Sunn O))) & Nurse with Wound – The Iron Soul of Nothing

November 29, 2011 • Ideologic Organ

I've had this album kicking around since it came out in late 2011 and have only now remembered it exists. Any collaboration Sunn O))) does always seems to work out majestically (or close enough), and Nurse with Wound is probably one of the best candidates for such a collaboration. Unfortunately I won't say that it turned out quite as good as I hoped, but even so this is still a somewhat interesting album and at the very least one for the die-hard fans.

"Ash on the Trees" sounds basically like what you'd expect—we have Nurse with Wound's pants-wettingly-frightening noisescapes and Sunn O)))'s meandering doomy guitar, all wrapped up in an oppressively dark occult atmosphere. I've always though that Sunn O))) can get a little boring when it's just their plain guitar doom and having some extra elements to spice things up really helps (see Monoliths & Dimensions for one), and Nurse with Wound's particular brand of noise goes very well with the sort of aesthetic Sunn O))) is always trying to have. That track has a very aggressive aspect to the noise and how it drives the guitar lines and vocals forward. (Speaking of vocals, though, that's always something that could have been handled better. There are very few times when a Sunn O))) release has vocals in it that work well, but this isn't really one of them. When they aren't repetitive, they sound silly instead.)

As for the remaining three tracks, it feels like things kind of fell off the rails. The album just becomes slightly-noisy droning without a whole lot of substance to it. While it's no surprise that all the tracks are quite long, I don't think there's really enough going on in most of them to justify the fourteen-to-eighteen minute runtimes. I get the need for buildups and long blocks of sound, but there's a point where things get too long. And yes, that applies even when the buildups are good (as they are here)! Like I love the ambient drone of "Dysnystaxis" with its dissonant chimes and lonely violin, but after a while I get impatient. It doesn't go anywhere or do anything. Both "Ra at Dawn" tracks are even worse in this regard. They are actually both really interesting tracks and have a lot of different things going on that develop in a cool way, but because they're so long and drawn-out it's hard to even notice any of it. Take the same tracks and scrunch them down to half the length and it'd be amazing because you'd get to appreciate the ebb and flow of the drones... but that just doesn't happen.

On the whole, this isn't the best way to experience either band. I don't think anybody is completely on top of their game on this album; they've both released material that are far better than Iron Soul. But I think this album was still worth a listen, at least as long as you know what you're getting into. There's still plenty on here to enjoy; you just have to be patient and look around for it. It's too bad they couldn't do more of the ritual-occult stuff of the first track. Maybe some other time.

Merzbow – ZaRa

2010 • Licht-ung

I barely listen to noise much anymore, unfortunately, even Merzbow, whose albums take up a significant chunk of my library. ZaRa came out a few years ago and I'm really only getting to it now; that could be because the big M simply hasn't put out much particularly interesting in the last few years, or it could just be my changing tastes. Listening to this album with an essentially clean palate when it comes to Merzbow is kind of a weird experience; I've lost a lot of the framework by which I decide what makes a good noise album and what doesn't. So the fact that I'm not sure if I'm enjoying ZaRa might not really mean anything at all.

It's relatively standard for Merzbow, mostly on the boundary between "harsh noise" and "non-harsh noise". "Za" focuses on mutilating a sample of a guitar (or bass?) while "Ra" is mostly layers and layers of wave oscillators and glitches and rapidly-panning static. It's more of an exploration of how badly one can cut up and process samples before they become unrecognizable that they were even samples in the first place. The layering sometimes gets really out-of-hand, sometimes amping up into a total assault of a dozen things going on at once (especially in "Ra"), although for the most part it still sounds pretty clean and usually everything is quite audible. It's tastefully-arranged, too; there's enough dynamics and change in aesthetics enough to keep it from getting too boring. There's not a lot of epic soundscaping here, not that I expected it, but I was surprised by the intermittent bits of drumming (I had forgotten that Akita had become big into adding his own drumming recordings into his noise). On the whole, though, it is maybe a little silly and not particularly deep or insightful (inasmuch as noise can get).

But it's alright. I've heard great Merz albums and horrible Merz albums, and this probably falls somewhere in the middle. Not one to worry about if you're not already a fan, but not a waste of your time for the more intense fans like I was. Though occasionally dipping back into albums like this is good for a bit of a nostalgia trip back to when I listened to this kind of thing almost every day (okay that was only a few years ago, but still...).

