STCLVR – ‘POST SELF ABANDONMENT’

Unkind Power Electronics, Noise EBM and nightmarish Darkwave perverted and decontextualized by some horny masked puck,  a foul, rogue fulminate of scalding alkaline electronics, accurately named by it’s author ‘harsh industrial bedroom pop’. Classic wobbly-signal power electronics vocal fluctuation spits slathered over (curb)stomping darkwave arrangements, pulsating grinding Bass surges and funky thumping kicks, synthesizers purge and ooze pure menace, glowering tyrannical production booms and blats like a motherfucker. Danceable and decimating in equal awful measure. Kitsch, cute and criminal, like being beaten to death by a super sexy leather demon of indeterminate gender. Greasy, perverse and aggressive , dense and autoerotic, ‘Post Self Abandonment’ represents an apotheosis of design in STCLVR’s sound, equally sensual and bared-teeth furious, a cornucopia of fuming paradoxes. Fucking exceptional.

Phage Tapes

Crucial Blast

Bandcamp

TJOLGTJAR – ‘VRUGUUN’

Tjolgtjar’s final record ‘Vruguun’ is a drugged and rockin’ descent into Psychedelic Black Metal hades, and a perfect summation of what makes Tjolgtjar so special. An amazing amalgam of influences making for a formidably unique redneck Black Metal record, drunk on potent ‘shine. King Diamond and Speed Metal, Kiss and WASP, raw Darkthrone and Burzum style Black Metal, Country, Bluegrass and Southern (gothic) Rock,13th Floor Elevators and Roky Erikson, Ted Nugent and Charles Manson, little nods to Post Punk, all manner of psychedelia, Goblin, Synths and Organs, raw and reedy Black Metal Guitars with killer riffing, rasping evil vocal mixed with impassioned singing and Metal wails, wailin’ solos over hard rocking anthems, psilocybin-laced Black Rock and Metal of a completely unique formula. Satanic and Occult, raw and obscure. Some tracks adhere to a more traditional Black Metal composition, others hew closer to 70’s Hard Rock or ancient spellbound Heavy Metal, and others still combine these elements into an incredibly heady listening experience. Slight differences or emphases in production across these 24 tracks amount to a very home-made, underground sound, very high concept and low fidelity. Vruguun is an absolute delight of non traditional Black Metal Magick, deftly handling dirt-rune experimentalism and drunk as fukk anthem bangin’ across it’s running time. Crucial.

Illinoisan Thunder

Super Sargasso

Bandcamp

WRESTLING WITH GLUTTONY: TAKESHITA – ‘DUMMY NOISE’ [2023]

Meet Mr. Garg, the elusive creature behind monikers like Kwashiorkor, Pizza Burrito, and the grandiose Cloak of Displacement. Under the alias Takeshita, he unleashes wrestling-flavored cacophonies on the unsuspecting masses. The album ‘Dummy Noise’ is a bizarre dedication to Yoshihiko, an inflatable sex doll turned wrestling sensation for the Dramatic Dream Team in Japan. Yes, you read that right – an inflatable sex doll in the wrestling ring. Move over, Hulk Hogan.

Further, this record boldly proposes that ‘Harsh noise is Free Jazz’ and tries to prove this daring hypothesis with about an hour’s worth of material. True to form, this high-concept album is a chaotic wrestling match – ‘Yoshihiko vs. Kota Ibushi‘ features crowd noises colliding with spastic drum fills, creating an atmosphere that’s like stumbling upon a band’s wild soundcheck. This opening track is genuinely cool but overstays its welcome at seven minutes. Think of it as the musical equivalent of a wrestler flexing for way too long.

Now, let’s talk about ‘Spinning Head Scissors,‘ where Takeshita generously throws in a bunch of bleeps and bloops, like a digital rendition of a toddler playing with a shiny new toy. It’s not exactly a spectacle – more like the auditory equivalent of finding spare change in your couch cushions. Not groundbreaking, but hey, it doesn’t make you cringe either. A solid “meh.”

