Artemesia- Empty Churches

Empty Churches is a creeping, bloody, chaotic mess of a sound document and I loved every minute of it.

When reviewing a noise album I normally attempt to get a feel for the concept, for what the record is supposed to tell us, if anything. The concept of Empty Churches is free-form and loose, very catholic, we're left very unsure as to whether or not an empty church is a good thing.

The soundscapes, however, leave no room for questions about their quality, as they're absolutely stellar. 

father begins with the sound of a diseased organ accompanied by high-pitched drones and what appears to be faded, stretched-out samples. The sounds stop suddenly and transition into a more Merzbow-influenced harsh-noise style, with added melodic accompaniment by a church organ. The track ends with slightly out of place, spacey, ambient synth noise.

son is much quieter, more contemplative. The organs is more up front, presenting a dreadful, echoing melody. The track ends with metallic scraping and decaying, spidery ambiance.



The album concludes with holy ghost, a more pedestrian take on harsh-noise. Still, it is not without its merit. The tones are interesting, the synthwork almost impossibly gloomy.




This is noise-makers noise, created with immense craft and textural beauty. I highly recommend you take the time to download.

An Interview With Richard Ramirez-Matzus

Richard Ramirez-Matzus, though not the earliest of American noise musicians, is certainly one of the artists that solidified it as a genre. Active since the late 80s, both solo and in a myriad of groups, his output is as prolific as it is nigh-legendary.

As well as constantly creating and releasing music, Ramirez-Matzus creates innumerable pieces of avant-garde fashion in his own collections, for a variety of celebrities, and sells said works to certain fashion houses (Comme des Garcons for example).

I normally ask the people I interview to introduce themselves, but I have a feeling that readers are going to be well aware of you.  So, instead, I’ll ask how married life is treating you?

It is wonderful. I am married to the most amazing man (Sean Matzus) that I've ever met. He and I have known each other for about 10 years prior to becoming a couple. We were friends first. We found comfort in each other after both of us were ending long-term bad relationships. We fell in love. We've been together almost five years now.

Would you describe your musical work as being thematically consistent? So much seems to be focused on sexual imagery?

I think there are certain projects that stick to a certain theme/inspiration. Some are focused on gay sexual images. Some are inspired by horror films. It really depends on the project. There are some that have "straight" sexual images too. Early on I started using gay sex art because I saw so many of women used and thought "why not men?" I know I'm not the only gay noise artist out there. I liked it and went for it. No regrets about doing so either. There are a lot of Giallo themed releases, but it's my obsession. It's my favorite movie genre.

You seem to spend a lot of time working in a group setting, playing in Black Leather Jesus, Priest in Shit, etc. What does collaboration offer you that solo work does not?

I am not always fond of working solo. I love collaboration. I enjoy seeing what different ideas that come together can create. You know, at a point, whether it's working or not. Sometimes you can bring out things in each other during sessions. In a live setting, I prefer not to perform solo (Even though I've done it numerous times) because I have stage fright. I still do.

Tell me about your label, Deadline Recordings. What upcoming releases can we expect?


I started Deadline Officially in 1992. I started a label because at the time it was so difficult to find a label to release my work. I wanted to create a label that would also give new/newer artists a chance to get their work out.

Lately I have been focused on my label Room 2A. I am working on a Werewolf Jerusalem 20x disc set based on the Grand Guignol. I am working on a box set for The Ebony Tower as well. I am releasing a tape with Smell & Quim. I just released works by Ecco, Nundata, and Blood Eagle. I will be working with Vomir and The Rita again. I may be releasing a CD of my project, Random Escorts, as a split with The Rita. I'd like to eventually release a vinyl of Last Rape.

What music are you currently enjoying? What do you think we need to know about?

Personally, I listen to a lot of music that I've listened to since I was a teen. I listen to bands like The Jesus & Mary Chain, Cocteau Twins, The Fall, A Split-Second, Gene Loves Jezebel, Pale Saints, Bauhaus, Big Black, Wire, Close Lobsters, The Woodentops, The Mighty Lemon Drops, Foetus, The The, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Church, Skinny Puppy, Frontline Assembly, Galaxie 500, and others.

In experimental/noise, I'm a huge fan of The Rita, Vomir, Incapacitants, Kapotte Muziek, The Haters, Hijokaidan, The New Blockaders, S. Core, Skin Crime, Sewer Election, C.C.C.C., Sudden Infant, Alo Girl, EEE, P16.D4, Con-Dom, Mauthausen Orchestra, Murder Corporation, Dead Body Love, and others.

