This album should need no introduction whatsoever.
In fact, I don't have anything relevant to say at the moment anyway.
All I know is that the picture above is a good representation of how I feel right now (and probably look). My brain is fried due to my academic ventures (its finals week) and I have been under the gun so-to-speak the last three to four weeks.
In a nutshell, this album fits my overall mood at present.
Plus, I haven't contributed a post here on IllCon for at least a couple weeks so I kind of owe it to y'all I suppose.
So without further ado, I think I'm gonna go get hammed on Oly and listen to this noise on repeat for the next few hours while trying to repress the memories of the past weeks' events...
Sounds fun huh? Why don't you join me? Crap! For Fuck's Sake, I'm out of Oly.
Nevermind.
Must. Numb. Mind. Now.
Be Proud To Commit Commercial Suicide here
not here
What the fuck is the matter with people? One of the best bands of the prog era make one of the heaviest live albums ever and the critics at the time completely shit on it so it remains in obscurity forever. Stupid! Let us not forget that these are the same critics that were telling us how worthless Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin were all the while touting the genius of The J. Geils Band and Toto. Fucking puke.
Van Der Graaf Generator were difficult to most listeners. They are not "tight" in the way King Crimson or Genesis are known for. They were way more punk and experimental in their approach to "progressive" music of the time. Jazz influenced in theory only, not in the academic way, say, Henry Cow or Gentle Giant were. There are no frolicking elves and faeries in Van Der Graaf music. This is why they rock a thousand times more than their peers.
Vital is the only official live album of the 70s released by the mighty Van Der Graaf (they dropped the Generator by this time) and it is a fucking ripper. Not ripping in the sense of Thin Lizzy - Live and Dangerous per se, but more in the way of Sleep's Holy Mountain or something. Singer/main songwriter/keyboardist Peter Hammill is brilliant at making music that's both beautiful and horrific at once and he honed that skill perfectly within the group of insanely talented musicians in VDGG. This release highlights my favorite aspects of their music. The contrast between Hammill's angelic and demonic vocals, disgustingly distorted thumping bass, intense drumming and David Jackson's sax. Yes sax. Don't be scurred. It works.
This is prog at it's best. It's absolutely madness. Play loud.
My first ever post for Illcon detailed the recorded output of Parabellum, without hyperbole, one of the most leftfield, fucked sounding death metal bands ever to exist. In that particular piece I was tempted to mention guitarist Carlos Perez's side project, with the the not-easily-Googleable-in-public moniker Herpes, but I decided against it. I don't want to tempt fate, and I fear that crossing two streams of such unrelenting force and brutality, parralel though they may have run, might cause some sort of rip in the fabric of the universe, some irreversable disruption that I don't want my fingerprints on. But here we are, several months hence. I feel the coast is clear and I hope I'm not wrong.
Herpes was the brainchild of the aformentioned Perez, who I believe played all the instruments on this release (information is fairly scant). The genre tag closest in proximity to this album would probably be grindcore, but that's only part of the picture. Grind, in 1989, was one of the most fringe forms of music, with its practictioners pushing the boundaries of conventional tonality. But compared to Herpes, the Napalm Deaths and Bolt Throwers of the world seem reserved, almost conservative, in comparison. I can't even say with any certainty that there are riffs or structure present in any of these songs. Growled vocals and blasting drums are audible (the former more clearly than the latter), but these are buried in sheets of dissonance, cascading waves of caustic, searing noise. Presumably this is provided by guitar and bass but it's difficult to tell. The album sounds like a recording of some sort of industrial metalworking facility pushed past peak production to the verge of collapse.
It ultimately sounds closer to Merzbow or early power electronics practictioners than it does any metal band. The tonality, if the term can be accurately applied here, is so thoroughly destroyed that even making a comparison is a tricky endeavor. Herpes (now as an actual band, I think – there are live videos that show more than one member) did release an album in 2004 that displays a comparable lack of regard for conventional structure, but lacks Medellin's cavernous, brittle anti-production. This constrast is interesting, because it almost seems like the recording studio itself was as much an instrument in the construction of Herpes' sound as the actual guitars, drums, and vocals were. Because while the band's most recent material is interesting, it lacks some of the vicious rawness of the debut, a point that underscores Perez's ability to utilize what might seem to be a setback (a shitty recording studio) as an advantage, an aesthetic signature that nobody in his time was able to really come close to. Plenty of bands consciously tried to come up with material this noisy and came off contrived, this shit is the real deal. It's brutal because it has to be, there were no other options available. Thoroughly noisy, thoroughly fucked sounding, but also an inimitable transmission from music's fringes.
