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.
Skopje-based imprint PMG has been resequencing the genome of Slavic jazz for more than five years, but in a catalogue packed sardine tight with left turns, this audacious new venture from arch electronicist Andreja Salpe and actor Oliver Mitkovski is unquestionably one of the sharpest. Marrying shady spoken word (the word in this case being post-war Macedonian poetry) to acid-flecked minimal deep house, ‘Poetronika’ is the new paradigm of concepts that shouldn’t work but absolutely do, a slow-burning 80-minute art attack that unspools like the soundtrack to some low budget ultra-noir detective flick. Key to the album’s atmospheric gut-punch is the riveting dynamic between its creators, two artists who, on paper at least, appear to have precious little in common. Masters of syncretic dreamweaving, the duo assemble a sequence of interlocking tableaux, Mitkovski’s shadowy intonations streaking Salpe’s lambent beatscapes with the grit and grain of the dankest hip-hop. Reductive though it is to single out individual tracks from a project designed for unbroken live performance, the astonishing ‘Nataša Celaskoska’ is ‘Poetronika’ in microcosm. Ominous syncopations and an aromatic corkscrewing acid line are pebbledashed with notes from Salpe’s omnipresent Fender Rhodes while Mitkovski lurks in the shadows, waxing cryptically lyrical with the scuffed, taciturn diction of a barfly reciting passages from a Raymond Chandler novel. Evocative as the setting of a subterranean sun, ‘Poetronika’ offers escape-proof sanctuary from a deepening winter. Bask in its dark radiance.
Ranking the rest was an impossibility so I’ve listed them in alphabetical order of artist name:
DEENA ABDELWAHED – ‘Jbal Rrsas’ AHO SSAN – ‘Rhizomes’ AMOR MEURE – ‘A Time To Love, A Time To Die’ ARMAND HAMMER – ‘We Buy Diabetic Test Strips’ ANDRIUS ARUTIUNIAN – ‘Seven Common Ways Of Disappearing’ AUNTY RAYZOR – ‘Viral Wreckage’ BETTER CORNERS – ‘Continuous Miracles, Vol. 2’ NATALIA BEYLIS & EIMEAR REIDY – ‘She Came Through The Window To Stand By The Door’ BIG BLOOD – ‘First Aid Kit’ BIPED – ‘Large Fruit Still Uneaten’ THE BUG – ‘Machine I – IV’ BULL OF APIS BULL OF BRONZE – ‘The Fractal Ouroboros’ CRAVEN FAULTS – ‘Standers’ CREATION REBEL – ‘Hostile Environment’ CRUELLE – J’ai remplacé l’amour par l’argent’ MAROULITA DE KOL – ‘Anásana’ DOROTHEO – ‘Nada Escrito’ DOWNCROSS – ‘Invertebrata’ DONATO DOZZY & SABLA – ‘Crono’ ARNOLD DREYBLATT – ‘Resolve’ THE DWARFS OF EAST AGOUZA – ‘High Tide In The Lowlands’ EDREDON SENSIBLE – ‘Montagne Explosion’ EMÆNUEL – ‘The Night Skin Lives’ NATHAN FAKE – ‘Crystal Vision’ FANTASTIC TWINS – ‘Two Is Not A Number’ FLESH & THE DREAM – ‘Choose Mortality’ FÖLLAKZOID – ‘V’ KATIE GATELY – ‘Fawn / Brute’ GENEVIEVE – ‘Akratic Parasitism’ GODFLESH – ‘Purge’ GORGONN – ‘Six Paths’ GROVE – ‘P*W*R // PL*Y’ JUNI HABEL – ‘Carvings’ HABITAT ENSEMBLE – S/T HIDDEN HORSE – ‘Incorporeal’ HOLY TONGUE – ‘Deliverance And Spiritual Warfare’ HUFF – ‘Break Free From The Cage’ HUUUM – S/T IRREVERSIBLE ENTANGLEMENTS – ‘Protect Your Light’ JAY GLASS DUBS – ‘DJ Humble’ / ‘You Would Love Me Now’ JONQUERA – ‘Primitive Sounds Of Intermittence’ KAHN & NEEK – ‘Lupus et Ursus’ KLEIN – ‘Touched By An Angel’ LIA KOHL – ‘The Ceiling Reposes’ KRALLICE – ‘Porous Resonance Abyss’ / ‘Mass Cathexis 2’ / ‘The Kinetic Infinite’ LANGENDORF UNITED – ‘Yeahno Yowouw Land’ LE CRI DU CAIRE – S/T LENHART TAPES – ‘Dens’ LOTTO – ‘Summer’ / ‘Axolotl’ LUCIFIXION – ‘Trisect Joys Of Pierced Hearts’ CYRUS MALACHI – ‘The Feather Of Tehuti’ DESIRE MAREA – ‘On The Romance Of Being’ KEVIN RICHARD MARTIN – ‘Above The Clouds’ / ‘Black’ MODERN NATURE – ‘No