Harsh Noise Wales.

Clydach Electronics – Harsh Noise Wales - 2x cassette – 2026

https://clydachelectronics.bigcartel.com

Track listing – Cassette 1.

1.      Ordeal by Roses.

2.      Insatiable Wound.

Track Listing Cassette 3

1.      H's'T.

2.      Cariad.

I met Ordeal for Roses at a recent Very Friendly event, it was intense and they open this compilation with their first new track to be released in a few years. This begins as fast paced, juddering electronics, drones go off in the background and small screeches drag across the entire work briefly. Mournful Organs suddenly play out in the middle of all as the distortion builds around it, becoming windier and increasingly dense. This is all held together for what seems like a long time. Due to this all I can say is the project's brilliance is still there and very intact.

Insatiable Wound come out using small sounds, subtle noises, slight feedbacks and I immediately take to the way the space is used here. The feedbacks begin to wail slightly and crackle spits over this, all is still subtle and delicate at this point. Wailing high pitched noise splutters out a signal to up the ante slightly, tension rises in the work with each tiny display of shrill noise assault. Bigger sounds erupt, louder, deeper wailing feedback, angrier distortion that scrapes massively. The increase in size, pitch and speed is felt immediately. It is as if they decide to let go and let the sound hit the listener. The wail out at the end is dramatic and impacting. This reminds me that the three times I have seen Slow Murder/Insatiable Wound have been amongst my life’s greatest moments.

H’s'T played a solid set in Nottingham recently and this tape's immediate sound reminds me of that. This guy, at first,  uses a dense, heavy sound that is interrupted by samples and clashing noises. The use of a tonally shifting wall out of which things bounce and emerge is impressive, then he strangulates it for periods of time so noises can go off unbacked. Amazing work, in how he allows the language of the track to constantly morph into new areas with an armada of noises, keeping the restrained wall as a constant to back this and even having the skill to mute it for periods of time. I like this artist’s work.

Cariad demonstrates a cut-up method of working, distorted radio and tv samples play out, but are cut up with crackling and bad tuning so they remain indecipherable and become noise in themselves. Some words emerge in the dialogue, but not enough for the sentence to flow. Choir's play ot with brief passages of music, dialogue splatters over this. There is a whole history of radio type noise like this and this work is a prime example of strong technique and excellent results.

This is a good compilation with two now established acts and two up and coming acts, all at their best. A new chapter in the Wales noise scene emerges. I think this might be available at Negative Output festival as it has sold out from the label. Repress?

Zg 2026

 

Insatiable Wound - pain seeking behaviour

 

Insatiable Wound – pain-seeking behaviour – Cassette – self released – 2024

side a – pain-seeking behaviour. (recorded summer 2023).

side b – live recording. (Bristol 20/06/2023).

https://slowmurder.bandcamp.com/album/pain-seeking-behaviour

https://slowmurder.bandcamp.com/music

Insatiable Wound is a project by Jo Sheehy who also does Slow Murder. I saw them live at Birmingham Centrala recently and I was impressed enough to buy this cassette after the gig. I was also completely thrilled to meet Jo as I love the work of Slow Murder. The cover and free sandpaper strip also demonstrate their commitment to the colour green; Jo had green hair and was completely dressed in green for the show. I believe the sandpaper can optionally be used to administer pain to oneself while listening to the work.

The studio recording begins with contact mic sounds that are fed through distortion; feedback goes off at the same time. Both elements begin to accelerate into a faster paced sound, the feedback begins to wail as the distortion becomes increasingly abrasive and louder. The sound starts to get cut into to allow each element a short, shifting solo. The distortion becomes a woofing bass roar that is periodically cut into by the feedback, which is now a cutting, shouting sound, yelling out at the listener. A hum of drone stops everything so the sound can begin again, muffled bass goes off, the drone cuts in again, the feedback wails at the drone to signify the sudden end of the recording.

Live in Bristol begins as screaming feedback and a banging cacophony, this sounds way more energised than the recording as the shifts in noise come rapidly before anything can settle. Constant changes to the feedback and contact mics provide the movement of sound. I am sure I witnessed a combination of Jo, sandpaper and a contact mic to make noise, resulting in a head wound, when I saw the project play live – I am convinced that happens here. The distortion progresses to a roaring void that battles with the screaming of the feedback until it cuts out and ends.

A very good recording available from the links above.

Nothing and Nobody 2024.