Robert Fripp disbanded King Crimson the first time in 1974 after making an ambient record with Brian Eno called No Pussyfooting. I have to assume the name of said record is in reference to Eno and Fripp's serious appetite for groupie strange. No shit. Check out this excerpt from a 1973 column in the NME by Ian MacDonald (who was in KC and fucking FOREIGNER!).
Excerpt from Robert Fripp: The Sexual Athlete
"What was the best lay you ever had?"
Fripp stroked his chin, reflectively. "There are about four chicks involved in that – not, in this case, simultaneously. I have to admit. However, return with me if you will to my earliest days as a rock musician. I used to get complaints from Greg (Lake). Not directly, but I used to hear about them.
"You see, we shared this flat which was basically one room divided into two by a thin cardboard screen. It was, as you can imagine, not fit to live in. Anyway, Greg used to complain about the gasps and screams coming from my side of the partition and, I must admit, his women used to get on my nerves too. No comment on Gregory, just his women – but I decided to move out.
"The ensuing period of my homelessness in 1969 was one of the most rewarding of my life. I was continually thrown on the mercies and generosities of tender maidens. Oh those lovely situations. It was quite awful in one way – but quite beautiful in another."
...
"Of course, when one is young one has all these delusions of being the great stud and one is not interested in a harmonious relationship of giving and taking. But, I'm happy to say, those days for me are now long past and I have spent many fulfilling hours, even on this very lawn upon which I now recline, not only copulating but involved in various other activities.
"In fact I was lying here naked one day, a young lady in attendance, when my next-door neighbour, the chairman of the Rural District Council, popped his head over yonder hedge to inform me that I had Dutch Elm Disease.
"But America is the place for numbers really. We've just done all the sunshine areas. Now sunshine, what ever it does to anyone else, has the most alarming repercussions within me. Things happen to my body. I undergo chemical changes.
"I find myself drooling, my tongue hanging out, my mouth snapping together involuntarily, twitchings – obsessive thoughts – the lewd imagination develops.
"In fact, I've never seen so many delightful young bodies, both quantity and quality, within such a short space of time as the last month in America. I was overwhelmed. By the end of the tour, I came back unfit for anything, completely exhausted on every level of my being. Oh! Oh!
"Nowadays I say to the rest of the lads: Take my name off the list, lads, put me on the reserve list – only to be called up in dire emergency. Then, after an afternoon in the sun by a swimming-pool with all these young bodies hanging in and out of bikinis, I say: Lads, you've got to put me back on the list. And I'll be called up to action. Oh! Oh! The battles that are fought throughout the Holiday-Inns of America! Delightful."
...
AND ENO? What of the man that the groupies of three continents have come to know as The Refreshing Experience?
"Yes," nods Fripp, his glazed expression returning. "We're both incorrigible womanizers, both wonderful examples of young Taurian virility. It may interest you to see a certain picture which will be the cover for our joint recording effort, The Transcendental Music Corporation, featuring us both in a state of undress.
"We were intending to have with us certain similarly unclad females – but, on reflection, decided that this was but a feeble excuse to gaze upon the works of the creator made manifest in the flesh.
"So we decided that it was a far nicer idea to have Eno and myself in the nude as a small way of saying thank you to those ladies who have done what they can in the past to enable us to develop as men – and, hopefully, as an invitation to all those ladies in the future who'd like to help us develop even further."
Sheesh. Only a dandy UK bro could talk about getting poon in such a dull flowery way!
So Eno and Fripp fuck lots of groupies, do lots of drugs, invent crazy tape looping machines and create a method of sound manipulation now known as Frippertronics that is so important to the evolution of electronic and ambient music that it, yes, has it's own Wiki page.
