Weak Sisters - Final 7" (V)

Weak Sisters is fucking noise. Harsh, like it's supposed to be. It's not a "rhythmic noise" thing or "noise rock" or any of this other shit, it's noise. Loud. Hard to endure. Dark. Unimpeded by guitars and blather about genocide and genitalia. He does wall noise, he does cut-up chaos. Aside from the usual chaos of pedals and electronics, he makes noise through violence. Don't ask me how it's wired, but he uses people as contact mics and fucking attacks them. It's like BDSM - consensual abuse. And it makes harsh blasts of sound. This is what hateful music should be - a direct expression of emotion through action. Pretty much amazing.

Weak Sisters recordings aren't exactly common, but many are still publicly available. I have here a clear 7" - first vinyl I've purchased for myself in a while, since Weak Sisters seems to mostly release vinyl and tape - called Final. As of this writing, it's still available at Hanson Records (hansonrecords.net) for $5 plus $2 shipping in the US.

The first side begins with a pulsing drone for a moment before Weak Sisters screams and switches into a blast of wild changes . . . before repeating the process with a longer, changing drone, screaming, and blasting into a wall of noise. Noises blast and loop and scream like a dying electronic animal. Glitches break and clip and flex their muscles and growl bloodlust. Then, silenced, the disc trails into the rhythmic sound of the needle on uncut vinyl.

The second side starts out with a fucking howl of hate and feedback. Weak Sisters blasts this into disorienting, uncomfortable shrieking soundscapes. The electronics are moaning, wailing, cursing their pain. The initial wails turn into blasts of hatred that freely wander between wildly shifting noises. And stop. And start. And redouble themselves. And change. And end.

This is one of 300 copies, released last August as the first release of "Secret/Wasting." I haven't been able to find out anything about Secret/Wasting - much like Weak Sisters, the label seems to have no presence online - but if this is the direction they're going to continue with, I'm going to keep buying.

This is some of the best noise I've heard to date.

Vision Éternel - An Anthology of Past Misfortunes (V)

Vision Éternel is the soft, instrumental work of Quebecois artist Virkelix, previously operating under the name Triskalyon. Virkelix calls his music "ethereal," and this is certainly an apt label. The music consists at least primarily of smoothly ambient clean guitar work, and the minimalism of his composition leads one to drift along in the soft mourning he's left on tape without noticing the time pass. "An Anthology of Past Misfortunes" has been playing on repeat for most of an hour now, and it still feels like I've just put it on. "Love Within Isolation" is pulling me to stop writing and weep softly instead.

I will unquestionably be listening to this record a great deal. The only thing missing from this release is a soft, wistful vocal, and even that would only give me words to whisper to myself in the dark of night. Sometimes, when artists ask that we give their music a listen, we sit as a group and wonder what possessed these people to waste their time and ours with their music. Vision Éternel, however, is a real treasure. His first two EPs combined here, both stories, combine for a listening experience that is somehow compelling and timeless.

This is the sort of music that becomes a sympathetic friend and an embrace through pain and misfortune. Looking forward to hearing the upcoming split with Ethereal Beauty on Abridged Pause Records. In the meantime, pick up a copy of this from Frozen Veins at frozenveinsrecords.com.

Locrian - Drenched Lands (V)

I've been a fan of Locrian since I first saw them - probably not a surprise for a veteran pair whose performance consists of incredibly building passion, raw volume, and sound ritually and emotionally evocative throughout their work.

I've often found that a vantage point at the top of a PA speaker is often a perfect way of experiencing Locrian, but last night at the Mopery in Chicago I couldn't help but add a semi-prone form of self-reflection and blind, thoughtless emotion. It comes through in the recordings on Drenched Lands.

This recorded material spends a great deal of time away from the walls of sound that I'm accustomed to seeing Hannum and Foisy create live, but perfectly captures the atmosphere of their rituals and tells a story that resonates perfectly with the almost colorless images of human loss and civilisational decay in the oddly black metal case. And when Hannum first cuts through the ache of their soft sounds with passionate screams in "Barren Temple Obscured By Contaminated Fogs," the images of "stagnant pools [infinite depths]/among the pylons" come through as a painful, tearful memory of an empty, lonely dream.

