noise & power electronics

Holy shit, this is nihilism distilled into raw sound! At about 6 minutes in length, Money Hater really doesn’t fuck about on this 2016 EP. I was expecting some sort of powerviolence (by looking at the sleeve) but the harsh noise here melted my face in the best possible way. 6 minutes of sheer armageddon, get in!

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Ut Strepitus play slow, evolving soundscapes of noise and dense atmospheric ambience. The shtick is a heavily Latin-based BDSM theme, something of course which has been seen in noise and power electronics worlds before, but not so much maybe in the atmospheric, ambient or synthesiser worlds. The moods and tones shift from paranoia and dread, to small moments of wonder and contemplation, before oppressing drones of collapsing atmosphere suffocate you under its weight. There is…

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Like A Lamb To The Slaughter was the short-lived original direction of my Panties project. It had such a simple name that I couldn’t get out of my head, I had to try and make some noise that was oppressive and fetishistic (is that a word?) to accompany and suit the name. I’m sure others who revel in the pits of noise music have these same itches right? Like, the name comes first, and then…

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Before Godflesh, there was Fall Of Because, from what I can tell a fairly short lived project when members were also involved in Napalm Death or Head Of David. Featuring a trio of which would collaborate freely in the coming years, Fall Of Because plays bare bones industrial rock, where the incredibly influential noise from New York’s Swans had been trickled through Brum’s own industrial culture. It’s not quite Godflesh yet; think early Swans meets…

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I’ve been on a bit of Prurient kick recently, enjoying a few of his records. Cocaine Death however is one that has been saved in my Spotify list for years now. I’m not sure what it is, but I really love the aching melody that creeps below the surface of harsher noises. Cocaine Death toes the line between sonic destruction and ambient beauty.

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Prurient exists in his own class within the noise world. That sounds a bit up his arse, but the project toes a fine line between beauty and chaos, between the fragile and the concrete. This balance of opposites is as clear on Frozen Niagara Falls as it is in any of Prurient’s other work (that I’ve heard), and at an hour and a half in length, it is a mammoth double album journey through ice…

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I suppose this could be categorised as true industrial music? I am instantly reminded of the group called Stomp that we used to watch videos of as a kid. All sorts of machinery and noises are utilised to create bizarre mechanical soundscapes. Fireworks (I think? Ha!) and the scrape of metal on metal is the order of the day, resulting in the beauteous song of the furnace at work. Good stuff. 

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The sounds of industrial landscapes are sourced and re-purposed into collages of weaving, constantly collapsing slabs of freeform noise. This is the second such collab between Merzbow and Davis. Bonus points from me for using the title “Inland Empire” for the final track.

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Sometimes power electronics can be a little try hard,  especially when try to capture the impact of the older days.  Blue Rabbit however is genuinely terrifying; a brooding, disturbing entry from a great of the genre. All of the narratives are pretty macabre, but the title track itself is particularly harrowing. Musically, it is a little bit dialed back compared to some of their peers, instead of blasting your face with noise, the band let…

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There’s a lot of buzz and hype around this woman right now, so I was afraid of being disappointed. I can happily (is that the right word?) confirm however, that this is a dark and disturbing listen. I’m getting heavy Gnaw Their Tongues vibes off this, but the blend of dark atmospheric noise and classical music, along with multilayered vocals, it’s pretty unique. My one complaint is that the album is top heavy, and trails…

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I love Big Black, but for some reason I never have them in my rotation all that often. A colleague at my previous job swore down that Atomizer was their best album, and I had to admit that I had never heard it, so out I went and got stuck in. I just love those abrasive, hollow walls of guitar noise. It shouldn’t work but it does when you mount layer and layer and layer…

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Ah, my brain, she melts! I’ve always found Molting a strange name for a project. Like, it sounds more horrible than it actually is (lol). That aside, this full length release on the netlabel Torn Flesh is a true exercise in harsh noise. Aurally punishing, but that’s why we’re all here, right? 

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Considering the weight that both of these names bring in the noise, industrial and power electronics world, this collaboration record is unfortunately a bit of a mixed bag. The noise is brooding and atmospheric, with the odd ear piercing flourish. Genesis’ “vocals” however, massively take me out of the whole thing. I get it, it’s noise. It’s not uncommon to have vocals distorted. But when the pace is so slow and deliberate, as with most…

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On Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s earlier work (I can’t remember which release specifically, but some of the noise pieces on Honky Reduction spring to mind) there are a few tracks which hit so hard sonically, that whenever the term ‘power electronics’ is used, I instantly think of them. G.R. by Deathpile immediately hits me with that same sonic collapse, that incredible rumble and those hectic vocals. It is far too similar to NOT have been a massive…

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Thankfully I gave in to my work colleague’s endless insistences that I check out Black Midi. This bizarre piece of work conjures up terrifying visions from the past, such behemoths as Swans or Big Black, and mashes them into a modern freakout sensibility. Did I just write that? I don’t really know what is going on here, or why it is so popular, but its fucking genius.

