PUTRESCENT FOG – ‘LURKING UNSEEN EVILS’

Putrescent Fog was/is a project of the Insect Hermit, they of a great many bizarre, unique and influential underground Gore projects. I recall searching on soulseek for the first two cassette releases, both excellently ominous, their gruesome covers and promise of a quixotic Gore sound holding a morbid glare of fascination within me. I was unaware this particular project was still operational in any capacity, so it’s a treat to get this collection of unreleased tracks. A sound like death fog creeps out of the speakers, slow lurching Guitar chugs in a haze of odorless mortician’s fog with floating rudimentary beats, slow rolling low fidelity occultism, phantasms approach moaning and weeping in super low vocal horror… chamber music for the poltergeists! Reminds of the excellent and inscrutable Black Mayonnaise, but has an unsettling, lo-fi creepiness all it’s own, and also bears some similarity to projects like Lysergic Rites of Sadopriest, their perverted euro grooves and giallo satanic obsessions here also in spiritus mortis and erect with the same prurient yearnings. Ghastly.

Cat Basket Recordings

MAGGOT VOMIT AFTERBIRTH / ACTIVE STENOSIS SPLIT – ‘SKINLESS LIMBS, WEEPING PUS’

Recent split from US Goregrind degenerates Maggot Vomit Afterbirth and reanimated Gore/Grindcore unit Active Stenosis, released on Breathing Problem Productions in the States and Cadaveric Dissolution Records in Russia. MVA crank out 6 tracks of steaming, foetid blasting Goregrind with mangled mostly-pitched insane vocal, grinding Guitars on super low augmented with Bass bludgeon, hyperblasting drumming with snappy d beats and ping snare, a thing of putrefying excellence! AS pull two halves of a rotten cat out of the bag and throw down dome very old school Goregrind/Grindcore ala Dead Infection or Ulcerous Phlegm, stepping further left into Grindcore traditionalism than on previous surgically precise, more machined Goregrind efforts – low &super low vocal trading purring snarls, corpulent Guitar and Bass sound form riff rudiments drenched in deathly atmosphere, very groovy blasting drums with tasteful(?) snare sound. This has an organic heft and hue, heaving with pus and rotten organ matter as it grinds away in a forgotten practice space, drunk on haste in toothless abandon. Killer split.

Breathing Problem Productions

Cadaveric Dissolution Records

Maggot Vomit Afterbirth Bandcamp

CACASÓNICA – ‘LAS PRIMERAS BULLAS 2006-2012’

Ecuador’s Cacasónica get the early discography treatment, released on double CD and free to download by estimable obscurity archive and lo-fi label extraordinaire Mortville Noise, in collaboration with Canchis-Canchis Records. Ill tempered, insane, occasionally musical ‘Psicotropicomorbogrindinsanocore’ in the hardcore punk on inhaled solvents tradition ala South American Noisecore. 142 tracks of uncontrollable grinding Noisecore fury and incensory outrage blurred out Hardcore perfection. Brutally lo-fi boombox recordings and excessive volume. Tracks shift from simplistic 3 chord Punk Rockers to fleet footed debilitating Noisecore speed blast and back in the space of seconds, yelping bloody throated maniac vocal attack over demented guitar and bass throttling, yelled song titles in between songs, lots of silly interludes, repeat ad nauseam! Haphazard, mean-spirited and fun, over the top and ecstatically energetic. Fucken total slop rocket fuel. Essential.

Mortville Noise

MEDIC VOMITING PUS – ‘THORACOABDOMINAL VISCERECTOMY’

Medic Vomiting Pus is a one-man Slamming Brutal Death Metal project from Japan, here with their only full length album, released on Bloodcurdling Enterprise. Haruka Kamiyama was also a member of Gorevent and is still a member of the ludicrous, fantastic Shinda Saibo no Katamari/死んだ細胞の塊, and here summons an impressive and vehemently regressive feast of barbaric Slam. Ultra hyperblasting and double bass deathrolling drum machine slams programmed in rigid groove patterns and forged of murderous volume extremity, timbre-focused sluicing riff chug slaw throws surprisingly memorable slam shapes, with superlow vocal insolence adornments. Gory and putrid. The imperious, superloud programmed drum style and sound really adds some spice to this project for my tastes, I find the unwieldy blasting and Neanderthal aggressive slams completely addictive. Fucking sordid.

