Extreme Rituals

Arnolfini

Christian Weber

Daniel Löwenbrück

GX

Junko

Junko

GX/Lanz/Eb.er/Dando

The New Blockaders

Trevor Wishart

Vagina Dentata Organ

Extreme Rituals - A Schimpfluch Carnival
Arnolfini, Bristol, 30th November - 2nd December 2012


Friday

Phurpa

Daniel Löwenbrück & Leif Elggren

The New Blockaders & GX Jupitter-Larsen

Dave Phillips

Bryan Lewis Saunders

Rudolf Eb.er & Junko Hiroshige

Saturday

Trevor Wishart
Vicky Langan
Vagina Dentata Organ

Joachim Montessuis

Sudden Infant

Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck

Sunday

Dave Phillips (field recording set)
Michael Barthel
G*Park
Joke Lanz & Ute Waldhausen
Alice Kemp
Christian Weber
Rashad Becker
GX Jupitter-Larsen, Rudolf Eb.er, Mike Dando, Joke Lanz





Rudolf Eb.er is staring straight into my eyes. He’s sitting on stage in the lotus position, thumb and forefinger gently touching, the backs of his palms resting on his knees. From the way the stage is lit he looks like Ming the Merciless, minus the eyebrows of course, I am genuinely unsettled and think he can’t really be staring at me but every time I look away, at Mike Dando say whose not blinked from the moment the noise erupted, or GX  his one good eye shut, or Joke Lanz who hasn’t moved a muscle either, each time I look back he’s staring at me. And then he begins to move, shaking as if he’s having some kind of a seizure, his lithe body spasming, fingers stair-rod straight as the seizure becomes ever more violent until the noise subsides and he becomes calm once more. Its a piece entitled ‘Wellenfeld - In Memory of Urs Schwaller' and its a good a way as ending three days of noise as any, even if its still only six o’clock on a Sunday evening.

To see how far we’ve come I gleefully sat through the two hour loop of Schimpfluch Gruppe Aktion’s showing in one of the Arnolfini’s galleries. In ‘Mama 1’, filmed in Zurich in 1991, a much younger looking blindfolded Rudolph Eb.er [sporting a full head of hair] drops his trousers to his ankles before wandering around a room bumping in to people Frankenstein style while someone blows a whistle. Fast forward 20 years and here he is on a Saturday night in Bristol levitating on a wall of crunching noise to the acrid stench of burning vinegar - a Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck performance that not only delights the eyes and challenges the hearing but punishes the sense of smell too.

There was certainly a few more people attending Extreme Rituals than there was in that room in Zurich over 20 years ago. If you got there early enough on Friday you could have sat in on the some panel discussions [a previously booked train ticket deprived me of that little joy], on Saturday afternoon there was extreme yodeling courtesy of Doreen Kutzke and for the lucky public there was conceptual performances from Alice Kemp one of which involved her walking around the venue half naked and M. Vänçi Stirnemann who amplified the sounds of liquids leaving a series of intravenous drips. But it was the main venue where the biggest experiences were to be had.

Friday

Seeing as how I knew nothing about them I investigated Phurpa via Youtube, images of three cloak clad individuals sat in a darkened semicircle creating drones in a Tuvan throat singing cum shamanic ritual kind of way and when they start its a glorious hum but those short Youtube clips hid the fact that Phurpa could drag this out for nigh on 45 minutes. And whilst those deep throated moans are initially captivating they soon begin to lose their initial charm, the rattle of some unseen drums broke the deadlock but it was soon back to the nose and throat moan and with it went any hope of me ever getting to like Phurpa. Ten minutes would have been fine but these guys had traveled all the way from Russia and they were going to make the most of it.
We were soon back in more familiar territory courtesy of Daniel Löwenbrück and Lief Elggren who stood face to face and began to sew each others shirts together with needle and black thread. Once they’d run out of cotton and thus firmly united chest to chest they pulled apart only to appear on the venue floor where a roll of white paper unfurled, Elggren recited words from some sheets of A4 whilst Löwenbrück pulled a violin over the paper that had two magic markers attached leaving two black lines along its length. Löwenbrück then went back to the start of the roll of paper and began writing out the words that Elggren was reciting. They then both reappeared on stage where some ear pummeling noise erupted. Elggren sat in a leather chair whilst Löwenbrück filled a circle of bottles with milk, Elggren began to have a fit and writhed in his chair like he was being stabbed with a cattle prod, the spasms became more exaggerated and intense until the noise cut and it was all over. I’m still trying to work out what it was all about. Sometimes its better not to try.
TNB were joined by GX Jupitter-Larsen who seemed to be sandpapering the balcony bannister. By TNB standards it was an exemplary set of noise scrape with middle protagonist taking a saw to a piece of scrap metal whilst stage left TNB’er rubbed a cabbage that had a contact mic stuck to it. The backdrop film of an out of tune TV helped further the chaos. Middle TNB’er got hit by a flying beer glass [plastic] which resulted in a bin lid getting chucked back in to the crowd. It missed me which makes a change.
After that came  perhaps the most challenging set of the weekend. Forget noise as punishment, Brian Lewis Saunders ranted tales about his appendix bursting was far stronger in impact than just about any transgressive noise artists I’ve ever witnessed. Sat on stage he related his tale in a manner as if to suggest he’d just consumed a large amount of rather unstable drugs. And he really did rant, non stop and to some wailing noise and a backdrop of someones digestive tract being traversed and then of a piglet being castrated. It was around then that I began to feel extremely lightheaded and queasy, I had to leave the venue and take a quick walk around the docks to get some fresh air. Listening to Saunders tales of existential angst was one of the highlights of the weekend and coming so unexpectedly [Like Phurpa I’d never even heard of him before now] only increased my admiration for the Schimpfluch Gruppe.
To round the night off there was two cathartic blasts of noise, first from Dave Phillips who stood stage front rattling like a junkie as who knows how many decibels erupted from the Arnolfini’s PA system. It was visceral, vibrating and wholly enlivening. As it progressed balloons filled the air and when they landed people stood on them creating their own noise to add to those made by Phillips. To round the night off we got the first appearance of Rudolph albeit it from the back of the stage with his back to the audience playing the mixing desk creating more sheets of noise whilst Junko shrieked herself hoarse. Quite an end to an already exciting night and one that held much promise for the weekend ahead.

Saturday

Rudolf Eb.er is staring straight into my eyes. Its from a poster this time. A poster that I think is part of some kind of promotional material in which Rudolph stares in to the camera with what appears to be a cows anus attached to his cheek. I’m watching the Schimpfluch Gruppe Aktion film loop and there's some of Rudolph's photos on the wall, meat and intensities play a large part. Whilst ‘Vomit Play for 3 Girls’ is playing two middle aged local ladies walk in to the room carrying shopping bags and on seeing whats taking place make a dash for the exit which turns out to be a broom cupboard which only increases their panic. Its the longest Aktion of the 21 on display and the most grueling but one that serves to highlight the fact that the Schimpfluch Gruppe aren’t afraid to push artistic boundaries. Out of there and in to the room that houses Rudolph’s artwork [like a cross between early Dali and Hans Bellmer] and various Schimpfluch related recorded material where me and Wounded Knee Taylor get to play ‘got, not got’.

Saturday’s opener is Trevor Wishart who sprays spit over the front row with a dextrous performance in which he twists his face in to numerous shapes in a bid to extract as many sounds as possible from it. I’ve been a fan of Trevor’s work since seeing him at Colour Out of Space a few years back. The sounds emanating from his face are quite remarkable, gurning and stretching his cheeks and at times hitting his chest with the ends of his fingers he produce a tremendous array of sounds.
It was around now that I missed the only act of the entire weekend. I missed Vicky Langan’s set because someone told me there was a half naked woman wandering the first two floors of the Arnolfini. Upon checking this news I did indeed find a half naked woman wandering the first two floors of the Arnolfini. It was Alice Kemp dressed like a cross between a Victorian funeral director and a dressage entrant. A top hat with black veil coupled to a riding jacket, jodhpurs and a large er ... thing where her knickers should have been provided much bafflement and no end of amusement for those [men] who were missing Vicky Langan.
I’d never seen Vagina Dentata Organ before but knew that we'd be in for some serious drumming - you could hear them practicing all over the Arnolfini. The performance [Aktion?] began with someone playing the prelude to Bach’s Cello Concerto number 1 whilst the cross of Christ was made using white toilet rolls. Then came the drumming which was urgent and rapid and the work of about ten people. When VDO provocateur Jordi Vallis appeared on stage wielding a baseball bat we knew it was time for the mirrors at the back of the stage to meet their end. As the noise and drumming continued to pummel he set about the mirrors and shattered every single one of them no doubt giving the health and safety reps at the Arnolfini a nervous ten minutes whilst he did so. As it all came to a crescendo people began to dismantle the loo roll cross chucking them with gay abandon at anyone and everything including me who got one straight between the eyes dislodging my spectacles the result being me frantically trying to locate them on my hands and knees in the dark before someone stood on them. Lots of symbolism going on in there; the cross of Christ made of material you wipe your arse on, mirrors that reflect the self being destroyed, drummers driving out demons and then a well earned interlude while the auditorium was swept clean of debris.