And then we dive headfirst into the abyss of ‘Untranspressive Transpression.’ This track features various chopped-up vocals narrating absurdities about a gig in ‘CHICK-A-GO’. It’s like listening to the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist who stumbled upon a thesaurus. Cool concept, but spoiler alert: it’s about as drawn-out as a lecture on the history of lint.

Now we come to the heart of the album, a noise jam called ‘Yoshihiko’s Journey’ that lasts a whopping 16 minutes. Imagine a hypnotic blend of synth flickering, a symphony of beeps and boops, and various noise movements that’ll make your eardrums do somersaults. It’s like Takeshita decided to throw a carnival for your senses, and you’re not just a spectator – you’re getting body slammed by a sex doll.  ‘Yoshihiko’s Journey‘ boldly steps into the ring with the heavyweights, earning a spot up there with the best of Merzbow. Yes, you heard it right – Takeshita is flexing those noise muscles, proudly claiming a throne next to the maestro of cacophony himself

Now the album is running on full steroid infused stream! “Sax Doll” emerges as a standout, with electronic chops, echo-laden saxophone riffs, and a disorienting atmosphere. The sax solo is sliced, delayed, and layered, creating walls of sound that feel both surreal and captivating. Another banger! Takeshita is on the juice!

But beware of ‘Inflatable Sticks & Stones,‘ a track that’s pure filler, a gluttonous addition to the buffet. This is followed by ‘Not a Sex Doll‘ featuring iwkok$10 – a LightningBolt-esque freakout set to noise. The tragedy lies in the sporadic moments of brilliance, drowned out by long passages that sound like simultaneous clashes of disparate tracks that mix like oil and water. It’s like trying to appreciate a Picasso painting while someone’s aggressively playing hopscotch on the canvas. Someone get the editing scissors – trim the fat, trim it now!

‘Yoshihiko vs. Minora Suzuki Dream Match,‘ unfortunately, follows suit as another filler track, lacking substance. It acts as a palate cleanser after the dense freakout before it.

And now, drumroll, please! We reach the grand finale – ‘Yoshihiko’s Siren Call.’ A sparse and ominous soundscape into the abyss of creaking noise and infernal Japanese moaning. It’s like stumbling into a haunted kabuki theater, where the ghostly performers traded their traditional instruments for an arsenal of dissonant noise.  This track is a journey where the lack of a clear rhythm wraps you in a tense atmosphere, gripping your attention like a suspenseful thriller. It’s like Takeshita handed the director’s baton to Hitchcock and said, “Make it weird, but make it captivating.” 

And so the curtains close on this avant-garde spectacle, ‘Yoshihiko’s Siren Call‘ manages to conclude the album on a high note – a note so high, even Mariah Carey would give it a nod of approval. It’s the musical equivalent of the wrestling sex doll deflating in the ring, bidding farewell after a decade of brawling. Picture an entire card of wrestlers solemnly putting the inflatable warrior to rest, as if it were the end of an era. Takeshita, you’ve managed to give a wrestling sex doll a fitting send-off, and for that, we salute you in the most avant-garde way possible.

Overall, ‘Dummy Noise‘ deserves a solid 7.5/10. Cut out the filler tracks, and you’ve got yourself a noise record that’s not just a banger – it’s a sonic knockout waiting to happen.

