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Sunday 31 March 2019

Enemy of Pigs launch night.


S.T.A.B. Electronics, Iron Fist of the Sun, Antivalium, Active Denial. The Castle, London, Saturday 31st March.

I went to this gig alone, upon 10 minutes of my arrival I’d met Phil from W.I.P., Lee from Iron Fist of the Sun, Keith from S.T.A.B. both guys from Active Denial and Winston from Shift/Unrest. It was great to meet the faces behind the projects that I love. The occasion was S.T.A.B.s first live gig in 3 years to celebrate the release of Enemy of Pigs on Unrest Productions, I’m playing it now on my turntable.

I’ve reviewed both Active Denial tapes in the past and I was keen to see them in a live context. I believe they haven’t played a lot of live gigs prior to this. The set up was simple vocals, keyboard and four Walkman portable players that all into a mixer.  Adam Apple screamed and shouted into the mic, got right into people’s faces throughout their set. Sometimes both Apple and Bucorvus Leadbeater did vocals together, the noises were primitive like those used on their recordings. For a moment I felt it waned briefly, but sudden a strobe pointed at the audience and a resurgence of rage pushed things up another few notches. I thought this was a great performance that set the bar high for the evening, the rage seemed endless: The Summer of Hate was back with a vengeance.



Antivalium came dressed in suits and masks, their stage presence and image were strong. Their brand of synth dominated industrial noise with beats was good and it shifted a lot in sound. At times it was hard not to dance when they became more animated as beats took prominence. There was an air of deep broodiness throughout an impressive set that really stood out - the excellent taste in vintage microphones certainly helped this. Their sound and intensity were different to the other acts and stood out most as the odd act out, still great and this seemed to allow the differences between all acts to shine through. When researching after, I found out they were both in KnifeLadder with the late John Murphy as well as Black Light Ascension which is impressive, but Antivalium stands as a strong project, this was demonstrated by their performance - I look forward to investigating their work more.





The gig did have an air of sadness as it was to be the last performance from Iron Fist of the Sun. I love this project as I reviewed a lot of his work over the years and have most of the releases. This is a top tier project of present day that I know can deliver live and on record. As he began it was crisp, concise and everything was delivered with precision. He shouted with his back to the audience at the rear wall of the venue or sideways to the audience and it was effective as he became angrier and the sounds intensified massively. The way the vocals weren’t as in the faces of the audience as the other acts seemed to allow for it to really project outwards at the audience. The sound and set up he had was complex and wouldn’t have worked so well in less competent hands, he then flicked a switch and the familiar, powerful death drones of Smile Like Sword kicked in to cheers and shouts. The vocals were great, he shouted and screamed and had some effect that doubled the vocals up when it was used – amazing wasn’t enough to describe it. His set became choppy, chaotic and noisier at the after Smile Like Sword and made for an effective contrast that died out to an end to be greeted by huge applause and enthusiasm from the audience. I’d only ever seen IFotS live once this was even better than that. To end on such a high with a consistently solid, evolving body of work is noble. However, my personal view is the integrity of the project would have kept it great for a long time to come, but greatness is as greatness does.



The night seemed like a series of championship fights and S.T.A.B. continued to up the levels of intensity with a savage, manic performance. He was continually right in our faces shouting, the mic seemed to die out at one point, and I am not shitting you, it made no difference to the vocal levels at all, he continued to yell over the electronics until the mic worked again - vocally S.T.A.B. continues to be next level. His personal, nasty take on Death Industrial was complimented by videos of violent gang fights and sadomasochistic penis abuse. The images of a guy continually being ball punched by a Dominatrix made me hold my balls in protective fear whilst S.T.A.B. seemed to continually grab his balls hard to raise the pitch of his vocals. The set was mostly newer material as I am recognising a lot of it as I play my copy of the excellent Enemy of Pigs; there was a lot of really, muddy, murky noise that was dominated by the louder than loud vocals, the level of performance used to work the vocals from the background to the forefront repeatedly was something else. Height wise he was huge, which amplified his stage presence, he was all over the stage in the audience’s faces, yelling and gesturing; the intensity and menace never let up for a minute. I’ve been listening to the S.T.A.B. cds I have a lot over the last 6 months since discovering the project, this live performance was even better than I imagined it would be and the new album ups the ante.



Four solid performances made for an excellent night.

Choppy Noodles 2019




Sunday 10 March 2019

Hexenight - Frailty. From despair comes a next level recording.


Hexenight – Frailty.

Self-Released Cassette, 2019, https://hexenight.bandcamp.com/

Broken fingernails.
Spears.
Follow Me Further.
A Wooden Effigy.
Seeking the Sky.




I confess to not knowing anything about Hexenight, so I’ve been sitting on doing this review for a while. I’ve played the album a bit over the last month. The project is two members Brian and Aaron based in Portland, Oregon. There have been two other albums released on their Bandcamp. Frailty was written over a year of frustrations, mental illness and personal tragedies.