Clipping – Midcity

February 5, 2013 • self-released

I haven't really been listening to quite as much music recently. Not totally sure why (probably work-related), but I've felt the need to experience things in smaller, more intense bursts to try to get everything in. Midcity has been out since February so I'm way behind on everything I wanted to listen to, but at least this falls under the "intense bursts" I guess I'm going for.

Noise and hip hop—two genres I've liked for a while, and two genres that you don't often see together (at least, not at this level; Dälek or Death Grips come near it but still aren't in the same league). Clipping's style almost forgoes the standard styles of hip hop entirely, opting for harsh static, glitch, junk noise, anything dissonant they can get their hands on. It's a really interesting contrast to the more standard rapping that's comparable to a lot of modern rap; against the backdrop of the noise beats it becomes something entirely different. It's still pretty rhythmic music (most of the time), but hearing those rhythms made with static and sound effects instead of drums and samples is offputting, to say the least.

Production aside, it still comes off as a pretty solid album when it comes to hip hop. There's some great scratching (something sorely lacking on a lot of hip hop I hear) and sometimes the beats can get a little catchy on their own. The rapping is quite good too, even if it is a little typical (and I could go without hearing "swag" ever again). They aren't very aggressive at all which provides a nice balance to the head-pounding production—whereas Death Grips beat the listener by shouting relentlessly, Clipping opts to take a more subtle approach to alarm the listener, and it works.

Overall, it's a really cool aesthetic, and I'd be excited to hear more extreme hip hop like this. Midcity is best served in short chunks, though, if the listener wishes to retain their sanity.

7

Pig Heart Transplant – Land of Marred Normalcy

2007 • What We Do Is Secret

The modern underground tape scene is so interesting that you could spend lifetimes writing a blog that covers nothing else. The diversity that comes out of it in just one genre is pretty impressive.

Land of Marred Normalcy is a short delve into layers of lo-fi noise, a stripped-down and very dirty approach to the genre; it sounds mostly like a de-tuned bass guitar sent through about a thousand distortion pedals with the occasional vocal screams or microphone noise (also distorted, of course) played over top.

Whether it's "good" or not is obviously up for debate, but there's definitely something to be said for the incredibly tense (and a bit frightening) "Compound People", with its dissonant screeches contrasted with slower, doomier noise rhythms. The effect is very unsettling, a feeling that lingers over the whole EP. But the creepiness really comes into full force during the second half, when the bass distortion gives way to isolated, high-pitched feedback and clinking noises. It's hard to listen to this track (especially with headphones) due to it being almost physically painful, but at the same time it's a little engrossing.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend Land of Marred Normalcy—it's not something with a lot of replay value—but it's definitely an interesting release if nothing else. Definitely not one for noise/avant-garde amateurs, though.

5

No preview today, but you can grab this from the Internet Archive.

Eric Fourman – Cloudy

October 8, 2011 • self-released

More goodness from Eric Fourman today; I seem to never get tired of his brand of complex, layered ambient drone, so it's a good thing that he seems to never get tired of making it. Cloudy is one of his more interesting and diverse albums I've heard yet, and just as good as the rest.

I say "diverse" as this album is probably his most abrasive work (that I've heard), especially on the opener "rDNA", which has a much more intense sound than his typical output due to a substantial amount of low, gravelly noise. It's almost hostile, but there are still slight glimmers of the ambient to come hidden in the cracks. A very neat piece, and unexpected.

From there on, the album switches back to Fourman's standard soothing, ethereal sound, though there's still a hint of distortion undercutting most of the droning. It gives the music a bit more of an edge, which I quite like—not that his other stuff ever gets too corny for me, but here it's a nice change.

"1/2cc" stands out as one of my favorites on the album and deserves a special mention. It's a very simple track—droning synthesized strings, layers upon layers of them, slowly ascending and descending the minor scale. Perhaps it's that minor tonality, or maybe the slight dissonance, I'm not sure, but something about this track makes it just absolutely beautiful. By far one of Fourman's best pieces.

