DOLPHINS INTO THE FUTURE "untitled" (Dreamtime Taped Sounds)

Lieven Martens has been oozing creative weirdnesses into the ether since before the day I first learned what a CDR was. His Imvated label was always way ahead of the pack in terms of focused obscurity-cultivation (illogical artwork, random-seeming bands, confusing packaging choices, etc), and most tape-traders were very sad to see it go. But his resurrection via the Bread And Animals umbrella of sub-labels sees Lieven hitting his stride more than ever before, yo-yo-ing out an endless string of ever more esoteric projects and aliases and concepts. One of the greater things about this phase two operation is the added emphasis on Lieven's own music, which lately has been dispersed with increasing frequency under the banner of his new age grey-wave band, Dolphins Into The Future. Seemingly based largely around the ideas espoused by the Sega Genesis game "Ecco The Dolphin," the bulk of the Dolphins recorded output sounds like wobbly cassettes of porpoise conversations played through a daisy chain of delay and reverb and salt water with some ambient keyboard loops layered on top. Deeply aimless shit, for sure, but aquatic drift can be a sublime thing, and this self-titled CS knows when to sink and when to swim, which makes for a nicely balanced soak in the Dreamtime pond. The cover looks like it was straight-stolen from a pamphlet about the astrological properties of crystals though, total soft lavender overdose. Just looking at it makes you feel like you're slowly being brainwashed to believe in past lives and talking animals.

PAID IN PUKE "The Nyah Nyah Nyyyaaah Demo" (self-released)

Seeming to come from the mind of 13 year old boy, Paid In Puke is actually one New Jersey lady C. Lavender. Fitting in well with the Radio Shock lo-fi beats theory of diy, and harkening back to that brief moment when Cobra Killers' were the breath of fresh air over at Digital Hardcore and Kathleen Hannah's solo album promised something much rougher and punk than Le Tigre ended up being. The assemblage of the beats is equal parts keys, drummachines, erotic samples, and who knows what without feeling overly-collage based. Short and sweet also plays as a strength to this little party in a cloth pouch that appears for a distorted, digitally crunched moment and then is gone. Only complaint is that side B begins about 1 min in. May home dubbing humble us forever.

SECRET ABUSE "Sojourn 3.6" (Agents of Chaos)

Jeff Witscher's Iowa relocation-evolution continues to deepen and intensify with each and every new CS, and although this one says it was recorded in March in California (right around when the aborted Deep Jew tour was kicking off), it has all the hallmark overdriven drone mood motions of his Midwest-birthed "Young Pig" volumes: excoriating sheets of vaporous noise, hypnotic upswellings of low-end, fractured guitar tones fed into the face of an amp, etc. It's the perfect middle ground between the pissed rage of his Impregnable fits and the new age bath of Marble Sky -- harsh meditation, maybe? This one seems to be pitifully rare, and is as ripe for a reissue as everything else he's touching these days. Comes with a couple classic poesy inserts too, as per usual. One of 'em ends with: "It was reported their singing resembled/the flight of moths in moonlight/who can say? it is silent now." You can't make this shit up, it's too real.

PLANKTON WAT "Alchemy of Darkness" (DNT)

Plankton Wat is Dewey from Eternal Tapestry's solo guise where he sits in a chair, oils up his wah pedal, and goes to fucking town. Total one-man instrumental space-drift raga-blues with an emphasis on delay (reverse and regular), wah, and brain-ooze. One could make the claim that there's a lot of this kinda stuff flying around out there on the information superhighway but in truth you could really say that about anything, so that doesn't hold much water for me. To my ears, this is the best Plankton outing I've yet heard, great grey mood rings flashing with shadows of color and layers of refracted light, gently picked strings, bursts of hypnotizing distortion, falling leaves of echo and hush. Would be nice to lay on yr back on a fucked up rug and have Dewey serenade you with these blissed, blue ballads. Could use a pillow too, as long as we're dreaming.