The rest of the evening consisted of a noise set from Joachim Montessuis who stripped to the waist, became quite angsty while totally failing to ignite my enthusiasm. Sudden Infant was Joke Lanz aided by double bass player Christian Weber who were both superb. Some were heard to talk of the bass playing distracting from Joke’s performance but for me it worked perfectly but maybe that's just me being a huge fan of anyone mad enough to lug around a double bass and Joke Lanz. Lanz talked once again [see Leeds review] of the small boy stuck on the fifth floor of a building watching the cranes whilst Weber tugged and plucked and scraped deep ominous notes from his instrument. Watching Joke in action is a joy, stick man tats, tuft of unruly hair, bare feet and a stage presence that never fails to hold the audience rapt.
Rudolph rounded off Saturday night with a Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck Aktion that was a noise shamans lament. R&G Aktions [shall we just call them that from now on?] seem to have become more intense and noise based of late, gone are the chickens and the vomiting and the bumping around in rooms in Zurich and in comes the big guns, a pair of hand made mittens that dangle with various gadgets that once triggered emit painful walls of noise, bells hang from them and more bells emerge from a stick he picks up and shakes violently above the audiences heads. He’s stage front and clearly enjoying himself. The way the stage is lit his body is immersed in a bath of one strong white light making him seem even more ethereal than he already is.

Sunday

With hindsight the 2.30pm start was a good thing. Anyone who’s attended a three day noise fest will tell you that the flesh begins to weaken during the third day, alcohol and the over consumption of such usually being the culprit. The excitement of the weekend ahead and the prospect of meeting of old friends usually leads to over indulgence and then comes Saturday afternoon and the livener which for some turns in to a 12 hour binge ending in a pizza shop cum late license pub on King Street where you end up talking bollocks to the chap from France in the Mutant Ape t-shirt. Actually I wasn’t too bad by this stage and a walk around Bristols outstanding dock area after a hearty full English had me raring to go once Dave Phillips took off his boots and settled on to a table in the middle of the venue. Phillips played insect noise [his own field recordings I venture] through a mixing desk bringing in new elements and then cutting the sound so that only a faint chirrup could be heard. At its end he walked the darkened venue with a miners lamp on handing out flyers highlighting the importance of insects to the continuation of the human species.
Michael Bartel gave us some sound poetry and a little Walkman construct and then barked three word phrases that increased in intensity until its climax.
G*Park and Rashad Becker made noises via mixing desks which because of the Arnolfini’s superb acoustics and sound reproduction equipment sounded pretty good but lacked dynamics. Given that the Arnolfini had a huge back screen at everyones disposal it seemed a shame that those performers for whom movement wasn’t an option failed to utilize it. Joke Lanz & Ute Waldhausen needed no such prop. A bare breasted Waldhausen struck a bare chested Lanz across the cheek and thus began their performance, I mean Aktion. Each performer face to face, stroking an arm and then a cheek, a caress and then a violent slap until we had body music. Contact mics taped into each right palm highlighted the sounds made. Joke grabs Ute by the back of the neck and screams into her throat. Both performers remain impassive throughout, barely blinking, no emotion shown, red welts appears. At once violent and tender. A remarkable performance.

Back in the foyer Alice Kemp is giving us another one of her conceptual performances; sitting in a chair with a pair of shears at her feet and a silk scarf wrapped around her head a low volume shortwave noise appears from the speakers. She never moves. The noise increases in volume slightly. Show ends. Another head scratcher.

Christian Weber reappears for a solo double bass performance and once again I am in awe. In over two decades of attending gigs of this nature I have only ever seen one other person attempt a solo double bass performance of this nature. Its a delight then to hear Weber deconstruct the stringed orchestral instrument solo. He scrapes the instrument along the floor, picks it up and drops it, hits the body with his palm, bends the bridge, plucks the strings above the headstock and then gets out the bow and pulls the thing so tautly over the lower strings that a guttural noise appears that sounds like god retching.

Which leaves us with ‘Wellenfeld - In Memory of Urs Schwaller'. The man in question being [I think I’m right in saying] the person who introduced Joke Lanz to Rudolph Eb.er all those years ago and without whom none of us would be here tonight. The performers are all wearing headsets of some sort but I think this is just conceptual distraction. The piece is homage, four performers who have been making noise for longer than some of the audience have been alive.


As weekend festivals go this was one of the best: superbly organised, terrific venue, well attended and in a city that meant we didn’t have to suffer the indignities of the capital for a change. I came away feeling that I had witnessed something that will be talked about for a long time to come. I came away having been stared at by Rudolph and the feeling that we may all be back here in another twenty years time with an even larger group of people who have been influenced by one of the greatest art/noise collectives going - the mighty Schimpfluch Gruppe. Long may they reign.



  

Tim Olive

Tim Olive + Alfredo Costa Monteiro - 33 Bays
845 Audio. CD.

Kikuchi Yukinori + Tim Olive - Base Material
TestToneMusic. TTM-011. CD




Before we all decamp to Bristol for the Schimpers Fest theres the small matter of the review pile. I’ve not been ignoring it honest but these last few weeks have been turbulent to say the least and my mind has wandered. But I have been listening. Take these two releases that came my way via Tim Olive, a Canadian now resident in Kobe, Japan whose electro-acoustic diversions have recently provided me with much aural entertainment. It wasn’t until I checked one of my alternative email addresses the other day that I cast my eyes over one of FdW’s ‘Vital Weekly’ columns to find these two releases garnered less than glowing reviews. Which I found a little unjust and only half half right - if you see what I mean.

33 Bays is one of those delightfully erudite electro-acoustic experiences that has the listener nodding their head in approval as the sounds make their way from 00.00 to end. Its a collaboration that works perfectly; Tim Olive making good use of a one stringed guitar whilst Monteiro plays ‘electro-acoustic devices’, results being plenty of those ear tickling moments where you’re not sure if a wire brush has been gently plucked whilst an amplified cat purrs close up to your ear drums or the backs come off the telly and the dust is burning or there’s an army of a thousand Airfix soldiers making their way across the Axminster or someone’s trying to eat tinfoil. Press release mentions ‘sharp transitions and gradual transformations’ which is fair enough but I prefer scrape and buzz, small silences, jack socket static, steel bars rolling across an empty foundry floor at midnight. The depth and quality of sounds on offer here is quite exceptional and after numerous plays I’m still being rewarded. Compare this to a fine French wine, not exactly a Paulliac but certainly better than a three for a tenner offer from the corner shop and a ringing hangover come the morning.

The collaboration with Kikuchi Yukinori is a different beast altogether. Upon first entering this release you may be forgiven that you have strayed into Industrial Ambient territory. Deep rumbles more closely associated with Dieter Müh or Archon Sartini fill the void and its pretty murky from there on in which comes as a surprise considering Olive is using guitar pick ups and analogue electronics. My only assumption is that this collaboration has been commandeered by Yukinori and his computer electronics, which doesn’t necessarily make for a poor listen just a baffling one after what has gone before. Taken at face value this is a decent enough excursion into some black and gloomy atmospheres but it sounds too much like one artist stifling another. Eight tracks coming in at a jaunty 27 minutes also means that these are relatively short-ish excursions most of which end abruptly suggesting edits of larger pieces cut at salient points for the editors [Yukinori’s] satisfaction.

Anyhow, Bristol. See you there.


http://845audio.org/

www.testtonemusic.net

Sudden Infant, Astral Social Club, Spoils & Relics, Door.