Fixed Point In Space’ KASSEM MOSSE – ‘Workshop 32’ LAEL NEALE – ‘Star Eaters Delight’ THE NECKS – ‘Travel’ NEGATIVE VORTEX – ‘Tomb Absolute’ NEW AGE DOOM & TUVABAND – ‘There Is No End’ ANDREW NOLAN & GOD IS WAR – ‘The Hunt’ TUJIKO NORIKO – ‘Crépuscule I & II’ OF ONE / WHIRLING HALL OF KNIVES – ‘Recoil’ / ‘Greywash’ LISA O’NEILL – ‘All Of This Is Chance’ ØXN – ‘Cyrm’ PING PONG – S/T RADIAN – ‘Distorted Rooms’ RAT HEART ENSEMBLE – ‘Northern Luv Songs 4 Wen Ur Life’s A Mess’ MARLENE RIBEIRO – ‘Toquei No Sol’ MATANA ROBERTS – ‘Coin Coin Chapter Five: In The Garden … ‘ PAUL ST. HILAIRE – ‘Tikiman Vol. 1’ ANDREJA SALPE & OLIVER MITKOVSKI – ‘Poetronika’ SANAM – ‘Aykathani Malakon’ SELVHENTER – ‘Mesmerizer’ SERPENT OF OLD – ‘Ensemble Under The Dark Sun’ ALI SETHI & NICOLÁS JAAR – ‘Intiha’ SHACKLETON – ‘The Scandal Of Time’ SHACKLETON & ZIMPEL feat. SIDDHARTHA BELMANNU – ‘In The Cell Of Dreams’ SIGHTLESS PIT – ‘Lockstep Bloodwar’ SOFT-BODIED HUMANS – ‘Kaijugrime’ / ‘Kaijupop’ SONNYJIM & LEE SCOTT – ‘Ortolan & Armagnac’ SPEAKER MUSIC – ‘Techxodus’ STARAN WAKE – S/T COLIN STETSON – ‘When We Were That What Wept For The Sea’ SURGEON – ‘Crash Recoil’ TAKX – ‘Return’ / ‘Exile’ TINARIWEN – ‘Amatssou’ TITANIC – ‘Vidrio’ TONGUE DEPRESSOR – ‘Bones For Time’ EMMA TRICCA – ‘Aspirin Sun’ TUTU TA – ‘Lonely Eyes’ UCC HARLO – ‘Topos’ ULTHAR – ‘Anthronomicon’ / ‘Helionomicon’ VARIOUS ARTISTS – ‘Canto A Lo Divino’ VENGEFUL SPECTRE – ‘Vengeful Spectre II’ WHITE BOY SCREAM – ‘Tent Music’ WILD TERRIER ORCHESTRA – ‘Imperial Animism’ MC YALLAH – ‘Yallah Beibe’ YA TOSIBA – ‘ASAP inşallah’ WACŁAW ZIMPEL – ‘Train Spotter’
François Cambuzat and Gianna Greco are specialists in building bridges between worlds. Having cut their teeth fronting art noise provocateurs Putan Club, the duo journeyed to the Djerid desert in south-western Tunisia and forged an unlikely alliance with performers of the indigenous Banga ritual, an adorcism which invites, rather than seeks to reverse, spiritual possession. The two albums which resulted, both released under the monicker Ifriqqya Electrique, were fervid fusions of glowering industrial post-punk, transcendental chant-singing and frenetic hand percussion that stand amongst the most startlingly original cross-cultural collaborations ever brought to fruition. Upping the ante yet further, Cambuzat and Greco’s latest project relocates their theatre of off-grid operations to the isolated Cap-Vert peninsula in western Senegal. A joint enterprise with members of the resident Lebu community, Ndox Electrique capitalises on an uncanny symbiosis between brawny avant-rock and the polyrhythmic cacophony of the mystical n’doëp ceremony to create an electrfying hybrid, the ultimate in sonic polarity inversions. Crucially, it’s the paths Ndox Electrique DON’T tread that make ‘Tëdd Ak Mame’ such a formidable proposition. There are no concessions here to the pappy dietary requirements of the mainstream, nor does fusion equate to dilution. This is dissident, soul-stirring music that thrives on a commonality of intent, banger following cathartic banger in an uncompromising onslaught. Marshalled by lead vocalist Rokhaya “Madame” Diéne and featuring a trio of indefatigable percussionists, the band’s Lebu contingent generate onrushing waves of ritualistic rhythm and rhyme to which Cambuzat and Greco apply a treacherous undertow: scything, doom metal-heavy guitar riffs and an interlocking matrix of saw-toothed bass and electronics. Social media is cluttered with proclamations from the cloth-eared that there’s nothing new under the sun. For those of us who take a contrary position, Ndox Electrique have just delivered a motherfucker of a citation. Essential.