I would recommend that more people check out: Struggle Session, Ascites, Illicit Relationship, Grey Cell, A Week of Kindness, White Gloves & Party Manners, Serpentine, Cronaca Nera, Tanner Garza, Folter, Morte Cammina, Nascitari, Ecco, She Walks Crooked, The Ebony Tower, Tellurian Fields, Big Hole, Female Pedophile, Ginger Cortes, Anonymous Masturbaudioum, Le Cose Bianche, Alison Rowe, Blood Eagle, Wet Dream Asphyxiation, Brutalest, Sandy Ewen, Nightmare Castle, and others (too many to keep listing).


I’m also very interested in your pursuits in fashion design. What do you hope to achieve? What is fashion to you?

Fashion is your own personal style. Many people detest fashion, but we all are a part of it. We each have our own style. It doesn't have to be "high-fashion." I started making clothes when I was a teen. I hated what was out there for men. So I went to thrift stores and reworked found items. I made them into something I liked. Some female friends liked what I did and asked me to do stuff for them. In 1997, I decided to start my own fashion line. I chose the name Richard Saenz because "Saenz" is my grandmother's maiden name. I didn't want to use my real name for obvious reasons.

I showed my first collection in spring of '98. I've been doing it ever since. I also design/co-design other labels- Automatism, Mad Recital, and Dismembered Quietly.

I am not trying to be a household name or big in the industry. My work is avant-garde fashion. It's not for everyone and that's okay. I was inspired by the designers I like: Rei Kawakubo (Commes De Garcons), Martin Margiela, Junya Watanabe, Yohji Yamato, Susan Cianciiolo, and others. I sell my work in Japan, Poland, and soon in Indonesia. I mainly deconstruct clothing and give it a new life.

You’re going to be putting up pieces from your Automatism collection for sale online, it seems. What inspired this collection? The pieces I’ve seen feel very cinematic, kind of reminiscent of THX 1138 or something. The lines look cleaner. What can you tell us about Automatism?

Automatism is a line I decided to do because I had so many ideas that didn't necessarily fit within a themed collection for my Richard Saenz or Mad Recital labels. With those two I have deadlines to meet. Automatism was to be a label that I do when I want and didn't have to fit within a season or a theme. Soon I will be selling all of my labels online. We are working on a site now.

What kind of people do you want to wear your clothes? On a related note, if you could dress any single person, living or dead, who would it be?

Someone who wants to wear something that one might ask, "What in the hell is that?!"

I sell to people who want to stand out in a good way. Someone not wanting the same old boring shit you see everywhere. Something that you can see someone has done by hand. Wearable art.

I have sold my work to a few celebrities but it doesn't interest me at all.

If I could design for any person, it would be Isabella Blow. She has passed. She was someone that loved avant-garde designers and wore them straight off the runway. Nothing really altered. She wore them as the designers envisioned.


Any final words?

Thank you for this opportunity. 

http://deadlinerecordings.tictail.com/

https://richardramirez.bandcamp.com/

NETMD- Dead Mall, 2005 Review

Vaporwave is, perhaps, the best example of exterior music. By this I mean that it's appeal lies not in the sounds that are presented to the listener, but in the imagery and ideas attached to the sounds. Some might call it conceptual, but because vaporwave acts don't normally offer much of a unified concept, I think that's somewhat erroneous.

Occasionally vaporwave albums will attach themselves to unified concepts, Housewares by 식료품groceries and most of the Dream Catalogue releases, for example. These conceptual albums never really sat well with me, though. Attaching a concept to the mostly shallow sound of vaporwave eliminates the ability for the mind to wonder.

Dead Mall, 2005, however, is an album that has managed to attach conception to vaporwave in the right way.

NETMD present a trip through a quiet, nigh-abandoned shopping mall. The sounds run the gamut from people talking, to distorted arcade noises, to remixed elevator music, to future funk. NETMD guide you through different locations in the mall, maintaining the ambiance through the use of constant, echoing footstep sounds.

The album's strength, of course, is not the sounds itself, but of the feelings they conjure. The concept is kept loose. Who was walking through this mall? Why are they there? Are the sounds of the mall imagined? What year is it?

I recommend this for listeners who want something to mull over, but don't expect much richness in sound.

Listen here.

Listen to this.

I've been radio silent for too long.

This post is simple, fantastic music that I'm currently enjoying and that I'd like to share. If you like anything you hear, please purchase it in some way. The underground needs you.


Serum Dreg- Impure Blood

Filthy, cavernous, reverb-drenched black/death. These arcane offerings truly capture something depraved and ugly about the human condition.

Winters In Osaka/Astro

Pulsing, cinematic urban ambient that blisters into a harsh noise assault. Equally influenced by American drone and Japanese noise. 

Bekëth Nexëhmü- De svarta riterna

Another excellent release from the prolific Ancient Records, the true lords of the underground. Beketh Nexehmu play very well produced anti-cosmic black metal. Submit to them.

Grav- Omhulda ondskans kretslopp

Another Ancient Records release. Fast, complex black metal with a hauntingly-beautiful clean guitar sound.