Sudden Infant

Astral Social Club

Sudden Infant, Astral Social Club, Spoils & Relics, Door.
Wharf Chambers, 22, November, 2012.



Before we all decamp to Bristol for the Schimpfluch Love-In there’s the small matter of a few Sudden Infant warm up gigs to attend. Its been a while since we saw Sudden Infant in Leeds, if my memory doesn’t fail me it was at the Fenton about four years ago, at a time when you could still put gigs on at the Fenton without the management Googling you first to ascertain whether you filled their criteria [i.e. indie landfill]. That night he sparred with Bill Kouligas and despite having a heavy cold still managed to produce a set of industrial metal clanging pummel sing-a-long-a-Schimpers that still has the ability to linger long in the memory.

Joke Lanz’s long running Sudden Infant project is one that never leaves an audience dissatisfied. Over the years I’ve seen quite a few fall under his spell, including most memorably the night in new York when he silenced a crowd of beer filled boisterous American noise freaks with a story about an old women in a wheel chair. In front of a crowd who wanted another set of ear filling noise he stilled them with a set that could be traced all the way back to the Cabaret Voltaire.

Lanz stands in bare feet, a wild clump of hair stuck like up sore fingers, home made tats, black toe nail polish, exaggerated facial expressions accompany his [I assume] stream of consciousness stories. Tonight's concerns a small boy locked in the room of a tall building, to accompany it there's a contact mic that acts as percussion, Lanz holds it to his throat and gurgles/screams, hits his leg with it, hits a key and a pummeling beat has the audience wriggling like eels and then a silence and lips up to the microphone kissing it each sound crystal clear, head butting it, headbutting the microphone out of its stand and on tot he floor. At the end of his short set there's a ‘song’ about a girl who kills herself and the refrain is one long cathartic scream accompanied by a blizzard of noise. When he’s finished there’s people who are genuinely in awe and want to shake his hand. Roll on Bristol.

Before that we saw Campbell at his energetic best. Whether it was the Sam Smiths or he’d won the lottery I know not but for some reason the spirit was with him and for about 30 minutes he howled like a banshee, no he really did howl like a banshee, head back open mouthed from the pit of the stomach roars that he fed into a machine that made them come back in echoing waves as he applied the beats via a couple of Kaoss pads and some gizmos that he flung wildly about. And then he kicked his guitar around, pulled some strings off it and thrashes the living daylights out of it before collapsing all over his equipment like a marathon runner on his last legs. Impressive stuff. Campbell isn’t known for his sat down laptop email checking sets but this was enthusiastic even by his standards, a triumphant triptych of squiggling beats and searing drones that bashed against our ears like the disco next door gone awol.

Even further back came the electro-acoustic men. You can’t seem to move for them in Leeds these days and for that lets give thanks. Door are Leeds newcomers and have some problems with their equipment but still show enough promise to indicate that their best days are in front of them; an upturned cymbal and a couple of Walkmans played through a mixer appeared to be the meat of it and after a sludgy start they manage to create some delightful crystalline, out-there sounds coming through the murk.

Which leaves Spoils & Relics who always seem to deliver a thoughtful chin rubbing set. Three of them hunched over a table lit only by the LED displays of their equipment, a subtle flowing set, I couldn’t see what they were using, too dark, all part of the mystery for me though.

Wharf Chambers seems to be becoming my second home. Tonight its Vile Plumage, Truant, Hagman and the Early Hominids. More electro-acoustic, drone, noise weirdness and with the promise of an alfresco Filthy Turd as pre gig entertainment its to the bus stop for me.

Sleaford Mods - Austerity Dogs

Sleaford Mods - Austerity Dogs
Harbinger Sound. Harbinger 106. LP



‘You’ve got to be able to sell yourself so I stuck my life on eBay. £25 mate.’


Its about time that these shores had some decent working class music to cling to. Proper working class music with an edge and a vitality, a wit and wisdom all of its own. Something that those stuck in a hopeless job can relate to and use as inspiration, something to shove right up the gaffers arsehole. This rampant consumerist, downtrodden, tits up, coalition led, recession stuck nation needs the Sleaford Mods like no band that ever went before. Really needs them. 

‘Do you think riding around on a BMX is going to make me feel intimidated?’

I saw them play in March earlier this year. In Nottingham of course which is where they have now settled and from where they rarely venture. Jason Williamson writes the lyrics, Andrew Fearn mans the lap top, the pair of them share vocals with Williamson getting the lions share. Its a simple set up stripped to the basics, a hammering bass riff coupled to a series of rapid programmed beats. Its all you need. Everything is in the delivery though, lines are delivered in the northern vernacular, each line spat out in rapid succession, each song starts and ends the same, once the bass loop is there it pummels away until the song ends and then in a split second the next one takes its place. Fearn chips in with the odd line, there's the odd three note keyboard solo to fill in the gaps and that's about it.

‘Moving up in the world don’t mean using the lift mate’.

‘Austerity Dogs’ is [I think] a gathering together of cuts from several earlier Sleaford Mod releases with a few new tracks thrown in for good measure. Twelve tracks in all, each one destined for greatness. ‘Urine Mate, Welcome To The Club’ sets the tone with a rap intro by local Forest lad John Paul that mentions the ‘the cunts in the armed labelled coats, looking at me like they want to slit my fucking throat’ … ‘anyway I’m enjoying mesen’ before it all kicks off with the single word ‘Spectre’  which will mean absolutely nothing to anybody living outside Britain, there are no apologies to those who can not unravel the inner workings of the northern working class language, this is as raw as its possible to get, no concessions are made, its one of their greatest strengths.

‘Another pub burnt to the ground, I hated those fucking Motown nights anyway, its like Jive Bunny meets Lucy fucking Pinder … on ice’. 

And there has to be wit of course because when you’re at the bottom of the pile you have to be able to laugh.

‘Brian Eno what the fuck does he know? with his alien haircut’.

By now I’m trying to think of comparisons, maybe the delivery of John Cooper Clarke, Steve Ignorant, Ian Dury, the pumping bass riffs of The Fall, the cheap synth beats of The Normal [as heard on Five Pound Sixty] but its the richness of the lyrics which linger. Some of it makes no sense at all, stream of consciousness, words repeated, ‘wobble, wobble, wobble’ 'I don't like puddings' and then gems like this on ‘Fizzy’ spat out at a rapid rate:

‘The cunt with the gut and the Buzz Lightyear haircut calling all the workers plebs, you better think about your future, you better think about your neck, you better think about the shit hairdo you got mate, I work my dreams off for two bits of ravioli and a warm bottle of Smirnoff under a manager that doesn’t have a clue, do you want me to tell you what I think about you cunt? I don’t think that's a very good idea do you? You pockmarked shit fitting shirt, white Converse and a taste for young girls, don’t send me home with a glint in my eye I told my family about your wage rise ……

 … and then a tourettes like burst of the single word ‘fizzy’ delivered as if to a dog that’s just shat on the laminate.

I want to wax lyrical about it all, about how its filled me with the realisation that there's still a rich stream of truly creative people making music that represents the working class, about how this release has cheered me up no end, about how its put the North back on the map, about how tracks like My Jampandy, McFlurry, Shit Streets Runny, The Wage Don't Fit and Don't Wanna Disco Or Two will all become classics. But I fear I'm not up to the magnitude of the task.

One of the few bands worth following. Clasp them to your hearts for they are your only saviors.

Not sure when this is officially available [I have a test press to go on - Second Layer will no doubt get copies when it arrives] but in the meantime there’s plenty of Sleaford Mods on the web. This is 'Double Diamond' which isn’t on this album. Its all kicking off in Notts ...

Soundcloud



Previous releases


Second Layer

The Tenses - Conform

The Tenses - Conform
Harbinger Sound LP.  Harbinger 91. 100 Copies.



In true Harbinger Sound style this was meant to see the light of day twelve months ago during the Lowest Forms of Music weekender in London. As the world gathered to wallow in all things Los Angeles Free Music Society related these 100 platters were subject to some kind of pressing plant high jinks - maybe the pressing plant burnt down or there was a terrorist attack, or maybe they had all their vinyl diverted in to the making Nicki Minaji 12inchers, an everyday delay is entirely unlikely.