Locrian has no problem carrying their emotions and visions through this masterful work and through all 30 minutes of the closing track, "Greyfield Shrines." Locrian explores new and intense sounds and images throughout this work, and I'm still reeling in the experience.

Heat from a Deadstar - Seven Rays of the Sun (V)

Seven Rays of the Sun is the latest in a slow but steady trickle of releases from Boston label Ace of Hearts - possibly best known for Mission of Burma records in the early 80s.

I reviewed Heat from a Deadstar's Lighthouse EP in our July/August issue last year, and this full-length is unquestionably continuing to fuck with my mind. The only familiar track is "Elusive Ways." The version on this record is a lot cleaner-sounding and catches the ear with a sort of despairing Nirvana vocal melody. I have a feeling that within a few more listens I'll be mumbling half-remembered words under my breath and staring into space.

This album runs all over the place - from some sort of twisted punk to light almost relaxing music with ample pieces of dissonance, yelling, strange guitar sounds, and slowly developing minimalist structures. I can only imagine that this trio writes in a horrible mood in a basement somewhere most of the time. On the plus side, it's hard to ever pin Deadstar down to a genre or set of influences - they're always shifting, and something about them always focuses on a groove and a downward gaze. Deadstar is a repository for all the emotions we don't know how to put into words while they fester inside.

Benighted in Sodom - Plague Overlord (V)

Benighted in Sodom is a raw mess of dissonant chords and crushing harmonies . . . the slow, deathly motion, however, is continuous and compelling as the rays of light shining down from the maw of oncoming destruction. This is one of those lights-out, candles-burning stare-into-space and cry records. Which probably explains why Benighted in Sodom's Thorn is completely covered in scars. The album manages to make transitions between atmospheres of guitar and blast beats and raw-black-metal cymbal pulses sound effortless and perfect. Emotion drifts from aching, beautiful, and hateful and back again, wrapping us in everything at once so that the eventual suicide is a work of beauty rather than despair.

Benighted in Sodom does, in fact, tour with session members (previously including members of Chaosmoon), and the next time you have a chance to see the ketamine molecule on Thorn's shirts (and Thorn without a shirt) live, go. And don't take any form of blade with you, you'll be tempted to use it. As great as the record is, it has nothing on the show.

For people who want emotion to eclipse thought. And don't mind feeling horrible about everything.

Aube - Purification to Numbness (V)

Aube - Akifumi Nakajima, I should say - is by all appearances not quite your average noise artist. He started releasing noise - which he describes as sound design rather than music - under the name Aube in 1991 - around when Masami Akita started using digital recording and within a few years of the genesis of Masonna. But Aube has curious self-imposed restrictions.

Each Aube release is created entirely with one sound source - glass, the human voice, water, lamps, you name it. Purification to Numbness is one of a number made with a single voltage controlled oscillator, his third such and his seventeenth overall release in 1995. The release is a set of three soundscapes from this source. The first, "Elementary Particle," is a twisting seventeen-minute drone that sounds plausibly like an extremely effected guitar - all layered, distorted pitches and repeating sounds and sound loud, uncontrolled rock. The title track seems more meditative and features more noisy sounds, less of the midrangey Marshall amp attack. Sounds wander in and out, tending more to bathe the listener in an experience - a trip inside a machine-mind. The track spends twenty minutes building intensity before giving way (stopping as suddenly as the first track) to Aube-meets-Khlyst noisy glitches buried in the Aube wall of compressed sound. This all sounds very much like a chance-based live noise improvisation more than anything. Structure is linear and . . . unstructured. Every sound simply is.

Thanks to RRRecords for selecting this piece. I'm more than anything curious to hear more of Aube's work - it seems like a way of bringing home experimentation with sound sources and approaches, like surrounding yourself with electronics and creative minds. Certainly worth further study.

Agoraphobic Nosebleed - PCP Torpedo/ANbRX (V)

As of this record - Agoraphobic Nosebleed is direct and brutal. They take advantage of the punishing power of the drum machines and build fast, effective tracks that are over as soon as the point is made. And better yet, this release is half remixes. Excellent remixes.