MANDARIN CLIT "Pisum Sativum" (Scumbag Relations)

Scumbag Relations sticks so rigorously to its scum electronics cage one can't help but applaud it. Since the very first tape dubbed its way into the world the mission has been: disgusting, creepy-crawl, experimental nausea. Long may the Scum flag wave. Mandarin Clit has been a very recurrent name in their catalog and each CS I've heard bearing that name has made me feel ill, confused, and awkward. "Pisum Sativum" is no exception. Housed in a a great hand-cut J-card of a pile of olives (and bearing a tiny insert of a photo of a vagina with a twig laying on it), this one-sided C23 is as true to form as a person could conceivably hope. Dry scrapes, a metal object being touched and dropped, the steady hum of a machine, dead space -- this is the ultimate in total unfeeling music. It's not for the listener OR the person playing it. It's hard to even say why it exists. It freaks me out. Cheers!

WILD GUNMEN "untitled" (White Tapes)

Apparently these Cincinnati outcasts have been around for ages but are so exclusively in love with drugs and drug addicts (or pretending like they are) that they never get their shit together enough to play live or tell anyone about their music -- hence their total mystery status despite years of activity. Hilariously (hypocritically?), however, the drugs have in no way compromised their ability to set up and maintain a Myspace page and litter it with daily blogs ranting about hazy nonsense (clearly the the high-speed internet bill keeps gettin' paid on time). Russ from Blues Control put out this tape a little while ago, which then got passed to James Toth/Wooden Wand, who fell hard for 'em and has since released a handful of additional WG CDRs on his Mad Monk label. Don't know what those discs are all about, but this CS is pretty likable, if a little relentlessly inconsistent. The female singer's got a real voice and knows how to use it but often chooses to ditch it for an alternate personality where she acts like a bad actress and sings super high and performance art-y and lists every drug she can think of (a lot like that Queens of the Stone Age hit from a few summers ago!!). The rest of the band's contributions range from loner Jandekian Americana folk stumble to lo-fi noisy rumblings to slow ambient pulsings, but for the most part stay fairly compelling. Warts and all though, a mossy gem of a tape, with lots of hills and valleys and dead-end alleys to get mugged in, and another cool piece of the recent White Tapes resurgence puzzle.

SOCIAL JUNK "untitled" (JK Tapes)

Ashland, KY's pride/joy are gearing up for a MASSIVE US tour and a relocation to KALI-FORNIA, so now is the time to recognize and give praise to Heather & Noah's years-running electronics miscellany mission under the Social Junk flag, and I recently dug out this old-ish C60 on JK Tapes and it's flooring me all over again. Such a broad planet of moods, instruments, tempos, intensities, layers, levels, etc. A genuinely perplexing band to pinhole or even explain, the breadth of terrain they cover is stunning. Subtle low-end loops rumble on concrete, distant sax blasts explode in the corners, hypnotic voices chant, ritual drumming marches into the foreground with a parade of emotive distortion, vibes transition from miserable to majestic in an instant, you get lost in the current of their ideas and tidal pulls and then look up and it's an hour later, the tape's over. This is another gem in the gold vault of SJ's ever-deepening discography. Pay attention soon.

TRAUM ECKE "untitled" (Goaty Tapes)

West Mass backyard ectoplasm sculptors Ducktails have been unleashing a stream of limited cassettes over the past year-ish documenting their very post-Skaters brand of pop-trash neon electronics (themes/artwork usually float around 1992, Nintendo Power, dream zones, Predator, etc) and Traum Ecke is an offshoot operation mining the same basic mirror field of warped tones, shimmering ambiance, and psychedelic murk. This particular CS (packaged in a classically gorgeous Goaty-brand full-color hand-cut J-card) crawls through a really well executed skylight vision bath, awash in looped keyboard sparkle, guitar ooze, and pitter-patter percussion. It's really hard not to hear the echoes of so many Pacific City Ferraro/Clarke incarnations in this stuff, but there's always room for new kids on the block, and the Ducktails dudes are clearly solid descendants in the rad lineage of Slimer-worshiping, acid transmission, basement new agists. Thumbs up.