Rome-based imprint Raw Culture isn’t exactly renowned for its conservatism but the astonishing new album from Italian duo Andrea Renzini and Stephano Passini pushes the boat so far out it disappears over the horizon and gets crushed to matchwood by an alien species of squid. Lashed together from field recordings of Korean table tennis matches and a bijouterie of bizarre instrumentation (filter bag, aerosol flute, yoga balls), ‘Ping Pong’ is a riot of gnarly free jazz and motorik machine funk that charges, battering ram in hand, at the portal to a future of infinite possibility. The four pressurised jams that comprise the album’s A side (‘Master Ping’) showcase the band at its most organic and untamed. Cacophonous drum cannonades delineate a sequence of volatile grooves made all the more unstable by the miasma of caterwauling sonic detritus through which they corkscrew. It’s an outlandishly heady concoction, but the flip (‘Master Pong’, natch) is where Ping Pong’s singular vision comes fully into focus. Homing in on an irresistible sour spot ‘twixt Föllakzoid’s virulent technoid krautrock and the clammy sleaze-disco shenanigans of Decius, tracks like ‘Zilch’ and the jaw-dropping ‘Welcome’ are crammed with spadefuls of such dizzying detail they could trigger synaesthesia in a breeze block. Despite closing out with ‘Future’, a garish synth-punk hoedown that sticks out like a pilchard in a blancmange, there’s a pervasive sense here that Ping Pong are hovering on the cusp of a giant evolutionary leap; a metamorphosis into some higher, deeper and more vaporous form even they can’t conceive of. For now though, this is more than sufficient. Keep watching the skies.
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.
Indonesian duo Raja Kirik are first magnitude futurists whose adrenalised, sui generis fusion of the traditional and the Promethean is light years removed from the blanched banality of mainstream rock and pop. The follow-up to 2020’s astounding ‘Rampokan’, ‘Phantasmagoria Of Jathilan’ (a five act performance piece inspired by a Javanese folk dance from the Dutch colonial era) channels the mudslides and magma flows that spewed in all directions from its tumultous predecessor into a precision guided pyroclastic surge that, if anything, hits with even greater force. The swathes of new ground this revelatory racket breaks are vast and its massive heft is further enhanced by the quicksilver ululations of guest vocalist Silir Wangi which provide an arrestingly poignant counterpoint to the onslaught unleashed by the band’s formidable arsenal of homemade instruments and electronics. A fluxional matrix of jackhammering dance rhythms, post-industrial noise and shamanic folk noir, the album is harder to pin down than a kangaroo on a trampoline but its intrepid aesthetic is perhaps best exemplified by ‘Act III: Perangan’ a supercharged electroacoustic techno banger (gabbelan anyone?) that sounds like Perc trading blows with Senyawa. Frontier music in the truest sense of the term, ‘Phantasmagoria Of Jathilan’ joins Sanam’s ‘Aykathani Malakon’ and that bolus of holy terror recently hawked up by Elvin Brandhi and Lord Spikeheart as one of 2023’s most out there transmissions. Essential.
Guinea-Bissau born producer Teteu aka Normal Nada The Krakmaxter is a maverick’s maverick. Arguably the most enigmatic denizen of Lisbon’s vibrant electronic underground, his refractory hybrids of kuduro, tarraxinha and a host of other kinetic non-regional styles are amongst the sharpest serrations currently lending bite to dance music’s cutting edge. Released via Ugandan experimental imprint Nyege Nyege Tapes, Nada’s long-awaited debut full-length is nothing short of glorious; a flash flood of surging rhythmic improbability purpose crafted to rip a dancefloor from its foundations and send it hurtling towards the asteroid belt. Opening salvo ‘Beautiful Chaos’ offers a perfect summation of the album’s buccaneering ethos, exploding like a nailbomb in an ether huff of strung out syncopations and hornet swarm bass fuzz. The title track is even less constrained, its somersaulting snares and peals of haemorrhagic synth-grind seemingly beamed in from a parallel universe where the Young Gods have wrested control of clubland. Late highlight ‘Nai Na Chi’ flirts tantalisingly with the sort of zero gravity footwork that made DJ Rashad’s ‘Double Cup’ such a frisson-inducing mindfuck, but the album’s most startling transmission is also its least frenetic. A languid counterpart to the preceding half-hour of mayhem, ‘Dedicado ao sem abrigo esperanca ou quando a esperanca morre’ is a delectably creamy slice of downtempo tarraxinha that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Space Afrika album. Put some metal in your macrocosm.
The Dwarfs Of East Agouza are a criminally undervalued avant-garde power trio whose arabesque synthesis of West African free jazz and krautrock has precious few parallels in 21st century music. Comprised of Cairo-based composer Maurice Louca, Land Of Kush guitarist Sam Shalabi and Alan Bishop of Sun City Girls notoriety, the band’s modus operandi is mind expansion via the scenic route, a fact nowhere better exemplified than on their latest, and arguably most ear-boggling album to date. Recorded live in Brussels, ‘High Tide In The Lowlands’ manifests as two 20+ minute excursions through a teeming jungle of polychromatic sound that once entered blocks off all clear avenues of escape. Zone in or zone out, these are trips where the destination may be predetermined but the satnav has been sabotaged. Opener ‘Baka Of The Future’ ignites in a sunburst of Eastern guitar curlicues before a fitful motorik groove propels the track across the entropy Rubicon and it begins unravelling, tendrils of atonal ambience snagging at the synapses until disorientation sets in. ‘The Sprouting Of The 7th Enterainment’ follows a similar but even more tortuous path, variously channelling the spirits of Damo Suzuki, Sun Ra and Mulatu Astatke whilst remaining wholly placeless and divorced from obvious influence. Like the oeuvres of other absconders from the plane of premeditation (Skull Mask, The Necks) this is music that has magnitude but not direction; scalar fields of pulsating noise that teeter on the brink of complete abstraction yet grip like a vice from first minute to last. The Dwarfs are cruising some strange spaceways here. Hitch a ride.