Bob breaks down Frippertronics
Eno and Fripp release one more ambient album called Evening Sun that is really good and you should listen to it. 1977 was a big year as Fripp then moves to New York's Hells Kitchen, starts hanging with the punx, plays guitar on Bowie's Heroes to much acclaim, and produces and plays on albums for Peter Gabriel and Daryl Hall. Yes, that Daryl Hall. From the Oates and Hall Rock n Soul Revue. These two albums along with his own solo release "Exposure" have come to be known as "The NYC Trilogy" and it's some of my favorite music ever made. Especially Hall's Sacred Songs so let's talk about that first.
First, It should be known that this album was recorded in 1977 but not released until 1980 due to RCA claiming it being "not commercial." Sacred Songs starts normal enough. Glammy 70s soul in the style of Bowie with those signature Hall & Oates harmonies that we all have grown up to love (or hate) so well. But something really weird happens halfway through track 3. The album is not normal anymore. Something alien occurs. Something takes it over and brings it to some other-worldly level of heaviness, beauty and weird that is ultra rare in music nowadays. Was it due to the undeniable influence majik and the occult had on the recording and writing process?
From Wiki:
Both the lyrics and musical sounds of Sacred Songs reflected Hall's personal philosophy. The lyrical content alludes to some of Hall's interests in esoteric magic (or "magick" as it is sometimes spelled). Rock music author Timothy White interviewed Hall for the book Rock Lives. In that interview Hall indicated that in 1974 he began a serious study of esoteric spirituality reading books on topics like the cabala, the ancient Celts, and the traditions of the Druids. He also became interested in the life and beliefs of Aleister Crowley. Crowley coined the concept of Thelema, magick concerned with harnessing the power of the imagination and willpower to effect changes in consciousness and in the material universe. For example the album track "Without Tears" is based on Crowley's book Magick Without Tears (published in 1973).
Peter Gabriel's 1978 self-titled second album, known to fans as "Scratch," was considered the second part of the trilogy. With its heavy use of Fippertronics throughout, the album finds the former Genesis front man finding his way to that dark, paranoid sound he mindfucked us with throughout the 80s. Highly underrated and unpopular among the public, the record has a super raw production style in the vein of King Crimson's Red but with Larry Fast playing wacked out synths. Gabriel himself has dismissed the album as dry and unimaginative but I beg to differ. Lots of jams on this sucka.
Part three is Fripp's own 1979 solo album Exposure. This monster is essential in any progger dork's library. Featuring Hall and Gabriel on vocals (PG's version of Here Comes The Flood on here is absolutely fucking beautiful) as well as Van Der Graaf Generator's Peter Hamill. I've included the original demos too. Lucky you! Sonically brutal and gorgeous at the same time, Exposure has some songs that could be found on the previous albums of the trilogy but with "improved" production and performance.
PG destroy's on the 1979 Kate Bush Christmas Special
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Oh! Legendary noize terrorist Genesis P-Orridge is going to be on Illogical Contraption tomorrow night! Check out Cobra's in-depth write up on Gen here. I'll be taping an interview with her tomorrow afternoon so if you have any questions you want me to ask post them in the comments please!
Listen live tomorrow night 10pm-Midnight Pacific time on FCCFREERADIO.com in studio 1a! Or grab the podcast on iTunes.
Growing up in a relatively small, somewhat culturally isolated city tucked away in the recesses of the Blue Ridge Mountains, punk rock came as a fucking godsend. I'll spare the whole getting-into-the-music story that's been done to death, but suffice to say it made an impression. However, while it tapped into a lot of feelings I had previously no understanding of how to articulate, most of what I could find out about the music in those days before the internet was the ubiquitous force it is today seemed to indicate that it had ended around the time Sid Vicious died, or in the case of hardcore, around the time the Bad Brains broke up the first time around and all the New York bands went metal. Coverage was scanty, so I took what I could get. I discovered Heartattack and more contemporary bands – His Hero Is Gone, Gehenna, Rorschach, etc. - not long afterwards, but it still seemed like something that happened a million miles away.