Ordeal by Roses - Red Death

Ordeal by Roses – Red Death – Black Ring Rituals – Cassette/Download – 2021

https://blackringrituals.com/album/red-death

https://ordxxlbxrxsxs.bandcamp.com/

      1.    Blood Was Its Avatar, And Its Seal.

      2.    Grave Cerements and Corpse-Like Mask.

      3.    And The Flames of the Tripods Expired.

      4.    And Darkness, And Decay, And the Red Death Held Illimitable Dominion Over All.

      5.    God’s Whip with Which to Punish the Nations

Red Death is the fourth release by Welsh Power Electronics project Ordeal by Roses. As you all know, I have followed this project closely and have been impressed by all three previous releases. I type this without having heard the release yet, even the titles have weight and depth to them – I hope the work has the same impact.

When I play the first track, the suspense is killing me, the importance the project has to me is why I can’t hide that fact in this review. The sounds go off until depraved vocals echo through the noise, this is illegible screaming that forms a black hole of sound. The increased agitation of the metal abuse manipulates the track’s ambience and build up intensity. Slow piercing feedback whistles at the start of Grave Cerements, this plays with the space of the sound whilst antagonising the listener as it shifts and winds through itself. The vocal that fights with this noise emerges, guttural and full of echo - it is a different approach to previous vocals demonstrated by the project, if anything this is a purer type of Power Electronics vocal, inhuman and horrid. So far, I feel a step up, the antagonistic hellishness demonstrates a new approach: as the tones wail, emotion can be felt. I that feel at times, the sounds are doing the talking, not the voice.

Bingo, track three onward shifts into the higher gears as all (And the Flames of Tripods Expired) explodes and the sound is humming and distortion colliding in a wall like manner to make a guttural blast – it talks lots. Resonating, expansive synths throw melancholy everywhere as a vocal rant goes off on And Darkness, And Decay.. those synths dominate bigtime. The rant continues behind a massive blast of Industrial noise for the final track God’s Whip… , here the vocal is enraged and desperate. The sound is huge and the vocal clear in its diatribe until noise takes over and really cuts into the track to allow for the shouting to return, it clears space. This is where the project really goes off, the rage explodes, the sound dies and we are left with the lone whistle of feedback.

The range of sounds the project uses has shifted in many new directions, whilst the intensity never lets up. Just hearing this new album has made me happy and secure in the knowledge that to me, Ordeal by Roses is now a key voice in contemporary Power Electronics.

Coventry Soul 2021.

Slow Murder - Warped Skin.

Slow Murder – Warped Skin – Cassette/Download – Outsider Art – 2020.

https://outsiderart.bandcamp.com/album/warped-skin

https://slowmurder.bandcamp.com/

     1.       Stunted.

     2.       Gift of Insomnia.

     3.       0110.

Today I discovered Slow Murder so I am hitting the latest release, Warped Skin on Outsider Art. The cover combines photography and drawing to primitive effect – a depiction of the raw self that is powerful through its simplicity.

Stunted uses the simple repetition of resonating pulsations as a bigger, harder re-introduction of the project. The desolate landscape of sound is reintroduced, and the noise seems massive as it interrupts finding new ways to resonate further each time, this is the artist making sure we see the(m) self in the work – a self-portrait carved in sound. The stripped back simplicity seems to shed skin right down to raw flesh and bone. This build up of noise is compressed and beaten into a rhythm as a static vortex of noise shouts over it. Stunted isn’t Stunted at all, just a bigger, better Slow Murder, less torturous, just a massive assault.

A smaller dialogue of subtle noise is the intro to Gift of Insomnia and what sounds like guitar abuse seems to grow in stature and form a rhythm for howling noise atmospherics to build barren landscapes. This seems to have interludes of torture as the noise becomes hostile through feedback manipulation, I like how the project teases with earlier (release) methods – however Gift of Insomnia is new terrain for the project that has esoteric leanings through frenzied repetition and manipulation of speed and frequency.

Painful sharp tones and farting drones make me dizzy as the noise abuse of Slow Murder takes on bigger, sharper dimensions on 0110. This pulls into bleak atmospherics while the feedback buzzes through, as it rises it becomes aggressive through simple tone manipulation, the farting pulsations are nauseous, the combination rich.