From the offset there is a unique, esoteric quality to Hexenight; the opening track Broken Fingernails is ritualistic with a deep, broody sound. The vocals are a tortured, tornado of agonised pain pushed  cleverly into the background, so you’re forced to engage with them. The intense instrumentation is repetitive with additions of noise- the distorted resonance of the vocal creates more noise on top of this. Spears builds epic chants and echoing sound that ties in and continues well from the first track. This has a more warped vocal that is undecipherable, and the music again relies on overriding repetition, the beats behind the repetitive chant are intensified from the first ones and work well. There is an impressively restrained use of distorted noise. Follow Me Further moves into an ethereal, shifting Dark Ambient sound, the background is threatening and growls ominously demonstrating some impressive low-level electronics – these factors intensify as aggressive electronics and howling blasts of tunnel noise build A Wooden Effigy. This is where the album intensifies further and further as we head to the finale - Seeking the Sky. This takes a more noise like approach, still using intensified beats and screamed vocals. This further erupts until it suddenly dies off to a song sample creating an emotive end to Frailty.

I’d argue that Frailty is higher level work. The vocals are varied and strong, the work retains mystery and plays with dynamics of sound beautifully to create one of the strongest recordings I have heard this year.

Choppy Noodles 2019.

Saturday 9 March 2019

Cremation Lily and Knifeoutofexistence live review.


Cremation Lily, Knifedoutofexistence, The Mysterious Monopole and Kuebiko.

Thursday 7th March 2019, The Chameleon Arts Café, Nottingham.


I was keen to attend this gig and see all the acts mentioned; I’d recently reviewed the Kuebiko cassette release on Outsider Art Records. I am also a keen fan of Knifedoutofexistence and Cremation Lily and have reviewed their stuff in the past.

Kuebiko played on the floor of the venue, he was surrounded by devices which included contact microphones, chains and effects pedals. This worked as you had to look down or be directly face to face with the artist depending on whether you stood or sat. Sounds started small and gradually grew into a larger, harsher, more frenzied assault of noise. As things intensified the chains got smacked around, contact mikes were put in the artists mouth, Sellotape mummified his head and things descended into a sonic tantrum. The improvised, performative aspects of Kuebiko made for an impressive set.



Kuebiko.

I knew nothing prior to this about The Mysterious Monopole. The artist looked very different, her eyes were covered with patches of black lace and she was dressed in Brown with an old tie on. This coupled with how the performance built up gave it an impressive ‘wtf odd’ factor. I don’t mean this as a criticism, but she built tension before it even started, which is quite a feat. Samples of noises and keyboard lines were played as the show built up to some impressive demonstrations of unique noise making. The artist started sawing up packs of Ryvita type snacks with a Contact Mic enhanced saw and then she was playing homemade card records on a turntable. The noise was crumbly and parallels the project Evil Moisture with unique sources of sound, but more warped off in her own tangents. Like Kuebiko the set was fully improvised, with a stronger performance art bent. An audience member was brought in to do vocals in a repeated chant as the artist crunched up Ryvita and trampled on the saw. This seemed to be a commentary on food politics that dominate life. I was half expecting to be force fed Ryvita or something as the artist made full use of the stage made for a truly excellent performance. To see someone coming at noise from such a truly eccentric, unpredictable angle was very exciting.



 The Mysterious Monopole

This show was a collaboration between Cremation Lily and Knifedoutofexistence, which is another self-personified Power Electronics project whose slow burn growth over the years has been impressive. The collaboration started with Knife’s more experimental PE set with both artists contributing noise, Cremation had a minimal set up that seemed to consist of an electronic device that threw out sampled sounds and beats and a tape player, where as Knifed had a larger, complex set up. The noise got harsher and louder yet contained good atmospherics and the Knifed vocals were cleverly put in the background as he shouted into the microphone, this added more performance to what he did as he faced to audience. Last time he did the whole back turned to audience type performance thing, the frontal approach was more direct and way more effective. Both artists seemed to fire off each other. The noise seemed to be able to say more without being overpowered by vocal rage. The performance was a mass of complex emotion and range. This mixed with the distanced vocals and rich textured sound made for the strongest Knifedoutofexistence show that I’ve seen yet, I was very impressed – the slow burn development continues unhindered.  









Cremation Lily and Knifedoutofexistence.

Where Cremation Lily is concerned, I’m politely obsessive. I believe the project upped the ante with Power Electronics very early on by coming from such a deeply personal angle. Funeral Home has one of the most impressive modern vocal performances that I’ve ever heard, that and S.T.A.B.’s Day of the Male are the vocal benchmarks to me in how I judge modern Power Electronics. The project continually progresses and changes with each passing year; I’m excited to hear where it’s at each time. This is my fourth time seeing Cremation Lily and I enjoy each performance.

The atmosphere stripped down as things moved to the Cremation Lily part of the set.  What threw me was that I was expecting a more ambient set, yet there were beats, moody electronica with passages of noise thrown in, the shift between the two sets was smooth and effective. Cremation’s vocals shifted between agonised shouting, distorted rage and some actual singing. Knifed effectively switched from complimenting to contrasting the work with a range of sounds. Previous Cremation Lily sets had been displays of noise that just exploded where as this was a longer musical set with continual shifts into different musical parameters. The depth of feeling, past sadness and sonic texture was impressive as it seemed to run through both sets. Like any good set I am left with questions, while I truly loved both sets and saw both artists conquer new heights, is this duo thing something that should be recorded and developed outside of their individual work? Both artists shifted into new areas, they complimented, supported and built on each other’s strengths, not allowing for any weakness to hinder the sound.  Had it not worked, this whole collaboration could easily have had its ass kicked because of the strength of both the support acts. But it did work, giving an epic finale to a great night.

Choppy Noodles 2019.