CELEBS WITHOUT THEIR MAKEUP

One of the (many) things in my life that I stumble across and wonder Where did this come from? Subdued freak beats and electronic pulsations from somewhere in the American Southeast. Imagine primitive '60s experimental/electronic artists with the access to today's modern technology but without the exposure to techno or EDM or anything of the sort....it's weird and erratic but it doesn't sound intentionally weird. It sounds intentional, to be sure, but organic. Some patience required, but definitely worth the effort. 

THE EMPEROR HAS NO SKIN

ROARKE MENZIES

A couple of weekends ago I had a solid plan. Was going to go see some reborn '90s hardcore band in Oakland, then watch a high school crush in action back in San Francisco, then stop by an old haunt that I haven't visited in 15+ years (conveniently located on my route home) where my pal was spinning records. It was ambitious to be sure, but I am ambitious, the timing seemed right, and I figured I could squeeze all three events in. After an overpriced afternoon artisanal pizza, however, I found myself in the company of two people who wanted to do none of the things that I wanted to do and we were very much enjoying each other's company so....plans out the window and we found ourselves en route to a free jazz performance. A free jazz performance that turned out to be not a free jazz performance at all, but rather an experimental/noise/electronics show featuring a dude who also belongs to a free jazz outfit....and also this dude, who was halfway through his performance when we walked in the door. Roarke Menzies makes all of his sounds with his mouth and body, then spends each piece warping and manipulating those sounds with an array of pedals and effects, and watching him sink into his own world of sound was well worth missing out on all of the things I thought I was going to enjoy that evening. Sometimes accidents are the best. 

CORPOREAL

PÁLL PARKER

Welcome to a 22+ minute mindfuck courtesy of Iceland's Páll Parker. Buried beats, gross manipulations, and an overall presentation that will have you wondering if there's something a bit off with your download interface wiring harness capacitor because things just aren't supposed to sound this weird, you dig? It starts to really (really) get fukkd around the 15 minutes mark - the beats build in presence and intensity and trigger staccato washes of white noise, panic inducing sounds I can only compare to dreams of drowning...dreams that start to feel like reality as To Smear The Sexual Organs begins a cool down/breather before the finale that dissolves into just that erratic beat pulsating as though your life is skipping. And who is say that it isn't......?

TO SMEAR THE SEXUAL ORGANS

SKIN GRAFT

An early portal into the world of cripplingly prolific noise artist SKIN GRAFT, these two tracks take you on a 30 minute journey through ambient field recordings, subdued but harsh industrial and manipulated electronics. Rather than a slap to the face, 2007's Drug Addict drags you through the slog and pulls you under layers of sound until it feels like your drowning so that even 12 minutes into the first track, when the sound starts to release its hold, I find myself bound even tighter. This is lights-off-music, and among the first of many dozens of SKIN GRAFT releases over the last decade...like a premonition of dark Future Times. 

DRUG ADDICT

"MY LIFE"

Prepare to enter a mind filled with wonder and brilliance: The mind of August Alston. Almost two hours of improvisations, prose, ramblings, creations, noise, and constructs that will confuse most, annoy some and enthrall a few who appreciate the wavelength of The Other and the existence of The Different. Revolving (eventually) around the recurring track "Condo Woman," My Life aka Not A Lack Of Interest Cover is an actual journey to another place that lies dormant inside and rests just below the surface - a place that is more destiny than destination. Have a nice trip, and I'm not sorry if you never truly return. 

MY LIFE aka NOT A LACK OF INTEREST COVER

CONDO WOMAN: BAD NOISE 2016

POST

I got this from Carla at the last North American RAKTA show earlier this year as they were sorting and packing their things to go to Colombia - it hadn't been for sale on the tour, and I was quite happy to help her make some extra space in her luggage for the rest of her journey. Listening to this tape is sublime....but describing it is decidedly more difficult. A (seemingly...or at least mostly?) improvisational two piece, POST wander casually between psychedelia and freeform space jams and dark ambience....but I cannot find a single moment of this tape that is not compelling. And the B-side in its entirety should be mandatory listening for fans of outsider sounds of all kinds.  Carla's Dama De Noite label does not disappoint, and I'm glad that her bags were full. 

SESSÃO AO VIVO

...THERE IS NO EMPTY SILENCE...

SKY JUICE

Wandering solo guitar missives that sometimes border on Americana (in the way Higgs does, but here with more drugs), the first SKY JUICE release in several years makes the return of Fag Tapes to TE even more pleasant than you might expect. There are a couple of short bursts of blown out hardcore to keep you on your toes, but for the most part the thirty minutes that make up The Black Tapes are calming and whimsical. Favorite track: the third one. 

THE BLACK TAPES

ASASIN PARANOIC

This shit. All day long....and hopefully all night. Primitive bedroom electronic/industrial brilliance, there must be legions of these acts releasing tapes in sub-dozen runs that will just languish until inevitable obscurity. There are so many of them. It's impossible to think one could find them all, so we enjoy what we can get our hands on. Fire In The Sky is a three part opus - a murky and relatively mellow wash shielding erratic beats and awkward sounds from direct engagement. Things really get rolling around the six minute mark of Part II, but by then (if you've been listening properly) you'll be in a haze anyway. Folks from Nostilevo, SIOBHAN, LFA (in case that stuff matters to you). Shit is real ill, enjoy.

