VARIOUS ARTISTS – ‘SPECTRUM’

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.

Cruel Nature Records

VARIOUS ARTISTS – ‘PERIHELION INFINITE’

Disinclined to toe the self-limiting line of genre fundamentalism, Brooklyn-based imprint Ohm Resistance may be a broad church, but the primacy of bass over all other sonic prerogatives is, and always has been, its raison d’être. The fourth, and apparently final, instalment in OR’s annual sampler series, ‘Perihelion Infinite’ is a comprehensive showcase of the label’s lurid, low end-led aesthetic, featuring sixteen exclusive tracks (un)lovingly crafted to rupture every gas main within a 9-mile radius. Despite the occasional nod to stylistic orthodoxy (‘Subterranean’ by Metalheadz stalwart Jaise is a case study in drop-forged industrial jungle), the majority of these beasts are defiantly chimerical; scaly, multi-appendaged hybrids with their gaze fixed firmly on the future. Atsushi Izumi’s ruthlessly overdriven ‘Casaurius’, for example, fuses drum & bass and techno at the spine whilst a cannonade of scimitar-sharp breaks ensures the happy hardcore sugar rush of DrillBasser’s ‘Even’ leaves a distinctly sour aftertaste. Elsewhere there are forays into critical mass post-dubstep (DEFCE’s suffocating ‘Pain Centers’) deconstructed breakcore (the alarmingly vertiginous ‘Eat Sleep Repeat’ by Belfast belligerents Slave To Society) and even Emeralds-esque kosmische (Bob Rogue’s luminescent ‘Asteroids’), but the predator at the apex of this sub-chomping food chain is Sagana Squale’s nightmarish ‘Blood Goddess’, a paranoia-wracked bolus of malice aforethought trip-hop Portishead would have killed to concoct. Embrace the bass.

Ohm Resistance

VARIOUS ARTISTS – ‘WEEDIAN VOLUME 1’

Blues Funeral Recordings’ WEEDIAN series is a loveletter to comp formats, able to introduce virgin ears to numerous artists in a well selected order – “Compilations like Burn One Up, Rise 13, Stone(d) Revolution and Welcome to MeteorCity were about finding new bands, making sonic connections, and rocking the fuck out, and that’s what the WEEDIAN compilation series is all about.” Volume 1 is fucken’ full of assorted groovy stony jamming, Trad Doom solemnities, vitiated Stoner Rock and Hard Psych perversions of the Rhythm & Blues. Some tracks that stand out to me –  Mephistofeles’ ‘Werewolf Boogie’ is more than worth the price of admission, a fucking merciless boogie stomp with irresistible power trio sound, wailing dead Beatle vocal and soulless lycanthropia vibes. Devil’s Witches summons an occultist ode to all things female and forbidden written in retrograded Dionysian Pre-Rock Doors and Dead language, sumptuously groovy guitar tones and unhealthy ’60’s obsessions. Potion’s ‘Women of the Wand’ incants a battlecry of warring Doom amidst ancient Heavy Metal heroics, rousing and stygian Sludge heavy. Dead Witches spring forth in a ciderous stupor to smash some heretics with decrepit poisonous tonal aura, witch killing riffs, and the spectral ghost of true ‘Wizard chained to their whims. Chained To The Bottom Of The Ocean cough a seismic tumble of miserable ‘Confederacy…’ era EHG groove with syrupy Guitar and Bass and harsh vocal battering. Twist, burn and enjoy.

Blues Funeral Recordings

VARIOUS ARTISTS – ‘THIS IS CAIRO NOT THE SCREAMERS’

Intense, harsh, speaker-destroying Electro Chaabi remix decay, Egyptian Grime and psychedelic electronics, bludgeoning dancehall disturbances both hostile and overwhelmingly, blindingly colourful, an electronic bacchanal of lucid, lurid phantasia from 7 artists. Corrigated shimmering beats stacked beneath wobbling sample feed, textural bass cascades like concaving concrete and warped tempo manipulations, radar blip bombast and slamming, screaming feedback application, cone-crushing audial hallucinations! An absolutely blazing collection of tunes. My ignorance to this particularly kaleidoscopic, killing corner of music sub sub genre is pathetic and unwarranted, and must be immediately corrected. Fucking crucial.