It's a rare drone album that feels glacial without dragging along too slowly; a lofty goal, and one that's attained here. As expected, Cloudy is absolutely worth getting a hold of, even if only for that brilliant closing track.

7

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

Jason Lescalleet – Songs About Nothing

June 2012 • Erstwhile Records

It isn't often one hears about highly-anticipated releases in more avant-garde genres (even if it's Merzbow or something) but I decided to look into Jason Lescalleet after hearing a bit of hype for Songs About Nothing. Even after a few listens of this album, I'm still a bit perplexed—it's mostly enjoyable, but it's hard to say why.

The album's first disc ia a challenging one for me and I'm really not sure how to approach it. While I'm almost always one to fully dive into noise and sound collage sorts of albums, this one is very difficult to penetrate. Each individual track is so different in sound that it's hard to get a grip on what I'm listening to. On the first disc, the short tracks jump around crazily—pure noise, EAI, crackly glitch, drone, dark ambient, and of course the Big Black samples dance in and out of the picture. On one hand, the pieces themselves are pretty neat and Lescalleet crafts a lot of pleasing textures; on the other hand, I feel like each one of these pieces (the good ones, anyway) really deserve to be more fleshed-out. What we get are thirteen bite-sized bits of musique concrète but most of the album deserves better than that.

However the more quiet and introspective tracks (mainly "Escargot" through "Friday Night in a Catholic Home") really grabbed me—the softer ambience, subtle background sounds, warm drones: that was the point where I really started to get into the album. It's simply a shame that, again, they were so short.

The second disc, a forty-three minute long soundscape, is (to me) a bit more typical of the minimal noise / drone I usually listen to—eerie drones, pulsing ominous synths, deep dark bass frequencies, and some interesting processed sampling. It slowly evolves into some abstract microsound / ambient / field recordings akin to the tracks I mentioned on the first disc; it's pleasing stuff (though there's not much to say about it).

I think Lescalleet handles the long-form album much better, as "The Future Belongs to No One" is much easier for me to get into and appreciate, one of those pieces that it's too easy to get lost in. It doesn't pound the listener with harsh changes or out-of-place samples (except for the last few minutes—but let's just pretend like that part never happened).

Again, I'm still not really sure what to take from Songs About Nothing—is it ahead of its time, that we're seeing this sort of avant-garde music made into a more accessible and listener-friendly format? Or is it just a self-indulgent exercise in sound composition? Or neither? I don't know. Taken at face value, as a simple album on its own, it's okay. It has its highs and lows, like any other release, and for me that's all it is.

6

SAT Stoicizmo – Mah 2

1997 • Artware Products / Graph Zahl

One more dive into the land of the mysterious underground '80s avant-garde for the week: this time it's Czech band SAT Stoicizmo, who recorded this album back in 1985 and let it sit around until 1997 (ten years after they disbanded) before releasing it. This album has a lot more polish and a lot more interesting things going on, though, and though it's tough to get into it's a really neat listen.

Like a lot of sound collage records, the music on Mah 2 is quite hard to define as it's all over the place—but to start somewhere, the liner notes describe it as an "attempt to combine the achievements of (punk)rock-music with the classical concept of futuristic bruitism"... and I'd say that's at least somewhat accurate. Well, while there isn't much musically "punk" about Mah 2, the intent is there, as is the futuristic influence. The album presents itself as a bizarre but very deliberately-composed sound collage: plenty of found sounds, a bizarre assortment of music clips, manipulated field recordings, and plain noise barrage the listener.

It's a lot to take in—I've had this album around for a few years and listening now, it still feels completely fresh (even after several listens the past few weeks); there's just so much to take in. But at the same time, that's definitely what makes this album (and others like it) so appealing: it's not afraid to surprise the listener with different textures and sounds. At the same time, it feels like everything fits together as it should (particularly the more rhythmic "Nehaj") so it's not too jarring or alienating when things get switched up.

Obviously this kind of music is not for everyone, and even for me it took a long time to really get into it. But with a little patience, Mah 2 is absolutely worth it.

7

Minóy – Celebration of the Sunrise

1987 • self-released

Somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of the lost '80s underground lies Minóy, whom I know nothing about, except that he (she? they?) made a handful of obscure tapes of experimental music. This one, Celebration of the Sunrise, is a decent but ultimately disappointing representation of their work.