But I would search out what I could, often spending my limited early teenage income on whatever records looked cool. Not a great formula for finding killer music, but in one notable case it provided more than a little blowing of the ol' mind. It was such a small thing, something that would've been so easy to overlook, a split 7” with a flimsy green cover with some photos of dudes playing and destroying instruments on one side and some shit on the other that looked like it could've come from some high school stoner's art project. And it was a dollar. So I took my chances.
And one side was good. A band from Massachusetts called Grief. I'd heard some slower heavy music before – Melvins, Sabbath, etc. - but Grief took it all and injected some serious psychotic depressing vibes to it. I enjoyed it (if “enjoy” is the right word for something so nihilistic), gave it a few listens and flipped it over. The other band, Suppression, simply fucking destroyed. I'd heard some grindy shit before, had my mind similarly blown by Napalm Death not much earlier, but Suppression was next level. It was a feral blur, sheets of sound draped over blastbeats with harsh noise textures clawing their way through.
I didn't really know much about this sort of thing. I had no real exposure to noise beyond my dad's Sun Ra albums. I had no idea that there was this genre of lurching start/stop noise called power violence and that Suppression was one of the most vicious yet interesting examples of the style. And until finding that record, I had no idea that they (or anybody with ideas so extreme) were operating in the same small, punk rock-deprived city that I lived in. And that was the other facet to how mind-blowing Suppression was. Their music was – and remains – fucking killer. But that such a band could pop up in the same boring, backwater town in which I felt so isolated was an amazing feeling. It brought the world closer to home and provided an example of how great things can be made out of mediocre surroundings.
I managed to get most of Suppression's releases over the years and the majority of it is spectacular. It's like if Man Is The Bastard kept the noise parts, but instead of wandering off into the more technical instrumental parts, they opted for the blunt ferocity of Crossed Out or No Comment. Even after power violence turned into a higher-profile subgenre in recent years, with hordes of shitty youth crew bands throwing in a few blast beats and thinking that turns them into the next Infest, Suppression's music remains as bracing and compelling as when it was released.
During the late '90s, the band moved more into noise/ power electronics material and for several years their only performances and releases saw the band indulging their most dissonant impulses. It was interesting to watch – I recall one show where the band attached amplified contact microphones to bibles and beat them to shreds with dildos – but not always easy to sit down and listen to. In more recent years, the band has operated as a bass-and-drums duo, working in a vein that's somewhere between Ruins and early Butthole Surfers – frantic, obnoxious (in a good way) noise rock (sample song title: "Well Hung Toddler") that surprisingly doesn't stand in too stark contrast when the band breaks out some of their old power violence material, as they've thankfully been doing recently.
Bassist/singer Jason Hodges (the only consistent member of Suppression) runs an excellent label called CNP Records, which put out a compilation of all the Suppression material from their early years that's definitely well worth picking up. But as a bit of a taste of the mayhem inside, the band's split with Grief, the sort of new lenses that helped my younger self view the world differently, can be acquired below.
Last week I did a post that consisted of a "mix-tape" of sorts for y'all. Actually it was more of a "digital-mix" but nonetheless the premise remains the same. The mix featured USBM bands and within it I had a song from the obscure and occult band, HEMLOCK. Not much info is out there on the band and their material isn't exactly easy to acquire, so I thought it would be appropriate to feature the band.
HEMLOCK hailed from New York, NY and surfaced in 1992 as the "second wave of Black Metal" that emerged from Norway began to make headlines. Funeral Mask was released in the year 1997. HEMLOCK split up shortly after their second full-length release in 1999 titled Lust for Fire. Supposedly, they had ties with the Norwegian scene. I'm not sure to what extent their ties were but I remember reading that one of the members in the band's earlier days was in contact with Euronymous. They subsequently landed a deal with Head Not Found Records which was owned by Metalion of Slayer Magazine fame. So the connection was significant enough apparently.
Now I'm not a usually a huge fan of noisy, incoherent, under-produced metal, especially when it comes to black metal. It took me a few listens to really get into this album. The production is rough, true, but not entirely shit. The vocals are grating and often indecipherable at times; upon introduction, they were just annoying enough to almost quit listening all together, however I found myself getting used to them. The guitar work and drumming are what kept my attention though. I can't begin to describe this album as it is all over the place in parts and where some of the songs would normally be an immediate turnoff for me due to the vocals, they throw in a riff or drum fill or change in the rhythm that kept me interested. This album carries with it all the early hallmarks of black metal but elements of punk and thrash are also heard, and even doom if I dare say (check out the title track).