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Two of the most veritable noise powerhouses of the current decade collide on a mystical and cataclysmic collaboration album. Passages of droning sludge meet ear-frazzling noisescapes, thundering vocals and pounding drums. The proceedings almost have a spiritual feel to them, although the brutal heaviness helps keep the experience rooted at ground level, exploding in your face. Strong stuff. 

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Merzxiu is two back to back 20-minute slabs of experimental noise (are you surprised?) from two of the most experimental and well-respected artists in the entire left field of music. Merzbow, by now surely, needs no introduction. Xiu Xiu on the other hand, play a very unusual blend of styles, but have forayed into the noise world in the past. The two tracks here, simply titled “A” and “B”, are slow, brooding, bubbling, crackling atmospheric…

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I used to use the 45rpm track off Musique De L’Indifférence during my brief foray into daily meditation; I found that HNW was a distilled account of “I find peace listening to chaotic shit like death metal”, and therefore perfect for shutting off your mind and resetting your aural palate, as it were. Musique De L’Indifférence as a whole though, might be a test of patience for those even into the worlds of noise and…

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Now this is a heavy one! I sold this record today (at the time of writing) so in honour of departing with one of my most cherished possessions (honestly, it deserves a better home where it will be played / appreciated and not just shoved in a box somewhere) I gave this one a play through for the first time in years. It is easy to under-estimate how skull-rattlingly heavy the tracks on this record…

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Considering this album was made with a fucking washing machine it is really, really good. The sampling and beat creation using the harvested noises is simply second to none, propelling what would usually lull around in experimental music, found sounds or even noise, out into genuinely listenable music. No small feat. This is the 30* rinse your brain needed. 

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Stunning dark soundscapes and atmospheric drones that wouldn’t be out of place in movie soundtracks. Blazed through this on a nightshift. Impressed, and will be looking out for Husere Grav in the future.

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Ooh she’s a harsh one, Mildred! The Rita batters you with Vomir-esque walls (admittedly with more variation and wobbles) bookended with bizarre samples about Romans and a very English-sounding Cleopatra (lol), whilst Worker (who are new to me) operates on a much more skittish level; like the sounds of the bass from a hundred gorenoise bands running through a substation at 40,000 volts. All in all, these eggs is good.

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This is a bizarre one, even by my standards. Imagine all kinds of weird lo fi pop meeting drone or noise. Mouthed drums, hypnotic guitar loops, odd synths. Highly enjoyed!

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More haunting gorenoise from the Big Frog himself. This short EP seems to be compiled entirely out of layered vocal gurgles, like a whole swamp itself is teeming with enough life to create a gorenoise racket. A good place to start if you’re into Phyllo’ but some of the track lengths to the noisier stuff puts you off. (2021 edit: My original link for this died. If anyone has any info on this release, please…

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This is just pure analogue noise heaven; bleeping, blooping, leaping, looping fun for all of the family, or something like that. Dancing along the line that zig zags haphazardly between a harsh noise auditory palate cleanser and the type of soundtrack you’d get in a b-movie about aliens invading the earth, Disregard Your Life is a refreshing and almost relaxing trip through the world of electronic noise. The first track, at just shy of nineteen…

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Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle, I forgot that I owned this. I dug it out for a trade recently and realised I hadn’t covered this for the site. Bobby M sent me this back in 2012 when my girlfriend was in New York, so I had a week long goregrind and pizza binge, really getting to grips with the depths of the genre. RSWC incorporates spooky, echoic production into the gorenoise style, bringing all…

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Welcome to a world of dark, dense, atmospheric horror. The title of the split, for both acts, is Domestic Goddess, and coupled with some The Rita-esque artwork, delivers a seedy yet subliminally disturbing romp through the, dare I say, usual tropes of the power electronics genre. That is not to tar the artists here as “usual fare”, but [Gone Dark]Bleach offers a much more variant and interesting approach to the subject matter at hand. Survivalist…

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Dense, thick, industrial beat loops is the order of the day, from the excellent JK Flesh project. Nothing Is Free seems to have dropped completely the guitar elements that so heavily caressed the beatwork on recordings such as Posthuman, in favour of bringing the beat entirely to the centre-stage. Nothing Is Free is not dissimilar to the work produced by Mick Harris in some of the more transitional and experimental eras of his excellent project…

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Well, now I know what Grand Declaration of War would have sounded like if Maniac was given full creative control! I’m kidding of course; the Richter-like artistic meandering here would be far too much to take for an intolerant little man like Hellhammer (2023 edit: handbags away please, ladies). But, as per always, I digress. Sehnsucht is the experimental / power electronics project between Maniac and his wife Vivian Slaughter, who also plays in Gallhammer….