Nashazphone

VARIOUS ARTISTS – ‘ABORTED ANOMALIES’ 8 WAY SPLIT CDR

Assorted Gores and miscellaneous grotesqueries from 8 purveyors of audial gorenography. Disgusting, vile and unfriendly, with lots of influence from old Grind, Mince and Noisecore, dredged from the gruesome, stinking recesses of the Goregrind underground. Maggots Infestation In The Aortic Valve With Intense Suppuration Resulting In Massive Mucus Obstruction (awesome) vomit up a heaping serving of fatted, heavy Goregrind with touches of Brutal Death Metal invalidity in the slower sections, ghoulish vocal gurgle and super noisy Noisecore-ish song structures (?) Great, sloppy drumming, too. Botched Anastomosis J-Pouch play some mental old-school sounding Mince/Grindcore with stomp-as-fukk mid paced parts and killer squawk vocal, and with a bit of a Dankstahz-era Plutocracy vibe (awesome), Masticated Polyps play acerbic bedroom Noisecore leaning Goregrind that reminds of the earliest waves of unknowable Gorenoise like Anal Birth or Black Putrefaction mixed with old furious Noisecore, with unwieldy sounding blast beats perfection, crispy fried Guitar carbonization and fukked up echo gurgle vocal. Girth contribute two tracks of their monstrously girthy, heavy Goregrind with wicked Warsore Guitar sound, snare ping and crusty low/high vocal style, Cystgurgle spew out near-Gorenoise Goregrind replete with crushing Guitar walls, aqua roaring vomitous vocal and wet superblast ping snare blast beats and D-Beats, Metrorrhagia mainline fucked up grooves and a heap of crust into their Punk as fuck D-Beat Goregrind bulldozer sound, RGTE style, and with a crazy nasty Guitar sound too. Amputation Saw spin thin gnarly yarns of weird n’ regressive rehearsal room Goregrind and Grindcore with creepy croak vocal and outsider boombox sound a la Intumescence, and Schizophrenic Disorder Into Human Race Collapse (awesome) bring the pace down to a mincing/slamming jog with mid paced Plasma style Goregrind plod’n’stomp and mindless Brutal Death Metal-ish headbanging slam parts, with killer super low vocal and deathly grinding Bass sound. Putrid, abscessed and awful, like a plate full of cirrhotic livers. I’m sure you know to expect only the most rancid and disgusting sounds here –  ping snares, samples describing annihilated genitalia, gnarly Bass rumble, bedroom Goregrind atmosphere, horror movie Synth muzak samples. Each band occupies a space between poorly recorded and unlistenable. Perfect comp. Buy yourself a copy from Blast Addict!

Bandcamp

VARIOUS ARTISTS – ‘DIGITAL OFFICE ONE’

Shimmering Vaporwave compilation from label businesscasual. Breezy blue vaporous bliss sound, future culture smooth Funk plunderphonics for accessible nostalgic cityscapes and secret depression. Languishing endless refrains in glitched samples & extra cheesy smooooth vocal cuts repeated over and over, making for a niche listening experience in an intoxicated and quixotic state. Faded, hazy, enjoyable? Yes indeed. I like the sort of absurdism of a compilation like this, with many sounds very similar from artist to artist, in a genre like this which in some ways prioritizes a certain anonymity of sound. Listening beginning to end provides a strange parallel to listening to Noise and Grindcore comps, with little means of knowing who you’re hearing from track to track unless you really know your shit (which I don’t) or you’re staring at the track list or liner notes. Anyway, a cool listen. Worth a stream or twelve for Dystopian Chic’s contribution alone, a 9 minute drive through long forgotten cast-off hazy bass funk and mournfully nostalgic electropop.

businesscasual

THE CVLT NATION SESSIONS – ‘MASTER OF REALITY’

One of a series of cover records compiled by the CVLT Nation blog. The entirety of Sabbath’s ‘Master Of Reality’ played by a cadre of today’s Doom darlings. Doom, Stoner, Black Metal (sort of) and even a touch of Psychedelia. A nice idea well executed. Primitive Man’s opening cover of ‘Sweet Leaf’ is a monotonous, monstrous piece, laden with feral blast beats in the jam part of the song, a tone crushing enough to break through a wall, and an unhinged Vocal performance. This one’s the highlight for me, although Graves At Sea’s on-two of ‘Orchid’ to ‘Into The Grave’ is excellent, particularly their throbbing, wobbly Sleep-ish tone on the second number. The one track that doesn’t do it for me is Rorcal’s Cascadian/Doom take on ‘After Forever’; it’s not that it doesn’t work, more that I just feel it doesn’t fit well tonally. You may well disagree.

Sendspace

CELLPH# ABUSE

A collection of mobile phone recordings released this month on Mortville Noise. Andy has been compiling this thing for a year, and it is truly, unbelievably, monstrously noisy and terrible. It very well surmises Andy’s intent to release the maddest sounds ever, for free, and with the level of community spirit you would expect from someone who’s dedicated this much time to all this nonsense. There are familiar names such as Gonzo faves Albert Tross, Happy Pill Trauma, Sauerkraut, Cedric’s Lettuce, and of course Captain Three Leg and Dumb Church, and some who are using code names for their heinous crimes against music here, such as Hyperemesis mastermind Andy’s contribution under the guise of Inconsiderate Roommate. I’ve played this to friends outside of Grindcore or Noise or whatever, and their genuinely stunned, nauseated faces and/or hysterical laughter told me everything I needed to know. This is some of the funniest, harshest, most ridiculous, pointless sound I’ve heard committed to recording. There’s some semblance of genre from track to track, in the shape of Noisecore/Grindcore blasts, but really this thing defies any genre tag in it’s complete disregard of music, even within the noisy circles we dedicate ourselves to. Horrible, hissing Ambient aggression, recordings of people urinating and jogging, real-quick boombox Grindcore takes, voicemail messages, Noisecore fury, muffled no-core, some of the worst recordings scraped from the darkest recesses of the internet underground. One of the worst  things I’ve heard this year. One of the best things I’ve heard this year. A true Gonzo assault on common sense and human decency. What. The. Fuck?

Mortville Noise