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 Bandcamp

Dead Normal Facebook.

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.

Treriksröset – Kristen Musik Från Rågsved

Treriksröset – Kristen Musik Från Rågsved – Harbinger Sound – LP – HARBINGER179 – 2019.

A

Filantropen (irate, peeved).

I tacksamhet.

B

Kristen Musik Från Rågsved.

As of yesterday I now own a Tommy Carlsson record. All I knew of him prior to this receiving the Treriksröset record was the outspoken interview he did in Special Interest magazine a few years ago*. He also ran a label called Segerhuva that re-issued the RJF album a decade ago as well as contemporary noise acts such as Government Alpha, Sewer Election and Incapacitants amongst many others over an eleven-year period. This, his latest 12” record was also recorded in Mono.

Humming resonates as voices (possibly sampled) converse in the background, a grey wall of distortion and feedback go off, the mono aspect makes it bleaker in sound. It’s like an alpha male Harsh Wall, solid, dense, thick and virtually impenetrable. We only hear the background noises we’re allowed to, it’s as if strictly controlled beyond belief. Layers of distortion are introduced throughout, until it dies off to an end. This is a bold, firm introduction to this work.

The second track begins as choppier bits of noise, it seems to be demonstrating how to use machinery and feedback to make good noise, words* put into practice. As the wall of distortion begins to rise, the electronic noises argue defiantly. Like the first track, the wall seems dominant, allowing certain sounds to come through the wall and others to enter from the outside - a fight of sound if you like.  It is as if the creator is playing around with the walls of noise as they shift around continuously, dramatically faltering and accelerating.

The longer title track forms the B-side of the record, it’s immediately thick and clogged by grey noise. Sharp itches of feedback noise struggle in the background, the wall dominates; this track is the most suffocating work on the album. Due to its length it seems larger in sound, as if making full use of the time it has. The work strips itself back so only the wall of distortion radiates allowing for a clear definition of the sound interruptions, it then gains momentum as if to force itself into overdrive until it melts down again.  Density increases as the work exhausts itself for minimal elements such as low hum feedback and hiss to dominate. Things splutter and fight until a locked groove signifies the end.

The dense mono sound blackens and greys the work throughout, but the work continually fights against the restrictive mono which makes for a very effective sound. This is a masterful, dominating piece of work, another highlight of 2019.

Choppy Noodles 2019

Consumer Electronics weight/hostility blues

Consumer Electronics – The Weight/ Hostility Blues. Harbinger Sound - harbinger 180 - 7" single.

Amphetamine Sulphate page.

A

the weight.

B

hostility blues.

Whenever I play Consumer Electronics I think of Philip Best, topless and twisting his nipples at me whilst shouting away at the audience - I can’t get that image out of my head; onstage Best is disturbing. CE- now a trio of Best, Sarah Froelich and Russell Haswell are powerful, conceptually challenging and complex live. This is Consumer Electronics first new single since the Dollhouse album on Harbinger Sound and Repetition Reinforcement 12” on Diagonal both from 2015. It is gorgeously presented with inner sleeve and picture cover.

The Weight opens with feedback and pulsating jabs of twisty, blasting noise; backed by a constant mid paced beat. It continues the beat-based assault, peppered with short, rhythmic cuts of noise that featured on Dollhouse Songs. The main Best/ Froelich vocal is very warped in sound, this makes it partly comedic and keeps your attention with seedy, unhinged dialogue. The familiar Best vocal that comes in mid-way through the track is cut up so multiple Bests seem to shout out over each other. The theme centres on murder victims, most of whose bodies remained unidentified for years after they were found. Weight comes off like some sort of dissected dance track with screwy, combative vocals: a multiple personality pile-up.

Hostility blues creates rhythm through fart like noises that lose time as siren like sound runs parallel and another tweaked vocal delivers more rage and bile. Hostility blues’ sonic tweaking is even more comedic and hysterical in comparison to that of the weight. However instead of the choppy, multiple rage of Weight, hostility’s Froelich vocals have a consistent fluidity to their delivery.   