SAINTS "Umbanda" (Abandon Ship)

First heard a demo tape from this Goleta dude/duo a while back that sounded like a single mic left on in a room while someone took turns clattering out rickety rhythms on various random surfaces. Very empty, small energies, no real agenda. Intrigued me, but didn't really catch fire. For this CS on Abandon Ship they've clearly been doing some jam-homework, ironing out arrangements and aesthetics, it sounds like a totally different band. Now things are heavily in-the-red, with blown-out percussion played slo-mo style, distorted moaning, lots of repressed feedback, discomfort. Whatever coastal loner experimental hippie vibe they used to kick around is gone, replaced with a heavy noise, proto-industrial vibe, pissed off but lazy, lolling around in a stew of bile. Umbanda is a fringe Afro-Brazilian religion founded by a medium in the early 20th century, and every "song" on this C-whatever is named after a different esoteric tenet of this faith, but I can't discern even the remotest relationship between subject matter and sound. Not that there needs to be, of course. Would prefer things not be so angry-sounding, but perhaps they've got an axe to grind with the Umbandan belief system?

TEENAGE WAISTBAND "I Saw What I Wanted To See" (self-released)

I've listened to this tape like 5 times with the intention of rambling out a decent descrip but it always ends right as I'm starting to think of something to say and then the moment's gone. I gotta get faster (long-ass drone cassettes give you way more time to ponder!), apologies. This band is from Providence, RI and this CS has an awesome 2-color silkscreen job on bright orange paper and seems really appealing on the exterior. Inside it's more so-so, stripped guitar/bass/drum punk, played pretty legitimately in that herky-jerky style that kids used to love back in early 00's. The singer's voice is awfully helium-y to listen to for any extended period of time though (so I guess it was wise they only made this CS 14 min long), and the songs have that back-and-forth feeling a lot of punk stuff has where you can sorta tell exactly what each instrument is going to do before it even happens. I'm sure live this would be pretty fun to bob yr head to for 10 minutes and then go hang with yr friends but on tape everything's recorded/mixed pretty sanely and evenly and simply, so it never gets as crazy as you want it to. That's not really a fair complaint, more of a projection, but I feel like a really shitty/raw live recording of TW would RIP, or a freaky session where they force themselves to add a ton of bizarre overdubs to one of their songs or something. Good stuff, but the waistband seems cinched a bit too tight, could use some loosening. Sag that shit out, teens.

DIAMONDHEAD "Street Leaf" (White Tapes)

Those familiar with White Tapes proprietor Russ Waterhouse's work in Blues Control will immediately recognize a kindred spirit in Diamondhead. Maybe there's something in the air in South Austin that with the right combination of musical heritage, intuition and whiskey could account for what's channeled on "Street Leaf." L. Eugene Methe (Naturaliste) and R.J. Reynolds' (Leatherbag) melding of psych and R&B with folk sensibilities recalls another couple of Austin dwellers and former tape-slangers, Charalambides. But Diamondhead's influences extend well beyond the south, and since Methe is from Nebraska, that whole correlation might be fudged anyway. A listen to the title track just as easily evokes Ennio Morricone's soundtracks for Argento flicks, done up raw garage style with obliterated vocal mumbles, fuzzed out wah guitar, badass creep bass and mean as hell drum gnashing. The various additions of synth, organ and tape effects on "Oh Oh Rimbaud" and "Alabastor" emanate the jarring atmospherics one might expect from a No Neck session. An interlude on side A even throws in some screeching fried violin for good measure. The ten tracks which make up "Street Leaf" tend to sprawl like excerpts culled from hours of living room jams, yet every selection has unique ideas and despite the loose format emerge as whole. Another killer tape from this highly slept-on label. RECOMMENDED!