The Tenses are Ju Suk Reete Meate and Oblivia, who also happen to be the core duo of Smegma, that long running [40 years] LAFMS unit that's a rolling, coming and going, loose collective of individuals whose names sound like characters from a surreal drug induced Disney movie [my favourite being Dr. Id and Dr. Odd]. They also make some of the freest, most out there rock music ever to come out of America and if by any chance you are unaware of the greatness that Smegma are capable of then may I kindly suggest that you plug that gap immediately with Pigs For Lepers, or Glamour Girl 1941 or Rumblings or indeed any other Smegma release for that matter. I’ve yet to hear a bad one.

Comparing The Tenses to Smegma seems obvious but there are subtle differences. Without a drummer, sax and various loons talking in to the mic what The Tenses create is a more meditative experience. Oblivia spins and manipulates spoken word records of her own making whilst Meate parps on a bugle before whacking out a few loose Link Wray riffs by way of diversion. Oblivia’s disc spinning throws up detached voices that appear like EVP phantoms, a locked garbled gibberish, some tracks, there are five in all, build repetitive, deranged loops that are capable of limitless transport [a locked groove on the actual record would’ve been perfect]. The pair of them perform like an octopus picking up things that squeak and tinkle, whoop and whirr, make chicken sounds and the kind of noises you hear coming out of a cradle, maybe a shortwave radio in there, a theremin, a device for sending Morse code, whatever, all of it a perfect delight. For the most part its a therapeutic and soporific ride capable of creating the impression that you’re stuck inside the Wizard of Oz movie only with a weirder soundtrack. I guess we’re not in Nicki Minaji country any more.

White labels, paste on covers and no doubt rarer than hens teeth by the time you read this. You could get lucky and score a copy from Second Layer but you’ll need to get your skates on.


Second Layer

Hairdryer Excommunication

Daniel Thomas & Kevin Sanders - Transit timing observations from Kepler
Hairdryer Excommunication. CDR. 50 Copies.

Info

Petals - I saw the sunshine behind the clouds
Hairdryer Excommunication. Cassette. C15.

Info



It would appear that you can’t walk through Leeds these days without tripping over a drone release. I’m not complaining though. After a few lean tumbleweed years the growing number of artists, labels and venues popping up in Leeds is a heartening one. Much better a birth than a dearth and besides Phil and Mel were getting lonely. Its something I keep coming back to when material from up and coming Leeds labels appear but its still worth repeating.

Daniel Thomas’ Sheepscar Light Industrial label is one of the new crop as is Kevin Sanders Hairdryer Excommunication. Like most labels Hairdryer Excommunication began as an outlet for Kevins solo project ‘Petals’ [which I keep getting mixed up with Petrals and the Staple Singers but thats another story] and who judging from his website has a penchant for drone and field recordings.

The field recordings loom large on ‘Keplar’ particularly during the thirty minute ‘For Lincoln Green’ which begins with a retreating thunderstorm whose dying rumbles are joined by the unmistakable spatter of heavy rain. Both tracks are slow moving industrial affairs which entirely befits the fact that both protagonists have lived in an industrial part of Leeds [Thomas continues to do so]. Anyone who has ever passed an industrial part of a northern city on a wet and windy weekend in February will know the feeling of emptiness and loneliness that permeates them: empty car parks, rattling chain link fencing, derelict and crumbling factories, long gone pubs, steel cladded buildings filled with working people that become morose and foreboding sentinels come the weekends. Its all captured here perfectly with two decaying drones whose muted roars of distant machinery shift imperceptibly through different droning gears to forge two compelling listens. Sanders adds bird sounds to the first track [‘Greenhead, dark’] which if anything, makes the work even eerier but its the longer second track that sucks you further in. After the rains have ceased a heavy dirge-like oscillating drone becomes the focal point around which overhead planes come in to land and a number of [I’m guessing] synth led pokes reach the surface. A melancholy work of Industrial brilliance.


The industrial roar as heard on ‘I saw the sunshine behind the clouds’ is not an entirely different beast. One side is a cavernous blast, an unyielding beast that feels like it emanated from the front of a fifteen foot fan rotating at a seriously dangerous speed, not a million miles away from one of my favourite noise releases that being Aube’s G-Radiation in which Nakajima used only glow lamps as sound source. The flip is more ethereal and flighty, a dreamy affair in which swirling keyboards are planted on to other more droney swirly keyboards.  All housed in a rinky-dink oversized cassette box the sight of which made my heart leap with joy. Nothing like Petrals at all really.

Aqua Dentata

 

Aqua Dentata - Lesbian Semiotics At A Jewellery Table

Echo Tango. etc01. CDR. 50 Copies.

Aqua Dentata - March Hare, Kraken Mare
Beartown Records. CDR. 40 Copies.


Eddie Nutall recent arrival on the drone stage seems to have taken everybody by surprise. From nowhere four releases have sprung resulting in praise scattered at his feet like palm leaves on the road to Leeds. And its easy to see why, a recent outing at Wharf Chambers had every single person present held in rapt attention, on a night where more boisterous elements held sway Aqua Dentata’s fragile bowl ring drone rang out like the purest of hearing sorbets. I phoned the Cammster to see what he thought and after ten minutes of gushing and tales of gigs in Bristol and the purchasing of everything with Aqua Dentata on it I got the message.

Only four Aqua Dentata releases in existence then and if these were to be the last then I’m in no doubt that what we have here would become serious collectors items. What I consider more likely is the continued creation of further stunning material along with requests from labels and emails from promoters wanting Aqua Dentata on their bills. Anything less would be a tragedy.

So why all the fuss? Maybe its the purity at work here, or the way these drones unfurl in such an unhurried manner, the minimalist way in which just a handful of sounds marry leaving the listener held rapt and transported, comforted and satisfied. This isn't just ear food its brain food too.

On first listen the unobservant ear may take these drones to be cut from the same cloth but closer inspection reveals a greater depth. The 34 minute single track as found on ‘Lesbian Semiotics …’ is immensely satisfying, the clearest and least cluttered of the two releases in which a single tone slowly emerges to be joined by another, each of them ebbing and flowing and changing in pitch only ever so slightly during its course. 'March Hare, Kraken Mare' represents the material that we heard at Wharf Chambers, here a bowed bowl rings serenely along with seemingly randomly dropped in bass notes as if some hidden double bass player was littering the piece with sparse lingering notes. There's three tracks with a shorter five minute piece sandwiched in-between, a beguiling piece that sounds like a desolate train whistle accompanied by rattling steel pipes. On the final track the cinematic scope of Nuttall’s work becomes evident, its easy to imagine this deeply grained structure sitting snugly in Eraserhead or a Ridley Scott cinemascoped descent onto an unknown planet. This is deeply eerie, moving, desolate, and mysterious work, a track that manages to capture the feelings of estrangement, desolation, emptiness, sadness and loss. A mighty effort and one that deserves a much wider audience.

Another fine example of the beast that is the No Audience Underground then and as befits the NAU [acronym alert] March Hare, Kraken Hare has sold out, copies of Lesbian Semiotics are still available though and if I was you I'd be getting in touch sharpish.

Contact: www.aquadentata.org

SPON 21

SPON 21 [The Carlito Juanito Issue]
A5 zine + The Dr Steg Sampler - 17 track CDR. 23 copies.





I’ve been having one of my major clear-outs again. I should really adopt a one in one out policy here at Idwal Towers but as ever laziness gets the better of me. As do the charity shops whose doors I pass through with great regularity exiting with books, shirts and records most of which usually end up making the return journey some years down the line. This recent clear-out has been particularly ruthless though, the floor standing electric fan that arrived with Mrs Fisher 13 years ago and has only been switched on about three times since has, along with two rucksacks and various other bits and bobs, found its way in to the arms of the Batley branch of the Salvation Army where two sweet old ladies took the crud off my hands with unhidden joy. Various CDR dubs of stuff I can get for free off the internet have also been jettisoned along with magazines, old spectacles, pens that hardly wrote and various items of clothing that I'd have to wait twenty years to see come back in to fashion. It does you good to get rid of stuff. Better to travel lightly than be weighed down by tons of crap you have neither the use nor the space for.

