CDR. 50 copies each. No label.



The first time I met Rob Hayler was on the door of a Death Squad gig about ten years or more since. It was a Termite Club gig so there were only about ten people there, most of them Americans, but Rob was doing his bit for the cause by taking peoples money and flogging some of his newly pressed Fencing Flatworm Recordings releases. Rob was one of those people you find incredibly easy to get along with; softly spoken, infectious laugh, a ready grin, intelligent and for the next few years I saw a lot of him and his label. Then, as so often happens, he disappeared.

A few years passed and then out of the blue Rob reappeared, this time via a blog. He’d had problems with his head, or with the world or a mixture of the two [I’m not telling you anything you shouldn’t know here - he writes about it fluently and matter-of-factly himself] he’d got married, lost his job, found another, his wife lost her job, things were happening in his life. I discovered he supported Farsley Celtic and my heart burst with pride because I always kind of knew that if Rob supported a football team it would be a lower leagues three men and a dog set up. But most importantly he was back and being creative once more. 

Rob likes his drone which was reflected in FFR and his solo work under the Midwich moniker. Besides his own material he released work by Andy Jarvis, Neil Campbell and Klunk along with a few others. His diffuse cassette label OTO ran to fifty releases and gave all manner of oddballs there day out in the sun; The Bongoleeros, Killy Dog Box, The Ceramic Hobs, even old Unky Thurst chipped in. Then there was the FFR night at the Brudenell. My first encounter with laptops in a live environment. I was sat there chatting away only to be told ten minutes into the sounds appearing from the PA that this was it. But theres nobody on the stage said I. Thats because he’s playing a laptop from  the side of the mixing desk came the reply [this probably because there was less chance of it being knicked].

So Rob came back and started his blog and told us all how his head was getting better and how he was meeting people once more and going for a pint now and again and enjoying his married life and heres some old stuff I thought would never see the light of day but the urge is upon me to put stuff out once more. And why not.

Midwich produce very dainty drones by holding down various keyboard keys [I’m guessing]  and little else. To my best recollection Midwich drones were slightly flecked in their purity. Throbbing, aching, pulsing things with little motifs flitting in and out like the fish that used to adorn the early FFR covers. Some were short lasting less than a minute whilst other set themselves adrift up into the 20 minute mark. I quite liked the shorter stuff which is why I like the last track on ‘raised ironworks’ a perfect piece of two phase drone with the one playing off the other, each coming back to reinforce its beginnings like some clever piece of work by Steve Reich, it could go on much, much longer and I doubt I would tire of it. As for the rest, well, its drone. Simply done, effortlessly put together, maybe slight but who cares? ‘ months, years’ is one 21 minute piece [also its title]  and theres three others on ‘raised’ but it would take a far more brazen heart than mine to criticise either of these releases. If they were the biggest turds fished out of the beck this year I may drop a hint but theres no need. They may be slight but its what they signal that is far more important.



http://radiofreemidwich.wordpress.com/