Available on CD and as digital download here:
https://ruralisolationproject.bandcamp.com/album/takeshita-dummy-noise

THE LAST SOUND – ‘VEERED’

The Last Sound is the nom de plume of Barry M, co-conspirator (with Magnetize) in Whirling Hall Of Knives, whose dissident exsanguinating techno has put the constitution of many a seasoned club-goer to the sternest test. In simple terms, WHOK rip while The Last Sound ravishes, and ‘Veered’, a previously unreleased album recorded between 2006 and 2010, documents the forging of the latter’s own distinctly less confrontational sonic identity. 9-minute scene-setter ‘Drugged On The Rugged Plain’ (no-one knows their way round an evocative title quite like TLS) captures this artful evolution in real time, morphing from tunnelling acid house to zero gravity psychedelia as gaseous whorls of synth inexorably envelop the rhythm track like a swarm of iridescent damselflies. It’s an arresting opening gambit but what follows is a transmission direct from the motherlode, nine bolts of the sweetest, sourest, most pigeonhole resistant psych-pop you’re ever likely to hear. ‘Outskirting’ seasons the cut of ‘Darklands’ era Jesus And Mary Chain with the thrust of early New Order, Barry icing the cake with a vocal so blissfully languid, it makes Kevin Shields sound like Flowdan. ‘Regenerative’, by contrast, is a gorgeous peal of peach-tinged ambience redolent of A.R. Kane at their most diaphonous, while the stunning ‘Kicked In’ flirts with both the astral and abyssal planes, a fully laden bass juggernaut ploughing full tilt into a grotto of fizzing guitar and synth. Utterly untarnished by the passage of time, ‘Veered’, offers a fascinating glimpse into the formative years of one of avant-pop’s most mercurial artists. Superb.

In anticipation of the album’s release on 22/02/24, Cruel Nature Records have kindly furnished GK with an exclusive video stream of ‘Underling’. Watch the action then head straight over to Bandcamp to grab a cassette or a digital download.

Cruel Nature Recordings

 

UFO BLACK METAL PT. 3: AHULABRUM ‎– ‘THE PHANTOM OF FLATWOODS’ [DEMO 2006]

Step right up, earthlings, as we once again delve into the extraterrestrial escapades of Ahulabrum. Last week, we dissected the second demo of Ahulabrum, and guess what? They cranked up the atmosphere like they were playing at Area 51 at a moonless night. But hold onto your tinfoil hats because, on this demo, they decided to go further and even drop the drums – this is pure perfection. If you’re not equipped with a lightsaber to cut through the thick atmosphere of sonic wizardry, you might get lost in the otherworldly sonic abyss.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get any spookier, there are interspersed ambient tracks featuring spare riffs, bass rumbling, and UFO-themed samples of people talking about their encounters. Because nothing says “out of this world” like a dash of extraterrestrial ambiance.

These tracks presented here aren’t just cooked up in a studio; they’re a concoction of field recordings, electrical effects, feedback experimentation, and the mystical resonance of ancient stereo equipment. It’s like a sonic séance conducted to honor one of the strangest encounters of mid-twentieth century UFO lore. 

You heard right, The Phantom of Flatwoods isn’t your run-of-the-mill album; it’s a concept album, a musical odyssey wholly fixated on the Flatwoods incident. According to interviews, the main guy from Ahulabrum even embarked on a field trip to Flatwoods to record some ambience. No close encounters, mind you, but the resulting recordings went right into this demo.

Ahulabrum did it again, dishing out another dose of audio awesomeness with a release that’s so iconic, even your grandma’s hipster neighbor knows about it. Clocking in at only 14 minutes, you’ll be left panting for more. 

9/10 – A must have!

Check it out here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=edh8sMAcz00

VOMIR AND LEGION OF ANDROMEDA – ‘HARSH METAL WALL’