Slow Murder is a subtly aggressive project that seems to thrive when doing this. The self remains amplified and etched into the work, I am again impressed and can’t praise this project enough. I have mentioned the US project Hydra in relation to this in another review and that was an impressive, torturous project, this follows that path to make impressive, solid work each time.

Nevis Kretini – 2020.

Slow Murder - Less Being.

Slow Murder – Less Being – Cassette/Zine/Download – Self Released – 2019.

Direst Link to artist BandCamp - https://slowmurder.bandcamp.com/

Recent release onOutsider Art - https://outsiderart.bigcartel.com/product/slow-murder-warped-skin

    1.       Special Interest Pt. 1.

    2.       Glass.

    3.       Mist.

    4.       Special Interest Pt. 2.

    5.       Less Being.

Another UK noise artist that I had not heard before, my attention alerted from a Facebook post by Ordeal by Roses. I love Ordeal by Roses, so I am investigating this tip off.  This is described as Queer Noise, Queer and Trans noise is a boiling pot of greatness of late. (Niku Daruma, Straight Panic, Closer Bones, Clowndoll, Doughgirl Tapes….) This album was recorded in Cardiff, that is very exciting, Wales is very amazing, seriously.

Sharp, blasting Harsh Noise opens the work, this shifts through passages of harshness, the tendency towards tonal listener abuse is akin to what Hydra specialised in, I like this ethos. There is a barren feel to the work as it breaks down to singular, sparse elements before rebuilding, which then inserts dynamics and depth into the builds and breakdowns.

Glass seems to amplify the barren undertones of the opening track and build noisy from there. What’s forms is a churning desolate landscape of rumblings and splattered distortion that radiates hostility. The feedback seems to sing, a lone voice never eclipsed by its surroundings that eventually taunts the listener by cutting through everything with precision.

Mist is where we hit the Welshness of the project and this is very important. Ordeal by Roses seems to pull in and throw back their environment as a landscape for the noise to act out, to the point where it is natural. This is a prime, amplified example of that, I am feeling the landscapes that dominate all my frequent trips to Wales (family) and it is seriously impressive. This starts minimally and has massive build ups that are dragged into tunnel like sound restriction. Mist is the self amplified through its environment, sometimes the impotence of the self is a key component to Power Electronics, an acting out, a revenge, this is the opposite of that, it is as if the artist has stood naked in front of the amplification to cut the themself into the sound.

Scraping back to emptiness in Special Interests Part 2, as noise builds that echoing, tunnelling returns and resonates massively. This is more listener abuse, we’ve been given a full dose of who Slow Murder is, time to be tortured for a while. Less Being carries that on immediately and subtlety as we are dragged through brief passages of raw sonic abuse. As the pain builds layers, the atmospherics seem to resonate an Industrial Landscape as if referencing change and growth. The way the work morphs is constant and rapid, even the use of percussive noise is excellently effective as it leads to the massive endsplosion of the self again.

This is just great and discovering stuff like this makes this blog worth it. Had I discovered this in 2019, it would have easily made my years top 10. The strength of this project is quite simple, the insertion and amplification of the self through noise technique. I am now a fan for sure.

Nevis Kretini 2020.

Ordeal by Roses - A Pettey and Childish Obsession.

Ordeal by Roses – A Petty and Childish Obsession – Cassette/Download – Outsider Art – OA033 – 2019.

https://outsiderart.bandcamp.com/album/a-petty-and-childish-obssession

https://outsiderart.bigcartel.com/

https://ordxxlbxrxsxs.bandcamp.com/

Tracklist. 

     1.   Sacred Waters.

     2.   Endless Grey.

     3.   Empty Chair.

‘all this stuff that I’m saying now, it feels like it’s just a load of bullshit to me, it may mean something, but in the end it’s something that happened.’ Album opening quote.

I kept checking Outsider Art until this landed today again and again, I was going to write up the pre notes from an Instagram photo yesterday, it's like that.

Sacred Waters is immediately harrowing, resonating deep sadness as simple keyboard lines repeat over sampled drones that have a churchlike and spiritual feel. The muffled distant vocal erupts and is warped through warbling effects as the sounds’ sonic platform distorts and shifts. As waves of distortion enter, they overwhelm emotionally and sonically.

Sharp bursts of noise come, and shrill coils of sound reinforce these – however this time the vocal is prepared as it shouts and fights with the noise. The vocal intensifies as do the sounds, neither lets up. Endless Grey appears to be a fight that simultaneously rips inwards and outwards, but the sound eventually backs the vocal up to become an outward pouring of Trauma and grief, this shifts method to a spoken delivery and continues its work.