All of this makes for a highly volatile, rough, misanthropic sound. Just when you have come to terms with what this band is trying to convey or conjure up and are beginning to enjoy it, they take it from you, chew it up, and spit it back in your face all the while smashing your head in.
While it took some listening to - after many, many beers of course - I came to appreciate Funeral Mask and it's raw, dirty production. I feel the reviews for this album by others are somewhat inaccurate. In my opinion, this is a highly underrated album and a worthy listen for anyone remotely into black metal that came from the United States. If anything, this is truly a worthy listen. If this caught the interest of Norway's best back in the early '90s, this surely will appeal to those interested in a sound and a time that has since passed.
Tracks that stand out: Way Of The Wolf, Necrofuck, Loyal To Evil, and Funeral Mask.
ADDENDUM: As DoomUnicorn pointed out, which I apparently forgot to mention, this band features members that are/were/have been in other more prominent bands such as Nuclear Assault, Brutal Truth, Exumer, Dim Mak, and Incantation to name a few.
Atlanta, Georgia's LEECHMILK never made much of a mark on the "international sludge scene" (whatever that is), but their particular brand of doom-laden, Southern-fried, sample-heavy Eyehategod-meets-Iron Monkey-meets-Boulder misanthropy was some of the highest-quality shit to surface in that musical Dead Zone known as the late-90's-to-early-oughts, and Starvation of Locusts surpasses just about anything that like-minded bands were doing at the time. It's a hate-filled, drug-fueled monster of an album, and avoids the common pratfall of most masturbatory "doom/sludge metal" by keeping song lengths within the two-and-a-half-to-five-minute zone (except for the seven-minute album closer "Descending", which is largely composed of experimental/repetitive noise sampling). There is plenty to be fond of here, but if I had to narrow it down, I'd say the main selling points for me are the creepy-as-fuck opening sample (lifted from THX 1138--see this post on Ojorojo for another band that used this clip well), the over-the-top screechy vocals, the millipedal-caveman drumming, and the fact that this album contains the unimaginably-brilliant song title "Whiskey Nipple". This shit is just fucking epic, crushing, wholly bleak and devoid of any hope whatsoever. It makes me nostalgic for my early 20's.
PS: IllCon Radio goes live once again 10pm to midnight right HERE. Tonight we've got a lady on the show who wrote a book about trucker ghost stories (hot off an interview on Coast To Coast AM!), so make sure and check that shit out. The number? 415-829-2980. Y'all know what to do.
I've found that I can pretty much get down with any metal band from Central or South America from the years 1980 to 1990. Lot of really batshit crazy material, the type of shit that only some combination of isolation and motivation can produce. I mentioned the Parabellum album in my first contribution to Illcon but they're hardly the whole picture. And while they may have been one of the more extreme examples (even the most extreme, depending on who you might ask), there were legions of other like-minded metalheads that pushed their music towards an extremity that's rarely been paralleled. A good example is Lima, Peru's Hadez.
And holy shit, the cojones on this fucking band. So the first song on the first demo they release is pretty much the riff from Pentagram's "Forever My Queen" note-for-note played at various speeds (a striking similarity the band may or may not have been aware of, as the Pentagram song, while initially recorded in 1973, didn't see a semi-official release until twenty years later).
That's their introduction to the world.
That.
Then the next song kicks off with a riff that's stolen fucking exactly from Hellhammer's "The Third Of The Storms". But in between what seems like stabs at blatant plagiarism, the band moves into a zone where they may be falling completely apart or they may be taking off onto some higher plane of musical reality. It's hard to tell which. They'll throw in a standard thrash riff, but then everybody just starts soloing. And I don't mean melodic solos either. It's like everybody (drums included) is trying to cop the whole atonal noisemaking thing Kerry King built a career upon.