Collaborative CD release from post Metal barbarians Legion of Andromeda and the high lord wallmaster Vomir, a co-release between At War With False Noise, Decimation Sociale and Turgid Animal Italian Division. Total obstinate truculence made audial in incorrigable torpor. Each unit presents a track each of their own material, which is exclusive to the CD release, and contributes to 4 collaborative tracks, each just a hair over 18 minutes in length, which are available to stream and download. Noise Metal singularity, the brutalist monocrush doom-mongering of LOA’s unremitting cyclone 1 dimensional Industrial Death barrage beat anvil strike pattern and repeat roaring vocal invocation, alloyed in heresy with Vomir’s non-entity static wall noise perma-surge, exacting and entirely non-negotiable. Repetitious punishment, warping volume endurance, zealous flagellation meted out by faceless, indifferent inquisitors. Each project’s individual contributions sit comfortably within their respective discographies in a qualitative sense, with LOA’s ‘Hatebeat’ providing a particularly cruel, brusque, lengthy dismantling experience, but the collaborative tracks here truly strike a hammerblow to the collective artistic ego and objective prejudice, non-art annihilation stretched across timeless minimalist millennia, metronomicon Noise Metal from beyond myopia. A cudgel of perfect repetitious obstinance.

Decimation Sociale Releases

Bandcamp

EFFLUENCE / BLOWTORCH SPLIT

Sick outsider Gore/Death split from the now-ceased Sickening Shit operation, peddlers of only the most intensely hostile Gore, recently resurfaced renamed as Slaughtered Records like a corpse full of putrid gas in an industrial refuse marsh. Effluence plays a brand of extra-choppy free death brutality nearly unmatched in it’s sclerotic insanity, nauseating and alienating permablasting death, a brick wall of Brutal Death Metal torment with atypical percussion elements, violent freeform ‘riff’ structures boiling and seizing, putrid superlow vocal, a free-flowing improvisational language undecipherable even to the most blast-hardened intellects. Blowtorch operates in a similar field but with half of the artistry and twice the narcotics, self harming outsider art Gorenoise Brutal Death drooling with incorrigible aggression and psychosis. Irrepressible vocal lunacies, demented half riffs grind and scour, rictus blast drums, low tech ‘production’ with the overwhelming whiff of occupational therapy set deep in the seams. Lo-fi as Avant Garde.

Effluence Bandcamp

Blowtorch youtube

HEAVY SENTENCE – ‘WARRIORS OF MADNESS’

Helion Heavy Metal 7″ from England’s Heavy Sentence, co-released by Dying Victims Productions and Hackney’s own Crypt of the Wizard. 3 tracks of persecution, mayhem and hellraising, NWOBHM worship with a streak of 1st wave gloaming Black Metal spite, crusty leather and executioner’s axe. Guitars slash and chug with heaving bollocks and swagger, conjuring darkly uplifting melodies and mellifluent mean-as-fukk leads across road dog storming drunken rhythm section, smashing and battering, awesome vocal full of booze and hate, ablaze with molten boogie licks and retrogressive Hard Rock trappings. Uproarious, despoiling Heavy Metal to drink, fight and fuck to. Knife wielding hooligans, beer drinking graveyard lurkers, road warrior freaks and bastard knights, rejoice! Slash the pose, disregard the plastic retro shit and get stuck in. Heavy Sentence is the real fucken deal.

Dying Victims Productions

Bandcamp

UFO BLACK METAL PT. 2: AHULABRUM ‎– ‘THE TRANSIVITY OF STRANGENESS’ [2006]

We’re back, folks, with the intergalactic rock stars of the UFO Black Metal underground: Ahulabrum. So, buckle up your tin foil hats as we continue to delve deep into their discography.

In this thrilling sequel to their first demo, Ahulabrum doesn’t just crank up the atmosphere – they throw a full-blown black-tie Illuminati gala. They’ve finally decided to grace us with the reverb we’ve all been yearning for since their debut effort. It’s like they realized, “Hey, our music is already out of this world; why not add a touch of intergalactic echo to make it even spacier?” Bravo, Ahulabrum, for giving the people what they didn’t know they needed – a sound so ethereal it makes angels (that are in reality aliens – see pt. 1) question their celestial playlist. This whole demo is like a sonic séance in your dingy basement. You’re down there, casually playing with your ham radio (because who needs regular hobbies when you can communicate with beings from beyond?), and after a day of tuning into Russian number stations, you stumble upon this on some forbidden frequency. It’s the kind of musical revelation that makes you question whether your basement has secretly become a portal to the cosmic unknown.