Click to consume:
http://www.myspace.com/streetleaf
http://whitetapes.8m.com

BABY BIRDS DON'T DRINK MILK "Ekk Ekk" (Lillerne Tape Club)

Factoid: the motto of Lawrence, Kansas is "From Ashes to Immortality." How badass is that? Having about as much experience with the Midwest as with contemporary indie pop- that is to say, little to nothing- I imagined this tape (sent in from the charming Lillerne label) sprouting inexplicably from fields of inedible bioengineered soybeans. Probably not the case, but one has to dream.
More likely, Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk is a phoenix of rad, unabashedly jangly pop juggernauticity ascending from the fetid mediocrity that is the American liberal college town music scene. They're probably popular enough by now in local circles to be releasing more widely accessible CD albums, but damn if a tape release or two doesn't build character. The eight tracks on "Ekk Ekk" swing back and forth without pause between straightforward psych tinged pop ballads and effects-and-loops-laden abstract improv. Maybe it's the format, the hiss, slight tape distortion and warbling that makes "Ekk Ekk" easy to appreciate. It might be the full orchestral sound created by a fairly large band simply playing in unison. There are other groups who do the whole lush acoustic/electric guitar, vocal harmonizing, everything drenched in reverb thing well, but this tape captures a certain feeling that's just...right. Or feels right. Like nostalgia, or even fake nostalgia. Like Family Underground covering a bunch of Sarah Records tunes, or something. Definitely one of the best tapes I've heard this year. Awesome full-color doodled artwork seals the deal. RECOMMENDED!

http://www.myspace.com/lillerne
http://www.myspace.com/babybirdsdontdrinkmilk

ALISTAIR CROSBIE "Sad Faces Of The Moon" (Peasant Magik)

This is the only music I have listened to for more than a week now. Seriously. I see absolutely no reason to ever take this tape out of my cassette deck. Every time it ends, I consider what to listen to next, pause, then flip this bastard over and play it again. Imagine you’ve never heard the term “Dark Ambient” before. Pretend the term is not a genre name, but in fact two adjectives paired to actually describe something. Scotland’s Alistair Crosbie sounds nothing like Alio Die (or any other wretched Goth garbage) but has produced a cold, sorrowful masterpiece of ambient music. “Sad Faces of the Moon” is, of course, culturally closer to the realm of the (pseudo) new age drone that labels like Students of Decay and Twonicorn have been promoting for the last couple of years. But while his peers, for the most part, explore major chords, blissful tones, and fuzz guitar harmonics, Crosbie’s palette is less overtly hopeful. The whole tape is absolutely drenched in reverb, as if the musical material was produced miles away, and the listener can observe only the splashy mournful decay, minutes later. The sounds themselves are earthy, organic, like two smooth stones being rubbed together, above which, the slowly shifting ring of a resonant windstorm howls. While avoiding anything that might be considered melodic, Crosbie’s soundscape evokes the kind of emotions that are usually targeted by melody. As listeners, we know that certain types of melody signify and trigger emotions like heartbreak, longing, grief, regret, and we can recognize them when they are used to manipulate us. “Sad Faces of the Moon” has the power to conjure these feelings without utilizing the usual bag of tricks to do so, and in doing, avoids the triteness and quaintness associated with those tricks. It is a truly astonishing release, with characteristically impressive packaging from the label, Peasant Magik.

ACRE "Volcanic Legacy" (Bone Tooth Horn)

This one came in a batch with several other Bone Tooth Horn (NJ) releases which will hopefully be worked through for CG soon. Check out the sites below anyway, if not just for the new promotional photo/shrine.
Most anyone with a soft spot for minimal oscillator-driven drone would lap up this trance-inducing 40 minute slothfest from Portland's Acre. The two side-long tracks, "Riley" and "Volcanic Legacy," offer subtle differences in harmonics but more or less all material on here is produced with the same formula. Following a slow build, the tones contort into a simultaneous lull and euphoria. Simplicity like this isn't necessarily easy to pull off, but Acre provides a good example of how it's done. RECOMMENDED!