The day will come when I’ll have to start getting rid of things like this too but not before extolling its surreal virtues to your good selves. SPON 21is actually a mail order catalog for Blackpool legend Stan Batcow's extensive Pumf label printed in coloured ink on to tracing paper, which means plenty of Ceramic Hobs amongst the myriad of Batcowian delights, it also makes it very hard to read.

The CD is, I’m suspecting, 17 tracks of SPON creator Dr Steg’s favourite music with all the bands given aliases so as to escape some kind of fall out from the performing rights people. I’ve tried Googling some of them and have received in return nothing but nonsense which leads me to believe that they're all of Steg’s imagination. Could these artists and tracks really exist: Judith Cheescake [sic] - ‘Read My Aura’, Eggy Grin - ‘Lick His Toes’, Steroid Growth - ‘Enormous Breasts’ and The 5 T.V. Sets - ‘Moppet Body’? Between them they produce the kind of guff heard on adverts for mobile phones, a harmless genre of music that has an initial charm but which ultimately grates, twee, soulless wiffery that sounds like it wears a plaid shirt and lives in Scandinavia or some tumbleweed town in the American Midwest.

Another baffling edition to the SPON canon.





Contact: http://www.batcow.co.uk/steg/contact.htm

Paddington + Smell & Quim

Paddington
Issue 7
192 page perfect bound Russian language magazine including Smell & Quim CD release Lavatory.






Its been quite a few years since Phil Wolotkin graced these shores. Under his Monopolka moniker the St Petersburg resident treated us to a number of tours during which he stripped to his undergarments, donned a rubber duck mask and thraped merrily away at a toy guitar aided by a bank of noise gadgets. A performance not entirely dissimilar to that of a lunatic having an epileptic fit in a Toys R Us. He’s still talked of fondly in noise circles and tales abound of him kipping in bushes during one tour and complaining loudly about the price of cigarettes, the price of which, after first purchasing a packet in the UK, he thought to be some kind of sadistic joke. I saw him play in Leeds a couple of times and most memorably at the second No Trend Fest in London [the one that sank] a shambolic gig that paradoxically led to some superb solo performances.

Back in Russia he now publishes Paddington a Russian language magazine the latest issue of which is devoted almost entirely to Milovan Srdenovic, Smell & Quim and Wolotkin's love of the English west coast and the denizens of Blackpool. Unfortunately for me and for non Russian reading Smell & Quim fans this means that you either have to sit with a Russian dictionary and translate or just look at the pictures. Some of the articles have been taken verbatim from the Smell & Quim website so all is not lost but its still worth having as a document just so that you have a decent collection of Smell & Quim ephemera all in one place. And there’s Lavatory of course, which if you haven’t got yet, makes this an essential purchase.

Worth getting for the picture of Steven Fricker on the inside cover. Fricker has played live with S&Q and continues to remain the forgotten man of the UK noise scene. Said picture shows Fricker stood at a bar, his most natural habitat.


Apparently very few copies of this magazine have made it to these shores but I'm sure an email in Russia's direction can change all that.

Lavatory review here.



Paddington


Smell & Quim

Hyster Tapes and the no audience underground.

Uton/Grey Park
Hyster16.
Split cassette. 50 copies. €3 or trade.




Over at Radio Free Midwich my comrade in arms, Rob Hayler, is basking in the warm glow of recognition as bestowed upon him by the music critic and writer Simon Reynolds. For those who missed it Reynolds keynote speech at last months Incubate festival gave mention to Rob and the ‘the no audience underground’ a phrase that Rob has coined to describe the world in which a 20 minute 3 inch CDR of 25 copies containing a fierce howling drone can bring on raptures capable of wild and enthusiastic discourse. Its not all howling drone of course, the remit covers just about anything of a ‘difficult nature’ that exists on labels run by people with buckets of enthusiasm and not much money. Its a place where small run editions and hand decoration are the norm, where the cassette and CDR are king, where emails and blog posts create a nexus that unfolds until you have a small community where the name Midwich means everything and profit is a laughable and easily discarded conecpt. Its a world in which me and Rob feel the most comfortable in. It’s a very different one from the slick celebrity, force fed, iTune friendly, clinically sliced, stunted attention span, regurgitated Guardianista mediocrity that passes for whatever flows down mainstream street in 2012.

In the no audience underground you receive a recycled tape from a label in Finland. A label that is a favourite of mine due to the fact that they release unclassifiable but wonderful music at the rate of about one cassette a year. This is the 16th Hyster release in 14 years.

Previous packages have included demented piano hammerings from France, Soviet radio broadcasts, drones, needles stuck in fluff filled grooves, industrial ambience, guitar abuse, tapes, synths, lap tops, talking, singing, found sounds, abused disco and the odd struck bass string, all from a variety of names most of whom will be new to those who never dip a toe into such waters: Dieter Müh, Culver, Courtis, Re-Clip and Crank Sturgeon to name but a few.

Uton describe their sounds as ‘experimental psychedelia’ which works OK, but I’d much prefer haunting ritualistic missives in which Keiji Heino mutters the odd word into an egg whisk [this on Sähköhomooni]. On ‘Aquarias’ the warbling vocalese as last heard on Hamburger Lady reappears this time with a trickling stream, restrained guitar thrash and gently struck milk bottles for company, its as if motherly Gen was trying to sing you to sleep whilst Heino [him again] practices downstairs with his headphones on. The rest is equally as joyous.

Grey Park’s three tracks span 1979 to 2012. I’m guessing ‘Black Keys’ is the more recent work, a looped two note synth refrain that morphs into a seriously melancholy thrum in which the movie sampled phrase ‘black keys’ is looped and morphed into decay. ‘Waiting Music’ is a mid Hertz hum with wheezing accordion and tapped cymbal for company and I’m guessing that the one minute and twenty seven seconds of electric guitar scrape, bass pluck, drone and adult voice manipulated to sound like a baby crying is the track from 1979. If so, then bravo.

This then is a prime example of what I’m dreading will become the acronym NAU [or should that be TNAU?]; around forty minutes of wonderment destined to never reach more than the fifty people who go to the effort to get one of these. But what lucky people those fifty are.

Contact: http://www.pcuf.fi/~plaa/rev.html

Radio Free Midwich

Simon Reynolds at Incubate [RFM mentioned at 38 minutes]

Human Horses / Castrato Attack Group / Etai Keshiki

 

Part Wild Horses Mane On Both Sides + Human Combustion Engine - Human Horses
Memoirs of an Aesthete. CD.
250 copies. 

Castrato Attack Group/Etai Kisheki - castratoattackgroupetaikeshiki
Hypnowave 02/Memoirs of an Aesthete MOA K7 001
Split cassette.




Every once in a while there's something emerges from the review pile that refuses to budge. It happens when an artifact of extraordinary listening pleasure refuses to take its place on the past reviewed shelf and insists that I return to it again and again and again. Its one of the pleasures of deep listening and one of the major benefits of not writing to deadlines. Ever since I gave up the zine publishing game my listening pleasure has been advanced a thousand fold simply by listening to music deeply and by that I mean ‘properly’. That means actually sitting and listening to something and paying it the attention that it deserves. Nothing wrong at all with having a bit of background music and something to make your day move along a little smoother but to become intimate with a piece of music and its twists and curves and nuances and delights rewards your time in ways that a cursory listen never will.

Take pity then on those who have paid only passing attention to Human Horses  for they are the ones to have missed out on a major connecting of spirits. Part Wild Horses Mane Both Sides consists of the percussionist Pascal Nichols and flautist Kelly Jones whilst Human Combustion engine lives as the synth project of Phil Todd and Mel Delaney - in this live forty minute improvised piece they capture that ethereal magical thing that is improv heaven. Improv heaven being the elusive and fluid beast that burns brightest when the assembled players achieve an empathetic balance resulting in a work thats a true one off.

Throughout the entire 41 minutes and 49 seconds of this release I have been nothing less than spellbound. Maybe its the way that the skittering drums compliment the light fingered haunting flute, or the way that the spacey synths float in like summer butterflies landing only briefly, leaving the faintest of marks. At times the drums become slightly more energetic and the synths build to a swirl, at times there’s the sounds of church bells, then an ebbing away to leave the flute alone or maybe a single [analogue of course] synth burbling all on its own as if its ticking over and only after thirty minutes becoming warmed to the task.

You could compare it to jazz of a kind as yet named, or Popol Vuh reincarnated but what this really is is the sound of Northern England in 2012 setting standards that others must match.

