Pages

Wednesday 29 May 2019

Dead Normal - new, urgent stuff with a sharp aim.


DEAD NORMAL -There Is Nothing Left But The Enjoyment Of  Senseless Destruction – LP – 2019 – Harbinger Sound.




Dead Normal - Live 2017 by me.


Dead Normal - There Is Nothing Left But The Enjoyment Of  Senseless Destruction LP.

Back in February 2017 I went to see Sutcliffe Judgend play live in London with a four other solid acts  supporting, these included: In Search of Death, Antichildleague and Black Scorpio Underground. An amazing act called Stark was meant to play on the bill, but had to cancel, Stark is Bagman and Bagman is very heavy duty and one of the best PE acts in the UK - an unsung hero. I wouldn’t have liked to have been the act that had to be the compensation for his cancellation, and I wasn’t prepared for the act that actually stepped up and did this. They were called Dead Normal; they were from Barcelona. When they came on it was that nasty brand of cold, choppy electronics with beats woven into the texture of the work. Everything was very direct, this was added to by a sharp delivery of vocals from two vocalists - Zoe and Oriel with noise by D. Forma. They were very ‘street’ and I felt I had received a sonic bollocking for 40 minutes and when they finished, I wanted more. This was one of Dead Normal’s first gigs, the bar was set high that night. For years I have been excited to see what they come up with.

The album is immediately on target, it is that live performance intensified massively and perfected over years. Oriel Rosell’s vocal has intensified, the delivery less sarcastic and more targeted and Zoe V is needle sharp, pointed and factual. The electronics provided by D. Forma (Marrio G Ferrer) are concise, stripped down only what is needed to serve the  work. The delivery and urgent repetition transcribe as punk urgency, Bobby is an excellent example of this. In parts the delivery is cut up vocals that complement the choppy nature of the electronics. I don’t want to debunk the album with comparisons, but it seems to fall in with PE/noise that has clear lyrics, techno elements, sharp delivery and is amplified and intensified by lively, urgent electronics.

I often like to concentrate on how the electronics and vocals work together as one on albums and how the vocals become noise. Here they are too direct to do that, the vocals and noise become one in a different way in that they become an assaultive unit. The use of beat and looped, repetitive rhythm isn’t detrimental to the work, often beats and noise can easily fall to shit, this isn’t - it’s incorporated into the work effectively.

It’s hard to offer any criticisms about this album as it’s very strong and it easily one of my 2019 highlights of which there’s a lot of strong competition (read through my reviews). I’ve been listening to a lot of stuff that teases with techno and warped beats of which this shares parallels. This is a great debut album and I can’t praise it enough.



Choppy Noodles 2019.

Sunday 12 May 2019

Testing Vault - Amnesia Milk


Testing Vault – Amnesia Milk. 2xcdr, 2019, Looney Tic Productions, EAFMC0191.

Amnesia Milk.
1.    A Homage to Alan Lamb (Prelude)
2.    Amnesia Milk.
3.    Digest.
4.    A Friendly Light.
5.    Pale Pink.
6.    Blackout.
7.    Contempt (A Homage to Alan Lamb).

Amnesia Milk Coda (Bonus Disc)

1.    Dark Light, Dark Fire, Scared Kid.
2.    Milk Amnesia, Coda Part 1.
3.    Milk Amnesia Coda Part 2.
4.    Fingers in the Hole. (w/ Werewolf Jerusalem)



I’ve bought most of the Testing Vault releases since the debut L'Umor Finstere in 2003. Over the years I have seen the project develop and morph many times over. There have been around 30 releases on his own Looney Tic label and other labels including Hallow Ground, BeTon and Final Muzik. It’s been good to see a large body of work spread across many formats and collaborations over the last 16 years. 2 CDs is the average span of a TV release, there have been boxes of 3-6 CDs in recent years, a single disc album is considered short by TV standards.

