A work of low rent bulldozing passionate Gore brutality from solo project Tolerances of the Human Face In Crash Impacts, as ballardian as their name may (or may not) suggest. Massive, disgusting, moronic DI electronic Goregrind shot through with a horrid Crust influence and a loud, earscraping mix, exuding the raw stench of anti-human hatred and paradoxical low effort creative compulsion. Catchy groove soaked Bass-less crust riffs pockmark the gore drenched noise wall, crispy burned Drum sounds clatter, crash and boom, bubbling roaring tarman vocal consecrates a vile experience of underground alienation. TxOxTxHxFxIxCxI also experiments with tempo, souring into midpace sturm und drang with minimalist banger ‘Fed Their Own Brains’ and their impressive cover of D-Beat warriors Disclose’s ‘Conquest’. Bearing a striking, sickening resemblance to the various projects of A. Ringdahl or the mighty Dysmenorrheic Hemorrhage, TxOxTxHxFxIxCxI reminds the intrepid, exhausted seeker of a valuable lesson: never stop plumbing the murky depths. Unheralded excellence.
Filthy necrotic Black Noise from the obscure Eerie Silence Productions, shadowrealm of projects such as Ärid, Virulent Specter, Astral Tomb of Yearning, and a few others. Groaning minimal noise loops render a Black Ambient shade, spooky crepuscular tones hover above pulsing spectral presences, daring those mortal to provoke their malignant powers! Rueful, broken dirge synth tones appear from the black mists tape and dire throbbing amplifier sounds, the sombre insanity, black mood of the mourner driven mad in hateful despair, glaring pulses and loops build and mount in sweat dripping nightmare tension and insect hate, rhythmic passages thrum and boil, tapes rolling over into the void, aggravating and haunting, eyes rolling back in the head, capillaries bursting with clotted black blood… suffocating Black Noise, bad vibes from beyond life’s domain.
A fat gelatinous wad of gore soaked Death/Gore/Grindcore from drum machinegunner Gross Load. Delirious with mongo-grooves and surging soupy gore riffs gushing bubbling liquid ichor, shockingly fluid and dynamic, sinew bound to the steaming drum machine beneath, hammering banging and slamming with rictus tight programmed blasts and tupa-tupa mince/thrash beat breakdowns, unwieldy and clattering, slathered with ultra brutal hamsandwich deth vocal. Deadly and megafast, groovy and girthy. ‘Exposed To Forbidden Knowledge’ reminds me of ANb’s ‘The Glue That Binds Us’ 7″, those tracks featuring a deathly flavour to the riffing and with that absurd and bizarre mondo vocal, an atmosphere of antisocial insanity and insalubrity that Gross Load shovels out here in sloppy, chuggy, gooey bucketfuls. Killer shit! I’ll be investigating their full length offerings next.
Thanatopsis’ 2010 demo/EP ‘Defleshed In Excrements’, an all-too-short gorging of ecstatically, hideously decayed Goregrind excellence. I first became aware of this international project reading through A. Ringdahl/Hyperemesis’s interview on the now deceased Braindead Zine, and seeking out their excellent split together. Properly putrefied and shambolic, caste of dread deadly Death and Grind riffing and brief blasting noisy song structure, clotted rictus drumming ridden with filth and stench, vocal of the decomposed roars and wretches with agonising pitch shifted putrefaction, each odious sound captured in obscure, gutterbloated 4 track-sounding tape. Exceptionally raw, filthy, punk as fuck Goregrind from corporeal degeneration and morbid biological disgust. Aside from their massively overlooked full-length ‘Stages Of Decomposition’, this is my favourite Thanatopsis material. Exhume and consume, ghouls.
B L A C K I E’s latest release, a short and ear-battering trip continuing the Houston artist’s edgesmashing sound into basically pure Power Electronics territories. The man stands far outside and further beyond Hip Hop’s dogmatic scriptures than most, manifestly evident in the artist’s latent if quiet influence on the mainstream of the genre. Short harsh blasts of ephemeral beatwork kicked and mauled by malign synthesis process to cumulate Power Electronics bitter screen/wall of howling crackling bass frequencies and snowblind white noise, lo-fi bleeding-red productions of surging Industrial textures colliding with contaminated sampling and thumping sub bass kicks, light on easy beats and heavy on dense avalanching noise and awkward loops, over which B L A C K I E screams, yells and cries in brutal minimal sloganeering like a soul possessed. Head crushing banger beats surface at key moments on the record, steaming and hulking, appearing all the more monstrous and bludgeoning for their scarcity, like on ‘mean nothing’ and closer ‘stay elevated’, and B L A C K I E’s furiously introverted self-denigrations and blood drenched personal/political roaring raving vocal hits like a fucking teargas cannister to the dome in this context. Crucial.