It almost borders on free jazz sometimes, like an evil Caspar Brotzmann or something. I'd like to think they were trying to advance the art form with a sort of hyperspeed avant-garde plunderphonic approach, but in all likelihood they were just banging this shit out based on enthusiasm and adrenaline with little concern for trivial details like songs, musicianship, or recording quality. Apparently, Hadez is still around and has a good number of releases under their collective bullet belt, but honestly I don't want to hear them. Even though there was a release called Extreme Badness On The World, which rules, there's no way any of their subsequent albums could be as spot-on perfect as this.
Oh yeah, and this may be the only band that utilized a "Z" in an intentional misspelling and can get away with it.
This may seem like too much of a blanket statement, but a large number – the majority even - of metalheads worldwide have a pretty easy life. If some Norwegian dude singed his hair burning down a church or stubbed his toe kicking over a tombstone, he could go to the doctor gratis. If some long-hair from Tampa, stumbling out of a Morbid Angel show at three in the morning, finds his or her stomach churning from the dizzying mixture of headbanging and Colt 45, that individual can likely find a convenience store where Pepto Bismol can soothe the viscera and taquitos can calm the soul. But it's not like that everywhere, and some of the most bracing and relevant entries into metal's canon have originated in areas that were decidedly disadvantaged. One could call to mind Black Sabbath and Napalm Death's emergence from under the smog of Birmingham's heavy industry or the military dictatorship overseeing Brazil when Sarcofago and Sepultura first began making noise. More recent examples of metal bands springing up amongst the Middle East's theocracies bear the point out further. But few areas of the world were as harsh and unforgiving as Medellín , Colombia in the 1980s. As one of the primary centers for the international cocaine trade, at various points Medellín enjoyed the dubious distinction of being known as the world's most violent city. Cartels, most notably the one headed by Pablo Escobar, battled the police, paramilitary forces, and each other, turning the city into a warzone for much of that period.
But among the chaos, a small but dedicated metal scene arose, one that produced bands of striking consistency and consistent idiosyncrasy. I've written elsewhere about the background on this group of musicians and delved into the back catalogs of a handful, but there is one band in particular whose essence is difficult to really capture. I had heard this band referred to as the most extreme band ever recorded, a tag I had seen applied time and time again over the nearly two decades I've been into the heavier side of music. It's the type of description that would make most metal fans roll their eyes, both because of how overused the idea is and how subjective it is, but after giving this band a listen, it's difficult for me to say that the assessment is wholly incorrect. I'll spare the hyperbole of endorsing the idea that this band was the most extreme ever, but the music speaks for itself. In a nutshell (and again, hyperbole aside), it's a brooding, nihilistic slab of barbaric anti-music that channels the destruction and chaos of the band's surroundings into a destructive whirlwind of sound that makes Hellhammer sound like Pat Boone (and not metal-covering Pat Boone either). That band was Parabellum.
Parabellum has the distinction of being one of the earliest Central American metal bands, especially within the style of music they played. Formed in 1981, the band didn't actually record anything until 1987, but this six-year divide did little to smooth their writing process or refine their aesthetic. Theirs is a blunt, frantic approach where bilious vocals overlay music that can seem almost alien at times - caveman drumming, tinny practice amp guitar tone, solos that burst out over top of everything with no regard to key or metre like something Kerry King would come up with in the middle of a PCP binge, songs stop and start seemingly without rhyme or reason leaving queasy, detuned passages to bridge the gaps. It's music as pure negation, a whole-hearted attempt to reject everything that Western Civilization has ingrained in our collective mind regarding what constitutes tonality and structure. It's metal that would make most listeners scratch, rather than bang, their heads.
I do understand that descriptions like that make the thing seem like it's going to sound like some art school noise band, but the music speaks for itself. While so many artists attempted to seem edgy, crazy, or to fulfill some other socially-constructed role of rebellious other, Parabellum just sounds insane. I've played music for a long time and I really cannot figure out what their writing process must have entailed. My initial impression was that everything in their music seems to happen at random like some deranged heavy metal take on free jazz (years before John Zorn did it) but further listens reveal that the members are actually playing at least somewhat together. And this is the point I found most unsettling. People actually sat down and wrote this. While it sounds like the type of band Morlocks or C.H.U.Ds would start after hearing a warped Possessed cassette that fell down a storm drain and was washed down underground rivers into their hidden lair, this was all intricately plotted out by people that you might well walk by on the street.