Admittedly, most of the time it's nigh impossible to make any connection between the remixes and the original tracks, but a mix of hardcore/speedcore and noise makes an effective combination with the so-called cybergrind Agoraphobic Nosebleed makes. The original tracks blast through and leave a mark, then the remixes keep the energy up and build interest through their varied distinct styles and artistic voices. Ah, the advantage of having Relapse on your side.

And this makes me want to give speedcore another chance. I was disappointed on my first attempt with a Neophyte best-of, but I see some actual potential here. And the glitchy chaos James Plotkin inserts - I might prefer an album of this to Khlyst. Might. Jansky Noise's remix is fucking brutal. And Justin Broadrick seems to have made Agoraphobic Nosebleed into a slow, crushing industrial band. I didn't know that was possible. And Masami Akita made a Merzbow track out of Agoraphobic Nosebleed samples - unmistakably Merzbow.

This CD, this CD I would recommend picking up.

Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Altered States of America (V)

Agoraphobic Nosebleed is obnoxious and irreverent. While this mini-CD is something of a classic grind record with its 100 tracks, a lot of it is, frankly, shit. A lot of it is really enjoyable inhuman-speed drum machine grind, quick blips of songs like they should be. But it seems like Agoraphobic Nosebleed spends half the time on pure filler - not a problem on most 20-minute CDs. Dozens of tracks consist of random rants about drugs and Japanese terrorists and how much the band hates homosexuals and black metal.

We won't go into the irony of homophobia in a band and genre so amazingly obsessed with the anus and anal sex. But seriously, I don't buy records for a dozen tracks in sequence of some guy yelling over soft noise. Unless it actually sounds good. Which this doesn't.

I don't really like it, but I might if their lyrics didn't show them to be fucking shitty human beings, or at the very least if they didn't waste my time (it seems absurd to start getting bored around the 50th track on something so short) with bland filler tracks. I'll try something else (maybe that PCP Torpedo/ANbRX remix album), and maybe it'll be worth the second chance. But please, if you ever consider challenging this blast of sound, leave out the crap and stick to grind.

Suffocation - Despise the Sun (V)

Despise the Sun is something of a short masterpiece. Every song is effective, tight, brutal, heavy. The guitar tone is great, balanced and powerful without going too far in any direction. Vocals sit defiantly and confidently exactly where they belong. The kick is clear and defined. The lyrics are powerful. This album makes you want to pick up an instrument or a microphone and create something to reflect its perfection. There's no mistake that swarms of younger bands are constantly compared to Suffocation. Though their last couple of albums (as clichéd as this complaint is) don't live up to this EP, probably largely as a result of weaker, washier distortion and less pure violence, Despise the Sun is a set of perfect song after perfect song.

Yes, I'd probably put this on first thing for anyone I wanted to get into death metal, and I've done it before. This album, further, is a perfect reflection of Suffocation's live machine. It tears, uplifts, and smashes through all . . . 16 minutes. Every song on the EP is worth the effort to learn and play. And you'll never be ashamed of it. I don't want to know how many times I've listened to this CD, and every time I see them I scream for one track or another. Grab this, and see them. Really. And if you already have, see them again.

Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (V)

Neutral Milk Hotel is a perfect collaboration of the weird and that which every human heart understands and needs. Simple acoustic chords somehow manage not to become at all stale, probably benefited by clever and memorable melodies and the other elements Neutral Milk Hotel uses throughout. The band has full-time brass people, not session musicians, mixes in strangely filthy electric guitars and bass, driving drums, and random eccentric instrumentations. One song will be quick and to the point, another will be slow and thoughtful. One song will slide past with almost meaningless lyrics and an energetic feel, another (in fact, most) are filled with lyrics that tell all the facets of a story at once - not just the usual "I love you" and "my father died" but all the things that happen at every stage in life, the things large and small that make life meaningful and wondrous.

Perhaps the reason I've delayed hunting down any more of their albums is the fact that I don't feel like I'm missing anything from this album - it continues to please and fulfill. I have no doubt that I will continue to cherish this already ten-year-old record for years and decades to come. Well-suited for crying and singing and romance and hurting and loving. And just living. I don't think I would have understood it 5 years ago, but I don't think I'll ever feel even a temptation to get rid of it.