Funeral Parlor/Nihilarch split

A beautiful looking tape. Funeral Parlor's side is his trademark melancholy synth work. Nihilarch is much the same, only with a dose of power-electronics influence.

Niko Scorpio- Book of Flies Review

Niko Scorpio is a multidisciplinary artist from Finland, who works in the mediums of sound, photography, film, and dance. He's produced a metric shitload of experimental albums but this, as far as I know, is his only live work.

I was attracted to it based on its concepts, more specifically its packaging. Originally disclosed in 2004, Book of Flies was released in a hand-made addition of 13 copies, each housed in an ancient book, repainted for the new use.

I found this to be a remarkable joint abuse/embrace of the concept of seminal books, a statement, perhaps, of disparagement for the old and the dead.

I hoped dearly that the music would be as outstanding and interesting as the themes of the release. Fortunately, this ended up being the case. Book of Flies is a beautiful dark ambient piece chock full of dynamics and beauty.

It begins with the sound of wind, timeless like the speech of the old ones, synthesizer notes buried under the fogs. Electronic bleeps and bloops to remind us that this is, indeed music being made by a person. I found this section so relaxing and stimulating that, honestly, I forgot that I was supposed to be taking notes for a review.

Soon an organic, sensual rythm, played on what is presumably two rocks, joins in. The track begins to take shape around this rythm, synth lines and pure noise morphing into this pulsating, gyrating beast. It's truly hypnotic.

The song ends as it begins, with whisps of windy noise.

This is a good album to celebrate the death of an old regime, perhaps. Who knows, it might make you want to burn some books.

it can be found here

Cloudrap/Vaporwave/Oceangrunge/etc.

Recently I've spent some time reevaluating meme-music, basically anything that is primarily disseminated and consumed through the internet. This includes recent phenomenon like cloudrap, vaporwave, witchhouse, seapunk, oceangrunge, etc.

I originally put off this music as being either atonal oddities or boring attempts at anti-capitalist lampooning, but recently I've realized that it's fully capable of standing on its  own, a kind of dayglow, millennial cousin to 80s dark ambient.

 Below are some album recommendations. They might be completely obvious, but any music you haven't heard of is new music to you, I guess.

 $uicideboy$- I No Longer Fear the Razor Guarding My Heal 

One of the few cloud-rap albums that doesn't ape Yung Lean. There's real southern menace here. If these guys weren't totally crossfaded they'd slit your fucking throat.

 Oscob/Digital Sex- Overgrowth

Overgrowth is achingly brilliant, a naturalist, sample heavy work that's composition echoes Shoji Yamashiro's work on the Akira soundtrack.

Future Girlfriend- Pink Dance EP

Reverb soaked future funk, complete with anime samples.

DEIPHIX- The Pulser

The Pulser sits closer to noise than anything else on the list. Befitting of its title, its mostly made up of washes of sampled sound treated and coaxed into heavy, sludge metal rythms. I think this is what the kids call "oceangrunge."

Xavier Wulf- Project X

A little more aggressive and poppy than anything off of this list. Punk-inflected aggro hip hop with downtempo beats.

Valerian Springs- God Isn't Dead

Gorgeous, new-age influenced synths buried under thick ocean samples. Also ocean grunge.

Yung Fern- Offering

Picture Yung Lean inspired by a health dose of  Kierkegaard.

HENTAIBOYS- I AM ALONE

Bassy, catchy cloudtrap.

Do. Not. Sleep. On. Hentaiboys.

Striborg- "This Suffocating Existence" Review

Striborg, at its core, is meditation music. Melody and dynamics are forever pushed to the side in favor of pure atmosphere, creating a wall of sound designed to put listeners in a state.

The importance in Striborg's recorded material, the newest being This Suffocating Existence, lies not in its sound at all, but the effect it has on its listeners psyche. Because of this, I refuse to talk about the sounds themselves. That would be doing the band a disservice.

Instead, I will surmise, in one sentence, the spiritual effect This Suffocating Existence had on me during its run time.

Realizing Your Bones Will Soon Be At Home Among Dirt and Wood.

Here Is What You Should Listen To This Week

Self explanatory. 

4. Ad Nauseum/Funeral Parlor/Waves Crashing Piano Chords/MPHIAT/Contraktor

A fast-paced five way split between 5 very crucial acts of the modern avant-garde. Ad Nauseum is crunching, vaguely-martial power electronics with excellent vocals. Funeral Parlor offers haunting minor-key synth riffing. WCPC is more of the same potent microphone/amplifier perversion. MPHIAT is delightfully blackened, while Contraktor takes on static wall noise. 

Ad Nauseum, Funeral Parlor, and WCPC are the highlights of this split, but MPHIAT and Contraktor both bring some excellent sound.

Cop it here.

3. Limbs Bin/Sidetracked- Split

Two of the finest acts in modern fast music sharing a tape. Not much more you can ask for.