Earnestness isn't always the first trait praised in heavy metal, a style that often leans towards larger-than-life themes and personalities, but it's a characteristic of Parabellum's music that has rendered it far more compelling than many other bands who have operated on the periphery of what most people would think of as music. It's like a black metal Shaggs trying to approximate the sound of a hydrogen bomb detonation, but for all the over-the-top discordance, there is a sense of vitality at the core that cannot be falsified, the sound of people playing because they have no other choice. If the extremity of an aesthetic statement could be measured by an artist's ability to channel dire circumstances into a creative outlet, the idea of Parabellum as heavy metal's apogee is not as bold a statement as it might initially seem and remains a lasting testament to the ability to transcend the worst of surroundings through the least likely of means.
Wow, a bold entrance from our newest writer, Virginia's own purplerainingblood. I can't say I'd ever heard of Parabellum before, color me face-melted. For those of you keeping track, that's four new additions to The Team in four days, with yet more on the way. I'm definitely looking forward to hearing more from all of these guys. Hell, I might even write something myself sooner or later...
So yeah, I try to do one of these "anti-mixtapes"on the first day of each new season, but I somehow missed the first day of Spring 2011 through a horrendous barrage of wind and near-freezing rain. So you guys are getting this one a week late (which is better than never). It's a pretty hefty mix this time around (over two hours of tunes), custom-made (as always) to play in order when dropped into an iTunes playlist.
I tried to challenge myself by playing a little word game with this one. I'm sure you guys can figure it out (please note that the first band is POWER Quest and the last band is POWERmad).
Enjoy!
1. POWER QUEST "Far Away"
2. QUEST FOR BLOOD "Noise"
3. PAGAN BLOOD "The Call of Gods"
4. PAGAN ALTAR "Flight of the Witch Queen"
5. BLACK ALTAR "The Revelation of Scourge"
6. BLACK DEATH "Night of the Living Death"
7. NAPALM DEATH "Nazi Punks Fuck Off"
8. EXTREME NAPALM TERROR "Part 5"
9. SLEEP TERROR "Ascetic Meditation"
10. ETERNAL SLEEP "... To The End"
11. HATE ETERNAL "Praise of the Almighty"
12. HATE FOREST "With Fire And Iron"
13. FOREST OF FOG "Die Klage des Windes"
14. FOG OF WAR "M.O.S.H."
15. INVOCATION WAR "Infinite Power"
16. BURIAL INVOCATION "Desecration Remains"
17. BURIAL CHAMBER TRIO "Untitled"
18. SKIN CHAMBER "On A Drunk"
19. SKIN INFECTION "Locust Swarm"
20. DEAD INFECTION "Autophagia"
21. DEAD CONGREGATION "Voices"
22. MOURNFUL CONGREGATION "As I Drown In Loveless Rain"
Prurient (aka Dominick Fernow) is a pissed off mother fucker. Really, really pissed off. Over the last decade he has become one of the more visible artists in the noise/power electronics scene. He started Hospital Productions, the label/record shop in Manhattan. Dominick is uncompromising, seemingly interested in only the most abrasive, grating "music" known today. He releases and creates some of the harshest sounds in the power electronics scene. In addition to noise, he also is deeply into black metal. Fernow not only releases/carries grim and frostbitten sounds via hospital, he actually plays in at least five black metal projects, most notably Ash Pool and Vegas Martyrs (Who I hope to share here soon).
This particular album isn't a completely typical Prurient release from what I've had the chance to hear. This also isn't his best received work within the noise scene. That having been said, I happen to enjoy this release and think a few of you might as well. This is structured, as opposed to the free improvisation rampant in the scene. These are composed songs, not excerpts from extended jamming. Some of his interest in black metal bleeds into this release. I think a lot of you who may still be new to the genre might find this slightly more accessible then some other things. I don't mean that as an insult to the work, it captures a lot of what power electronics can be at its best. And to clarify, this is still, by no means, something your mom is going to approve of.