If dub-centric music is heading anywhere in 2023, it’s to the earth’s core. Recent releases by such extremist dreadmongers as Sightless Pit, Gorgonn and The Blood Of Heroes suggest the quest to reach the very bottom of the sinkhole, to excavate until rock gives way to magma, is nearing an apocalyptic conclusion. An apposite moment then for serial noise terrorists Andrew Nolan and God Is War to disgorge their debut collaborative album, a confluence of warped minds that harnesses the menace inherent in hip-hop and dubstep and inflates it to Brobdingnagian size. Grinding inexorably through the gears like a meths-powered half-track, ‘The Hunt’ is a fearsomely exacting show of low end strength, every neck-snapping beat and bass tremor pre-marinated in a tank of liquid hostility to maximise its potential for destruction. Killer outweights filler 10 – 0, but first among equals is the sumptuously concussive title track, a slow motion punishment beating ramped up in intensity by a fragmentation grenade of baleful bars courtesy of lava-spitting No Face Krew lynchpin New Villain. Such is its potency, it’s hard not to wish Nolan and GIW had engaged the services of a few more dissident voices to flesh out the feature count, but minor quibbles aside, ‘The Hunt’ is business end belligerence in excelsis and a crucial transmission from dub’s point of no return. Going, going, GONE.
A prime mover in the resurgence of cassette culture, Newcastle-based imprint Cruel Nature boasts a catalogue of near unrivalled sonic eclecticism and its commitment to championing outsider music is nowhere better exemplified than on ‘Spectrum’, a gem-studded 23-track anthology compiled to mark the label’s 10th anniversary. Featuring artists drawn from an enviably deep talent pool and sequenced like the tasting menu of a cutting-edge restaurant, the album bodyswerves through a plethora of contrasting styles without once losing focus, highlights arriving thick and fast throughout its marathon 110-minute runtime. In the banger camp, VHS¥DEATH’S ‘Sacrifice’ is a hard-charging, Berghain-ready headrush, whilst the vertiginous ‘Nu-shunting’ by GK favourites Whirling Hall Of Knives, splits industrial techno’s atom sending quarks and gluons of percussive fallout skittering across the dancefloor. Otherworldliness abounds here too. The Durutti Column-gone-slowcore filigree of Charlie Butler’s sepia-tinted ‘Eagle’s Splendour’ is a transport of introspective delight but Dublin-based experimentalist Katie Gerardine O’Neill steals the strangeness show and then some with ‘Along The Shoreline’, a mind-warping odyssey into deconstructed chamber jazz that dazes and confuses in equally large measure. Elsewhere though, far darker forces are at work. ‘I Have Cherished Our Season Of Friendship’ from Esmé Lousie Newman’s Petrine Cross project is doom-laden ambient black metal at its most balefully cinematic and if blunt force trauma lights your candle, Lovely Wife’s bass-heavy sludge blowout ‘Letting Go’ delivers its payload with all the subtlety of a backstreet kneecapping. Packed sardine-tight with brilliance, and with all profits going to youth autism charity The Toby Henderson Trust, ‘Spectrum’ offers an unmissable glimpse into Cruel Nature’s singular soundworld. Here’s to the next 10 years.
Newcastle’s storied underground imprint Cruel Nature is celebrating its 10th anniversary with the release of ‘Spectrum’, a 23-track charity compilation that highlights precisely why the label has become a byword for sonic diversity. No better time then for a chat with ever generous founder Steve Strode.
First of all, congratulations on reaching your 10th anniversary. Could you tell us something about your background in music and how Cruel Nature first came into being.
Thank you very much!
My background in music started in my early childhood. My parents enjoy music and records were played a lot at home; mainly old rock n roll, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, all sounds which I love today. My dad saw Eddie Cochran’s last ever gig at the Bristol Hippodrome in 1960. Aside from a couple of 7s, there were no Beatles in the house; although there was an album of a session band doing Beatles covers, and throughout my childhood I thought they were the Beatles. When Elvis died in 1977, my auntie came over to the house and Elvis records were played all day well into the night. When John Lennon died in 1980, the Beatles session band covers album was played. Which is both amusing and strange. Recognising and remembering John Lennon by playing his music performed by a fake John Lennon. I don’t think my parents cared for the Beatles much really. I remember my uncle playing me T Rex singles when I was a child, although it could be the fact that they were named after a dinosaur which was the main attraction there.
I was in primary school when punk entered my world. For some reason, we always used to listen to Radio Luxembourg on a little transistor radio when on family caravan holidays, and I recall hearing The Clash and others played during the summer holidays. It was the very late 70s when I started wanting my own records and still under the influence of punk, I asked my mum to buy me Never Mind The Bollocks, which of course with a title like that she refused. So, I got Parallel Lines as a consolation, which I find a better album. I still have that original copy from 1978. After that I got into the 2-Tone movement, then The Cure, Joy Division, The Birthday Party and so on. I was also a goth for a bit. But it was the Jesus and Mary Chain who influenced me to form my first band and play my first gigs when barely out of high school, leading to more bands, gigs etc.
