EIDETIC SEEING "Drink the Sun" (ESR)

I just returned from a tour that involved driving thru Iowa and Illinois several times, so I was looking for a little bit of New York flavor today. There's a tape and record shop a couple blocks from my place, it's about the size of a walk-in closet and manages to keep it stocked with interesting stuff. While pulling out the local cassettes a 20-something came in off the street shouting "COLLECT THE FLIERS AND WATCH THE TAPES" he left Vinyl Fantasy immediately to spread the good word to the streets.

Local flavor accomplished.

Eidetic Seeing stood out to me with it's grayscale cover. I figured it would be some heavy tones, perhaps some industrial drone or doom. I popped it into my deck, and was hit with the sizzling grind of a fuzz guitar that doesn't stop for the duration of the album. Drink the Sun manages to lay down blankets of mellow grind in conjunction with the aggressive oscillations- the melodic strength of the guitar is what makes this album stand out from the pack of Sabbath-acolytes. 

The last minute of Side A- on 'Primeribneon/Waves and Radiation' is the album's strongest point, everything sprawls into a feedback loop, which is then twisted around with some electrical acrobatics into a coherent melody. Cool stuff.

There are vocals for about 2 minutes out of the entire run time, and they're always spaced out thru a small stack of echo and delay. They compliment the overall aesthetic and get things to where they need to be.

If you're a doom/stoner/psych rock kinda person then this album will make all the sounds you know and love, and throws a couple of new tones into your speakers.

https://eideticseeing.bandcamp.com/album/drink-the-sun

-- Scott Murphy

BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER / VESTIGIAL LIMB Split (ESR)

Epicene Sound Replica created an interesting match-up for this split in combining two relatively new artists which can dish out the harsh stuff but usually build to it from different angles. Blue Sabbath Black Cheer's entry starts out with a slow, minimal machine pounding before detonating a compressed, fuzz-laden mass of rhythmic industrial sludge, complete with snarling yowls resembling buzzsaws. All manner of obscure chirps and creaks plug away in the background, with dismal synth tones only appearing at the right moments. All this, the sheer chunkiness and overall sound quality make for a slab that rewards successive listens. Due to the vocals-noise-drum machines lineup the group draws an inevitable comparison to Wolf Eyes, and although that isn't the only influence you'd have a more realistic idea of BSBC's sound with this than by basing any guesses off the band's name. At any rate it's commendable that there are still noise bands that bother creating structured *noise* compositions to pull them off as songs. BSBC is doing this well, and here's hoping they continue on for a few more years to come.
Vestigial Limb's mode of operation stems from the natural "incidental" sound (if that makes any sense) characteristic of Japanese harsh noise. The combination of manipulated tapes, record player and miscellaneous electronics present a pretty confounding wall of moving textures which get 'nuff burly but not so much as to completely obscure any tones from source material. Some predictable contact mic fuckery temporarily distracts the attention, but the additional layers of hum and hiss (with a touch of whatever it is that makes laser sounds) more than make up for it, culminating in a raucous climax of seizure-inducing feedback, crumbling static and dense motor reverberation before the finale. The nicely textured insert on heavy stock depicts some sort of psychedelic lightning storm, which is appropriate. RECOMMENDED!

BODY COLLECTOR "Blood Worship" (ESR)

This Body Collector release has been sitting on my "to review" stack for a while, and I thought for sure that Epicene Sound would have sold out of it by now. Lo, according to the ESR catalog there are still copies to be had by a lucky few. Body Collector is the solo guise of Khristopher from Royal Oak, Michigan's own chain thrashers Villa Valley, and though "Blood Worship" isn't a far cry from the duo's work it will sate your average appetite for destruction. "Incessant Sciolism" is a satisfying mix of thunderous walls, hiss and furious scrap metal lashings. Oddly enough a snippet of a jazz recording barely forces its way into the mix, perhaps to add a layer of confusion or just to illustrate the vacuum-like power of noise, sucking in all other sound and all the light. The B-side "Dead Lord" takes a while to catch the same inertia, focusing solely on contact mics and metal before a dog barks and a low rumbling overwhelms the speakers. Then on back to that distorted, horrid mess you love (well, I do anyway). "Tempered in blood and tempered by lightning" as a dead Man once said. Nice cover design as per usual with this label, in color (red, naturally) on matte paper.

