Vargr – Aldebaran

August 2, 2009 • 205 Recordings

I haven't been listening to noise much in ages. I was really into it a few years ago, but somewhere around 2010 my interest started to drop and I just haven't bothered with it. (It's likely I overlistened and got tired of it.) Consequently I have a bunch of old noise album that have been sitting around in my library, unrated, for years; Vargr's are some of the oldest and it's finally time I gave Aldebaran its due.

And it's surprisingly a lot better than I remember it being. It's substantially harsh stuff, but doesn't fail to be pretty interesting as well. "Aufbruch nach Aldebaran" opens the album with some nasty wall noise, but there's lots of variation in the timbre and presentation of that noise that makes up for the lack of dynamics. Vargr relies a lot on high-pitched squealing sounds to cut through the thick static, but fortunately the squeals aren't unpleasant.

The length of the tracks (nearly twenty minutes for two of them) used to be a showstopper for me, especially since the amount of variety in those long tracks isn't huge at first listen; however, Aldebaran is one of those albums that manages to justify such monolithic times. It's easy to get wrapped up in the all-encompassing clamor and just kind of zone out; this also makes picking out all the little interesting things going on much easier. There are depths to these tracks that take a bit of digging to find, but they're there.

The shorter track "First Transmission from A" is kind of the opposite—less subtle, more deliberately thrashing your ears with oscillators and grinding distortion. It may be a bit too long for how intense it is, but not to a fault. The closing track is entirely the opposite: a blissful droning piece, quite simple and beautiful.

I'm not sure if Aldebaran really is that good, or if it's just hitting a noise-loving part of my brain that hasn't been satisfied in a while; either way, I'm glad I decided to revisit this album. Definitely a good listen for anyone who likes it harsh.

Brace yourself for the tinnitus, though.

6

Smell & Quim – Diameter of Elvis' Colon

1995 • Pure

I rescued this album off the oft-ignored avant-garde shelf at the record store. I can understand that this sort of stuff doesn't often sell well... because this album is bad. It's disappointing because I can see potential in these tracks; some of it is good and it could have been a lot better but there are so many things it does wrong that it makes the whole experience leave a bad taste.

Most of the album is middling harsh noise—lots of heavily distorted static that is constantly changing up; it seems interesting at first simply because it's a bit nicely chaotic. (Think a harsh Merzbow without the intricate layering.) But after not too long, it becomes a very tedious listen for a few different reasons.

Mainly, it gets boring really fast. Even though it seems interesting at first, it soon becomes apparent that the album really isn't that diverse at all, and after the first track and a half you've already heard everything you're going to hear on the rest of it. I have to give it credit for trying, as the style isn't really repetitive within tracks (except a few choice spots, and especially the longer tracks), but on the whole it feels like the same thing over and over again.

It also doesn't help that the production and mixing is awful. There's pretty much no low-end or high-end, and sometimes it sounds like it's being listened to through a telephone, which gets fatiguing really quickly. There are also panning issues, of all things; listening on headphones gets annoying fast when most of the sound is coming through only one speaker. It doesn't make any sense since the CD already sounds like it's more or less in mono to begin with.

Another deal-breaker for me is the awful sampling. The existence of the distorted and feedback-laden mouth-fart noises is just baffling. It sounds childish and irritating and has no place on any musical release. The spoken word samples aren't great either, although they do provide a well-earned break from the noise.

I suppose there probably is a niche demographic out there somewhere that would enjoy this, but even as a noise fan I'm not really feeling this. If you can tolerate the stupid farting and poor production it really isn't that bad, but I personally wouldn't want to listen to it again.

3

Kylie Minoise – Kylie Minoise Fucking Hates You!

July 18, 2008 • Kovorox Sound

I have my doubts as to whether or not Kylie Minoise actually feels so strongly about me, but he is definitely bringing an appropriate punishment on this album. We are presented with some fairly typical 2000s-era digital harsh noise, which is certainly brutal and also surprisingly good. I didn't care for this album the first time I heard it but somehow it's grown on me over the years without me even listening to it.

Compared to a lot of noise releases I've heard, this one is pretty diverse: sounds range from heavy wall noise to screeching feedback, grinding sample-laden layering, and a good bit of ambience. It all manages to sound pretty consistent as well, unlike some albums that mix things up so much they sound like various artists compilations. Here, every track has its own style and feel but they do hold each other up well and form a cohesive whole.

While that's a good thing, each track by itself is a tiny bit disappointing; there's practically no mood and little atmospherics to be had. I'm not going to fault the album too heavily for that—it's difficult to do things like that in noise—but sometimes the tracks feel a bit flat. The monolithic closer is a nice exception, though, as it builds tension throughout its first half very satisfyingly and its ambient second half is nice and dark.

Another thing about this album I do enjoy is that Minoise knows exactly when a track is long enough; unlike a lot of, say, Merzbow tracks that drag on forever, here the tracks are all pretty short (with one obvious exception). So the harsher pieces don't have time to get stale and the tracks I don't particularly care for aren't as bothersome as they could be. While I try not to have a short attention span (I did listen to all ten-plus hours of Merzbient, after all) this is a huge plus and I'm not sure why most noise artists don't seem to have picked up on it yet.

To be honest I'm a bit mad at myself for so casually shrugging off this album with a 2.5-star rating so long ago; it's a great example of how a noise album should be arranged, without a lot of the pretense and wankery. Sure, it has its flaws, as any album will, but I'd still recommend it to any noise fan.

6

Noise/Girl – Discopathology

November 1, 2005 • Killer Pimp

I'm not exactly sure how I stumbled across this album, but I'm rather glad I did. I've always enjoyed the noisier side of electronic music and Discopathology takes it to a bizarre extreme that I've never heard before. It's hard to believe one can make noise sound fun, but this album is a blast.

Despite its premise of "harsh-noise-meets-disco", which sounds gimmicky, on the whole it's put together very well. The disco tracks consist of very heavy beats and samples from famous disco tracks to create a very noisy yet incredibly danceable sound. On the surface it sounds like this combination would produce an abominable trainwreck of a song but surprisingly it works pretty well, despite using some very cliché samples (e.g. "Staying Alive"; it's the only time I've enjoyed the fact that the song exists). While the song structures of the two disco-laced tracks are probably typical of dance music, the added noisiness give them a nice twist that makes them a lot more listenable, especially since the noise is very well-produced.

Most of the tracks, however, are straight-up harsh noise, which means the disco-esque segments take a bit of a backseat, especially on the second half of the album. Again, the noise is very well done; it's highly layered and harsh but it doesn't ever get very boring or repetitive as it changes around often. It might help that the artist is from Japan, where almost all good noise comes from, and I might say the quality here rivals the more well-known Japanoise artists and it would be great to hear an all-noise album from him.

However I do wish there were more tracks of the power noise/disco style; of eight tracks on the album, only two actually have that sound to them, while the rest are almost all straight harsh noise. While, again, it's good, it is a little disappointing to hear the disco thing done on only two tracks. There is also a random drum and bass track thrown in near the end, and while the noisiness fits in with it again it feels a bit out of place.

Since Discopathology is such a weird album it's not too surprising that it's been so overlooked by fans of similar genres but I feel it deserves a bit more recognition, as Noise/Girl clearly isn't a one-trick pony and he has a lot of talent for good noise and it's really refreshing to hear it combined with a genre that could not be more different. I would love to hear more noise fusion like this from anyone, but this is definitely a quality example.

8