Bloodcurdling Enterprise

SANTAKA – ‘NO RIVERS HERE’

Santaka is the lockdown-birthed brainchild of Lithuanian drummer Marijus Aleksa and producer/DJ Manfredas whose symbiotic fusioneering expertise has resulted in one of 2022’s most audacious sonic statements. ‘No Rivers Here’ offers jazz without parameters, a fact writ vast by the undulating topography of the title track, a lurid, psychogenic shiver-fest that treads the path of most resistance for 18 breathtaking minutes. Alchemically concocted from aquaplaning percussion, pungent squalls of synth reflux, and a propulsive, slasher flick bassline, it has as much in common with Can and rRoxymore as Miles Davis and Sun Ra, which for those of us in the purist-baiting community, is A Very Good Thing Indeed. ‘555’ brings the low end into even sharper focus, dub-modulated congas and hi-hats swarming like bees around a honeypot of rapidly congealing sax. Unstable as neat nitroglycerine, it’s a potent intoxicant, but better still is ‘Opening Chasms (In Four Parts)’ which assembles a quadridimensional Rube Goldberg contraption from woodwind, brass and hand-drums that bears favourable comparison with Shackleton & Zimpel’s far-flung ‘Primal Forms’ and the Kryptox school of krautjazz outernationalism. Santaka are playing with divine fire here and to describe ‘No More Rivers’ as head-wrecking would be a galaxy class understatement. Fill yer boots.

Byrd Out

SISSY SPACEK – ‘RESLAYER’

Recent missive from the outside ordinary Sissy Spacek, in the Mumma/Randall/Weise configuration. Abstract topographic Noise maps of madness and fugue Noisecore simulation – oblique immense cut up harsh noise from samples appearing to resemble Noisecore, forced through hyper pressure furnace electronics process unknown, resultant each track consists of several Noisecore/Cut Up Harsh Noise style movements, variably mutated and maligned cut up superfast harsh noise with myriad molten scorching textures, scraping high end pressure release and turbine leg-chopping low end, shapes resembling brute low vocal howl and even spectral percussive blast within miniature maelstrom, terminus register whipcracks, punctuations of deep breath oxygenation preceding a new blast of dense chestplate shattering harsh in repeating motions. Hypercritical, myopic, abstruse Harsh Noise alignment from beyond sonic empiricism. Rellik.

Bandcamp

BASTARD NOISE & MERZBOW – ‘RETRIBUTION BY ALL OTHER CREATURES’

Eric Wood and Masami Akita collaborate again following 1996’s ‘Voice Pie / Bastard Noise’ split, an early transmutative release in the Man is the Bastard Noise canon, and a few other tracks, notably ‘Killing Friends’ from the intimidating and frankly amazing ‘Our Earth’s Blood IV’. ‘Retribution By All Other Creatures’ finds the two creating an audially and spiritually cohesive statement of Animal Rights, summoning the collective survival will of non-human life on earth to deliver 4 litanies of humble misanthrope outrage, delivered in HI Def surround sound and heavy high grade card stock courtesy of Relapse Records. Harsh Noise, Power Electronics, Death Industrial, Black Ambient… each a flinty arrowhead in the arsenal, sharpened with singular intent – savage reprisals against mancruel, a total ear-bleeding tirade against HIM. TROG Prog ambient Kosmische overdriven arrangements, ambient slow burn punctuated with harrowing bursts of temporal shift Harsh Noise, volume accent pitch spikes unbearable, sub-Bass frequencies hulking and steaming beneath. Tracks one and two carry Woods’ unbelievably impassioned vocal emanations bursting from seething electronic squall and rhythmic dynamic synthesis, whispering and bellowing the furrow plough of man’s ruin. Pitiless and poignant haywire signals and looping feedback of hazard alarms, brute half melodic passages of alien synth weapon discharge, arranged to mete violence to the spiritually blind and stoke internal awakening in those who care to see. Merzbow’s hand(wing/claw/hoof…) is felt more distinctly in the second half of the collaboration, bubbling mimicry of avian and ungulate cries channeled through imperious Harsh Noise, slithering frequencies emerging from loops and escaping, furthering blackly psychedelic events within the mind’s eye guided by chittering, skittering, mimetic audial event, machines become animals borne of terror and beauty,- a disquieting barrage, a mayhap of natural un-intended art and a clarion call of wakefulness in a world of dead minds and calcifying hearts. A vital collaboration.