I’ve only become recently aware of Part Wild Horses Mane Both Sides [even though they've been recording for about the past four years] and feel eager to hear more of their work, there's something about the joining together of drums and flute that I find melancholy and soothing. But what about Human Combustion Engine? A Phil and Mel side project that I was rtotally unaware of. The streets of LS6 must echo to their multifarious outlets.

I’m deeply jealous of those who attended this gig, in Manchester [Salford?], sometime in 2012. By the sound of the applause that appears enthusiastically at its conclusion the venue was hardly a seething mass of bodies but those who were there witnessed something very special.

The Toddmiester also appears as bass player in the Castrato Attack Group where his bass guitar props up some seriously heavy riffage as spewed by the likes of Hawkwind, Acid Mothers Temple, rock Ramleh and Swedish proggers Arbete Och Fritid. This is the Leeds fringe good time Friday night band where splurging out to one long head shaking thumbs in belt loops shoulder gyrating rock-a-thon is the perfect antidote to a week spent trying to not catch diseases from those whose money passes through your hands.

Etai Kisheki also hail from Leeds. I saw them play live a while back in an all out no wave attack of angular limbs and angular thrashing. The female vocalist sings like she’s trapped in a burning building, the guitars are suitably filthy and the  drummer sounds like he’s got three arms. Damned good fun if you ask me.

[All the above are available as downloads].



Memoirs of an Aesthete

Hypnowave



 

MK9 Con-Dom ... Wharf Chambers Review

CONTENT NULLITY

CON-DOM

MK9
CON-DOM
Content Nullity
Cremation Lily
Cementimental
The Digitariat

Wharf Chambers, Leeds, 12th October 2012.



I was wondering whether my appetite for Power Electronics and Noise was waning. I pondered the thought as I drove in to Leeds where for three hours or more my hearing would receive a decent shellacking [and I have an auditory test at work next week which should prove interesting].

As I type this my ears are still whistling quite loudly. My hearing is already damaged and I suppose a little more abuse wont do it much harm. To add insult to growing old misery I’m already going blind and need readers as thick as washer doors so the hearing aid will become just another appendage to my dotage.

It was indeed very loud. The PA set up at Wharf Chambers accommodates the kind of bands that like to wander into the noisier end of the spectrum, its something that venues of a less dedicated nature shy away from thus depriving the noise artist of his main weapon of attack. As I arrive I’m told that I’ve just missed a very good Digitariat set which upsets me a little. I feel I have an affinity with Paul Knowles live work having witnessed his very first gig many years ago [under the Dachise guise and coincidently supporting CON-DOM]. His anti capitalist rants go down well here at Idwal Towers so I don’t get to hear him yell ‘You work in a neon Victorian workhouse’ over a coruscating swirl of noise. Maybe next time.

The first full set I witness is Cementimental whose circuit bending shenanigans are brittle and painful. Smashing a gadget held together with tie wraps in to the corner of the table this is full on noise in true mid 90’s Jap style. In your face for the most part with little in the way of respite. I have to escape at its conclusion for some fresh air and pose the Toddmeister the age old question of whether one night of full on noise is too much for those past 25 years of age. Already feeling noise weary I sit out the next act [Cremation Lily] which I’m again told was excellent in a ‘that man was amazing he was contorting his body into shapes that a body should’t go’ kind of way. It was certainly loud even with a solid brick wall as buffer.

Things go quiet for a while as it emerges that Content Nullity hasn’t arrived. After an eight hour drive he does appear and has to soundcheck before smearing himself with what could be soot and delivering a terrific set of classic PE. Resplendent in CON-Dom t-shirt and braces he adopts classic PE stances whilst delivering screaming volleys of anguish aided by stabs of analogue synth and the odd knob. Its an accomplished performance in which he throws himself into whole heartedly. Considering the circumstances its an incredible performance.

As ever, seeing CON-DOM on the bill is in itself a reason to be still alive. Its with no sense of hyperbole at all that I tell you that I think Mike Dando is not just one of the best PE acts ever but one of the best live performers ever, in any genre of popular music you care to mention. Dando’s presence on the stage is one of genuine disquiet. The sight of the the bald headed Dando raging into a microphone, face buried into the audience is one that never leaves you. These are genuinely confrontational performances. A room wheeling with the distinct incessant squeal and chatter of primitively culled noises pound at your hearing whilst just inches away a man stripped to the waist shoves his head into yours and screams and rants and raves. Behind him crude images of evangelic preachers mingle with the sights of everyday folk going about their business. He imitates one scene by taking off his boots and inserting stones, no doubt mocking Job and his Biblical suffering [but I’ll leave that interpretation open to you]. He eventually ends up on the floor still screaming, writhing and pushing the stones into his bony frame, the audience gawp, bent, rapt trying to catch every move.

MK9 rounds off an excellent evening with a chilling Orwellian set that juxtaposes humdrum imagery with that of total horror, despair and revulsion. A backdrop of films shows a man digging a hole, then a town in America ripped apart and blazing from a cracked gas pipe, then some rain on a porch, then a car park with distant passing traffic until finally you get the painful images of American warplane cameras capturing in their crosshairs the last moments of human beings before being blown to smithereens. Using the two-way radio traffic of the gas explosion as soundsource MK9 rages into the microphone about the failure of the gas company, titles appear like Corporate Greed Equals Death a splitscreen shows us unmanned drones seeking their targets in Pakistan whilst being maneuvered games console style by gum chewing females in Nevada. There’s no ear pounding as such just plenty of food for thought.




My ears are still whistling. I dare say they will be for a while but it was worth it.


 

Sheepscar Light Industrial 02.

 

The Skull Mask - Ella Y Su Mirada Lasciva

Sheepscar Light Industrial. SLI.004
3” CDR. 50 copies.

Hagman - Wormwood
Sheepscar Light Industrial. SLI.005
3” CDR. 50 copies.

Midwich - Eaves
Sheepscar Light Industrial. SLI.006
3” CDR. 50 copies.

Andrew Jarvis - Cardigan Arms
Sheepscar Light Industrial. SLI.007
3” CDR. 50 copies.

Aqua Dentata - A Staircase Missing
Sheepscar Light Industrial. SLI.008
3” CDR. 50 copies.

Petals - Whether To Drown
Sheepscar Light Industrial. SLI.009
3” CDR. 50 copies.



I was talking to the Cammster on the blower the other night when the name Sheepscar Light Industrial came up. The Cammster, like me, was very much enamored with the first few SLI releases but after seeing a further six come to light in such quick succession was worried that SLI cheese Daniel Thomas was trying to talk before he could grunt. Too many releases all at once old chap, the worry of enthusiasm blinding the quality control sensors and they’re so cheap [£1.50], surely this is the way to the workhouse and ruin? Too fast too soon, can’t keep up this work rate, quality will suffer, all said in a slightly ‘we know what we’re talking about’ voice, arms folded across chest, head nodding in a condescending fashion.

Which is all bollocks of course.

Well, theres going to be some lows in and amongst the highs but the lows are hardly worth mentioning whilst the highs are high things of such high-ness that I’m going to have to be careful not to crash the gushometer.

But gush I will over Midwich and the 20 minutes worth of a simple looped, slightly phased bell-like ringing melody that begins life with a digital recorder stuck in the Midwich eaves capturing the comings and goings of neighbour's children and some hive building bees. Like all good Midwich work its simplicity is its greatest strength. The Bearded Wonder played us all a version of this work at a recent Wharf Chambers gig and it carried us all off beautifully. A serious contender for the head bobber of the year award.

All of these releases have drone at their heart except for The Skull Mask. The twanging Mexican who has found comrades in Leeds seems to be able to play two guitar at once. Except its not that of course. Two slightly phased guitars playing an attack of strings with the usual Derek Bailey fingers stuck in soundhole panache. Its all fine and dandy but if only Miguel would calm down a bit. This is work that would benefit from a lull in proceedings now and again. I’ve nothing against a bit of frenetic guitar improv and it all sounds crystal clear and impressive but I yearn for space and the opportunity to hear a string ring out on its own once in a while.