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Aun are one of those bands that I constantly end up back at. For what is essentially noisy ambiance with synths and the odd guitar, this is quite impressive. Fantastic, shoe-gazy drones meet unfurling electronics in transcendent “songs” that average around the 7 minute mark; deep, involving worlds swirl into life, conjured from the chasms of nothingness by this bleak yet somewhat inspiring show of digital noise. Enter the Black Pyramid!

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Hallucinocide is one of the noise identities of Chilean artist Vicente Perez, perhaps most well known for his other project, Bucket Of Piss. The Peel Session isn’t quite so drumstick-meets-saucepan-core as his more “meme’d” project, but it definitely offers up a much more violent and vital exercise in proper harsh noise. Comprised of two tracks, each clocking in at over 20 minutes, The Peel Session is a meandering listen covering a broad spectrum of the…

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It is quite a bizarre feat to see the sprawling works of Om confined to the time restraints of a 7″ record. Nevertheless, the duo manage to pull it off without it having any negative impact on proceedings. I seem to keep forgetting (I know, right?) that Om are one of my favourite bands, and this obscure 7″ does not disappoint in any way shape or form. However, if you are new to Om, I…

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Excellent noisecore-meets-harsh noise project (I’m sorry if you are unaware of these subgenres, that sentence must look ridiculous) from the USA. Definitely something that will push the boundaries of my listening patience if all mushed together into one big cube, simply due to the frequency of the distortions used, however once broken up into grinding chunks of noisecore I find it much more humanly consumable, which is just great, folks. This is one of those…

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Every year or so I come back to this project and record something new. I’m currently working on the 4th release for this project, and that got me thinking – I need to do another post about this shit. I can’t review it, as it’s mine, but I can tell you a bit about it. Flesh World is the second Fire Walk With Me record, and is by far my favourite; even out of the…

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Black Sun are (or possibly were) a three piece from Scotland. I think (from lending CDs off the Doomfinder General) that they pretty much started out as a one man industrial/noise project before evolving into a full band. They self-released a bunch of stuff before this final full length dropped on Future Noise and Head Of Crom. Twilight Of The Gods is a solid album through and through. The best way I can quickly describe…

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Presenting you with haunting digital soundscapes from one of the masters of the genre, the Excavation record is a true trip in ethereal ambiance and beatwork. I first spun this at about 4am on a nightshift; it was that eerie time of night when everything literally stops dead, even though I was in a room full of people. There is something about “the witching hour” – that unique stillness – that is just so palpable….

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Flux Information Sciences are one of those bands that have got me wondering – “where the hell have you been all of my life!”. It genuinely annoys me when such gems go undetected on my musical radar for so long, especially since they can attribute a sizeable portion of their success to one Michael Gira (who? Never heard of him) after being signed to Young God in the early 2000s. Hell, even Chris Pravdica, the…

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Masonna (not to be confused of course, with Madonna) is a staple and legend in the noise world. He is “famed” for his intense live performances, where his body is seemingly nothing more than a channel for pure chaos; as if some invisible higher power is playing the poor guy like a marionette and pouring the result out as harsh noise. These performances can be seen on YouTube, thanks to the wonders of modern technology….

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(words by Le Manifico Doomfindaaaah Jenerales) Before anything else, can you just take a second to appreciate how amazing that artwork and album title is…. The Body are a two piece sludge band from somewhere in America. Well I say sludge, but they don’t sound anything like Eyehategod et al, but they are slow, heavy and unpleasant, so it’s close enough. The album opens up pleasantly (if not miserably) enough with “Wanderings” which has just a…

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I love power electronics and noise but when this came out I completely lost it….what the fuck is actually going on? Estuary English is one of those rare records that I completely fail to understand, so I wrote it off for a while, completely unable to comprehend what I was listening to. It just sounded like Vyvyan from the Young Ones screaming over sub par bits and blips of electronic mush. If that’s what you…