Trichomoniasis’ second album released this year, the follow up to the preposterously dense full length ‘Makeshift Crematoria’, which somehow slightly supersedes that formidable effrontery in scope, scale and deformity, if not in length. An abstruse putrefaction of non-linear extra-terrestrial esoteric Brutal Death Metal power, a perplexing grinding riddle of gore soaked ‘free death’ akin to supereon acts such as Encenathrakh, Enmity and Effluence, which abstracts Slamming Death Metal beyond the event horizon of the logical into something entirely volatilely o t h e r, closer to Gorenoise in its impenetrability. Pulsating waves of impossible DETH crash irregularly upon the shores of shattered objectivity, grinding diagonal slamming ‘riff’ spires coil, lurch, drag and burst in impossibly severe oblique patterns, drumming an imperceivable terminal velocity vortex of complex virtuosic brutality, impetuous low(er) vocal tempest like fractal disembodied primal scream, dotted with absurdist samples depicting politically managed biological/ecological malfunction and resultant death, a theme continued from their previous album. My limits of expression are truly tested here – I’m unable to understand what is going on and I can’t help but listen repeatedly. The annihilation of cognition by means of pinch harmonics and hyper ping snare, a practically fucking extra-sensory experience. Terrifyingly stressful, sweat-soaked, face-tripping ego extermination.
Tyrannus’ 2018 EP ‘Serpentslayer’, three odes to Summoning and Darrell K Sweet. Prideful, dusky no MIDI/VST Dungeon Synth from the Pagoda Mast sect, now no longer active. Dedicated to heroes lost in bloodshed battling wyverns, I presume. Meditative, rousing Synth patch sounds, sparse beats plodding beneath, mournful yearning for the strength to topple evil and bury it’s seed deep in the heaving earth… iconoclasm and high fantasy balefully rendered in spectral Synths. Pagoda Mast having fallen fallow, Phantom Spire now playing host to Tyrannus Einhorn’s works in Black Metal and Dungeon Synth (I’m not certain he still works with Harsh Noise Walls). Pass these mossy graves and pay respects.
Ušumgal is a newer project from Washington D.C, sharing members with the excellent Genocide Pact and Goetia, among others. Their 2022 demo presents 3 blood drenched screeds of War Metal atrocity, a contamination of barbed, barbarous Death Metal, tar black War Metal dark as burning pitch. The guitars are brutish, unyielding and scalding, coiled tightly around torqued up blast-stacked Drums and a rumble of ravening Bass, driven war command vocal in a reek of smoldering creosote. There’s a cruel, crude streak of crust influence in the thumping storming drumming, ravenously switching tempos beneath the Guitar and Bass work to maximize skull crushing damage. Intense and vitriolic shit. Fans of War Metal regressionists Caveman Cult or Death Metal dumbells Torture Rack, take heed and take up your axes! These apes are full to burst with war-like cunning and vulgar promise.
Slaughter Of The Innocent’s 2002 demo is old school noisy Grindcore mania mana just as it should be, a pitch-perfect blur of superfast brutal proper one-footed blast beats, rumbling grinding bass audial flood to loosen teeth and deathly guitars sawing out crusty mangled grind riffs, with low grunt high squawk vocal tirade, slamming and stomping from thrash to blast, a perfect summation of what the genre requires, a few goofy bad song titles aside. Total blast beat bulldozer! Even the obligatory Napalm Death and Repulsion covers are right on the fucking money, for all their lack of imagination. This could have come out a decade earlier and I’d be none the wiser. I was familiar with this band for their excellent split with the fearsome Sakatat, and I’m very pleased to have gone back to this demo. Fans of real deal Grindcore ala Dahmer, Warsore, Tumor or Gore Beyond Necropsy, take heed!