Andrew Jarvis [best Sunday name] heads to Leeds and the Cardy Arms for a bit of guitar thrape as attached to a table top covered in various gubbins that emit various throbbing pulses. The thraped guitar couple to gadgets drone is one that works for me, a thraped guitar on its own can empty a room quicker than a deadly fart but stick some electronics all over it and I’ll stay there all day. Mr, Jarvis has many strings to his bow and this is evidence of another to add to his collection. I just wish I’d have been there to witness it.

Eddie Nutall’s project Aqua Dentata is another name that had me and the Cammster cooing in delight. The Cammster shared a stage with him in Stoke Newington earlier this year, went to see him him play in Bristol, bought his merch and became a fan. AD’s approach is a simple one that pays dividends, a processed rung bowl that takes in various electronica producing wonderfully flowing organic drones that become all encompassing and enveloping.

Petals recent performance at Dwarf Chamber had me teetering on the edge of indifference courtesy of too many massed choirs and heavy keyboard riffs, a bit like John Lord meets Arvo Pärt - not such a bad idea on paper now that I read it but on the night a bit too magnanimous and bloated for my liking. This is much better, a dirty raucous roar that disappears into a blizzard of radio white noise whilst the second shorter track has an almost industrial ambience to it.

Which leaves Hagman, the work of Daniel Thomas who judging from these two tracks is a droning industrialists delight. Wormwood and Squashed Fly flutter and crawl with drones pulled from the soundboard of 23rd century cargo ship. Muted warning alarms that oscillate and throb and churn, a bleak soundtrack to a dead and dusty planet.


Six releases all at once and no harm done.


Contact: http://sheepscar.blogspot.co.uk/

Gruenrekorder

David Michael - The Slaughter House
Gruenrekorder. CD.  Gruen 104

V/A  - Sounds Like Silence - Cage/4’33″/Stille – 1912–1952–2012
Gruenrekorder. CD.  Gruen 116

Artificial Memory Trace - Ultrealith
Gruenrekorder. CD.  Gruen 110



Those of you expecting to be traumatized by David Michael’s ‘The Slaughter House’ will be relieved to hear that this was and never will be PETA fodder or a campaigning hammer for animal activists. Mainly because for the most part, this is two people going about their job as hired slaughtermen, in a very matter of fact way, with very little in the way of histrionics or uneasiness.

The slaughter house in question is a father and son business run out of Birmingham Alabama in which animals are slaughtered one at a time to order, via a single gunshot between the eyes. Hysterical screaming and the sadistic sounds of knackers being kicked there is none. There is though the sounds of hydraulic lifts, water splashing on tiles, hand saws, electric saws, pig squeals and most importantly the dialogue that runs between father and son and recordist David Michaels who obviously knows his place and answers questions from the pair with direct and swift ‘yes sirs’ and ‘no sirs’ and if I was sharing a room with two men with guns and lots of blood and meat floating about I’d do the same.

These men obviously know their job and take great pride in their work, the father ushers in a beast with a series of ‘c’mon girl, c’mon girl’ and after a few minutes of ushering there’s the sound of a single shot. Several beasts are slaughtered during the course of this release none of them being dispatched with anything near the calamity that many people assume comes as standard in such places. But as interesting as all this is the actual sounds generated [the reason we’re all here I assume?] are hardly riveting. Whilst ‘Head Comes Off, Innards Come Out’ may lead you to believe that for the next twelve minutes you’re going to be subjected to some kind of disturbing sonic extremity the reality is anything but; two men sawing through bones and chatting as a fan buzzes merrily away. And whilst sawing and swilling and chatting are OK the real joy comes from the banter found between father, son and Michael’s whose demeanor throughout is deferential and whose voice fails to hide a slightly nervous disposition. After a pig has been dispatched in ‘Hogs Arrived’ the son solemnly asks Michael’s ‘are you alright?’ It can’t have been easy for any of them.


‘Sounds Like Silence’ is a straight lift from a radio program broadcast via Deutschlandradio Kultur on the 24th of August this year. In case you were unaware 2012 sees the hundredth anniversary of John Cage’s birth and there’s been various performances, exhibitions and radio programs to help celebrate this fact [I spent last Saturday night catching up with the various Radio 3 broadcasts devoted to Cage and enjoyed pretty much all of it but discovered only after the fact that Nyoukis and Constance were part of the Proms tribute to the man - bugger].

It goes without saying that Cage’s 4’33’’ is one of the 20th centuries most important compositions and remains one of the few works with the ability to divide an audience like no other. Its a great litmus test too, ask someone what they think of Cage’s 4’33’’ and if you get a dumb answer you can be pretty certain that the person you’re addressing has no imagination at all and should be excluded from the next round. Barnsley poet Ian Macmillan recently included 4’33’’ as one of his Desert Island Discs and had to virtually beg the host to play just a bit of it, the BBC fearing, as it does, that even a smidgen of silence will lead bemused listeners to tune away to other channels. But as stated here, the two seconds of silence that follows the last bong of Big Ben that signals the start of the BBC 6 O’Clock news is perhaps one of the most potent silences on the radio, the silence being heavy with portent.

The CD is divided into six rooms, in each of which 4’33’’ is approached in a different manner. ‘Room One’ contains various versions of 4’33’ as recorded by Cage and the introduction to the studio recording of Cage Against The Machine’s anti-single. ‘Room Three’ contains silences as broadcast on the radio including an extract from Marinetti’s ‘I Silenzi Parlano Fra Di Loro’ and the silences heard during various remembrance ceremonies. And so it goes, David Allen, Gruenrekorder’s own Lasse-Marc Riek, People Like Us, Nam June Paik and Cage himself of course. The last track on ‘Room Six’ comes courtesy of Einstürzende Neubauten and an excerpt of their track ‘Silence is Sexy’ which is all very arty and Teutonic and fitting which is probably why there’s no sign of Simon and Garfunkel’s mawkish ‘Sounds of Silence’ or The Tremeloes ‘Silence is Golden’. No sign here either of the two minutes silence as observed at Princess Diana’s funeral which was later released as a seven inch single and my other two favorite ‘silent’ tracks, Whitehouse’s ‘Birthdeath Experience’ and The New Blockaders ‘Symphony in O Minor’. All the tracks included are excerpts of course.

The presenters of the show speak in both German and English but theres enough English included to make this but the smallest of stumbling blocks for non German speakers


Cage also appears in Ultrealith. This being the name Slavek Kwi gives to his collection of ’electroacoustic sound paintings’ as recorded under his Artificial Memory Trace moniker. Cage appears on track five, a two minute piece entitled ‘Monochrome [1]’ in which multi tracked loops of Cage’s voice produce a dizzying babble of voices with just the odd snippet of clarity revealing a certain phrase or a single word.

Cage would no doubt have approved highly in the way Kwi mixes the sounds of insects as found in several different countries to make one unique sound. Or the way, in the space of one track, he takes a recording of an inmate of a lunatic asylum strumming an acoustic guitar and singing, a game of table tennis, the Perth Metro, a coffee shop in Singapore and some leaf toads in the Amazon. It may look like a bit of an had hoc chucked together misshapen mess on paper but the results are stunning, its like Reynols got it together with Francisco Lopez.

There’s plenty to admire here. I am in awe. In the hypnotic 13 minute opener ‘Meadow [for Paul Coenjaarts]’ you’ll hear a pleasantly burbling stream, a straight to the center of the brain bowl ring, bird chatter, random ticking, a female voice that says ‘what do you think?’ and a low hertz industrial throb that appears and then slowly disappears. ‘Insectin’ contains the sounds of insects recorded in the Amazon, nocturnal birds from Zanzibar beneath which lies some fine electroacoustic crackle. These are sounds that caress the ear, some recorded underwater, some existing on the very edge of human hearing.

My only regret [and I think I’ve voiced this before with Gruenrekorder releases] is that I don’t have the reproduction equipment to match the quality of these recordings. These are some of the most vibrant, exotic and delightful sounds I’ve come across in many a year. I sincerely hope that one day I come across one of Kwi’s installations. I shall walk and listen in open wonder at his fine achievements.





Contact: Gruenrekorder

Brown

Normal Man - That Joyless Vibe
Horrible Injury Records. STAB001
Cassette. 200 copies

Brown - Ride the Lightning
Horrible Injury Records. STAB008
CDR. 40 Copies.