Relapse Records

KATATONIC SILENTIO – ‘LES CHEMINS DE L’INCONNU’

Katatonic Silentio is the alter ego of Milan-based radiophonic researcher and sound sculptor Mariachiara Troianiello whose recondite production witchery smashes the safety glass separating genres like techno and broken beat enabling a host of thorny new hybrids to coalesce and propagate. The feature length follow-up to last year’s febrile ‘Tabula Rasa’ EP, ‘Les Chemins De L’Inconnu’ is a breathtaking tour de force; dub techno centrifuged to a darkly iridescent elixir composed only of its most volatile and astringent elements. Beats are routinely decentralised and although a dauntless DJ might be tempted to drop one of these lysergic bombs into a 4am set (‘Dans Le Cadre Du Relief’ stalks the corridors of inner space with the levitational cadence of prime Porter Ricks), this is music primarily for the mind rather than the body. Throughout, KT’s gift for labyrinthine sound design is nothing short of revelatory, a fact nowhere better exemplified than on the album’s quartet of dread-drizzled ambient cuts. Too often the insipid afterthoughts of an artist bereft of ideas, here they span the width of the foreground; lagoons of churning isolationist murk that reveal swathes of microscopic new detail with each successive playback. The epicentre of this magisterial mindquake though is ‘Hypothèse D’Hypnose’, an 11-minute acid dub nightmare that recalls the grim post-apocalyptic doomscapes explored by Samuel Kerridge circa ‘Always Offended Never Ashamed’. Remorseless in its crushing of convention, ‘Les Chemins De L’Inconnu’ is the Luna marble capstone on another stellar year for left-field electronic music. Listen deep.

ITLP13

 

COOKIN SOUL / NOTORIOUS B.I.G. – ‘READY FOR XMAS (LOFI EDIT)’

A holly jolly fistful of Hip Hop for hanukkah! Rugged bumpin’ beatcraft with perfectly matched Christmas music sampling and the impossibly fluid rhymes from the late and arguably greatest. Internet-dwelling post Nujabes Hip Hop is alive with this kind of shit, lo-fi chill beats playlists and mixes spat out of the YT algorithm, becoming our newest version of Smooth Jazz or AOR. Fascinating shit. I for one love Smooth Jazz and AOR. Anyway, this is dope as fuck – surface pops and hiss, fuzzy-edged raw sample style, fluid and thumping Bass lines, kick thuds imbued with head nodding power, choice block rockers paired with many cocktails & trees on an isolated Christmas. The rambunctious, ebullient version of ‘Bring it On’ here slays the Born Again version with its simple sampling, for my money, and the closing two tracks are absolutely fucking awesome; Donny Hathaway’s samples in ‘Juicy Xmas’ are sumptuous addictive earworms, and pair off perfectly against truncated bars of ‘Juicy’. This one’ll keep fresh all year round. Killer tape.

Bandcamp

AL CISNEROS – ‘SINAI DUB BOX (2012-2022)’

Al Cisneros has been producing mystic Dub for the past 10 years, releasing numerous 7″s on Sinai and Drag City as well as including Dub versions within the audial language of the devotional Om. Here collected are most of the tracks from those 7″s, reissued and repressed in a lavish box set to materialise joints atop. Atmospheric Roots and Dub, crackin’ lightning wobble box effects, miasmic stoned Bass lines repeat the omni-iriffri as drifting pocketed, rock-tinged percussion snaps through the haze, occasional vocal samples, and ambient Melodica-like swirling riffs providing high minded melody, conjured from within meditative studio unity of stoned rapture – Inspiration drawn, held and exhaled from Augustus Pablo, On U Sound, Scientist et al. Esoteric and devotional, carrying much of the same spirit and zen as Om but channeled through a unifying devout Dub lens. The indelible foundation of Dub in Cisneros’ other works is here made manifest, his creations imbibed with the smokey distillation of Dub influence all the way back to the final rumblings of Asbestosdeath and the birthing yawns of Sleep. Crucial collection.

Drag City Records