Sidetracked's side is excellent. They experiment with a kind of song cycle, a singular drone interspersed with powerviolence minitracks. It's refreshing. 

Cop it here

2. Spectre Eyes- Spectre Eyes

Spectre Eyes play minimalist, no-wave tinged Post-Rock in the vein of Swans or late-period Talk Talk.

The production is excellent, with a surprisingly clean guitar taking center stage.

Only for rainy days.

Cop it here

1. The Giant Worm- Castings

This is a bit of an odd one out.

The Giant Worm is firmly indebted to the old school of avant-garde, the Beat Poets, The Fluxus, etc.

Castings is an album of improvisational spoken word set to improvisational music yet, somehow, it sounds cohesive and intentional.

Cop it here

From The Vault- Racetraitor "Burn The Idol Of The White Messiah"

In the 90s, hardcore kids embraced eco-terrorism, veganism, abrahamic religion, and an opposition to sex for anything other than procreation. Bands like Killtheslavemaster, Vegan Reich, and Repentance all espoused hardline positions.

Destroy Babylon was the main hardline publication, its main topics being the murder of hunters, abstinence from sex, and spirituality.

Of course, this was all hilarious and hopelessly naive, and a good example of the circular nature of ideology. Become too steeped in your beliefs and you will begin to deny the humanity of anyone who opposes you. 

A lot of these bands were pretty atrocious musically but Racetraitor, from Chicago were actually really good. Burn The Idol Of The White Messiah is their best release.

Most of it is heavy, sludgy, death metal-tinged hardcore, but there are a few left-hooks.

The whole thing is on youtube. Start here.

Monthly Mix

Made a mixtape. Check it out.

The Rita/Herukrat- "Red Imprint From Ankle Ribbon"

The Rita and Herukrat are perfect partners in noisemaking, mostly because any small detail they focus on, either thematically or musically, is explored to the point of total obsession. 

This quality is magnified 100x on Red Imprint From Ankle Ribbon, an album that explores the physicality of ballet dancing and its relation to the female form in nauseating detail. 

The album begins with the track Ludmila Semenyaka, named after a Soviet prima ballerina. Appropriately, it begins with a sample of live ballet, presumably recorded in the 1950s. The sound slowly degrades into a dynamic, shifting wall of noise. It eventually solidifies into pure static before morphing into something with a subtle industrial rythm.

The song made me feel like I was hiding beneath the floor of a stage, listening to the shoes of the dancers are strike above me in unison. 

Woman on Beach With Head Turned is another obsessively erotic examination of a small moment, in this case a woman lounging on the beach.

The track itself is mostly a static noise wall, droney and filled with bass, occasionally broken up by samples of a female voice.

The title  track turns down the obsessiveness and turns up the beauty. It is soft and ambient. Vocals are also sampled, but this time it sounds like children singing. Absolutely chilling.

The Rita and Herukrat have managed to craft an art piece that both unifies and magnifies their individual thematic and musical preoccupations. Fantastic.

9/10. 

buy here

This week's favorites

Hello everyone. Excuse the lack of posts. I've been hired to write a book. Also, I just had knee surgery.

So I've been a little bit less than lucid. Hopefully this post makes sense when I reread it in an hour or so.


Here are things that I've really enjoyed this week.

1. Breathing

2. Space Machine- Cosmos From Diode Ladder Filter LP

Cosmos From Diode Ladder Filter, the only LP from Masonna side-project Space Machine, is a soothing, retro bit of analog synth doodling. It sounds like the inner workings of a spaceship from a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. It's a piece of work far removed from Yamazaki's mostly-harsh output and, as a result, is a refreshing hidden gem.

It's long out of print but it is on Youtube. Listen to it here

3. IE Selvedge Coat

For when you really want to look like a homeless logic professor, this is the coat for you.

Ah, I kid, I kid. This is actually quite a lovely piece. I'm very small so it fits my frame quite well. I can't wait to wear it often enough to get it dirty.

It's only available at Layers in London. Cop it if you're in the area.

4. 

A brilliant history of one of the most imaginative and influential political movements of our time. Definitely worth a read.

Also, if you're a "true" situationist, you'll wrap this book in sandpaper before you put it on the shelf.

5. MSBR 7" + Sculpture

Unfortunately there is no photograph of this release on the internet and I am in no position to go get it off my shelf and photograph it myself.

With that said, this release by MSBR, psuedonym of late noise figurehead Koji Tano, is something you should see for yourself. It's literally a 7 inch attached to a spring and a piece of wood. It's whimsical, silly, and very fluxus. It'll look nice on your coffee table and will annihilate your turntable.

Weird Japan

Check out this two part mixtape I made of weird Japanese music.

Featuring Lemon's Chair, Tokyo Shoegaze and a lot of others.