Legion Of Swine/Brown - Split
Horrible Injury/OJUD STAB009.5/OJUD001
Cassette. C30. 50 Copies

You’ll Learn - Live At Test Space
Horrible Injury Records. STAB003
CDR. 25 Copies






Noah Brown is the person whose name links all these titles. He’s the person who shoved  the tatty carrier bag containing all this plus his comics in to my drunken arms as I slid down my chair at a recent Wharf Chambers gig. There was a lot to take in [the comics can be seen here] and I’ve taken my time which I’m glad for because what we have here is some marvelous solo experimentation, some super sloppy thrashgrungewailgunk courtesy of Normal Man offset with some rather duff improv.

Seeing as how the review pile was teetering out of control and I had a ten day trip coming up I decided to download and rip what I could of the above and use it as aural defence/stimulation when traveling on trains in bits of foreign lands where normal chatter is proved meaningless by it being spoken in languages I did not understand. It worked a treat.

Like the bearded wonder over at RFM, I have trouble finding bands with which to compare Normal Man to. All my references are years out of date, twenty years out of date at least so with my totally out of touch reviewers hat on here's what I heard; the guitarist plays heavy riffs that sound like Tony Iommi’s [especially on opener 'The Barrel' and 'Fucked With a Bone'], the bass player sounds like the bass player in Primus, the singer sounds like Iggy Pop [I imagine him strutting and posturing to the audience] and Brown drums like er ... I dunno but its good drumming. Stand out track ‘The Black Hitler’ sounds like The Strangulated Beatoffs, some tracks sound like The Happy Flowers and while I haven’t listened to anything remotely like Normal Man for donkeys years I find myself enjoying it immensely whilst digging out records by the aforementioned to relive those days when I nodded my head to something that wasn’t Astral Social Club. I look forward to the day I can see them play live and become the oldest person in the audience.

Browns experimentations under his own name [and you have to admit that using a surname as ubiquitous as Brown for your work is something of a masterstroke] are the real delight here. Ride The Lightning as a title didn’t fill me with anticipation but the hours worth of delightful sonic experimentation did. Brown uses his own voice and those of sampled others and mixes them with various electronic treatments to create atmospheres that sound like soundtracks to mentally disturbed patients getting electroconvulsive therapy treatment. Indeed ‘Grease Slit’ sounds like the mumbled incoherent double tracked vocals as heard coming from the mouths of those weird sisters who seemed to speak in a language that only they understand, this after a gruff Yorkshire voice can just about be heard saying ‘av smacked meslef int cunt’ a voice that carries on its looped verbiage through various bits of the tracks length. There’s audio verite of a street culled nature, some of which are used as background to a series of cut and pasted vocal tics and half sentences that come around like looped tourettes utterances. ‘Snake Guns’ makes use of Brown’s drumming ability in which he monotonously hits a solitary snare drum to the accompaniment of a typewriter bell and various electronic squiggles. The standout track here is the last and longest, ‘Doctor Office Featuring Mouse Mouth’ drifts serenely on a bed of synth wave beginning with a metronymic Geiger counter blip and a voice slowed down to such a degree that it sounds like a pig hunting for truffles, or maybe it is a pig hunting for truffles? What irks me most is that Brown has chosen a blurred image of a suburban back garden for sleeve art and a naff title. Having seen and admired his handiwork with a drawing pen its hard to understand why on both accounts. This is a work that would interest labels as diverse as Mego and Gruenrekroder and here it sits the last of 40 copies that will probably slide in to anonymity. Lets hope not.

After such highs, Brown’s solo work on the Legion Of Swine spilt comes as a bit of a disappointment. Six short tracks of dumber than dumb noise that I suppose acted as some kind of catharsis for Brown. At least it matched the 12 minutes worth of spastic information loss noise found on the flip.

Which leaves You’ll Learn, a three piece improv outfit for which Brown also drums. Along with two electric guitars and mic feedback they manage to build up various heads of steam that blow and calm down along its thirty minute route but with seemingly little in the way of interaction there's little to please either.

Still, lets not get too upset. Mr. Brown has lots of fingers in lots of pies and I’m sure one of them will become the dominant force eventually.





Contact: Horrible Injury

Ramleh - Awake!

Ramleh - Awake!
8CD Box set including booklet, poster, artwork and 2 x button badges.

Harbinger Sound. Harbinger054



You have to be in a particularly good mood to listen to the noisy side of Ramleh, or … maybe a very bad one. I can’t say that I have listened as intently to all of these CD’s with the same intensity as that which I listen to most of my other review material mainly because I couldn’t decide what mood I was in whilst listening to it all. Over the last few weeks and months I’ve inserted each disc and let it play while going about my domestic business to find that what emerges from the speakers alters very little throughout its eight disc course. There will be those who argue differently but for all intents and purpose the fuck you racket created by the first incarnation early 80’s Ramleh was about as sophisticated as a slug. It wasn’t until I got to CD number eight and the last three tracks of that particular disc that it dawned on me that Ramleh didn’t just do screaming noise mixed with the odd neo Nazi speeches, no, there was experimentation and a view to the future that involved a very definite change of stance, its just that it took me seven and a half CD’s to get there. It was then that I discovered that these last three tracks were amongst a number that didn’t make it on to the original Broken Flag 1985 Awake! six cassette box set and have been added to give a bigger picture. Thanks to the obsessive nature of Harbinger Sound those six cassettes have been scraped clean and stuck on to CD’s with all the loving care a noise afflicted junky can give them [imagine the fearsome screech that emanated from the originals] back in the mid 80’s this was all part of the appeal though; the raw sound, the nefarious imagery, the provocative track titles, the violent gigs, the thrill of being in the knowledge that here was a band who weren’t afraid to release something on the anniversary of Adolf Eichmann’s death and have him as cover star to boot, a band who released recordings of speeches made by the American neo-Nazi George Rockwell [with added Ramleh experimentation of course], a band who collaborated with and shared stages with Phillip Best, William Bennett, Richard Rupenus and through founding member Gary Mundy have not only someone who was more than willing to shake up the status quo but originate Broken Flag, perhaps the most influential label to emerge from within the UK in the early 80’s.

There are differences in sound of course. ‘31/5/62/82’ [the one with Eichmann on the cover and the first Ramleh/Broken Flag release] is a home recording made by Mundy and then Ramleh partner Bob Strudwick. Using a Casio keyboard, a Wasp synth and and two mics run through an echo box they produced a barrage of squealing feedback noise in which barely decipherable screamed vocals are emitted with the insane intensity of a spittle flecked ranting lunatic. Any hint of professionalism towards proceedings disappears with abrupt endings and an urge to get the thing over and done with inside six tracks and thirty minutes.

Two years and six CD’s down the line we have ‘The Hand of Glory’ seven inch EP and a sound thats still immediately Ramleh but a Ramleh working in a far more controlled atmosphere. The vocals are still as raw and rough and mangled but the feedback comes at you like a knife, along with a dangerous undertow of rumbling noise that continuously pummels the hearing.

I still keep coming back to those last three tracks on disc eight though. They were in fact recorded at around the same time of ‘31/5/62/82’ but never released. They show Ramleh in a highly experimental mood all swirling keyboards and looped backwards vocals. The very last track of all is entitled ‘Towards A Better Future’. It contains the cut and looped sound of what appears to be an extract from a Saturday afternoon wrestling match. Make of that what you will.

Ramleh appeared at a time when Gary Mundy thought the mainstream world of music was staid and boring and in need of a shake up. By the time the first incarnation of Ramleh spilt in 1984 he was right, from then on the mainstream world of music has slid inexorably  downward on a spiral from which it has rarely, if ever slowed. What I find slightly saddening is that we need Ramleh now more than ever. If Mundy thought that the early 80’s music scene needed shaking up I shudder to think what he thinks of it in 2012.

The enclosed booklet is a delight containing as it does images of flyers, hand written lyrics, distro lists, early reviews, gig posters, Broken Flag sleeves and masses of information about who was on what and which tracks have been salvaged for inclusion and then there's the signed Phillip Best artwork and the pin badges. That's plenty to go at for your money.

Awake! is a tiring listen but then I expected nothing else. An in depth review of all 8 CD’s is beyond me and judging by a trawl of the internet beyond other scribes too.  As I’ve said before, lots of this has passed me by in a swirl of primitive noise cum power electronics but its been an enlightening experience all the same. Harbinger Sound have done a tremendous job in putting all this together and along with everybody else in this project deserve great credit.