Walls of tremolo-picked guitars hit you like a sonic tidal wave, a barrage of sound that makes you question whether you’re at a metal concert or caught in the crossfire of an interstellar battle. The drumming? Oh, it’s a delicacy, barely audible, and exclusively composed of low-end non-blastbeat bass drums. Bass licks emerge like unexpected plot twists in an episode of the X-Files, making you wonder if Mulder and Scully are about to pop out from behind the amplifier. Muffled groans, the kind that would make ghosts jealous, serenade you in the background, creating an ambiance that’s part extraterrestrial séance, part black metal opera. And if that isn’t enough to make your auditory senses tingle, radio samples kick in, giving you a front-row seat to the strangest frequencies the universe has to offer. It’s like tuning into the cosmic equivalent of a pirate radio station. In case you were skeptical about the authenticity of these sonic escapades, fear not! According to interviews (because even extraterrestrial musicians do press), Ahulabrum took it a step further. They threw in some childhood tape recordings they made with deconstructed radios.

So, strap in, fellow truth-seekers, because “The Transitivity of Strangeness” isn’t just rich in atmosphere; it can be considered a conceptual journey into the heart of UFO incidents, with every track named after dates and locations of UFO encounters like “September 12th, 1952, Flatwoods, WV.” It’s like Ahulabrum giving you a crash course in extraterrestrial history, with the syllabus including encounters that are semi-famous, almost famous, and maybe famous if you squint a little. After the brief runtime of 12 minutes, you will question if the guy next door is actually an alien spider in disguise. Spoiler alert: he probably is.

Rating: 9/10  – A must have!

Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMbo_DqQQrg

VICTIMS PANEL – ‘SHOW THEM’

Jay Tichy of SIDETRACKED infamy conjures a torrid steely stomp of Black Punk Metal, deeply indebted to Bone Awl and Ildjarn’s bastard lineage but with a myopic locus of influence within Hardcore – searing bleached white Black Metal scaffolded by very reductive stiff stomper beats, slashes of fuzzed, crumpled Guitars form ugly, brooding angles across the eyes, bellowed brooding vocal exhalations atop. Vicious and wicked. Like a foul bilious conjuration of influence between Negative FX, Tinner and Sump. I do feel that the devotional brevity for which Jay is known in his various projects is a little misplayed here, some of these ideas might work slightly better or land harder with a bit more room to breathe, but no matter. This is still a total starching.

Damien Records

MARTÍN ESCALANTE / TETÉ LEGUÍA / WEASEL WALTER – ‘KATYUSHA’

3 long tracks of multi-directional improvisational malfeasance to the destroy the illusion, reality shaking expressions of exuberance, power and lunacy. Totalitarian, maximalist torrent of free improvisation, an explosively intense expression of Free Jazz, a wordless primal scream dialed to 11 and vibrating with humming radioactive power. Delicacy and intonation wither like prone digits in a subzero torrent. Weasel pummels and plummets down the stairs in bursts of terminal velocity, crashing through the firmament with fearsome idiot energy and incredibly dexterous, choppy runs full of off-kilter hyper blast beats and endless rolling double bass. Leguía applies a tormenting, synapse poisoning saxophone performance best experienced behind bulletproof glass, each singing, stinging, screaming volley forced into life, choked and strangled, threatening to destroy your precious inner ear, and Escalante conjures a bass performance of the unfathomable, an iron curtain falling in plumes and rotten ruffles, coiling and piling beneath and amidst the insane percussion. Quieter moments serve to wane the friction and crank up the foul ambiance of these three demons at work(&play). A maelstrom of hyperkinetic aplomb and sweat-soaked interactive fervor, challenging and socially challenged. If you enjoy Painkiller era Zorn, Sissy Spacek or Peter Brötzmann, seek no further. Entirely essential, fun as fuck.

ugEXPLODE