This particular tape harbors a collection of musique concrète, drones, electronics, and found sounds, all mashed up together in a long droning fever dream. It sounds like being lost in a huge '70s-era data computing center stationed underwater—echoing synth glitches and voice samples come from all sides while low scrapings and pulses drone on underneath. During "Celebration of the Sunrise", you're stumbling between racks of flashing lights while machines beep incessantly; then on "Nightride" you've escaped but are now trapped in a flooding radio room.

Of course, at an hour and a half with little variation to the sounds, Celebration of the Sunrise gets fatiguing quite fast. Each side of the tape is more or less the same thing for its entire forty-five minute duration, and they are each only interesting for about ten minutes. After that the music loses its novelty and becomes a bit dull.

It also means that there really isn't much to say about the album at all. It has two decent, if long, tracks, and that's it. It's disappointing because, had Minóy definitely had the potential to put together an excellent tape of shorter pieces similar to this, but it didn't happen.

4

Sturqen – Raia

April 25, 2012 • self-released

Another random Bandcamp discovery for today: Sturqen's Raia. I've finally hit a sort-of-average release after a slew of good ones. (About time.) It shows the somewhat amateur side of Bandcamp well, though it's not terrible.

Raia is basically a noisy and bleak sort of minimal industrial music—lots of distorted and amelodic synths, noisy beats, dissonant and aggressive tones, and the like. Sort of like super-slow electronica, on LSD, in space. It's a very concrete atmosphere they have going on here, very cold, mechanical, and, again, bleak. It's an okay style, not totally appealing to me, but sometimes it's the kind of thing I'm in the mood for.

However, the tracks are mostly short and quite simple, which leads to the album's biggest problem: nothing ever really gets a chance to develop very much. Instead, most of the tracks are just a few simple loops which fade in, play for a bit, then fade out rather unceremoniously. While many of the sounds and textures are pretty neat, the fact that they just don't go anywhere makes the album a bit dull and difficult to really immerse yourself in.

So I find it really hard to recommend this. There are, again, some cool ideas, but the way they're presented doesn't really do anything for me. I can see this duo releasing some really interesting and focused material at some point (maybe they already have) but I don't think this is the one.

5

Climax Denial – The Absolute Bottom

2008 • Husk Recordings

Sometimes when I hear an artist like this I have to wonder if they were the kind of people who hear something and thing "heck, I could do that" and proceed to totally screw it up. Maybe Climax Denial is one such artist. Okay, it's not bad, but it's a pale imitation of all the good noise I've ever heard and feels very amateurish.

The Absolute Bottom is fairly typical power electronics: cold and clinical one-track noise with incomprehensible distorted and shouted vocals. Nothing your average Sutcliffe Jügend or Whitehouse album doesn't do. The noise textures can get quite harsh, almost wall-like at times, with the occasional pain-inducing high tones that I suppose you can't do power electronics without. (I'm not joking about the pain—don't listen to this with headphones. It's not fun.) Other times things are a bit quieter, like the more ambient and distant last two tracks, so there is a little bit of variety overall.

But The Absolute Bottom doesn't do a whole lot to excite me. It's alright music but it doesn't bring much new to the table—compared to my review of Genocide Organ's Remember, at least there they brought some variety and other influences to the party. Climax Denial is more "pure", you could say, most prominently in the longest track "Just a Body", thirteen minutes of basically the same harsh noise sound. Other tracks have a bit more going on, like the screeching synth noise in "Tapeworm Agility" that complements the grinding background noise well, but it doesn't get much more diverse than that. Some people will like that and others won't, of course. For me, it makes the album off as more of a novelty than anything.

No matter how many times I listen to it, Climax Denial just doesn't grab me. It simply exists, filling up the empty space but going nowhere and doing nothing. So it makes okay background noise but I really don't see a lot of reason to listen to it otherwise.

4

Pete Swanson – Man with Potential

November 21, 2011 • Type

Pete Swanson is half of the legendary (and sadly disbanded) noise/drone duo Yellow Swans, who I've been a fan of for some time. Man with Potential isn't his first album, but it's his first on a more well-known label (I think) and first to get some decent publicity, so it seems. It's a very interesting listen, though probably not one that will appeal to many.