Part 1 here

Part 2 here

Waves Crashing Piano Chords- I Can't Get The Taste Off My Tongue

Common adjectives used to describe Waves Crashing Piano Chords include depraved, perverted, degenerate, corrupt, and prurient.

All of these adjectives are, for this release, outdated.

These adjectives belong to the Waves Crashing Piano Chords that crashed shows in Rochester and fucked up his knee. Those adjectives belonged to the Waves Crashing Piano Chords that made fantastic, but still relatively simple blasts of frentic, physical noise.

I Can't Get The Taste Off My Tongue maintains these characteristics, but the tone produced by the typical microphone/amp/voice feedback is so processed and dynamic that it sounds like something else entirely. Feedback chits and chatters into a beat-like musique concrete. 

The speed seems to change throughout the recording, with washes of Merzbow, table-top static brushing through the speakers. 

The quiet parts are creeping little dirges. Rumbling feedback and distorted heavy breathing add a familiar sense of sexual desperation. 

The song ends like an android drowning, a high scream crumbling into distortion.

This is perhaps his best work. I truly implore you to purchase this album. One of my favorite non-LP releases of the year.

Cop the one-sided 7" here.

Check out this ancient Current 93 Interview

Check out this rather ancient Current 93 interview. Tibet is in top form here. Check out that spooky vhs degradation!

April Favorites

I really enjoy using this blog to promote things that might not otherwise be promoted, to give artists a chance to flourish. I think that's one of the most important things about the blogging format.

I'm going to be doing monthly segments basically listing the things that I am currently enjoying, whether it be music, books, fashion, food, etc., in hopes that someone will go out and support these creators.

With that said, let's get started.

1. JML & Tanner Garza- Desired Constellation

A psychoactive, organic collaboration between two of experimental musics most vital artists. Dripping synths and subtle samples collide with metallic drone and found sounds. Surprisingly melodic. Cop it here.

2. Brian Green's Singing Bowl Meditation Music 

Brian Green is a renaissance man. A prolific sound artist, photographer, poet, and painter, I really enjoy knowing that Green is out there wondering, making beautiful things.

He has produced a significant amount of singing bowl music, perfect for meditation but still maintaining that dreamy, melancholy Brian Green sound.

I've recently decided to meditate daily. This music is very effective in setting the mood.

3. Handsome Boy Pilot: A Queer Space Zine

A collection of space themed writing and art by queers. All of it is fantastic, but I'd like to point out the contribution of Gregory William.

William is a rather disturbing cut up writer from New Orleans whose obsession with psychic process has manipulated his work into piece of tense, scatological beauty. 

Handsome Boy Pilot contains some of his visual collages. I strongly suggest you pick it up as I have the feeling that William will make quite the literary impact, or at least will turn some heads.

Cop it  here

4. Blackfist

A clothing label founded, owned, and operated by Bradley Soileau (the guy in those Lana Del Rey videos). His clothes embrace illness, punk, high fashion, and collage culture and, as a result, are all form-fitting, vaguely-magical objects. Perfect if summer makes you sad.

5. Ocean Grunge

Ocean grunge is a rather-baffling, internet-centric musical and aesthetic movement that combines the themes of adolescent angst present in nu-metal with grainy pictures of the ocean and vaporwave-tinged drone music.

It's hopelessly 2015 and I support the new. I also support anything that is meditative and trance inspiring, which is what oceangrunge is.

Check it out here.

The new Dicks From Mars Album Will Wreck Your Shit (And Maybe Raid Your Fridge)

I'm a big believer in greasy stoners with torn clothes crawling over cheap equipment making an ungodly racket. It's basically the backbone of what I write about. It's kind of our thing. So when I find a band that really takes that formula and knocks it out of the park, I get really, really hype. 

Dicks From Mars, two teenagers coming all the way from Perdido Florida, are a band that I am more than willing to get hype over. Their second album, appropriately titled Harder, captures the heyday of American hardcore in not only sound, but energy, harnessing whatever mad half-angst, half-rage je ne se quiois that made all of those bands while still giving the genre a good kick in the ass. 

Harder isn't what anybody would call a masterfully produced album, but I've always been a sucker for blown-out, fuzzy records. It adds charm. It's tinny, a little loud, but it does its job. The music slides between a Minor Threat/State of Alert/Bad Brains style of breakneck punk rock and Dead Milkmen melodic punk n' roll with wild abandon. 

"That Kid" is a highlight, a classic sounding punk track that conjures the best of The Damned. It has a motherfucking guitar solo. What happened to guitar solos in punk? They seem to have disappeared along with what was left of Rick ta Life's sanity. 

"DFM PSA" is hilarious, a mid-album Public Service Announcement decrying sell-outs and people who don't want to sell-out in equal measure. 

It's not all jaunty punk though. "Minor Dicks" is exactly what you'd think it is, a dope Minor Threat cover. "Childhood" is nearly heavy enough to be crossover thrash. 