Two last things, while I mentioned that this particular album wasn't his best received within the community, Dominick's music and label are generally well respected within the said scene. Also, this album is more of a "studio" album. If you were to see a live Prurient set you probably wouldn't hear these songs. But, you should go if you get the chance. Dominick is known for having some of the more intense, confrontational live sets today. Its not entirely uncommon for there to be bloodshed and its generally quite a show regardless.
Has this blog been getting too jazzy and avant-garde? Fuck that, and I'm sorry if I'm contributing in any way to the de-metalfication of Shelby's baby, but this shit has to be heard!
This week marked the release of Girl Talk's album "All Day" which, according to Wikipedia, "consists of 372 overlapping samples of other artists' songs to create new music."
372? That's weaksauce diper-baby shit. Also Girl Talk totally sucks.
In 1992 John Zorn commissioned artist and musician John Oswald to make a record for his Japan-based Avant label. The result was a 20 minute opus mindfuck containing over 1000 micro samples of music featuring everything (and I mean fucking EVERYTHING) from Sinead O'Conner to Gwar. Released as Plexure in 1993, the ultra complex and dense piece was meant to be a brief "history" of cd music released up to that point (1982-1992). Most of the album is built on a structure that begins with the slowest songs from that time (mostly ballads and blues), and proceeds gradually to the fastest (bluegrass and speed metal). This is a must listen for any fan of fucked up music. Super fun, harsh, palatable and difficult at the same time.
Alright you blogger nerds, you fucked up. You fucked up big time. And your going to have to be punished. Just remember, I do this because I love you.
The first post I made about noise featured John Wiese. This album features a collaboration between Wiese and another major noise artist, Merzbow.
Merzbow (Masami Akita) is an OG on the real. Dudes been releasing this sort of stuff since 1979(!). He is also a big fan of grindcore and deathmetal. Akita is incredibly prolific, he has over 350 solo recordings out to date and numerous collaborations as well. His process has changed a lot over the years, originally using "junk" and electronics and more recently using laptops. Heres an example of his earlier approach from a Korean tour in 1991...
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Multiplication.
This album is brutal and unrelenting. Your ears are assaulted from every angle and you never get a chance to catch your breath. Its starts right in at a million miles an hour and only gains momentum. This is not for the faint at heart so you Elliot Smith listening, sweater wearing types best leave this one alone. But if you think you can handle this, give it a try, and find out how wrong you are...
PS One of my favorite things to do is play this and Phobia or Visceral Bleeding at the same time. Go on try it, it'll give you a chance to meet those new neighbors who moved in upstairs.
Remember that post I did on John Wiese a couple days ago? Sure you do. Are you, like, into black metal, bro? Ok, ok, of course you are. I'm sorry I even asked. Do you want to hear band that'll make you want to rip out your ear drums and light yourself on fire? Well why are we wasting time then? Check out one of the most fucked albums Ive had the "pleasure" of hearing.
As promised, here is some fucked up music that's gonna make your ears bleed.
Let me break this down for all of you real quick. I thought it was sort of strange that so many metal heads respected classical music yet had almost no knowledge of it at all. I decided to experiment a little bit and post some composers along with their music. You guys/girls have made it clear that you are interested and receptive to that academic snobbish shit and that was exciting for me. Now I want to try something else... Another thing I find odd is the small amount of cross over between the noise scene and the metal scene. I mean I get it, but still whats up with that? Are you all so concerned with who's got the most patches and biggest beard that you have become detached from the raw power and expression of anger that attracted you to this genre in the first place? I hope not. I know some of you know a little bit about it. Aesop has posted a lot of Yamataka Eye's early noise projects on his blog (Go check those out too). I want to try a couple albums out on you guys over the next few weeks and see what you think. Give this stuff a chance, you might find that its not all that unlistenable after all.
The first album I want you to try out is John Wiese's Soft Punk. Wiese is prolific and respected artist in the noise community. His style is spastic, filled with quick cuts and drastic changes. While he's moved toward a more "minimal" or "spacious" sound recently, his earlier records tend to have dense, abrassive textures. John is promiscuous, collaborating with all sorts of people, including Cattle Decapitation on 2008's The Harvest Floor. He makes no secret about his interest in metal music, you'll hear blast beats and growls mixed in with static and feedback on Soft Punk. But you can hear all that and more below...
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