At various points, I’d have several music ventures on the go. Playing in bands; putting on gigs; running a tape distro; publishing a short-lived zine with my mate Paul, that my mum used to duplicate for me on the photocopier at my old primary school, where she worked. We’d then sell it at gigs and through Revolver Records in Bristol. It ran to three issues, although issue three never went to print, even though it had a Big Black interview and a feature on The Ex in it. I don’t recall why. Maybe the photocopier had broken. Or mum was found out. Family has played a supportive part in my creative vocations, and it still does today.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, I formed Distraction Records with Darren Hubbard in 2002, releasing vinyl and putting on events. I don’t think Cruel Nature would exist without that experience and the subsequent involvement and collaboration with global labels and artists via MySpace, music forum / boards in the mid-2000s.
About three years ago, I watched a programme on the art of Japanese cherry blossom gardens. The dedication and commitment that goes into creating these horticultural wonders, often involving individuals solely focusing on one task (picking certain buds off, so the blossom grows according to the required aesthetic, for example), developing and excelling at it for many years, with a Zen stoicism.
This got me thinking about the activities I was pursuing at the time, trying to balance playing in a band, doing gigs, and running the label alongside the priorities of day job and family, which were all becoming very challenging to sustain.
With that in mind, after almost three decades of pursuing many music ventures simultaneously, taking a steer from the art of Japanese gardening, the only music vocation I am now dedicating my focus to, is the label and the curation of sounds that support it.
Cruel Nature has one of the most eclectic catalogues of any independent record label. Was sonic diversity part of your original vision?
Absolutely. In the very early days, it was coming from a left-field, experimental and sometimes extreme angle which has softened over the years, but if you look at the first three releases: you have industrial dark ambient soundscapes, post-punk / no-wave, and harsh noise wall, so it was already crossing genres. That’s how I’ve always worked. The Distraction Records catalogue was eclectic and it’s reflective of my own eclectic taste. When listening to music at home and when I used to DJ in the late 90s / early 00s, the selections will go from dub to funk to techno to punk and then pop in a matter of minutes. It’s that mix tape mentality, when you’d pull together a collection of random sounds for someone, with the sole message being ‘you gotta hear this!’
Cruel Nature specialises in limited edition cassettes. Why that particular format rather than vinyl or CD?
We have released some CDs and vinyl (mainly as made-to-order lathe cuts), to compliment the cassette releases, but from the outset, the label was established with cassettes as the format of choice. Cassettes are what I grew up with. Making tapes of tracks recorded off the radio, John Peel’s Festive 50 was great for that. All the band demos and my own sonic tinkering, all recorded straight to tape. Recording gigs of bands. Running a tape distro. Long before CDs, downloads etc, cassette was the only physical format for people to get their sounds out without having to take the big risk of shelling out on expensive vinyl. And arguably it still is. The DIY community thrives through cassettes. You buy one at a gig; it slips nicely in your pocket. Portability. Cassettes are DIY. The cassette is there in the mosh-pit or at some 10 band bring your own drink, pass the bucket around for donations, gig in a rehearsal space, the backroom of a pub, a community centre. Cassettes are punk.
Through running Distraction Records, I learned about the restrictions and constraints imposed financially through being mainly vinyl based. The basis behind Cruel Nature is to provide a platform for new artists, irrespective of location or genre. I can’t really fulfil that mission with vinyl and such an eclectic catalogue. Cassettes give me more freedom to take risks with the sounds I’m publishing, and you still get the warm analogue organic feeling that you do with vinyl, along with the ability to be creative with the packaging, so overall a perfect work of art.
For the first 3 years, the label was 100% DIY. All the cassette releases were home-produced. I moved to pro-production due to time constraints and a desire to improve the quality of the releases, along with wanting to give better art and packaging options to the artist.
Of the many tapes you’ve released over the last 10 years, do you have any favourites?
I can’t really say. It’s like asking if I have a favourite child. They’re all loved equally for their own individual special ways. But if I need to call out some for significance, then At The Heart Of All ‘Cotard’s EP’ will be an obvious choice as it’s the first-born, the tape that launched the label. The one that I started the Cruel Nature learning experience and journey with. ATHOIA were from Bristol, and I’d been speaking to Aaron from the band for maybe a year before the tape came out. We’d been collaborating on some sounds before I’d considered starting the label. It was the only release I did for them. The band ceased a little while later. Aaron is now an artist and did the amazing artwork for the ‘Spectrum’ compilation.
Mirrored Lips ‘были у меня длинные волосы, но разве они принесли мне счастье’ I was introduced to Russia’s Mirrored Lips in 2016 via an email from Sasha, asking if I’d like to publish an album for them. I checked out their Bandcamp and what I heard just blew me away. Off-kilter improvised free-form no-wave noise-punk, that had a sense of urgency that just commanded your attention. In October that year I released the album ‘MOM’, their first UK release. We corresponded a lot and started talking about arranging a UK tour and by March 2017, I’d booked a 7-date tour, across the north and south of England, accompanying them along the way. They were so good live. Amazing stage presence, such intense performances, drawing in and captivating audiences everywhere they went. While here, they checked into Gateshead’s Sound Rooms and recorded ‘были у меня длинные волосы, но разве они принесли мне счастье’. It was a studio live recording of the set they were playing on tour. Released in June 2017, for me that tape represents Mirrored Lips at their peak.