The album is short, punchy, and it left me wanting more. I live near these thrashers and that makes pretty nervous. Anyone that makes this music must be a bit of a scumbag. The last thing I need is to come home and find two teenagers stealing my synthesizers or something. 

 you can stream it here: dicksfrommars.bandcamp.com/releases

Kvlt of Personality Interviews: Justin Marc Lloyd

Justin Marc Lloyd is an iconclast. From his home base in Chicago, he heads Rainbow Bridge records, a label that pumps out always-fantastic noise/experimental music at an alarming rate. He's involved in a lot of these projects himself, working under his own name or as Pregnant Spore or Copkiller. He's colorful with aesthetics, both personal and with his label. Tapes, CD's, lathe cuts, splashed with color, glitter, stickers, and the occasional drawing. What's most notable about Justin is just how little he gives a shit. He creates for himself, and he wouldn't have it any other way. I talked to him about his creative process, his music, and his great clothes.

First off, why noise?

Noise is music just like punk and pop and rap is music. Noise is just a more experimental and/or "avant-garde" approach to making it. It's outsider music. And while there are multiple definitions for that term, I mean it in the context of the music (art) that has no place in society, really. I exists on the fringes, in the depths, underneath and above. And really, anything can be combined with it. Although I like many times of music, noise is...well, there are not really words that I can put this in. I just love it. I'm obsessed with it, fascinated by it, inspired and moved by it. I love experimenting and making this kind of music. I love to improvise and I love to write performable compositions, all while having the freedom to improvise within my sets of boundaries, if any. I feel as if I'm an outsider of sorts. I don't fit anywhere within any sort of mainstream culture or subculture. I am not against them by any means, but I've been an outcast my entire life. Even in elementary school, I was too different to have really good friends. Noise seems as if it's a reflection of that, or a manifestation of what it was like growing up like that.

You are and have been involved in a ton of different projects, some avant-garde and experimental and some traditionally musical. Do you make any distinction between these kinds of expression, or does it all come from the same place?

I answered that a bit in the last paragraph, but I'd like to add that it basically all comes from the same place for me. In fact, some more traditional music is often a huge inspiration for me to create much weirder, more "new age" music. I can also say that it is usually some sort of, internal voice that nudges me in the direction of a project. Sometimes I have a particular itching to dive into a certain process or mood and that can sometimes mean putting away the electronics and getting out the acoustic guitar. Or perhaps making electronic dance music with computer software. It all sounds like me, to my ears. They are all different ways of expressing similar views, with the exception of some of the concept projects that are fueled by mindsets that I do not necessarily have.

You play shows quite often. What projects do you exhibit publicly the most and how do you feel that your noise stands out from the others?  

 I don't play as many shows as I used to, and it has been my doing.I was over-playing, and getting too emotionally involved with possible unplanned failures. As I've been learning to be more internal and self-centered (and self-aware) when playing (and recording), I've become more open to playing again. When I play, it's almost ALWAYS as myself  (Justin Marc Lloyd, or JML) or the pseudonym Pregnant Spore. That is primarily an electronics/electro/acoustic/tape music endeavor. Sometimes with vocals or guitar.

Your imagery, both in the way you dress and the artwork on the music you release is very colorful. How much of this is a conscious attempt to stand out against to stand out against the very dour, black/white noise scene. Do you ever get flack from noisebros?

Standing out is not a goal nor something I'm concerned with. Naturally, in a lot of facets, I happen to stand out quite a bit. But it is only the result of me doing what feels good, what represents me on the inside, and how I feel organic and natural. To be honest, standing out a lot tends to make me feel a little uncomfortable and anxious. But I don't want to let that determine how open and real I am with the world and myself. I do get a lot of crap from people in this community and beyond. There are definitely a lot of artists and listeners with that harsh noise aesthetic around me that talk shit to their friends or on message boards and Facebook or whatever. I happen upon a forum or Facebook threads once in a while where someone has decided to mention my name and associate me with something silly, or they make fun of things I am actually associated with. The thing is, that is totally separate from me. Those behaviors are decisions that other people have made and they have no bearing on me or what I do.

It is disappointing to see people  getting into noise and immediately latching onto the elements they think they are supposed to latch on to in order to be really involved. I see people starting labels and  I see people starting labels and immediately focusing all of their artwork and messages on the cliche stuff. I’ve had labels send me artwork they wanted to present for a release as mine, riddled in collaged BDSM porn, mangled bodies, etc. So it’s kind of a formula that is common, and a lot of people just sort of assume all of us noise-heads are into representing our work with that subject matter or art style. It doesn’t matter though. As time goes on, people find their niche.

You’re very, very prolific. What motivates you to keep making art? Does inspiration every stop flowing?