http://www.geocities.com/bonetoothhorn/
http://www.myspace.com/bonetoothhorn

WETHER / PILLARS OF HEAVEN / GALLOWS / DEERSTALKER Split (Peasant Magik / No Horse Shit)

This long-playing, four-headed beast of a double cassette from Philly based Peasant Magik and Wilmington, Delaware's No Horse Shit was daunting enough to put off reviewing for a few months (doubtless a few labels could say that at this point). Once the gears get rolling, though, it's damn hard to not play this thing until the bitter end. Wether's "Night Terrors" is a versatile mashup of cacophonous bells, buzzing amplified resonance (not unlike Damion Romero's recent work), manipulation of stereo panning and scorched harsh noise. It's more sparse than cluttered, and Wether's focus on one primary sound at a time works very effectively. Pillars of Heaven follows with "In A Mirror, Darkly," a loping atmospheric piece with multiple layers of wavering tape hiss, distant field recordings and high/ low-pitched oscillations reverberating off of each other. Simultaneously lulling and apprehensive. Gallows is eclectic enough to resist easy labeling, although they resemble Fossils in a soundtrack-ish vein. Miscellaneous clanging, low rumbles and background loops could describe a gaggle of mediocre groups, but this one manages to pull a haunting and melancholy feel from some otherwise apathetic rubble.
The only underwhelming side on here is the closer by Deerstalker. Allegedly a "collaborative effort" between the other artists (there's no mention on the website as to which artists are involved), it bears little resemblence to any of the other groups except Gallows. Rather than calculated drones or walls of distortion, there's some blasé vocal moaning and obscured knob fiddling in the background. Perhaps this was a room recording which translated poorly on tape. This isn't too surprising; as others have previously written, it's not unusual for a one-off noise collab to fail to add up to the sum of its parts.
At any rate, the consistent quality of the other sides should be reason enough to check for this split (both Peasant Magik and NHS have recently had it in stock). The two tapes come in an oversize vinyl case with full-color wraparound art. RECOMMENDED!

www.peasantmagik.net/
http://www.myspace.com/nohorseshit

SWAMP HORSE "Ravish" (Community College)

While it is not a Cassette Gods law that I do so, I avoid writing about the same artists over and over again. We get sent a lot of tapes, and, as a guy who writes mostly about Harsh Noise, I tend to have plenty of new things to ramble about. Which is why it should be surprising that I am writing about another Swamp Horse tape only two months after I wrote about the last one. And this is only their second tape! Perhaps when they release their third, I will be again so compelled to write that I will continue to cover their entire discography.
My review of the self titled cassette on Husk was positive, but I wouldn't say it was a rave. When CG was sent a promo of "Ravish" I thought I'd sit back and let one of my colleagues take a crack at it. When I found that nobody had claimed the tape, I popped it in my player, with no intention of reviewing it. This time, Swamp Horse has become, like, my favorite new band.
The A side contains one long shimmering drone that rises and falls with it's own woozy logic, with tones that conjure a low-fi Vangelis, without the heroic melodies. It's much less spooky than the previous cassette; where the self titled tape was the soundtrack to the creeping approach of a Lovecraftian forest beast, this first side is the morning after, when the sunrise finally breaks on the faces of the night's survivors. Side B is a return to doomier territory, but retains some of the glassy high-end sheen of the A side's palette. Beneath touches of spikey, hairy distortion, a nebula of synth tones swirl and churn. A more science fictiony affair, perhaps-- like watching a second generation VHS dupe of Event Horizon on a really small TV, and still getting the shit scared out of you.

GHOST MOTH / FOSSILS Split (Pendu Sound Recordings)

Even in New York, a town with a history of musical cross-pollination, Ghost Moth is an anomaly. Posed with the unique freedoms and restrictions of machine-produced noise and acoustic improvisation, the group has stubbornly refused to do anything but teeter on the fence between the two. Daniel Carter's reeds, flute and trumpet will likely never be run through effects processing, and Todd and Robbie's guitar and electronics will just as likely never be anything but. Despite all contradictions and in spite of the members' numerous other obligations, Ghost Moth has somehow kept running full-steam for almost two years. If you haven't checked out this platypus of a group's unique sound, this murky 40 minute split with Fossils (a.k.a the "Middle-James-of-the-Month Club," almost as difficult to define) is an appropriate introduction. Includes full-color collaged insert.