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Glowering is a side project ov the tr00 and totes brutes invokator of gore noise havoc, Bobby Maggard. This time however, Bobby puts aside his hacksaw and bloodstained apron in favour of a pentagram-topped staff and a severed goat’s head hollowed out to make a snug little mask, as black metal is the theme of the day. But this ain’t no ordinary romp through black metal, no sir. It’s quite annoying actually, because a few…

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I’d never heard of Gnaw Their Tongues until I saw them live at Roadburn and I was almost instantly blown away by them (I say them – it’s just one guy making so much horrible music from his basement). A mix of black metal and noise would probably be the best way to describe this but then again so would two people screaming at you when the sound of the world ending at million miles…

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Look at all that lovely sand! Well, one assumes it’s sand – like the coloured sand you hammer into crappy glass bottles on family holidays to the beach. No? Well fuck you. Cycle is a pulsing, circular throb of a noise session, that loops and dives into waves of repetition and (yes) cycles; the palpable worm Ouroboros in wave format, writhing itself in undulations of sonic ecstasy. Yeah. At least, that is what part one…

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Caustic layer upon layer. Saxaphone meets blastbeat. Noisecore meets lounge. Rumba, oompah, slide, shake, swing, mosh, grind, kill. Disco Volante; secret songs, leftfield, experimental, techno, disco, rock, electronica. Sophomore, confusion, exclamation, subtlety, song within a song within a groove within a phrase within a suite. Mr. Bungle’s second record is by far their most difficult to get into. It offers a level of inaccessibility that is surprising even for a band whose sole purpose seemed…

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I feel like I have an overwhelming urge to trepan my skull in order to fully envelope my conscious with the buzzing, numbing industrial stomp of Pharmakon’s “music”. I’m joking of course, but it kinda feels like the human brain alone isn’t powerful enough to digest this disgustingly intense mix of industrial, power electronics and ambience. Pharmakon is not afraid to balance the serene and low-key alongside the bashing, crashing havoc of sheer noise, and…

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Nonentity is a grating, deafening displaying of analogue harsh noise broken down in to three consumable parts. The first part hisses and belches the way good noise should, before the second track “Abuse” provides us with a break that, in all honesty, seems to come a little bit too soon. The third part kicks back in for a final 15 minute push through a seascape of bubbling static bliss. I find myself trying to loop…

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What I usually associate with Ramleh is an unstoppable barrage of power electronics and barked vocal eruptions. Which is exactly what we’ve got here. This does not disappoint. Catching them live with Godflesh a few years ago literally (and physically) blew me away. I am, however, pleasantly surprised by the static, choppy, experimental nature of how 31/5/1962 – 1982 starts off, which leads into a much more digestible forty minutes or so than the more…

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Gorrendous Whoreplasmia is a goregrind/gorenoise project I started in 2013 simply because I’d thought up what I considered to be a really cool fucking name (LOL). I even had a proper logo drawn up (by the late Sludgesicle Records owner Mike Stock, who sadly passed away last year) because I thought the name was just that golden. I can be a total idiot sometimes when it comes to stupid musical ideas, so now that I…

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(words by Kristian Cole, Merthyr Tydfil’s very own laureate of the digital noise revolution) As we are inclined to wash the feet of the beggars John Cage (American Tramp) and Karlheinz Stockhausen (German Weirdo) I cannot help but think what shit they pulped out over their years of sound production. Cage and Stockhausen, both from academic musical backgrounds, may have seemed ground breaking to the other chin rubbing fucksnouts who pretended to understand their take…

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Urine Festival is one of those things that exist to challenge you on how you feel about a particular genre, sound, theme or subject. A ridiculous form of music at the best of times, goregrind (or porngrind) is known for it’s reams of dodgy content and greasy subject matter. Often, it takes somebody or something pushing the elements making up your favourite genre to the absolute maximum extreme before you can begin to reflect and…

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LINES IN WAX 500th POST EXTRAVAGANZA! Who in their right mind would have thought I could write 500 album reviews? Actually who in their right mind would write 500 album reviews? Well the answer is little old me. As Lines In Wax passes it’s 4th birthday, we also reach this milestone in posting. As with the 100th and 250th post, I would like to quickly thank everyone for their continued support and readership. Without your…

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Phyllomedusa’s blasting, burping and croaking froquencies have quickly become a firm favourite here at camp Lines In Wax over the last few months. It’s kinda hard to define Phyllomedusa’s sounds but after listening to a lot of it I’ve noticed a pattern emerging – you can divide the majority of the sounds presented into four categories; ambient / field recordings, gorenoise and/or goregrind, more traditional harsh noise and finally, err, doom metal. Their part of…