It is rare that inspiration stops flowing. Whatever is motivating me has got to be biological and/or spiritual. It’s like a thirst. If I don’t quench it every day, I sometimes feel clouded and frustrated. I certainly don’t record every day, but I likely play or create music in some form every day. Even if it is just making some field recordings while I’m on the go.

You run a label, Rainbow Bridge Recordings, with a discography a mile long. How does quality control come into play when picking noise to release?

Well, there is high quality control. Like a lot of people first starting a label, you’re  to even be contacted by anyone who wants their music on your label. I know a lot of those people are just looking for hand-outs, but gaining interest is a hard thing in this scene so it’s usually an honor to be sought out. However, in the past few years, I haven’t really taken or considered many submissions. I have a few friends I usually say yes to if they ask me to put something out because we are close. Other than that, I am usually seeking out the artist myself.

Do you see yourself as a sound artist or as a musician? Is there a difference?

No difference.

What music, noise or otherwise, are you currently enjoying?

I’m always enjoying trance, forms and offshoots of traditional emo (Suis La Lune, Mineral, Boys Life, Angel Hair, etc.), black metal, death metal, new wave, no wave, kraut-rock, ambient, rap, grind, power violence… I don’t really discriminate. I think bands suck, not genres. Except for male-fronted pop-country.

What bands are you involved in right now? What releases can we expect?

I am actually not involved in any bands besides some improvisational collaborations between friends and I. I am going nuts not having a band, though. I am likely going to start playing drums for this crust band once I get my drum set together. I recently picked it up from MD and I’m missing about half of what I’d need to play. I am also looking around for people to play music with so I can play my guitar and handle some vocal duties. My old band Age Sixteen is finally coming out with an LP re-issue of our first full-length and our songs from a split. The band has been broken up for a few years but there is a label in Italy who really enjoyed our music and they want to put it out. It’s really cool. I can’t wait.


Any final words?

Thank you so much for your interest in what I have to say, and your support of my work and thecommunity in general. Let me know if I can help support this publication in any other way! Peace.



http://www.ifitmoveskissit.net/

http://rainbowbridge.bandcamp.com/

A Kvlt of Personality Interviews: Josh Doughty

Josh Doughty, based somewhere in the sticky, heatblown city of Houston Texas, is a big believer in noise for its own sake.

Besides heading experimental audio entities Funeral Parlor and Female Pedophile, Josh  co-runs  Dumpster Noise Records, a tape label that puts out a handful of limited releases each year. 

When he's not making noise, he's writing about it, running Axisflowers, a blog dedicated to reviewing the best of the underground.

Because of these excursions, he's gained some clout in the noise underground, a position that makes his regular use of controversial themes, overtly sexual and violent album art, the name "Female Pedophile,"etc., all the more unnerving. Not that it matters to him. Noise for its own sake, remember?

The following text is a transcription of an interview I conducted with Mr. Doughty.

Much like my Kim Carlsson interview, this interview was conducted many months ago, but a certain publisher dipped out on actually putting it out.

Hello, Josh. How are you?

Good. The Christmas season is over along with the travelling. 

Why noise?

I have tampered/listened to a lot of genres and noise seems like a genre that yields a lot of innovation and creativity. I am constantly challenging myself. It's easy to get started and you don't have to necessarily be musically inclined to make noise. Seems like a smart choice. 

I previously reviewed "The Brocks," a Female Pedophile album. I wrote about its compositional strength, how it sounded unified and dynamic. What kind of role does structure play in your noise?

Thank you for the review, by the way! I believe structure can make or break a project. Why? It separates one from the endless sprawl of projects day in and day out. With that being said, it can be good and bad. Good if you have your own structure for writing purposes. Bad if you end up sounding like everything else. 

What's the future for Female Pedophile? Any new releases?         

There are quite a few things in the works for the project in the upcoming year. I won't spoil anything, but lately I have been looking for projects of different genres to collaborate with. My idea of something different perhaps. Hopefully slow down on releases and play a few shows throughout the year. 

You also head Funeral Parlor, which sounds, at least to me, a little bit less depraved than Female Pedophile. What does Funeral Parlor offer you that Female Pedophile does not?  

Funeral Parlor does not offer much social awareness like Female Pedophile does. Funeral Parlor is much more intimate. Some songs are warm. Some are very depressing, or perhaps depraved. Funeral Parlor incorporates synths and a lot of experimentation. 

What is Dumpster Noise? Whose music do you release? What is your goal in disseminating these works?   

Dumpster Noise is a tape label originally made to release our (Garbage Mask, Funeral Parlor, The Hague, and Female Pedophile) tapes and it seems to have lifted off of the dirty floor we lived in afterwards. 

We release what we like, not what we should like. We just want our home for these tapes and for people to give these projects a listen. Best-case scenario: you have something new to jam. Worst case scenario:you have a new tape to dub over. 

What are your non-musical influences for your work?   

Me personally? Nature, sex, finality. 