I like this single as it seems to push forwards in finding new deliveries for the centre stage vocal within the overall sound of Consumer Electronics. They also seem to keep finding ways to be even more minimal in their use of different sounds as if constantly stripping back to the core of each track. It is also disturbing in how everything has been mixed and adjusted, it seems purposely disjointed. I do seem to be stuck in a theme of psychic warfare while reviewing it, having to check if my turn table is playing up, adjusting the record’s speed. Can’t wait for more as always where Consumer Electronics is concerned. I am also really-excited as I am getting a vinyl copy of Estuary English for Christmas this year and I also want to bunk off work to go see them in Manchester this month with Skullflower and Iron Fist of the Sun. Yeah!!!!!!

Choppy Noodles 2018

Ramleh - A Return to Slavery

Ramleh- A Return to Slavery. Harbinger Sound – 2017 – LP – Harbinger 161-

http://www.brokenflag.com/ http://harbingersound.bigcartel.com/

Personnel: Gary Mundy and Jerome Clegg.

Tracklisting 

A Return to Slavery

Nordhausen

New Force

Phenol

Squassation

Prossneck

The Hand of Glory (PT. 1)

The Hand of Glory (PT.2)

Formed in 1982 Ramleh are one of the key pioneers of the early UK Power Electronics scene. They initially combined blunt subject matter and artwork: their sound has a layered psychedelia adding confusion and distortion. Intensified emotion is buried into everything they do, this is also something that seemed prominent in the work of several Broken Flag artists. Ramleh has always seemed to aim to unsettle the listener emotionally, especially in their live approach, this was still very evident when I saw them several years ago.

A Return to Slavery is one of many recent reissues of early 80s Ramleh material originally from their early days on their own Broken Flag label. Originally recorded in 1983 as a split album with Philip Best’s Libertarian Recordings project. It now has The Hand of Glory material on the B-side to replace it, now making this a complete Ramleh release. The Black and White cover artwork shows a body being dissected, framed in the classic Broken Flag visual layout.

The Return to Slavery side revels in combinations of low end and high-pitched sounds while Gary Mundy and Jerome Clegg scream out shards of agonised vocal noise. Bleak samples are coupled with rumbling electronics as sharp frequencies dissect everything.  Their use of sounds will often combine around four elements and suddenly drop down to two and let them linger as if to allow for the vocal noise to have an intensified effect. Oddly, there is still a warmth to the sound, cold starkness wasn’t really Ramleh’s thing; the Ramleh approach is very different to other pioneers of the time. The vocals radiate sadness, hurt and pain; like the artwork, it further conceptualises the overall concept.

Recorded four months later, The Hand of Glory is a denser recording that is even bleaker than A Return to Slavery. Warbling psychedelic electronics and sharp wailing noises build up to continually shove the vocals into the background as electronics eventually oscillate and squeal over them. However, as the record progresses the defiant vocal shoots to the forefront and echo around the proceedings.

In one of Facebook’s many Power Electronics/Death Industrial groups, one of Ramleh’s later releases (Hole in the Heart) was recently listed as an essential Death Industrial recording. At first, I was confused by this, but on the Return to Slavery release, there are key essential sounds in place that would later come to fruition as an influence on other artists of that genre such as infected keyboards, pained vocals, dramatic shifts between full and minimal sound with over the top repetition.

Ramleh continue to push new boundaries with their Noise and guitar based work, particularly the recent Circle Time album. Their most recent Power Electronics album 2009’s Valediction along with Mundy’s recently prolific work as Kleistwahr continues to develop and intensify the Ramleh sound of old. However, a Return to Slavery serves as an important document in noise history and cements Ramleh’s importance as true innovators and a continued force.   

 http://harbingersound.bigcartel.com/

 http://brokenflag.com/

Choppy Noodles 2017