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Urinary Tract Infection From Severe Pus Clots is one of Bobby Maggard’s more prolific and well known projects, this one bridging the gap between noisecore and goregrind very nicely. Demo 1 contains 98 bursts of pitchshifted bile-inducing noisecore madness. A lot of this stuff kinda all blurs into one but this has a really good vibe and it’s absolutely sick as fuck. The bass is a bit furry and the Myspace-as-fuck Rhythm Rascal drum programming…

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Trepanation Penetration is a gorenoise (or is that pornoise?) project in the vein of Urine Festival, Enema Fountain and the likes, and probably is the first project of this kind I’ve done a review for that wasn’t recorded by USA’s Bobby Maggard (lol). Bound Torture Fantasies is the second demo / EP / release under for this ‘band’, and contains 20 untitled blasts of watery drum machine harsh noise. It warbles and farts rather than…

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I recorded this beast over a year ago and I still haven’t written to ya’ll about it because I’m a festering bloody idiot. Hot off the heels (lol) of my first EP on Grindcore Karaoke, I decided to make hay when the sun was shining and go straight into recording a Tetrahydrocannibal full length whilst the gimmick was still fresh. Weed-themed grindcore is nothing new, even in the minuscule gorenoise department (I’m thinking Boggy Bong,…

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When I heard of Urine Cop being a collaboration between Adam Jennings of Winters In Osaka and Putrefaction In Progress-era LDOH vocalist Erwin De Groot, I got very, very excited. I would be lying to you if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed with what is on show here. Bass, noise and LDOH vocals sounds fucking class in my book, but you literally can’t hear a thing here. You’ve basically got 8 minutes of…

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Auerbach is one of a gazillion projects by Merthyr Tydfilian / Aberdare-ian (yeah, I can make up my own words now) Kristian Cole. I sit next to this cunt most days in work placement so I might come across a bit biased as I review one of his creations, but I say with all the honesty in my blackened heart that this is a seriously harsh aural assault of the senses. He goes by many…

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AUN are another band that I picked up on thanks to Roadburn Festival. I missed them on the day (2012 edition I believe) but in a ritual that my friends call Pre-Roadburn Listening I got listening to their Black Pyramid record. Multigone is an earlier recording of theirs, and is a bit harshier than the meandering ambience present on Black Pyramid. AUN’s approach to noise is droning, unfolding soundscapes that almost have some tangible tune…

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Main is a band that was formed by two members of Loop, including Robert Hampson who was also in Godflesh for a little bit (he played on the Pure album). Main, to me, appears to be some sort of experimental industrial-tinged ambient project that places heavily effected guitar work into a world of noises and other creepy atmospheres. (2021 edit: G C Green of Godflesh also plays on this particular album) And that, essentially, is what…

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Look, Sphere is one of my favourite Merzbow releases. Granted, I have in no way shape or form heard them all, but of the ones that I have heard, Sphere is high up there among the best. The three Sphere tracks are pulsing, blooping, bleeping harsh displays of spherical madness. I’m not entirely sure why the tracks were even broken up in the first place, but hey – what do I know. My favourite though…

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Lull is another Mick Harris project, one I believe that he worked on between Scorn releases back in the day. Lull takes pages from the book of Lustmord; extremely minimal yet puzzlingly fulfilling compositions of sound, often devoid of any noticeable instrumentation, pummelling you instead with lulling ambience (no pun intended) and claustrophobic barrages of atmosphere. Moments then, is the stifling ambient soundscape of choice for those with a short attention span. Instead of the…

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I came across Mz. 412 on my quest for bands that mix black metal with power electronics. Although to me Mz. 412 takes elements from both genres of music (with both being quite introspectively similar in some respects and also a million miles apart in others), yet it seems to stand alone from both in a sound more rooted in industrial, or experimental ambience. This is something morosely militant about In Nomine… which lends heavily…

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Bobby M is upon us again with a slightly-less-gory approach to noise, which is unusual, to say the least. Perhaps surprisingly for music of this genre, Slithis’ Revenge focusses on the destruction that mankind has wreaked upon the earth as subject matter. I’d never in a million years consider there to be a market for environmentally-friendly gorenoise, but the world is full of surprises.  If you think the artwork looks horrendous, then nothing can prepare…

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Facialmess is a harsh noise project from Japan. Total Liberation is an EP that was released a few years ago on J Randall’s Grindcore Karaoke, consisting of two tracks, a 7 minuter and a 13 minuter. “Suspicious Activities” starts off by oddly mashing together droning, machine-like background ambience with increasingly-erratic cuttings of harsh noise. It just jolts back and forth without any regard for your hearing, or sanity for that matter. It sounds to me like…

