WHITE BOY SCREAM – ‘TENT MUSIC’

White Boy Scream is the solo avant-classical project of Los Angeles based opera singer and composer Micaela Tobin, however, a recent chance meeting with prog folk artisan Joshua Hill has given rise to ‘Tent Music’, an enrapturing tour de force that glazes baroque experimentalism with the lustrous lacquer of oceanic rock. So named because its genesis occurred during two nights of improvisation in (surprise, surprise) a tent, the album’s immense force of attraction derives from the frictional dynamic between Hill’s latticework string arrangements and the unearthly effulgence of Tobin’s gravity defying vocals. ‘Overture’, for example is a palpitating crescendo of vinegary violin drone and calamitous percussion that could easily derail were it not for the starstream of oohs and ululations that reroute it towards to the nebulous realm inhabited by dreampop outliers like Cats Of Transnistria and Tan Cologne. Elsewhere, ‘Fade Away’ and the stunning ‘Fire In My Hands’ recall the seasick psych-blues roil of latter-day Swans, whilst ‘Beautiful Creature’ casts Tobin as strung-out balladeer, her mellifluous soprano melding with the aether like Björk serenading the bat population of a ruined mausoleum. The fulcrum on which ‘Tent Music’ pivots though is ‘Closer’, a chimerical epic that mutates from crystalline chamber folk to haunted abattoir clatter-fest over the course of eleven ear-strafing minutes. Addictive as chocolate-dipped crack, the allure this extraordinary record exudes is properly preternatural. Succumb without delay.

Whited Sepulchre Records

VARIOUS ARTISTS – ‘CADAVER MONUMENTS’

Banger 4 way split (sorry Andy, compilation) out on wax by Totem Cat Records in France, with each band loaded with un-reformable lifers. Malcontent sour Noise Rock, misanthropic Sludge and forlorn Doom sharing label/tape/board space, killing beers and stinking up the joint something heavy, Man’s Ruin/Shifty/Rage of Achilles style. -(16)- ploughs into their lumbering skate shunt Hardcore crush and downer Alt Sludge Rock scowl, leaning into waxed punk deadweight fury and austere, downer groove of scapegoathood, spots of clean vocal detailing personal tribulations. They never miss. Deadbird glowers and grieves in plodding, prideful Heavy Metal Doom reminiscent of Maryland titans The Obsessed with a dash of that Peaceville 3 sou(r)nd, here occupying the most wax (i think) and sticking out from their split peers with a mournful, heartbroken dirge into grandiose galloping original with falling Icarus lead work, and a pitch perfect Celtic Frost cover. Then Nightstick shift things down a gear or 4 into gibbering psychedelic sledge rock, nightmare fuel greyscale repeater psych that clowns would fear and Larry Lifeless(or Mark E Smith for that matter) would be ever so proud of. Slumped, inert and disturbed Noise Rock, barely cogent and sloughing out of time in their downtuned solo soaked abandon, freewheeling into occasionally tight-as-fuck blues drenched lucidity. Bad vibes. Fistula bring things to an anvil close with corpulent, stomping anti social Sludgecore that will rip your fucking arms off. Lumpy spiky chords, rumbling syrup Bass and leaden drumming, adorned with seriously spiteful, mental harsh vocal, drawing down the moon of Morrow and conjuring the fucking demon. Indispensable, particularly with that seriously silly/seriously fucking cool album cover.

Totem Cat Records

SUPPRESSION WITH BASTARD NOISE – ‘INFERNAL LEGIONS’

Collaborative LP from Suppression and Bastard Noise, a transmutation of Powerviolence mayhem in just under 20 minutes delivered by the hands and minds of the genre’s inceptors and early peripheral experimenters, some of the underground’s most blessed operators. Swelling, roiling bursts of psionic harsh electronics, steaming hissing freak Bass riff bodyblows augured with molten wailing electronics hell, matched beat for pace with rumbling mutant fusion jazz hardcore drumming, Hodges’ and Parrish’s unmistakable firebreathing raged-out mad man vocal, Wood’s synthbanks overloading and exploding with hostility and wyrd energy, harnessing powers that could depopulate the planet of Mancruel’s shitstained ‘civilisations’. Canon slow bass grooves churn in a mid paced lumber of pachyderm torment, slamming from deathsiren electronic disarray to furious fast, detailed, grinding Hardcore insanity with aplomb. Suppression’s masterly assimilation of early progged-out MITB and BN 4 steel girder era power Fusion elements, which comes off like their own overlooked mid-era ‘Release The Piranha’ material honed and dialed to unbearable intensity, and Wood’s sublimation into this fearsome sound imperceivably perfects a cacophonous, anti-human Powerviolence ordeal. Entirely crucial shit. Get one from Anthems of the Undesirable or Grindfather.

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ELEPHANT MAN BEHIND THE SUN – ‘COLLECTED TRACKS’

EMBTS was James F. Tarr, a legendary lo fi Gore/Noisecore project which may be known to you if you, like me, spent much of the late 00’s and the 10’s seeking out Grind, Gore and Noise across a plethora of blogspot caches and soulseek profiles. Iconoclastic Noisecore from beyond taste or decency, living contaminant pre-genre Gorenoise formed in radioactive poverty, low tek aqueous shitnoise bubbling with misanthropic rage and psychotic confusions, industrial trash, lo fi smash and grumble, groaning screaming vocal nauseatingly mashed with effects, super raw lo fi savant blasting drums, a massaker of Bass noise crackles and fizzes amidst a deleterious din of unidentifiable source, seemingly recorded on a boombox or 4-track. Mechanically separated gorenoisecore, cultural and social refuse made sonic mass, absolutely crude and resolutely berserk in it’s outsiderness. Along with bands like Anal Birth and Decomposing Serenity, EMBTS forged a new low in acceptability and hostility, a rebuke to civility and consensus wrought in blast beats and home made opprobrium. A singular vision. Be sure to check out this retrospective w/ New Noise and also, take a look at Tarr’s blog Tapes and Poverty. RIP James F. Tarr.

Breathing Problem Productions