There have been key influences on Testing Vault, but the Angus MacLise influence has really pulled the project to the edges of its Industrial roots. Testing Vault still lies in the odd esoteric, ambient territory that it has for a long time, with odd being the ever-growing key word. These odd elements seem to grow and are highlighted as they’re dragged along the increasingly stripped down, sparse sound of the project. I’d played thebighostanimal boxset earlier today and there are elements that point towards the development towards this album, yet Amnesia Milk has a focused vision of its own. The theme of wind musician Alan Lamb crops up continuously, his use of metal instrumentation (subtly) has links to the metal scraping of TV, here it serves as an influence to shift its focus and help it pull and embed it into the sound further.

The warped, delirious vocals come in and out of the album, as if offering a brief narrative before long ambient passages play out. The even quieter ambient parts are very strong and challenge. The second disc is made of tracks not originally featured on the single disc version of the album but recorded during that period. These really expand the range of the sessions; they are all diverse and strong. Some of the drone pieces are really drawn out, becoming long meditations upon themselves. The album also features noises by Werewolf Jerusalem on the final track. 

So, facts time, is this a good Testing Vault album? Yes, it’s a very good Testing Vault album, if not; an excellent one. This is another strong album to an impressive body of work. I see the project is sailing off in its own direction, it sounds way different from a few years ago. As to where it’s going, that’s always the mystery.

Choppy Noodles 2019

Monday 6 May 2019

Uncle Grasha's Flying Circus, Stalinist God.


Uncle Grasha’s Flying Circus – Stalinist God. Cassette -  Raw Zine Records ‎– none, Pravěk Noise Section ‎– none, Grom & Lord Records ‎– none, S Kudlou V Zádech ‎– none, Sors Fintora ‎– sfr 02 – 2018


A1       Kalten
A2       Kasbah
A3       Juche
A4       Čihošť
A5       Culpabilité
A6       Balance
A7       Securitate
B1       Anatolyevna
B2       Denumenized
B3       Scharnhorst
B4       You Have to Be Death To Be Wise
B5       Headquarters





When your propaganda reach the maximal success and you became a God per se, you must just sound your trumpet for apocalypse and destroy everything you have created.                                Text taken from Uncle Grasha’s Flying Circus page.

When I received contact from this project, I was reluctant to review it, I thought it was going to be a joke, like some band guy’s “industrial” side project, more often than not the “industrial” side projects tend to be jerk off projects. It was nice to be proved very very wrong. I put this on, it has massive intellectual back content: it deals with pop cultural legacies and cultural/political interpretations with speeches by Gillo Pontecorvo, N. Ceausescu (7), Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un (3) and Emil Hacha. This is the work of Willhelm Grasslich. Past and present is presented as a surreal vision to the listener.

The samples are combined with bleak passages of Bold Industrial type Dark Ambient tracks. It has some good diseased and infected use of noise over speeches, that suggests decay and desolation. The Dark Ambient and Noise qualities are coupled well, the Ambient Industrial sounds serve as the base for speeches while the noise overlays the speech or taunts it, there is strong communication between the elements that are happening in tracks. The ambient passages can go on for long periods of time but work well with subtle variations of sound that happen. The powerful samples of political songs also add a vintage quality, the noise turns some of them into comedy through its taunting, the humour also ensures that it isn’t all bleakness. Samples are impressive, as they are also often left to work on their own as they were originally intended – the last sample on Headquarters is nothing short of epic and a makes a great ending for the album. There is strong character present throughout the entire work. The tape also comes with a free mini booklet of images and credits to the album.

Stalinist God is a strong album and Uncle Grasha’s Flying Circus is a great project - I stand converted.

Choppy Noodles 2019.

Sunday 5 May 2019

Dave Gilden - Texas Chainsaw Dopefiend.


Dave Gilden – Texas Chainsaw Dopefiend. – Mother SavageNoise – Cassette – 1996

https://davidgildennoisearchive.weebly.com/about.html



Side A – Fucked.
Side B – Devil Worship.