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Extreme Putrefaction is another project in the gazillion ranks of noisemongering goregrind king Bobby Maggard. This particular little variant mixes bassy harsh noise with unstoppable drum machine attacks and septic tank gurgles. To get artsy fartsy in the descriptive sense, imagine earlier, analogue pedal Merzbow jamming with Urine Festival. Extreme Putrefaction literally sounds like shit pellets being machine gunned into a cesspool of unspeakable filthy depths. For the uninitiated, ‘gorenoise’ can seem like quite an…

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Christ, who’s idea was this? Mixing gabba-techno / industrial kingpin Alec Empire with the father of harsh noise, Akita Masami would surely result in a cacophonous cocktail that would make the world end in any other given circumstance. Somehow the earth didn’t stop turning, and instead we are treated to one of the craziest collaborations in musical history in all it’s glory. This is quite probably the most coherent thing I’ve heard Merzbow being involved…

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Whilst I surely can’t review my own material, I can tell you fuckers a little bit about it. With the death of Life Is Easy I’ve started a whole bunch of new musical ventures, including Fire Walk With Me; a project born out of my new love affairs with David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and HNW music, if such a crossover isn’t too bold. What I’ve done here however is attempted somewhat at creating texture within…

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Vomir is currently my new favourite go-to name when I fancy a harsh noise massage for my brain and my ever-growing tinnitus. I guess focussing entirely on some endless static attack helps ease the ringing for some reason or other. Anyway, I digress. Vomir is (as far as my knowledge of this scenes goes) the absolute master of the harsh noise wall (often abbreviated to HNW). If you’re wondering what HNW is, well, imagine that…

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Japanese Torture Comedy Hour was a noise project that revolved around Scott Hull, J Randall and other related musicians, and eventually became a solo project for Randall in it’s own right. Dolphin Meat is an hour-long improvised live performance (entitled “日本の拷問コメディアワー – EP#62”) created entirely out of feedback loops and recorded to VHS tape (because, fuck it, why not?). I tried doing something similar about five or six years ago; bleeding feedback from mic to…

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Donno what the fuck is going on here…wow! It’s like Aborym decided to do cybergrind and then do a collab with 7MON and Merzbow. When the longest track is 25 seconds long, and the entire EP a mere 10 songs in length, you know that what Incest has in store for you has just got to be painful. And it is. Sample-heavy drum machine grindcore mashes devastatingly with chunks of harsh noise and power electronics….

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Nice! What a fucking nihilistic recording this is! I believe Urine Cop was originally a collaboration between members of Winters In Osaka and ex-LDOH vocalist Erwin De Groot, but there’s no trademark De Groot pitchshifter howls on this nine and a half minute window into hell. All that can be heard is noise, and drums. Well, some semblance of drums. It just sounds like a flurry of cymbals, as if a drum track has been…

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Ah…harsh noise; if there was ever a genre of ‘music’ where it is hard to remain original. I love watching noise artists perform live, but listening to harsh noise in the home (asides from the ‘big’ names) isn’t something that I do very often. This is primarily because 1.) if you have a torrent for every single Merzbow release, you’re pretty much set for life in the noise game and 2.) the internet has caused…

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Fury 161 are a noise / death industrial based project with members hailing from Wales, Ireland and originally, South Africa. They came together in 2013 to produce misanthropic, hateful atmospheres about futility and anger towards all of mankind. Opener ‘Thanatos’ builds a dark, clanking atmosphere without getting too harsh. It is the audible equivalent of an incomprehensible mechanical world gearing up. ‘Spirits’ follows, which almost sounds like the distorted offspring of a Public Castration-era Swans…

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Wowzers, what a noise! Ha ha! I got this split because I am slowly making my way through collecting the Total Fucking Destruction stuff. I’m not’ve really been that familiar with Skat Injector, up until now that is. Neil from Legs Akimbo was a legend in finding an unsold copy of this split for me, as this shit is pretty limited now. The TFD stuff here is just some live versions of well known tracks…

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Ah, noise tapes! Sex Funeral comes on sounding a bit like Dead Neanderthals crossed with the first LDOH demo; opener “Success in Battle, Crunch in Milk” is a dirging mess of (I assume) power electronics, saxophone sounds and crude percussion. It sounds like hell, which is absolutely OK in my book. I can’t really define when one “song” ends and another begins, but there comes some really light reed-sounding instrument after a while, that almost…