Moose - Cool Breeze EP (V)

This is the first Moose release I've picked up, so I can't compare it to previous or later work, but it's slowly growing on me. Overall, the EP strikes me as a loosely cluttered combination of Slowdive's male vocals without the ambience, early jangly My Bloody Valentine, a touch of leftover punk influences, and a quirky approach to sounds and percussion.

The general effect of all this is somewhat mind-scattering and distracting, and the melodies aren't quite of the heart-consuming quality I've found in My Bloody Valentine's hooks, but as I continue to listen to this creation, I'm beginning to develop a fondness for Moose's own strange musical personality. All in all, I'd say check it out, and delve further into Moose: but give it a chance to soak in. This isn't quite the same old shoegaze over again. I find it quite enjoyable when I have the concentration to deal with the confusion imparted most particularly by some nuance of the unusual concentration of snare drum.

I think my appreciation of Moose is more akin to . . . a free jazz take on early shoegaze, a warm but confusing performance rather than the transcendent beauty that creates my main joy in shoegaze. If you like Pale Saints, you'll probably like Moose.

Malory - Not Here, Not Now (Reissue) (V)

Not Here, Not Now is pretty much a German echo of Souvlaki-era Slowdive, with a slightly greater emphasis on the softer tones and electronics and a song about the Lord of the Rings. It's an untitled bonus track, but . . . There is, sadly, nothing really original here, despite the review on their website that reads "they definitely do not fall into the trap of countless other "ripoff" bands." It's actually nigh-uncanny the degree to which they've emulated Slowdive's sounds. Identical vocal reverb, identical tones, voices emulating the same timbre with just a hint of accent.

Malory is good enough in their emulation that I'd see them if they came around, but their songs don't touch me the same way Slowdive has managed on repeated occasions. Of course, to be fair, the same is true of more than one "classic" shoegaze band, but unless you're curious to hear some Tolkein poetry as a Slowdive song, I'd recommend passing this release up in favor of the people who not only created this sound, but could write entrancing songs within the idiom.

Khanate - Khanate (V)

Khanate is smashing and loud. Khanate is heavy and slow and torturous. Khanate is filthy and harsh and full of feedback. I'd not miss a Khanate show. Khanate is intense and focused. I really don't know why the Sunn O))) project is more popular. Khanate is so visceral and powerful. Khanate is suicide and murder. Khanate feels more like the intense ripping scenes of brutality (imagine a knife slicing through skin and muscle and hesitating for a moment at the spine before tearing through) in perfect detail. Perfect for headbanging, if only my neck weren't so sore from the Wolves in the Throne Room show the other night.

If I had this sound in person, full volume, afterwards I would collapse a completed and exorcised being. You can't get this guitar/bass sound at anything less than crushing volume; you need instant, piercing feedback to play the riffs right. It screams. The songs are repetitive, but this will never work as background music.

This is not for everyone. In fact, I think I have yet to get anyone else hooked on it. This music, is, however, intense. Or, to quote a certain internet motivational poster entitled "Doom Metal," "that shit sounds like planets colliding."

John Zorn - Spy vs. Spy - The Music of Ornette Coleman (V)

Spy vs. Spy is quite possibly the ideal introduction to jazz for either a noisehead or a metalhead, speaking as both. It's chaotic. It's wild. It's fast. Zorn and Baron, later of Naked City, and fellows Tim Berne, Mark Dresser, and Michael Vatcher keep the pace just as relentlessly brutal as the most intense death metal. I'm not kidding. Hell, let old favorites like Immolation and Incantation compete with this lineup and these tracks for a pit and headbanging, and the metal kids might have something to worry about.

Zorn's combo here takes the unusual harmonies and group improv sections found throughout Coleman's catalog and play them about as fast as is reasonably acheivable with heavy thrash, crossover and grindcore influences. Napalm Death, Blind Idiot God, Lip Cream, DRI, and The Accused are mentioned in the liner notes. Sax solos throughout bring to mind Slayer's simultaneous leads at the end of "Raining Blood." I'm really not sure why this album hasn't forged a widely-popular style of music. My favorite of my Zorn collection, and of Coleman if you'll take it as such. There are blast beats scattered throughout. This is not grandpa's jazz.