It's not hard to hear traces of the old Yellow Swans sound in this album—washes of droning synths and static are as prevalent as ever. The sound also includes densely-packed jumbles of clipped, glitchy electronic sounds, all of it backed by heavy, stilted bass beats. If it sounds like a bizarre combination, it is—although after a few listens as I've gotten used to it, and there are a lot of neat subtleties to be found somewhere in the chaos. It's interesting, if nothing else.

The album does get a bit repetitive, though, and each track is basically the same formula: start with the high-pitched glitchy noises, slowly evolve into the ambient droning, rinse and repeat. Yes, each track has its own sounds and textures, and it doesn't quite do the exact same thing every track, but still.

Anyway, it's still a decent album. I like how it straddles the gap between electronic music and straight-up noise, a fusion which I don't hear often but happen to like quite a bit. The textures and composition of such are well-done and mostly pleasant to listen to. I'm not enthralled, but it's definitely not bad and is worth a few listens, even if it doesn't live up to my impression of Yellow Swans.

Bonus review! The extra disc, entitled Man with Garbage, might actually be better than the main event. It's much darker, more sinister, and definitely harsher, though it still has the same basic makeup of Man with Potential (glitchy synths and droning noise). The electronic elements (like the house beats) are downplayed in favor of a more intense wall of noise, and (for me anyway) it's a bit more enjoyable.

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

Extreme Music from Africa

2001 • Susan Lawly

Before I really get into reviewing this album I feel like I should address the particularly nasty rumor surrounding it. It is said that Extreme Music from Africa is, in fact, a "hoax", that William Bennett didn't just compile it, as is claimed, but he actually produced all the tracks himself using fake artist names. I don't know whether it's true or not (I'm inclined to think it is, as the album sounds very Bennetty and Africa doesn't seem to have much of a noise scene), so I'll try to keep that aspect out of my review.

That being said, either way Extreme Music from Africa is a pretty reasonable album. The noise is mostly very simplistic with little layering and not much in the way of harshness. It's well-done, though; overall the album has a pretty nice (for noise) atmosphere and I find the textures to be quite pleasant. For the most part, it's nothing new as far as noise goes and it doesn't ever quite become really interesting, but it sounds like it would be a very accessible album for those unfamiliar with the genre.

A common element in most tracks is the inclusion of various samples of African folk music—chanting and drumming—that actually fit in with the music itself really well. Many of the samples have been processed heavily to mesh better, but they all are recognizable and add a really nice exotic flair to the music. If it weren't for that sampling, this album probably would have been dismissed as too generic long ago, so it's a good thing it's there; in fact I would have liked to see a lot more of it—perhaps the samples serving as a basis for the noise textures rather than add-ons.

There is plenty here to entertain any fan of noise or otherwise experimental music. Not every track is killer, unfortunately, so I wouldn't rank it anywhere near my top noise releases, but what we have is definitely interesting and a unique spin on traditional African folk, if nothing else.

6

Hototogisu – Prayer Rug Exorcism

December 2005 • Heavy Blossom

Like drone, noise can seem like an easy genre to tackle but in reality it's very tough to pull off a good noise record, and all too easy to create something bland or unoriginal. Prayer Rug Exorcism is, of course, an example of the latter—an album that seems promising at first but is too homogenous and grating to deliver.

All four untitled tracks here are layers upon layers of dense samples and noise, creating a very thick and abrasive sound. It's pretty neat at first, actually, and there is quite a lot going on, so close listening reveals some interesting stuff like guitar feedback and maybe some screaming vocals. The problem, though, is that the sound doesn't really ever change; after about five minutes or so, the constant grinding becomes tiresome, the layers have dissolved into a formless mess, and my brain simply can't take it any more.

It's not that I can't enjoy this sort of intense music—quite the opposite; harsh wall noise can be pretty awesome sometimes—but to me this isn't a pleasing example. It's just so incredibly difficult to take it in all at once, and by the end of just the first track I'm already worn out, but there's another forty minutes to go. And every track is more or less the exact same thing, the same dense, grinding, muffled mess. I wouldn't mind if there was some variation in texture or composition or even just timbre, but there isn't any (well, each track is a tiny bit different, but barely). And the sound itself isn't close to being good enough to make up for the lack of diversity.