ALTAR OF FLIES "Kill the Lights" (ESR)

More from prolific Swedish artist Mattias Gustafsson. "Kill the Lights" has a little bit of everything in the Altar of Flies repertoire: minimal buzzing and drone, chaotic dark distortion and pulsating bass. The best section on side A, which unfortunately cuts off at the end of the reel, is a layered work with a spastic, screeching oscillator of some sort (I've been wrong about these things before) over a clouded bank of...something. Side B shows a fiercer side of what could be the same instrument with a liberal dose of mutilated distortion, then slows to a series of low-end waves contrasted with minimal high pitched circuit abuse, not entirely dissimilar to Hive Mind's recent output. The c30 format gives plenty of space for Gustafsson to experiment with a wide variety of techniques and styles, some harsh and some reserved, and it's obvious that he's learned ways to pace a recording by now. "Kill the Lights" is a well-produced recording and all of the individual elements are audible even if the overall volume is somewhat low. The insert is full-color on a nice glossy stock. Fans of synth-based noise would do well to check out this artist.

GHOST OF OBTUSE s/t (ESR)

GOO (the initials say a lot) is the duo of Matthew Reis (head of Epicene/ ESR, Teeth Collection, etc.) and Josh Fink (Plasmic Formations, etc.), who have also collaborated on projects like Kvlt of Unicron, Ex-Yes, Collapse and Antennae Boy. Whew! Ghost of Obtuse professes a liking for Aufgehoben on this collection, and one can see the similarities in their open improvisation, but this is dirtier. It seems fitting to describe GOO as a "band" rather than two gearheads jamming. There's a real dialogue between the acoustic drums and percussion (being processed real-time through warped and distorted effects) and the banks of synthesizers and electronics. The second track on side two (there are four untitled tracks altogether) is sans beats but crammed with enough insane bleepage to satisfy a diehard synth freak. Not that the rest is exactly rhythmic- whatever the drums are going through, they're more like depth charges. Slow and crumbling 4/4 thuds on the A-side opener are interspersed with high-pitched squalor until the whole thing congeals into a menacing, thundering wall. Anyone familiar with collaborations between Hive Mind and Mammal might recognize a similar feel, except Ghost of Obtuse prefers to change directions frequently and without warning. The only objection here is that a c30 just isn't enough to contain all the possibilities suggested from these excerpts, a few of which are mercilessly cut off by the end of the reel. Ghost of Obtuse full length? Damn, I hope so.

TEETH COLLECTION / MIGRATIONS IN RUST split (ESR)

Recently I was lucky enough to get a chunk of the new batch from Matthew Reis' Epicene / ESR label (the former is for vinyl and CDs, the latter for short-run tapes, CD-rs, etc.), and they all look pretty stellar with nicely designed pro-printed color inserts. Teeth Collection is the prolific alias of Mr. Reis himself. In a previous review I had guessed that synthesizers might be his primary sound generators, but it turns out that the strange tones Teeth Collection employs are in fact homemade reverb chambers. This explains why material from this project has a distinctive sound that one doesn't hear too often. The two unnamed tracks on this split are even more lethargic in feel than past releases and noticeably minimal to great effect. The feeling which Reis' work has conjured in the past of passing slowly through decaying industrial wastelands is still alive and possibly more realized than before. Never having heard Migrations in Rust, I was surprised to find that its sole member is Jesse Allan of the NY noise duo The Cathode Terror Secretion. This is about as far away sonically from that project as you can get. "Thrust Against This Horrid Machine, We Shudder As Its Voice Is Opened To Us" (great name) is an unbelievably sublime ambient composition focusing on shifting layers of submerged melodies. It easily rivals anything being produced today in this vein. Allan has previously used a laptop in performance with The Cathode Terror Secretion, but it's difficult to tell whether it's in use here (to reassure anyone with a negative disposition towards the "L" word). Another impressive release from ESR, and sure to disappear soon.