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There comes a time in every musician’s life where they must stop and think “why do I do this? What is the point in my existence and in turn, my creative output?”. I’ve definitely asked myself that question many, many times. I assume then, that gore-legend and general all-round good egg Bobby Maggard never has, what with his seemingly never-ending repertoire of projects, bands and label releases. The amount of stuff this guy (and his…

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It took me a while but I finally got around to buying the second installment in the Audiofilm series. I don’t really know what has taken so long, considering it’s not particularly rare, difficult to obtain or even worth a lot. I got this off Discogs for £1.50, which for even a 3″ CD is criminal. The packaging and artwork is more of the same type of stuff that was introduced on the first Audiofilm…

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Jesus fuck, how my head hurts! Now this little bastard is a hard listen! Haha! File under un-easy listening, mos-def. Bobby Maggard is back (again) with more blurring of the lines between goregrind and gorenoise. The drum machine sounds like nothing more than a relentless series of distorted sound blips. The guitars (well, assuming they are guitars) are nothing more than sheer, ear-destroying sheets of white noise hell. The vocals…well I don’t think I have…

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In another post recently (this one, proper old school Blogger link!) I suggested off the cuff that somebody should make some mega fucking compilation of the sickest goregrind and porngrind projects related to Last Days Of Humanity. When I stumbled across this sick little fuck at the Rotten Roll stall in OEF I thought for a second that some celestial being might share some love for the sick shit! Granted, Anal Whore isn’t related to LDOH (as far as…

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Suppression are quickly becoming one of my favourite grindcore acts. I mean, how long have this band been around? And I only heard of them a few months ago! What an idiot! Despite this fact, I’ve had the mp3s of this split on my computer for ages thanks to Grindcore Karaoke, but listening to it always got pushed back because I have so much stuff to get through…which is a curse as well as a…

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After the incredible journey that was Requiem, I was terribly disappointed with the first Audiofilm instalment. When I finally got over the fact that this 3″ CD wasn’t going to be more of the same of what was displayed on Scott’s debut, I gave it another chance and now I really like it. I can’t really say much about it as it’s fairly short and entirely atmospheric, so you’ll have to hear it for yourself…

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“First Music”, “First Noise”…what fitting titles as this 7” is my first Charred Remains, Bastard Noise and Man is the Bastard purchase, and my first proper experience with any of these projects. The whole switching of the names confuses the living fuck out of me but I think I’ve actually got my head around it; MITB is the powerviolence group, Bastard Noise is the noise spin-off? Amirite? Well, I would think so until I open…

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Time for some more sickening goregrind folks! The cover art to this Goatgrind release might be fairly tame but the music is fucking nuts, as you would expect. Faeces Eruption play fairly straightforward, dank and heavy electronic goregrind with low pitchshifted gurgles. The whole thing sails by rather quickly, but it’s an enjoyable four songs that has got me on the look out for more Faeces Eruption shit (pun slightly intended). Urine Festival on the…

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Tourettes of the Genitals is a short-lived noisecore/grindcore project featuring members of Drogheda, but with Paul Phipps of Rectal Twat infamy on vocals. Basically what you have here is 18 untitled blasts of noise on a one-sided 6″ lathe cut flexi. I’m not really sure what material this is cut onto but it is ridiculously thin. If bent too much it will probably crease and become unplayable. This is extremely collectable, with only 15 copies in existence…

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Playing With Nuns is an absolute pleasure – pun definitely intended. After a while a lot of experimental and harsh noise projects all tend to sound the same to me, so when a noise record comes along and stands out for me it really must be a good one! Schizo Spectrum starts like many other harsh noise albums before it; the first track is nothing to write home about, but it’s interesting enough for me…

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Soundtracks for the Blind is often hailed as something incredibly special in the original Swans catalogue. After spending the majority of the 90s focusing on much more softer material, Swans’ issued a perplexing final death rattle with this double album. Listening to it, even from the first few opening seconds, evokes deep feelings of sadness for me, even though I never got into the band until they reformed three years ago. This record was literally…

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Don’t let the heart-melting picture of Mr. Phipps’ dog Levi on the centre-label give you the wrong idea; this record is an absolute nightmare! Paul Phipps – the guy behind Rectal Twat, Cocksnot., Wolf Pussy and many other projects that are hard on the ears – presents a small cross-section of “songs” that he considers his personal best. That sits well with me! Prepare your lugholes for 2 sides of absolute noisecore annihilation! This even…