I don't doubt that there will be plenty of noise fans who will love this album, who enjoy the mentally-draining brutality. Nine times out of ten I'd be right there with them, but this is one album I'd sit out on.

3

Thanks for joining me for Bad Music Week! Next week, more bad music! And some average music, and maybe some good stuff too; who knows.

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

KK Null – Peak of Nothingness

December 2000 • Hushush

KK Null is one of those names in underground music that I seem to have heard quite a bit before I actually heard anything by him, despite the fact that he has (reportedly) released over a hundred albums. With that kind of prolificacy, it's difficult to keep quality control (something I've written about before) and albums by such artists are always a crapshoot. Unfortunately, with the album I chose, things didn't turn out so well.

Despite his reputation for particularly loud music (see his band Zeni Geva in particular, they are pretty good), Peak of Nothingness is a very quiet album. It has an incredibly sparse sound, somewhere on the border of noise and musique concrète, with each track consisting of just one or two sounds at a time—soft pulses, whining drones, mechanical swellings, glitches, things of that nature. To me it's a very alienating experience, kind of like listening to those sound effect CDs that are just random, unconnected, meaningless sounds one after the other. Here, it's like that, where every track is stretched out to a couple minutes, but it feels just as meaningless and impersonal.

I'm not going to say it's the fault of this particular album that I feel this way, though; I've always found this sort of music to be really difficult to get into. The very repetitive music and minimal production results in a sound that isn't terribly engaging; but on the other side of things, it's too abrasive and random to be considered decent background music. So I'm a bit lost as to what the point of this kind of music is. I can definitely see some of these tracks having use as, say, source material for a more involved album, but on their own there just really isn't much to them.

Somewhere out there though I'm sure there is someone for whom this album will be appealing—after all, musique concrète as a genre does have a significant fanbase if I'm not mistaken. But I won't count myself among their ranks and I won't count myself as a fan of Peak of Nothingness; it simply doesn't have much of anything that appeals to me. Like my distaste for indeterminacy, I feel kind of bad blaming the album itself for being in a style that's out of my taste range, but what else can I do?

3

Daniel Menche – Feral

2011 • Sub Rosa

Experimental music can be a crapshoot. Sometimes, the style created is fresh, interesting, and arresting; other times it fails to warrant listening. Daniel Menche's Feral is a strange mix which unfortunately lands more often on the "boring" side, although when it gets good it is quite good indeed.

While Menche may be a very well-respected artist in the underground experimental scene, unfortunately most of the music on this album doesn't do much for me. These four long pieces all seem to focus on one particular texture, drawing out one sound endlessly. Yes, the sounds do evolve and shift as they go, but they take so long to do so that it's hard to notice. It feels like very simple music, and while simple music can often be good, here it isn't. It just takes way too long for the tracks to develop into anything interesting. They stand as four giant monoliths of sound, hardly going anywhere but just existing, and to me it just isn't worth spending seventeen minutes on each.

On a smaller scale, though, the music is pretty good when not taken in all at once. The fourth track especially is really neat, its climax evoking imagery of electric storms and static developing from the darkness. Menche's particular brand of noisy-ambient-drone is pretty unique and for the most part I like what I'm hearing on this track. The third track does a very similar thing, evolving from quiet sweeping sounds into a torrent of chunky and somewhat harsh noise.

Still, despite those two tracks being standouts, it doesn't do much to save the album when listened to as a whole. Skipping through each track reveals the subtle changes and lets me get to the good bits faster, but as it's intended the album is simply too boring to be enjoyable. If the third and fourth tracks were shortened up and placed alongside more material like them, I'd be very pleased with a release like that, but it didn't happen here. Another album relegated to "background noise" status.

5

Merzbow – Merzbient

November 1, 2010 • Soleilmoon Recordings

Masami Akita is nothing if not prolific. In addition to releasing dozens of albums every year, he has put out a few impressively-sized box sets, Merzbient being thus far the second-largest released (the thirty-disc Merzbox is a challenge I have yet to attempt). This particular collection is older works from Merzbow's analog days with a supposed "ambient" twist. I say "supposed" because the extent that any of this album is actually ambient is bascially just adding a lot of reverb to everything. But it's actually got a pretty diverse run of sounds going for it (one would hope, being twelve discs long), although I hesitate to judge whether the whole experience is actually worth it.