Lo-fi liminal Post Punk weirdness polarity swing from the mad creative forces behind Science Man/Swimming Faith Records and Clump/Steak and Cake records. Razorwire taut, amphetaminic funky, cute little less-than-2 minute post punk no wave numbers dripping with pungent outsider swagger, hopped up on nitrous oxide and god knows what else. Gurning loopy badass crooner vocal commands the routine, a throb of cocky Bass lines saunter and groove beneath tongue lash treble guitars, cumulatively tapping out complex, intricate typewriter riffs and chord girdered to thin metronomic drums riddled with details and danger. Dynamic, melodious, minimalist brilliance. There’s an air of the likes of Minutemen or James chance and the Contortions, though neither of these references truly signposts the weirdo sounds within. Get into it!
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.
The fourth Fortune 500 compilation, a titanic statement of currency with Vaporwave’s dilapidated, miasmic halls of legend and relevancy. Echo chambers of recycled sound ephemera, prized dusty muzak loops crowned in hazy filter atrophy and repurposed to variably anti-capital agenda and/or smoking reality escape (not to mention the chin-stroking self import). An ephemeral mix of fantasist Vaporwave of various sub category, Smooth Jazz, Future Funk, Vapor House, Casinowave, Late Nite Lo-Fi and traditional smooth plunderphonics sounds and more within. Being untethered to physical media these compilations work best, each artist barely distinguishable from the next except to the most absurdly discerning and fanatical, Random Artist Memory banks… conversely, some of my favourite contributions come courtesy of VHS LOGOS, Soft Replica, bl00dwave, Tupperwave, b o d y l i n e, blair and luxury elite (of course), all heavy hitters from the vaporous late nite lo fi anonymity. To quote one intrepid youtube commenter, ‘Its like tripping down the stairs at your grandmas house’. Tune in, pop codeine and effervesce from reality.
Morgue Tar is a pathological Goregrind project from the States featuring Travis Bickle , D Beat Goregind peddler, and Zach Fogle, fiendish character behind the ultimate filth worshipping GK favourite Metrorrhagia. Total sophomoric misanthropy, Gorenoise adjacent Goregrind filth stuffed full of maniacal, infectiously groovy E-Kit roller blasts and D Beats with thumping Bass drum, swimming beneath swollen girthy mid sound detuned-to-fukk Bass meat and gurgling roaring shifted blood bubbling vocal, a shower of bacterial goregrind pus and ichor, low minded lo-fi excellence. 18 short tracks with 3 tracks clocking in past the 5 minute mark, (Chapters 5, 11 and 21) in which Morgue Tar grind their gore down to a noisewave no-rock death dynamic dirge, riding singular D Beats and rolling fills into sonic oblivion, careening to terminus in monotonous decompositional delirium. I hope Morgue Tar further explores this on future works (I’ll be checking out their most recent release next, a split with Gorenoise Capo Adam Rotella’s Low Budget Splatter Gore project). A gruesome, prurient pummeling from the deep Goregrind subterranea.
Split release from Mortville Noise maniacs Captain Three Leg and old-timer new-comers Burt Bacharach. Captain Three Leg provides a menu of short, sharp grinding strikes against the tide of fickle scene interest and goregrind goobers, stirring the pot with a shit-eating grin and bringing the laughs, their hetero-normative grump superfast Hardcore with blast beats and lyrical causticisms having been honed to a thing of shiny perfection. Still the finest samplers in the game. Burt Bacharach is a newer project featuring Tim Morse on drums, working at a scarcely populated Blurcore revival, insane speed worshipping Noisegrind intensity and silly-yet-deadly sonic weight ala early Anal Cunt, Sore Throat and Seven Minutes of Nausea. Dude is channeling Putnam in the deranged sick vocal delivery, tar-thick Guitar/Bass sound rumbles and grinds over blasting meatball blasts. Fucking killer, fucking fast, simple and perfect. Great split, as you can basically always expect from ol’ Mortville. Grab a CD.