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Is there anything quite so harrowing as the story behind Stalaggh? Probably, but still, their tale is one of the sheer lengths (or is that depths) that people will go to in the name of art. Basically, the short version is that Stalaggh was formed by some of the leading names in the European black metal scene (who come together anonymously) to make the most nihilistic and horrible noise terror ever heard. As vocalists, Stalaggh…

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This is the first CDr in the ongoing noise collection called “Redlight District” on Germany’s Shit Noise Records. This is the only one so far I have seen that does not have a colour assigned to it (well, it’s called the “black” edition, but still, black technically isn’t a colour, and if the images were tainted black, surely they wouldn’t be visible?). Limited to 50 hand numbered copies on CDr. Torture Border open things up with…

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I’ll quickly start this post by asking if anyone reading has any idea what’s become of Tumour these days? Is the project still going? Any news at all? Drop me a comment below if you know. Thanks!!! This was the first Tumour record I heard, and I got it through a trade with the label in (I think) 2007, so it was a while ago now. I’m not sure if I fell in love with…

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Nearly a year in the works, Ohio’s one man harsh noise and power electronics magician Arseterror finally meets the ongoing experiment Life is Easy on the format of split tape. featuring roughly 20 minutes of music from each artist; Arseterror first with the 20 minute maddening contribution, “Camptown Racist”. Life is Easy contributes two unreleased drones from 2007 that have been festering away in the vaults for years. Strictly limited to 15 physical copies, all…

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If the name of this record and the artwork above screams out to you – “Porngrind!” then guess what? You’re fucking wrong, bitches! What we have here is an ear-melting cacophony of rancid fucking gorenoise. Ok, maybe not flat out noise but noise-core. Don’t forget the core! It reminds me of VRV, the way the drum machine is pushed out to the max and just left to blast away unhindered, when all the wasps in…

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This is Volume 4 in the ongoing and extremely extensive noise series entitled “Redlight District” by German record label Shit Noise Records, who really do have a does-what-it-says-on-the-tin attitude. Each release is identifiable by a new colour, and number 4 (or is that IV) is purple. Limited, as always with this series, to 50 hand numbered copies. Painburn open the disc with what seems like a harsh noise-meets-instrument experimentation. Underneath the garbled layers of hell…

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I can’t exactly review this as it’s my creation, but I got one in my collection so it’ll have to wind up on here eventually, so I’ll just do a brief run down to plug this fucker. I recorded this bastard of an EP back in 2007, simply by running a distorted B C Rich through a whole world of filters and then recording a cold, mechanical drum beat over the top of it before…

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Misopsychia seem to want to break my stylus. Here they play a down-tuned, faster than fast mush with endless blasts and EQ-piercing screams that want to escape up my needle, through my stereo and punch me in the fucking face. The music is a bit uninspiring (that’s not to say it’s awful) but the vocals are mental as fuck. Top points for the insane level of effort here! Why Suppression would collaborate with experimental noise…

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This is such an awesome looking tape! Just look at those colours! This is pure noisecore. I can’t tell who’s side is who’s as there is no information but one band plays in a slow, dirgy and nasty style whilst the flip-side counterpart seems to be smashing fuck out of an electric guitar in the name of noise. Very, very under the radar and for fans of true noisecore fuckery only. Limited to 20 pieces on the…

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This isn’t as distorted and harsh as I originally thought it would be. The noise slowly builds and builds, and when the hellish garbled drone kicks in fully it is still without any eardrum penetrating fuzz or hiss. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; Torturing Nurse’s rumbling, harrowing soundscape of death is perfect just the way it is. It levels out a bit as it continues and some nice haunting female vocals weave in and…

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Look It’s been a good while since I last reviewed a tape (the Electric Wizard one that went up yesterday was written months ago), so seeing as I bought a few recently it’s high time I did some more tape posts. This is my first ever Merzbow purchase and potentially an in-road onto a long slippery slope of trying to collect all his shit. I went through the same fad in 2007 with Agathocles, and…

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One doesn’t really know where to start when it comes to analyzing the works of Steve Albini, and if I’m honest I’m still a total amateur on the subject; although I guess Songs About Fucking is a great place to start considering it is rather well known. I kinda worked my way backwards through the world of drum-machine propelled music, starting with Agoraphobic Nosebleed and other digigrinders, then onto Godflesh and other industrial. Big Black,…

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This was my first ever noise CD. I accidentally bought it before I’d even heard of the noise genre, let alone of Merzbow or any of his button-pushing, knob-twisting, pedal-stomping ilk. I bought this CD once upon a long time ago off the Relapse mail order, purely because Jay Randall was involved. Boy did I have a shock when I played the fucker! At 17 years old I was at no stage in my musical…

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