Being one of the labels involved with last year’s release of Nadja ‘Labyrinthine’ was a pleasure. I’d worked with Aidan on a couple of solo albums previously and was asked to handle the UK cassette release for Nadja. It was a good demonstration of how several global labels can come together and work collaboratively on a single release, each bringing their own stamp through individual artwork and presentation.
In the same vein, after working with David Colohan on a number of solo releases since 2015, it was an honour to pick up the cassette release of United Bible Studies ‘Return Of The Rivers’ last year.
I have solo works for Aidan and David in the schedule for this year, but it’ll be great to work with both Nadja and UBS again.
‘Spectrum’, your mammoth 23-track 10th anniversary compilation, has just been released. Could you tell us something about it and how you approached the process of track selection.
Whilst daunting at the outset, I did follow a process to select the artists involved. This was based on those who are still active; those I had worked with on many releases; those whose work had a significant impact on me; and then an overall sonic cohesion. The original list was more than twice the size of the final 23 so would’ve been a box set if I included everyone. The tracks provided were all at the artist’s discretion. There was a limit on duration, and they needed to be exclusive. Aside from that there were no restrictions.
The other aspect of the compilation is that all proceeds from the release are going to The Toby Henderson Trust, an independently funded charity in North East England which supports autistic youth and adults, as well as their families and caregivers. My son Davy – who is the same age as the label – is autistic with ADHD, so I have a close connection to the challenges faced by affected individuals and their families and understand the importance of the support that charities like TTHT give.
Since initiating the compilation, some of the artists involved and supporters of Cruel Nature, have highlighted their own connections with neurodiversity, either personally, through family or providing support, so it’s good that it is also raising awareness and getting people talking about the subject.
Looking forward, are there any artists you’re keen to add to the Cruel Nature roster, and how do you see the label progressing?
I have a steady stream of submissions and a growing release schedule, with this year already almost booked out, so we’re continuing at a prolific rate. Time constraints mean that occasionally I do miss an opportunity with submissions, but I always endeavour to listen to everything, and if the content of the accompanying note grabs my attention, then I’ll jump right in. Sometimes, a conversation might start with someone about releasing something and it can take a couple of years or more before anything is published. Katie Gerardine O’Neill is a good example. It was the start of 2021 when we first spoke about possibly working together and it was 2 years later when I published ‘Into The Beyond’. I don’t push or pressure artists. Everything must proceed at their pace, ‘don’t worry, there’s no rush’ is a stock phrase. It’ll happen when it’s meant to happen. Equally, I respect the patience of the artists, as with a busy schedule, it can sometimes take months for work to be published.
There have also been times when albums have been submitted, artwork produced and then not actually released as the artist has withdrawn the work. With Chihuahua, their amazing album ‘Crythor Du’ was released, and the band split up 9 days later! A big shame as they were excellent. I’m glad I managed to get the album published before the split.
In the next few months, there will be material from Pound Land, Tunnels Of Āh, Aidan Baker, David Colohan, Clara Engel and Charlie Butler; along with Gvantsa Narim, who produces amazing emotive electronic ambient soundscapes inspired by religion, esotericism and Georgian polyphonic music. We’re also welcoming Waterflower to the Cruel Nature roster. A Latvian artist merging interdisciplinary performance with a fusion of art pop, experimental noise, avant-garde, and ethereal melody. There’s also the debut from Tyneside based Dissociative Identity Quartet, who produce enigmatic minimalist techno and a singles collection from frenetic Leeds post-punkers, Volk Soup.
I’m also keen to publish some more work from Tibshelf, aka Lee Etherington, the man who established Newcastle’s Tusk festival. His debut ‘Supreme Flounder’ is plunderphonic heaven, cutting and pasting all kinds of samples into mind-bending sound collages. Funk, hip-hop, techno, ambient, soul, it all gets thrown in the mix and along with Summer Night Air’s ‘5’, is another example of Cruel Nature pushing the boundaries of sonic diversity.
There’s plenty to get excited about!
‘Spectrum’ is available now from Bandcamp as a limited edition double cassette and digital download. All proceeds will be donated to the Toby Henderson Trust, an independently funded charity in North East England which supports autistic youth and young adults together with their families and caregivers.
Avon Terror Corps affiliates Clíona Ní Laoi and Max Kelan Pearce, aka Salac, are going down in unrighteous flames. Forged in the decelerating isolation of lockdown, the duo’s third and apparently final album is a grievous abrasion, the grim soot-blackened churn of their previous two outings taken to its (patho)logical extreme. As demises go, it’s about as ugly as it gets. Eschewing industrial music’s more frenetic tendencies, ‘Buried’ obliterates at the sluggish yet inexorable pace of an oil slick, filling every crevice of headspace with thick sulphuric slurry to which resistance is futility defined. Catastrophically mistitled opener ‘Elixir Of Life’ serves immediate notice of the horrors to come. Ballasting mephitic squalls of bass distortion with an injuriously colossal kick drum, it seems purpose built to target the pain receptors, a supposition reinforced by the agonised screams that circle just within earshot on the track’s greasy periphery. ‘Unforeseen Demise’ is similarly pitiless, its rust-sloughing grind accentuated by a diseased polemic from Pearce who hectors into the void like a cyborg street philosopher with seconds left to live. Think a doomed Psychic Graveyard stripped of their smirks and you’re on roughly the same cancer ward as this cadaverous creation. Ni Laoi, by constrast, is a specialist in juxtaposing the ghostly with the ghastly. On ‘Bask’, her narcotic siren song is the winding sheet around an egregiously overdriven bassline, whilst ‘Caoin’ is an ambient dream turned nightmare, the plaintive lament of a seraph tapped forever in the fetid confines of a sulphur mine. Salac have checked out with a seismic death rattle. Buried? You will be.