I spent two entire days at work listening exclusively to this album: the first six discs yesterday, and the second six today. It was a very difficult thing to do, and it was one of the most difficult albums I've listened to in general (bested so far, that I can think of, only by another twelve-disc musique concrète compilation). Now I don't think the intention is to listen to the whole thing all at once, and I certainly don't expect anyone to do so but, despite a lot of archival-compilation sort of albums I've heard coming off like a general mish-mash of random tracks, this thing actually holds together really nicely as one giant work. It's difficult to explain how since it's not your typical album and it's structured differently from how I'm used to, but for the most part all the discs go together pretty well.

Anyway, on to the content itself. Like I mentioned before, what we get here is Merzbow's take on ambient music, but it really isn't ambient at all. The majority of the tracks consist of light noise and junk metal sampling (a staple of early Merzbow) all drenched in a heavy reverb with the occasional background droning. Here and there Merzbow shakes it up with some more typical harsh noise (discs 8 and 9) and some improvisational messing-about (disc 5). That's basically it in a nutshell. Analogous to Merzbow's output in general, the quality of the album varies throughout. For me, the highlights are discs 1–3 (typical noise but with a lot of really interesting sampling that gives it a nice surreal atmosphere) and discs 7–9 (taking a turn for the harsh; slipping into more normal Merzbow territory, which is pretty refreshing after six discs of lighter stuff).

However, despite spanning twelve discs, there isn't quite as much variety overall as there ought to be. This means the album probably lends itself better to sampling snippets here and there rather than taking it in all at once or in disc-size chunks; for each track, the same particular section can go on for at least fifteen minutes, which isn't exactly exciting to listen to but would be good for random access. Also, the discs I didn't mention above (4–6, 10–12) I found to be pretty boring and not really worth listening to, which is part of what made the album so difficult. They are all pretty similar with uninteresting noise and samples with lots of reverb and little else to keep things fresh. These parts seem very amateurish to me; granted, they were recorded during Merzbow's early period but I know that he was cranking out better material at the time. Hearing these pieces is pretty unsatisfying; they definitely overstay their welcome and often repeat sounds heard on other discs (4, 6, and 7 are all very similar).

If this collection was cut down to just the six discs I liked the best, I could see this as being a pretty strong album (not as strong as I would have hoped, and it still wouldn't come close to my Merzfavorites), and anyone reading this review first has the opportunity to check out my recommended abridged version first (again, discs 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, and 9) if desired. I'm not going to recommend it to anyone but the more hardcore Merzbow fans, but for those looking for something a little different from what they're used to from Merzbow this isn't a bad place to look. In general, though, Masami Akita really hits his stride with his harsher creations and should leave the ambient material to others.

6

Robedoor – Unsummoning

2006 • Not Not Fun Records

When a band is extremely prolific like Robedoor, quality control always becomes an issue; it's practically impossible to put out a good handful albums in one year and have them all be good. Unsummoning is one of eleven albums Robedoor put out in 2006, and it's probably among the better ones (compared to what I've heard).

The album is your fairly typical noise/drone hybrid: some raw, abrasive distortion effects akin to your typical Merzbow (although comparatively lo-fi) in the first two tracks backed by some grating drones. "Hall of Skulls" features some tribal ambient on the same theme with similar vocal effects and a raw-sounding drum beat that becomes harsher as the track goes on; "Black Wasps" is a very quiet, very creepy dark ambient piece; the album closes with some subdued droning. The album reminds me a lot of Wolf Eyes' typical output as well; surprisingly diverse (as far as noise goes) but usually keeping the same aesthetics and/or themes. It's nice to hear it when this happens, as the album throws a few different things at the listener that still sound like they all belong together.

It also reminds me of Wolf Eyes because their sound is very much like Robedoor's here, which unfortunately means I'm a bit jaded by this album—after all, I've been listening to Wolf Eyes for a lot longer and generally like their stuff better, so why listen to this? It's not a particularly engaging listen, but it's still good for what it is, which as usual relegates it to "decent background music" status.

So, like most music similar to this, I'd only recommend Unsummoning for hardcore fans of occult/underground noise; otherwise, it's nothing that hasn't already been done before, so skip it.

5