Texas noise artist David Gilden released 16 recordings before his death aged 35 in 2008, he seems to have stopped recording noise 10 years before his death. This album - Texas Chainsaw Dopefiend recently came to my attention through a SI zine review, it’s now 23 years old. I found this recording on discogs and wanted to review it as I have that odd feeling that comes with discovery of some things you haven’t heard before. With no clear markings on the tape, it’s easy to be lost inside it.

To say Fucked blasts is an understatement, I’ve heard plenty where the overload becomes pointless, this is controlled perfectly. I feel Gilden was able to seriously lose control of himself on recordings. The only project I’ve heard with this level of intensity is Scatmother which beyond raw to say the least. This really bares some vocal insanity – there’s screaming, shouting and grunting. At times it is as if the sound is barking and spewing itself out. On a few occasions the recording does pull back as if exhausted, but this is deceptive as it rises again and again to bigger levels of insanity. At points the line between what is vocal and what is not is crossed frequently. In parts there appears to be small melodies layered behind the chaos, which is unnerving.

Muffled distortion gives way to high pitched blasts of noise, this is Devil Worship. This shows sharp, shattered blasts of sonic abuse. Vocals speeches come in, the voice sounds drugged, is it Gilden? More noise comes in like a vortex that rises until it gets murky, so we’ll never know. The choice of sonic language changes frequently, samples of heavy metal music disrupt and taunt as things build, then it dies off into murk again. This is a depraved and urgent recording, even when things die off, they are interesting.

As I researched, I found out the work was edited, I have visions of this being the result of long sessions of noise and the album was assembled from this. Did Gilden do this intoxicated, was he possessed enough to record for hours or days on end until it reached the levels of accelerated intensity he required, who knows? There’s no online profile to soften him, give him a persona, it’s a mystery. This makes you question his intentions and wonder who Gilden was. Was this simply noise with a serious punk attitude or was this an exorcism of sorts? The whole Devil Worship concept and some of the hidden melodies and samples makes me ask is this esoteric, not in a black noise/ occult noise way, it just seems forward thinking. Lack of knowledge about him makes for an epic, intriguing C60.

Choppy Noodles 2019.

Saturday 4 May 2019

Fistfuck.


Fistfuck – Fresh Sex/Slave Meat – Looney Tick Productions – 2019 – CDR/Download. EAFMC0192 .



1.    Fresh Sex.
2.    Slave Meat.



This is the debut release by Fistfuck, a New Jersey Power Electronics act. The mastermind behind this is Thomas Puopolo and the album is a collaboration with Testing Vault main man Daniele Santagiuliana.

Fresh Sex serves as a lengthy intro to the album, the track’s use of sound references the Walker Brothers Nite Flights album, although you know some form of depravity is going to happen, it builds a sense of the grand to the album, which nods to a wider scope within the work. The sound juggles different sound sources - I can hear chopping sounds, suspenseful string like samples and sea waves crashing. I am unsure if sex samples are used to build the noise, but this track does cause anxiety and fear: juggled with the ambient qualities of the waves, it radiates ambient terror. But the use of noises isn’t entirely ugly, there seems to be a range of noises happening. You are constantly left wondering what is going to happen.

Aggressive noise kicks in, swirling feedback and distortion act up – this is Slave Meat. Clocking in at around 30 minutes, I can see the reason for Fresh Sex being so lengthy and on repeated listens this makes more sense. The Testing Vault input is clear through the massive drones that form over the noise. The vocals are sick and depraved, the electronics more nauseous; these as points that are tweaked throughout. What I also like is how the duo drags longer, quieter, less full-assault tracks out, this goes on for too long and becomes a more punishing track because of it; if this was shortened, it wouldn’t work as well. The track falters off in the middle for warped vocal noise to serve as an intro for more noise abuse. The vocal is an ongoing sick narrative as the noise scrapes along to its death.

I think this is a good album, the two halves contrast against each other well. It is a good example of longer, simmering, slow Power Electronics making for a good debut release. As a stand-alone release, good, but it does need to be reinforced by more releases, there are strong foundations that need to be built upon.

Choppy Noodles 2019.