Pendu Sound Recordings: www.pendusound.com
Fossils: www.myspace.com/fossilstrio
Ghost Moth: www.myspace.com/ghstmth

TSUKIMONO “Bat Heads Roll” (Release the Bats)

Never heard of this Swedish drone fellow (Johan Gustavsson/Tsukimono) before but hopefully I do again, cause this micro-edition CS on Release The Bats is a wholly enjoyable slab of private electronic symbiosis. The A side was recorded live at RTB HQ but it sounds mid-fi enough to capture the wonderful rainbows of spiraling drone blasting outta whatever amplifier powered this sick occasion. The jam starts with an unsuspecting throb, like yet another mixer freak staring into wires, but then it grows and subsides into a subtle pool of new age bathwater before gradually freezing over into a dense vibrating iceberg of distortion, rumble, and skree. Near the end it sounds like he runs outta ideas, cause things drag a bit in a nowhere land of accidental noise and fatigue (and even some lazy sounding drum machine beats), but overall it’s a solid set. But, strangely, the B side “studio” recording (“Cloudness”) is vastly less varied and transformative. It ain’t bad, or even boring per se, but if yr any mood other than one of wanting to be totally drowned in infinity drone overload, this won’t be yr cup of coca-cola. Wish it had some more of the odd transitions of the live set but maybe that just wasn’t the vibe this night. Regardless: curious to hear more.

EMACIATOR “Dormant” (Hospital Productions) /// EMACIATOR “Within” (Callow God) /// EMACIATOR “Nonexistent” (Throne Heap)

When Tulare, California bleaknik Jon Borges first attempted to navigate away from the minor key rage and masculine despair that so defined his years-running harsh noise institution, Pedestrian Deposit, the results were promising but muted. Early Emaciator tapes on Hanson and Monorail Trespassing aimed to fuse the dread of blackened drone with the hypnotic qualities of ambient minimalism, oftentimes succeeding but occasionally sounding like a PD intro without the payoff thrash. Forget all that. The past is ancient history shit and today’s what matters. And over the past six-ish months Borges has slowly and single mindedly cultivated Emaciator into a beast far bleaker and more beautiful than any other musical stab-into-the-void he’s yet endeavored, and his latest batch of tapes are as sick as they come.

Dormant is a C15 on Dominick Fernow’s Hospital Productions label and it showcases the winter 2007 Emaciator live approach: summon dense clouds of buzzing ritual drone, then gently burn them away with quiet suicide-guitar arrangements, picking the strings like an inmate with nothing to gain from this life. The A ends like an elegy, miserable electric notes floating into the grave of a loved one, while the B howls with overloaded electronics all fighting to make themselves heard.

Within is on Jeff Witcher’s Callow God label, and was recorded in the fall of ’07, so I don’t know if that makes it more or less recent than Dormant (which has zero info except a million label logos everywhere), but if I had to guess I’d say it’s more recent. Because the A (“Lambent Truce”) especially sounds like the super current Emaciator style, which fleetingly at times verges on the new age drone harmonics of Taiga Remains, with the post-noise buzzing swarm of old reduced to a glistening landscape of emotional tones. The B (“Thoughts Harbouring”) is more of the same, a hypnotizing narcotic haze of pensive electronics. Overall a great tape, but the C12 aspect doesn’t give Borges much room to spread out and let things drift, grow, consume.

Which is why the relative opus-timespan of his Throne Heap C22, Nonexistent, is so deeply appreciated. Housed in an awesome and ominous black-and-grey silkscreened J-card, both Throne Heap sides here display how crushing, powerful, focused, and intense Emaciator is capable of being when all the drone-death tones are exquisitely cross-panned and overdriven and plowed straight into yr skull. The A is probably the stronger of the pair, but the B has a nice decaying, wasted quality that suits the mood of a tape-ending passage. There’s a grip of new TBA Emaciator slayings lined up for the future, so pray things stay inspiringly negative in Tulare, CA.