The use of jazz instrumentation for non-jazz purposes is scarcely a novel concept but ‘Kryo’, the astonishing debut collaborative album from trumpet virtuoso Pablo Gīw and experimental cellist Mariel Roberts, looks so far beyond existing horizons it’s almost completely devoid of reference points. Trips seldom come much stranger than this. Key to the record’s unearthly, decryption-resistant vibe is the battery of extended techniques and electronic processing employed by both musicians, each alchemically generated sound dubbed, dissolved and recrystallised until the relationship between it and its parent instrument is near impossible to deduce. 15-minute opener ‘Icicle / Carámbano’ is an exercise in meticulously curated instability that pairs flocculent vapour trails of over and underblown trumpet with a loop of deadened pizzicato that rumbles like the engine of an idling bulldozer. Gradually, the Sturm und Drang deliquesces into a watery expanse of drone, its muffled percussive undercurrent reminiscent of Hieroglyphic Being’s experiments in (a)rhythmic cubism, albeit slowed to a torturous crawl. ‘Japanese Creation Myth’ is uncannier still, a fragmentary collage of thuds and groans that comes within a hair’s breadth of ambient techno before collapsing in on itself, and although closing epic ‘When The Spell Actually Worked’ trades bump-in-the-night scare tactics for fusion reactor ambience, it remains strikingly baleful, dissonant tendrils of cello and trumpet intertwining ever tighter until their tones eventually coalesce and become indistinguishable. ‘Kryo’ is more than just un-jazz; it’s a gateway to unseen worlds. Stunning.
Essential double header that unites the prodigious talents of Irish underground legend Alan O’Boyle, aka Of One, and mercurial noiseniks Whirling Hall Of Knives for two epic excursions through electronic music’s storm-lashed hinterlands where the usual rules of engagement are broken with gleeful impunity. Of One fires the first broadside with ‘Recoil’, a menacing deep techno leviathan that pivots around the most incendiary acid line since Barnt’s remix of C.P.I.’s ‘Proceso’. Burrowing through a thick loam of distortion and bass viscera like the Graboid from Tremors, it periodically breaks cover to snap its scabrous jaws, spatters of caustic 303 eating away at the track’s juddering wheelbase until it comes perilously close to disintegrating. It’s a face-chewing monster of a tune that simply begs to be cranked through a skyscraper-high system, but no less formidable is WHOK’s astonishing ‘Greywash’, the sonic equivalent of a malign Lovecraftian cryptid with more tentacles than an octopus farm. For the first half of its 15-minute runtime a fractured rhythm is slowly strangled to death by thistly creepers of static like Skee Mask getting out-jammed by Rafael Anton Irisarri. Almost without warning the chokehold is broken by a skyrocketing blast of superheated Galaxian-esque electro before a plangent ambient coda irradiates the soundfield and silence finally descends. So good it should probably be illegal. Indulge.
The technical expertise of Berlin-based sound engineer Gorgonn has been utilised by some of electronic music’s most illustrious artisans, but as a recording artist, he’s perhaps best known as Kevin Martin’s co-conspirator in G36, the low end terror cell lately encountered going toe to toe with JK Flesh on last year’s monstrous ‘Disintegration Dubs’. Conceptualised around the Japanese Buddhist idea that there are six paths through the afterlife, Gorgonn’s debut solo album is every bit the cratering bout of aggro-bass pugilism his pedigree predicts, and though there are firm nods in the direction of his eminent partner in grime, this is far from a blow-for-blow Bug pastiche. As you might expect, dub with the destruction profile of a starquake is at the heart of what makes ‘Six Paths’ tick, and tick it does, like a limpet mine with a faulty detonator. Every track seethes with malevolence; bass and drums in murderous lockstep, waves of brackish dread crashing relentlessly against the mind’s fragile defences until inevitably, they crumble. Even ‘Deadman’, the album’s sole beatless cut, offers no respite, its queasy slo-mo lurch precisely replicating the moment when a ketamine binge goes suddenly and irreversibly wrong. Gorgonn has uncaged a fearsome beast here. Surrender to its scaly embrace.