Hanatarash - Hanatarash I (V)

Hanatarash's first album is delightfully raw. And it has music washing through the noise without itself being the noise. Eye sings and chants and screeches throughout the clashes of harsh churnings, blasts of noise, and shrill feedback. Try not to focus on the consistent use of "cock" in all the song titles. This record is actually a liberating assault on the ears that doesn't so much evoke rage as it suspends other realms of focus in favor of noise immersion. There's definitely variety - from the melodies and roar of Ultra Cocker to standard distorted noise vocals and drumming in Domination In Spunked Cock to the constant percussion of Cock Combat and the distorted electronic march of Cock Victory. This album singularly fails to convey any sort of message outside of hearing loss. Good noise.

Celestia - Apparitia - Sumptuous Spectre (Remaster) (V)

Celestia seems to be something of a collective of side-members of classic French black metal groups. And while Celestia's music is straight black metal that has nothing of the inventiveness that French black metal is sometimes known for, it's not in the least lacking in melodic creativity or spirit. I would criticise the under-developed and obvious basslines and the overuse of none-too-tight tremolo picking, but the melodies created are effective and at least there's some presence in mid and low frequency ranges.

There's some good ambience here, and that combined with the strong melodies and decent sound (this is the remastered version) make what might otherwise be an exercise in endless black metal actually reasonably enjoyable to listen to. It might not be my first choice, but is certainly not the kind of black metal that makes me want to forget that I've ever listened to the genre. All in all, a more well-developed approach with more variety, complex structures, and more interesting harmony might come off as a respectable record.

To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie - The Patron (V)

To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie has that sort of . . . electronic, chiptune-sounding post-rock style one might find in the suddenly popular band Fuck Buttons. All sorts of samples and noises working together to create layered blankets of soft beauty. It's defiant and self-confident, not the dreamy feel of My Bloody Valentine or Gregor Samsa's delicacy, but still beautiful. That said, you might need a little tolerance for noise music around the edges to listen to it.

To Kill has a tendency to lend strength to their soft melodies through the crushing, grinding, scraping sounds of industrial noise. Given their unmastered tracks, I'd have no trouble reconstructing a pure noise album a la Masami Akita's work. But despite this, the overall effect seems like a collection of songs that wouldn't be out of place coming from the throat of a busker on the street in some French village, transforming some art movie with an almost eerily beautiful and softly eloquent atmosphere.

Acoustic guitars and atmospherics and soft vocals and noise samples and gritty sines and drum machines all in one place, arranged to perfection. To Kill a Petty Bourgeousie is compelling, entrancing, mind-numbing and consistently interesting. They don't write songs the way everyone does, nor do they play songs the way everyone does. But they're definitely doing something right.

Heat From a DeadStar - The Lighthouse (V)

The first thing that struck me about Heat From a DeadStar's Lighthouse EP was their simultaneous use of and lack of regard for tonality. Their tastefully bass-heavy grooves in "Elusive Ways" seem to just avoid standard rock approaches and meld themselves into something slightly less straightforward and thus all the more pleasing. Dissonance catches the ear and makes one hesitate somewhere between head-bobbing and thrashing about on the ground.

The source of this dissonant influence becomes more apparent with the second track, "Joan." Acoustic guitars and ambient (synth?) smears blend around distant, reverb-heavy vocals. That's right, we've dropped straight into shoegaze, with DeadStar's dissonant touches brought to a new arena in the uncharacteristically complex and audible bass and heavily effected, warbling guitar leads that further distinguish this appealing track from run-of-the-mill Slowdive imitators. My main complaint is that I barely feel like I've had a chance to enjoy the track after five minutes! I could happily continue drifting through a bit longer if DeadStar chose to support me in the lapping of Joan's seas . . . if they worked back down to the more minimalist sound of the opening and through another verse, I'd be hooked for good. The main sections of the track demonstrate a talent with attractive tonal composition and vocal performance sadly lost in the band's other, less delicate instrumental tracks.