SOUP HORRIFIC / CRAZY GREEKS ON FIRE Split (Spread the Disease)

Someone ought to write a scene report on Barcelona. Whether it's my own blind ignorance or due to an exponential increase of internet networking, there are a whole lot more noise-influenced bands and labels popping up in Spain than in years past. Stephane K. from Spread the Disease, a Barcelona based label, was kind enough to send a couple split releases from the STD catalogue (yuk yuk) complete with annotations and a letter of introduction. Now that's a motherfucking PRESS PACKET.
"Don't Give Up the Soop!" seems to be the title for proceedings on both sides. Soup Horrific, consisting either of Steff *and* Terrortank or Steff who *is* Terrortank, aims to please right off the bat with some Aaron Dilloway- inspired tape loops and random chain dragging, submerging all in forebodingly thick atmospheres. There's also kind of a "hands-off" approach to probably half of this session which the Fag Tapes contingent would appreciate. Meditative and slow-paced, but too eerie to be relaxing.
Crazy Greeks on Fire, which is Steff and Guillaumme (possibly misspelled) from Sektion 9, throw some guitars, a tin flute and a couple microphones through a chain of distortion and delay pedals and splice the results into 2 or 3 minute tracks. The result screeches in the best way at moments but at other points seems scatterbrained. Overall, it's less of a cohesive statement than some practice room outtakes. The spraypainted and indeed diseased looking tape (recorded over a Star Wars disco mix, which I'm bummed to have missed out on) comes housed in a plastic bag with wraparound photocopied insert.

http://www.myspace.com/spreadthementaldisease
http://www.myspace.com/theterrortank

Spread the Disease
c/o Stephane Kerandel
Calle Sicilia 328, 3/2
08025 Barcelona, Spain

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!

HEATSICK “Reverse Gardens” (Turgid Animal)

Birds of Delay used to bathe the globe’s brain in their high-velocity crouch-frenzies a lot more commonly, but with Steven Warwick’s wing of BoD based in Germany their prolificacy had nosedived. That’s ok though, cause Luke Younger has been scorching ears as Helm and Warwick’s found an outlet via his ever-deepening Heatsick alias. Reverse Gardens finds him in a long-form mood, his zonal flow control as ‘out’ and wastedly intuitive as ever. Both sides here sprawl through roiling electric tides of Pacific City-style psychedelic visions, overloading the tape with transverse updrafts of raw OM distortion and pitter-patter psycho-narcoleptic counter currents. Intimate and unmappable and thick as a prism. Has a cool kitty cat bleeding with collaged worm ooze on the cover that’s strangely apt. Another cryptic key to Warwick’s weird kingdom.

NECK HOLD / YOUNG ROMANTIX split (Scumbag Tapes)

Two more bands I’ve never heard of gangbang this split CS on the Midwestern haven of misanthropic obsession, Scumbag Tapes. Neck Hold have a shrieky instrumental no-wave energy that’s not bad at all. Hyper but not spazzy, the guitars sound like oscillators and the drums sound like guitars. It has all the fidelity of a cell phone recording a car stereo across a parking lot but that only adds to the pissed-off-ness of the proceedings. It’s over pretty fast too, which suits music like this. Young Romantix are even no-wavier, with sax and a girl screaming and the songs are bit more song-y (at least at first). The vocals remind me of Pukers (which is obviously a compliment) and the sax reminds me of some Michigan scum crew, and the meeting of the 2 is kinda a match made in heaven/hell/heck. I can’t imagine why this band wouldn’t rule at a house party, unless they pushed their keyboard stuff to the forefront (which is their main cheesy weakness). Otherwise: B.Y.O.B. In an oversized bag with a magazine photo of a blonde model as ‘artwork.’