FIRE IN THE SKY

PETE SWASON // GREH HOLGER

The cover should be enough for those of you who know. Greh Holger (HIVE MIND, PURE GROUND, CLEANSE, BLACK SAND DESERT, Chondritic Sound) and Pete Swanson (VIOLENT MAGIC ORCHESTRA, YELLOW SWANS) combine for 20 minutes of anxiety inducing analog electronic torture. And those of you who don't know.....? Time to go to school.

DEAD INSIDE // DEAD OUTSIDE

THE EDOMITES

Weirdo electronics and live drums create something that's not at all easy to listen to, much less identify. The fine folks at Aklasan Records never disappoint, but this 2015 release made me think hard about different approaches to music and sound. Well played, EDOMITES, well played.

BALISONG

HUMAN ADULT BAND // PENIS IN VAGINA

I haven't forgotten about you, but I was in sunny Southern California for a few days and the time that I had planned to spend (at the very last minute, naturally) stocking up daily posts for you to enjoy I instead spent on the phone with lawyers and bankers trying to sort out the mind numbing shitshow that is the estate of my dead father. And then I went to LA with FUTURO and it was fukkn great, but now I'm back and you can have your tapes again. Every day. The way you like it. 

HUMAN ADULT BAND (still active) play weird drugged out/drawn out noise rock, their side was recorded live in 2005. Don't really know too much about PENIS IN VAGINA on the flip....I tried using the internet to search for their name. I suggest you try doing that as well, and let me know how it works out for you.

GOD'S WORK

GAY SHAPES

Sometimes it just doesn't make sense to try to describe the thing...just listen. Please. These sounds come from 2012, but they will impact and assist you in your Today World. I promise...and I rarely lie.

GAY SHAPES

IS THE BIBLE REALLY THE WORD OF GOD?

Live recordings and outtakes from the brilliant and prolific FRKSE, this time in collaboration with heretofore unknown (to me) KHLYST [K AHLAN]. Oppressive pulsations, manipulated reverberations, sounds that swallow you completely. It's been a pretty swell couple of months, and I've enjoyed the vacation. I wish I could say that I'm happy to be back, but answers to unknowns can only come with time and reflection...if they come at all. But some things I know today and always, and with absolute certainty: Volume is your trusted ally. 

FRKSE // KHLYST

This was released in a criminally small run (thank you, noise scene, for always remaining elitist, mysterious and weird) of less than 25, seven of which were packaged in the shockingly appropriate Tract Society book you see pictured above: 

"Dedicated To The Cause Of Truth, Which Honest-Hearted Persons In All Lands Seek To Know."

ENEMA SYRINGE

You might not want to trust me, and I understand that. Sometimes I steer you wrong, like the time I posted the interview with my father-in-law talking about heat stroke and hydrating enemas. Sorry. But surely you are by now smart enough to trust Chondritic Sound, yes? Good. They were nice enough last fall to repurpose two older recordings by ENEMA SYRINGE and present them with two short new pieces to create Flapper. It was a good move. Lo-fi disjointed repetition, minimal beats, and polite distortion make up the initial track, and then things slowly get darker and more chaotic. It's like a journey and an escape, all in just under twenty minutes.

FLAPPER

LIGATURE

Dark and heavy solo electronics. Not much to say except that this is exactly what I want when I hear sounds of this order...I want to feel alone. I want to feel scared. I want to sit in the corner and wonder what's coming for me. 

THE STRANGER

LIFE DRAG

People try really hard to be this weird. This dark. This pure. This real. But Minnesota's LIFE DRAG aren't trying.....they are just trying to be. Morose and monotone noise rock dissected and dismantled, dragged back to its most primitive and sinister state. Get loose. Let go. 

FEEL YOUR GRAVE

TRAAG

Weirdo manipulation and amalgamations of sound that bridge worlds of psychedelic industrial and drug induced soundscapes. Yeah....Nostilevo rarely disappoints, but 2013's Surface World is one of their best releases to date. The year is almost over...stay weird. 

SURFACE WORLD

J.S. AURELIUS

The title pretty much sums this one up perfectly, and the source pretty much ensures quality. I suppose I could say a lot of things, but I will leave it here: this is mandatory, my friends. Headphones and volume strongly recommended.

FOR LUXURY OR THERAPY? MEDITATIONS ON DRUG USAGE

CHAPTERS

I could write something esoteric here about stages of life and the changes that we live through as we turn its various and sundry pages. I could....but that would be self indulgent, no? Instead: treat yourself to twenty five minutes of dark and haunting noise scapes. CAHPTERS is haunting and numbing, I was immersed instantly. So yeah, turn another page I guess, who knows what the next chapter brings...

DEMONSTRATION '13

BERT // HORDES

The HORDES side of this split listens like an underground subway ride...dark, murky, wet...emerging from a tunnel at daybreak as the light struggles with clouds and the ominous weight that is darkness. 

One the other side, BERT deliver the kind of sounds that stop me dead in my tracks. Far from the ambient music that is sometimes relegated to the background by distraction or boredom, "DN" is brilliant in its simplicity, and I ended the 31 minutes lying on the floor bathed in emotion. The piece is about patience, about beauty, about power...and maybe The Whole Thing really is as simple as a piano calmly offering a sequence of single notes that we have all heard before. Incredible. 

GROWN LONG