The genre-fluid music of Osaka-based sorceress Tujiko Noriko has long played footsie with unearthly beauty but her empyrean new album is something else entirely, a masterpiece of weightless ambient worldbuilding that mines the same rarefied strata as canonical landmarks like ‘Selected Ambient Works Volume II’ and ‘The Disintegration Loops’. Fittingly dedicated to late Editions Mego head Peter Rehberg, ‘Crépuscule’ stakes its claim to transcendence from the first crystalline note of its mammoth 106-minute runtime, Noriko stretching skywards to lacerate the exosphere allowing rivulets of polychromatic sound to bleed through. Wintery electronics that glisten like starlit icicles form the bedrock of tracks like early highlight ‘The Promenade Vanishes’, yet the primary source of their massive gravitational field is Noriko’s extraordinary voice, a seraphic bliss-blitzed soprano, light as a hummingbird feather, impactful as a howitzer shell. Wisely, she deploys its magic sparingly, punctuating her airborne exhalations with lacunae of nebulous drift, the sound spread so thin at certain points, it’s a micron away from absolute silence. As Crépuscule turns for home, its beatific dreamscapes begin to distend and take on a darker, more amorphous form that demands deep and attentive listening. ‘Golden Dusk’, for example, blends fractured peals of luminescent synth with a plethora of apparently incongruous field recordings (shrieking toddlers, the distant rush of wind) to head-spinning effect, and by the time closing epic ‘Don’t Worry, I’ll Be Here’ fades to black, the sense of rapt disorientation is almost palpable. It may seem premature to hail ‘Crépuscule’ as ambient music’s new high-water mark, but aficionados of the beatless arts should set sail for its gilded archipelago without delay. Sublime.
Attempting to pin down the chameleonic music of Guatemalan cellist and composer Mabe Fratti is like trying to knit a hovercraft out of soup. A lysergic concoction of Latinate avant-folk and piquant chamber jazz, it inhabits a strange grottoed dimension where melody is the best friend of discord and pop’s usual rules of engagement are broken with impunity. Psychedelia of the common or garden variety it most certainly ain’t. Departing from the hazy introspection that marked Fratti’s lockdown masterpiece ‘Será Que Ahora Podremos Entendernos’, ‘Se Ve Desde Aquí’ spins a web of more inscrutable allure that centres on the ever-shifting dynamic between order and chaos. Where once her songs were noctilucent billows of variegated sound, here they more resemble a sequence of clockwork Fabergé musical boxes, each one more finely wrought and intricate than the last. Backdropped by clouds of pepper spray synth and efflorescent sax, Fratti’s oblique cello lines spool out in glistening platinized filaments, but it’s her glorious bell-clear voice that’s the real show-stealer, wheeling through the dissonance like a bird of paradise in a vast barbed wire aviary. Comparisons with so singular an artists are near impossible to draw, but if the effulgent esotronica of Camila Fuchs, Jenny Hval’s orchidaceous art-pop or the brambly jazz nouveau of Mirna Bogdanović light your candle, you’ll find much to love here. Stunning.
It may seem counterintuitive, but the closer music approximates to silence, the more forceful its likely impact. It’s a fact plainly not lost on Chicago-based duo Cleared whose breathtaking new album is the turbid, thrice-distilled essence of quietude, an inchoate foam of dimensionless un-sound that enters via the pores rather than the auditory canal. At a considerable stretch, one COULD argue ‘Of Endless Light’ falls within the parameters of dub techno, but only by implication, its signature rhythm-centric sparsity smeared and splayed to the very brink of breakdown. Proceedings commence with the ultra-refracted blur of ‘First Sleep’ which crests the horizon like a gust of smog across moonlit moorland. Fragments of wounded melody bleed through the blanketing static until decomposition inevitably sets in and the track slowly expires to a mo(u)rning chorus of axes being sharpened on a distant grindstone. By contrast, ‘Pulse’, ‘Dawn’ and ‘Waking Field’ are gorgeously eroded simulacra of Chain Reaction-esque avant-minimalism, dance music passed through a fine-mesh sieve to remove almost every joule of kinetic energy. Kick drums – or rather the muted metronomic clicks that pass for them – are so subsumed by grainy swathes of ambience, they barely register as rhythm. The album’s piéce de rèsistance though is the stunning ‘Blue Drift’, a darkening pall of drone and reverberant carillon bells that rivals Sarah Davachi’s ‘Hall Of Mirrors’ for stentorian solemnity. Step inside; the silence is DEAFENING.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a gutful and a half of the oleaginous flagshaggery that’s been clogging the arteries of this blighted nation since a certain overprivileged nonagenarian turned up her toes. Sanctuary from the forces of the fawning is urgently required and who better to provide it than ex-Napalm Death drummer and iron-fisted ringmaster of Circus Dubquake, Mick Harris. A timely reactivation of his fearsome Fret alias, ‘Because Of The Weak’ is industrial techno armed to the teeth and with mayhem in mind; a shockingly graphic illustration of man’s inhumanity to machine with little apparent purpose other than to destroy and be destroyed. Imagine the breakbeat-strewn arrhythmia of Skee Mask or the Zenker Brothers fermented and condensed to a toxic black magma and you’re in the vague vicinity of this mile-deep bomb crater, but the severity of the punishment Harris metes out here has precious few parallels. The menacing tone of track titles like ‘20oz Gripper’ and ‘Shut That Dog Up’ is reflected in the music’s withering hostility. Asteroid-sized kicks and breaks smash through ramparts of chest-crushing bass like boulders launched from a trebuchet, parabolas of ionised dub and hi-hat hiss glowing blood red in the fallout. Released via New York’s L.I.E.S. imprint whose roster of sickos and seditionists have long plied their trade at the seedier end of the hardcore continuum, ‘Because Of The Weak’ melts down techno’s hedonistic throne and recasts it into stun grenades. Obscenely wealthy monarchs, consider yourselves warned.
GonzoKaraoke 