DeadStar drift from the acoustic shoegaze sound of "Joan" before long into something more reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine's noise-guitar in the title track. DeadStar emphasise their love/hate relationship with tonality again in this song as they shift from the awkwardly dissonant, pounding wholetone (!) of the intro through softer but still clashing interludes and more noise and heavy bass that make "The Lighthouse" feel almost like a normal track through the conviction of its denial of natural scales.

I was initially startled by the last track's strong electronic beats until I looked at the title again - Black Swans, Re: Dux Tion extended mix. This track wouldn't feel at all out of place at a dance club, and primarily explores the recurring theme of DeadStar's sonic versatility - I'm beginning to imagine an effects board that resembles the collections of hardware noise artists like Stimbox . . . in a noise-rock, dissonant, occasionally shoegazy context.

I'm considering organising this CD into the metaphorical racks somewhere between My Bloody Valentine, Cherubs, Swans, and Doomsday Postcard's strange industrial work. I don't know how to, or want to, nail this band down, but I know I'm interested and looking forward to the completion of their upcoming album, "Seven Rays of the Sun."

Gregor Samsa - 55:12 (V)

Gregor Samsa is beautiful, minimalist post-rock. And epic. Beautiful, epic, minimalist post-rock. The . . . seven-member? band brings Sigur Rós to mind with the epic orchestration and beautiful melodies, but with a distinctly softer overall tone and more softly accessible male and female vocals.

Gregor Samsa's music doesn't in the least reflect Die Verwandlung to me - one of the most depressing works I've ever read, as compared to soft, hopeful, tender beauty. But I appreciate the reference. And the music. And members of Kayo Dot? Amazing. I'll admit that the strings bring Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mount Zion Memorial Orchestra to mind, but I think in terms of delicate beauty, Gregor Samsa has truly overtaken these. And there's no flavour of Jewish music worked in, which, though it's a lovely flavour, detracted for me from the purity of the music as an original work in a modern context.

All of the tracks on 55:12 are amazing. Soft, attractive melodies. Like listening to Slowdive drawn into something slower and more gently thoughtful. Sit with 55:12 for several hours, and you'll feel at once uplifted and longing for something lost.

Devourment - 1.3.8 (V)

Devourment's 1.3.8 is something of a classic in the gore and death scene - originally formed in San Antonio in '95 with Chicagoan vocalist Wayne Knupp, Devourment wandered through the next 4 years with lineup changes, releasing a couple of demos and replacing Knupp with Ruben Rosas - as much as possible. Rosas recorded vocals on Devourment's 1999 release, Molesting the Decapitated, before being jailed, during which time Knupp rejoined the band and recorded the track "Babykiller," which saw release on the Southern Uprising compilation, and then the Devourment compilation 1.3.8, featuring that one track, three from the earlier Impaled demo with Wayne Knupp, and 8 with Rosas' vocals from Molesting the Decapitated.

Not confusing at all.

"Babykiller" is a classic track. Don't read the lyrics. Whatever you do, don't read the lyrics. But the track is the perfect slam-dancing beast, and Knupp's vocals are pure raw gurgle. Right down to the 24 or 25-second extension at the end of the track.

The next three tracks, from the Impaled demo, aren't as well-produced. And that's saying something; "Babykiller" is RAW. Incredibly scooped distortion and all. And the Impaled tracks are a few good notches muddier. The songs are great. The messy bits are perfectly messy, and the chugs are clear and heavy. Knupp's gurgling is as gory and indecipherable as ever.

That said, I tend to skip past the Impaled tracks to hear the better-recorded versions of the same songs from Molesting the Decapitated. Rosas' vocals don't have quite the same raw edge, but they're definitely in the right mold to fill the gaps, and the production is comparatively without blemish. The tracks have the traditional gore soundclips about murder and the like, but the whole album is filled with appealing dance grooves. This is happy music. In a gore-dripping, dark, hateful way. Get this stuff and enjoy it . . . unless it's too far below your artsy standards or the focus roils your gut, you will.

And Devourment's writing a new album - and don't forget to check out Butcher the Weak in the meantime.