Chicago’s Sea of Shit triumphantly returns from hiatus with a fearsome self titled full length, a pugilistic expression of brutal Hardcore power. Caustic hammer of grinding Bass, turgid stiff armed anvil blasts, scorched guitars form igneous slabs of lumpen, cudgel Hardcore downers aflame in white hot rage, sludgy feedback drenched and almighty pissed, topped off with a commanding bellowing vocal performance of terrifying volume and hissing spite. There’s extensions and complexities within the songs that represent new ground for Sea of Shit and they nail them fearlessly to their mast, some searing bluesy lead lines, post hardcore leanings in the chording and arrangements, and mindless drooling droner beatdowns only adding to their particularly terse, discourteous Power Violence influenced Hardcore sound, inflecting each dynamic swing of tempo or rhythm with uniquely devastating results. A total smile ruiner.
Impious cataclysmic Black Death War Gore Metal from fukk knows where (I’m pretty sure one of these freaks lurks in Flint, Michigan…) glowering with overwhelming outsider hostility. Anti-dogmatic rhythms blast and groove with near-Industrial elements grinding in mid-pace with an anvil-strike snare; mean, ugly, accursed Guitars casting grind, gore and DETH riffs, damned in leaden fires of booming lo-fi production, a raking torment of remorselessly heavy corpse-bloated Bass, adorned with hazardous, hissing, cackling vocal of the fukked up and perverse, tainted with ghastly effects. Heaving, seizured, molten Death Black Metal of violent persecution, dangerous and fukking ravenous. Like Catasexual Urge Motivation, Black Mass of Absu or Bestial Putrefaction, Hematoma operates in a sound that’s difficult to pin down to extant genre tropes, as it pulls every extremity into it’s carbonised black hole vortex to create absolutely VILE, truly impetuous Black Death Metal for the end tymes (hopefully). Pestilential and sordid, prison Satanism, homeless urban occultism, malformed victims crucified upside down… verminous. Be afraid.
Purulent Goregrind split from two of yesterday’s gory darlings. Both bands were absolutely killing the game when this was released, albeit with different volumes of output. Pancreatectomie is a criminally overlooked Goregrind band from the States , dealing out pulverising punk-as-fukk toilet Goregrind from beyond taste and decency. Sawing crusty Grindriffs, turbocharged blasts and D-Beats, pitch-shifted gurgling vocal spewing Gore with a connoisseurs soupçon of drooling Death Metal influence amidst the punk drumming and sloppy Bass slime. Canadian punks G.O.D hew slightly closer to classic Grindcore ala FETO Napalm and Repulsion, their Goregrind hums along with terrible heft and pace, glowering with humanist outrage. Aggression amped to fuck, they steam through 10 withering tracks with deadly sharp Guitar whipping out obtuse deathly grind excellence, maniacally fast drumming and deranged aggro low end vocal both pitched down and un-effected. Both sides are recorded extra loud, with clarity of audio and little atmosphere or mastering. A glorious fucken blaster.
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.
Pure, glowing, late nite Lo-Fi cheeze from 1-800-TONIGHT. Irradiated post capitalist on-hold music, commerce lubrication, scintillating and bizarre in it’s paradoxical vitality and corpulence. Dreamy, vaporous, intoxicating and suffocatingly, radioactively corny. Smoky sax, slowly unfurling default beat patterns from electronic kit banks, rounded electronic Bass sultry with late 80’s/early 90’s porno chic, twinkling keys from Hong Kong action film melodrama, languid fuck music from beyond the end of totemic capitalist iconography, a hologram advertisement dancing on the wall of a bombed out shopping mall. 1-800-TONIGHT is a side project of luxury elite, long held by me to be one one of the more important artists from the Vaporwave thing. Both projects carry that cosy, empty feel and vibe that I cherish in this particularly weird cul-de-sac of post internet ‘music’. Artistic value is defined, as ever, by the dead-eyed consumer.
Pastel tranquiliser Math Rock from Torontoans Daydream Plus, a side project from members of Tomb Mold. Vaporous and helium light Math Rock busy with richly composed instrumentation, akin to Green Hill Zone music via over-achieving Fusion Jazz band belting out perfect Casiopea/Girraffes? Giraffes! covers, horizontal in cocktail supping calm. Crisp purifying Guitars and Bass afloat on a peppermint breeze of soft touch percussion, loaded with hooked jazzy melody and shuffling dexterous pristine rhythms. Vapid and morphine warm, it’s gorgeously recorded, pristinely produced, and soaked in the UV rays of exceptional musicianship. A sumptuous sidestep into beatific smooth. Take two with ice water and relax.
GonzoKaraoke 