Empty Chair previously appeared as a lone track on the Ordeal by Roses Bandcamp earlier this year. Here its mournfulness is amplified by the vocals and bleak synths, serving as a perfect finale to A Petty and Childish Obsession.

At 3.32 on Halloween moments like this are my reward for doing this blog. Power Electronics is dead? - listen to this, Active Denial, S.T.A.B, Suffer in April or Niku Daruma and it very much isn’t. Every element familiar to the Ordeal by Roses sound has been perfected via minimal combinations so that within the space of each track, the feelings and moods that need to be conveyed are very clear and concise. 

This release is either as good or better than the first one, but that was perfect too, so I can’t really ask for more or say any more.

Nevis Kretini 2019.

Ordeal by Roses Bandcamp Raid!!!!!!

Ordeal by Roses Bandcamp overview.

Ordeal by Roses – Cardiff UK.

https://ordxxlbxrxsxs.bandcamp.com/

I recently wrote about the series of four cassettes on the Outsider Art label, each one was by a different young UK Power Electronics artists, you’ll see how excited I got over the Active Denial tape and one by a new Welsh PE act called ‘Ordeal by Roses’. ‘Welsh Power Electronics’ and ‘Death Fixated Power Electronics,’ already I’m blown away by those descriptions. This comes from a country steeped in ancient mysticism, a land that will never really be ‘Westernised’, a dragon that will never die – I’m not talking shit either, I see this every time I go to see my Mother in Law several times a year.  I recently went to my Step Father In Laws funeral in Wales, then my cat got run over, I’m not really over either, this work kind of resonates so very powerfully in my life right now – that self-titled cassette is a diamond, a bright shining diamond that I can’t leave alone. So here I go on an unannounced Ordeal by Roses Bandcamp raid!!!!!!!

Demonstration. 

Demonstration (September 2017), begins as wall noise, various frequencies of distortion dominate and pitch against each other. PE frequencies begin to resonate massively, flooded over by the walls of distortion and interrupted by sharp frequencies. This could be mistaken for Harsh Noise but is an abstracted raw display Power Electronics dynamics. This is described as an improvisation to let listeners know what to expect in a live setting, I’d call it the first confident steps of Ordeal by Roses.

Document 1: Action 12.

Document 1: Action 12 (November 12, 2017) I believe is an early live performance, or the 12^th performance. The performer introduces what he’s doing screams and restrained noise begins, it does rise at times, but restraint is consistent to work around the vocals; spoken shout, a dialogue, the performer allows himself to be drowned by the walls of distortion, yet he punctuates it with rude blips and noises. Here we see little bits of Ordeal by Roses begin to show and develop. The later vocals are pure upset rage, not something I’d want in my face. It morphs into a throbbing Death Industrial passage of sound whilst the vocals seem intent on killing everything, as it dies down, the menace is still very prominent.

HOSPICE//CEMETARY.

HOSPICE//CEMETARY ( July 9^th 2018) the artwork to the download is impressive and powerful, a cemetery, Welsh I assume. This starts simply by resonated infected frequencies, tweaking their distortion until a temporary wall of distortion stands, the sounds crackle and creak through the transparent walls. The vocal seems to have now elevated itself to the next level, it is backed by some hiss as everything else is killed off. This is the sound of pain and mourning, just fucking blasts of it, paragraphs of pain that seem to increase in their volume and become less audible as they get angrier- the angriness is amplified by the noise. This is done well, very well.

EMPTY CHAIR//DEATH'S WHITE FACE.

EMPTY CHAIR//DEATH’S WHITE FACE (May 29^th 2019) haunting artwork accompanies this recent release. This is more representative of the fully formed Ordeal by Roses sound, it’s mournful and angry and seems entrenched in the Welsh landscape, I don’t know why but images of the place flood my mind. If you think of the work of Cremation Lily early on, this takes that forward-thinking attitude and jettisons forward with it. Just by pulling the noise back and allowing Keyboard harmonies to dominate you’re immediately somewhere else, this shoots ahead of the tape in progression.

I stand convinced in my enthusiasm, excuse me, I’m off to buy the tracks in case this Bandcamp disappears. Outstanding work sir, you’ve impressed the fuck out of me - I will always be watching.

Choppy Noodles 2019