The aesthetic for Dumpster Noise releases is very uniform. Lots of monochrome and disturbing imagery. Do you think noise has room for more positivity?  

I never saw it as uniform. I guess it just worked out that way. It may be that everyone chose their own artwork (minus one release). I think the monochrome stuff is because it was cheaper to print ink without color. 

I think noise has the potential to do anything. Noise is definitely bigger than us. Noise breeds off awareness and I think that is a very positive thing.   

If you could pick two upcoming Dumpster Noise releases that you're most excited about, what are they and why did you pick them?

There is only one release coming out that I am aware of and that is the Dumpster City Vol. 2 Compilation. This will be two hours worth of new and established experimental projects. This sold out in the first hour so we are making a large-scale run for this particular release.

Any final words? 

Just thank you for the interview and be on the lookout for new releases from all projects stated above and that I wish everyone a bright and safe new year. 

Kvlt of Personality Interviews: Kim Carlsson

Kim Carlsson probably wants you to die.

Through his various musical projects: Lifelover, Hypothermia, Kall, Horns Emerging, and RitualMord, Carlsson has wanted you to know the depths of your own suffering, the pointlessness of your existence.

I interviewed him several months ago, an interview that was never published. 

Here is the interview. I removed any questions pertaining to outdated information, tours, etc.

First of all, let’s talk about the new Hypothermia album. What can you tell us about it? 

t's a conceptual album as usual, this time spread out across two albums, where the first one naturally leads one to the second, as an initiate in a ceremony. It's in its entirety not only some of the most beautiful music composed in years but also some of the most raw and primal.

The band has had a slew of releases since 2005, what do you want this new album to offer listeners that the others did not?

In the beginning I felt it was important to create a foundation with its roots in the old to clearly and honestly portrait the evolution of something spiritually distant from the physical realm. Every album is a tool for a purpose which will depend on the user. Just like you won't build your walls with a brush you won't paint them with a hammer. Each ritual and its task has their time and place.

Does Hypothermia have a message that it wants to impart to its listeners?

There is so much more than that, which is something that we expand upon in upcoming video-interviews and manifestos that will follow the videos that will be recorded for some new and old songs. We come to share the truth that is unquestionable and without shape, but very clear to those who may see or sense it.

As far as live shows go, you’re very intense. I saw Lifelover in Berlin in 2009. You appeared to cut your arms, gyrated around, basically went crazy. Yet, so far, you’ve been nothing but normal, nice and polite. How far away do you place your stage life from your normal, day-to-day existence? 

I didn't have any sharp objects on me during that trip due to airports discarding them, while we had some other sources of blood that week. I consider self-mutilation as a meditative cleansing-ritual, thus it's not something I do on stage anymore. Concerning the rest I'd say that something like standing near a microphone stand or leaning towards monitors gets boring rather quickly, so it would only be crazy to keep doing something that would be that uninteresting to do and look at, so of course I move around a bit in whichever direction the sound takes me. Makes sense, right? Usually I behave just the same way when we rehearse or record with any of the bands as it is what feels appropriate while doing another honest expression, the rest simply comes along. I'm nice and polite towards those who deserve it as long as they do, and simply whatever else deemed necessary towards others. As you know with any individual scenario calling for its individual method of action. The biggest difference with my day-to-day existence is that when I don't work with art, be it audial or visual, I can count on one hand how many people I see, meet or talk to in a week or sometimes a month. Or rather, on my travel to meet the rest of either Hypothermia or Kall I will see more people in a day than I do during a month where I live. I require silence and a calm surrounding to be able to exist and create, which I consider far more important than anything required of me to not create, so the majority of things this world is and has that relates to that aspect of life is something that I avoid and distance myself from. To summarize, my life as an artist is not far removed from the stage regardless of where it takes place, while my life as a person is something completely removed from the majority of what you may consider humanity.

To segway from Hypothermia, you’ve been involved in several other projects, Horns Emerging, Ritualmord, etc., over the years. Which ones are still active?

I participate in various projects or other bands when there is something different that is necessary to be expressed through me. At the moment I can't say much about which are or will be active in the coming years as that depends a lot not only on the time I got to deal with those things but also the amount of time and effort that the guest-musicians have for these visions, which I rather let take the time they need to create something useful and pleasing rather than something rushed. Also as time passes some of the

visions that started out as something very specific grows over the years into something else while the other bands keep evolving and to some extent receive some ideas that eventually fits with one concept or another, while some projects just lie in wait, to find their way out in the world when the time is right.

Besides your music, you’re also a very prolific painter. Have you always expressed yourself in this way?

It's always been in and around me, but it took many years until I started to find my own way to express myself visually. After all there are so many things that not only can, but needs to be expressed without words. And learning a new language and to express yourself through it is one thing, while mastering it is quite another.

These paintings often use organic materials like blood and milk. Why is this? 

I cannot think of anything more suitable than something that lives and dies. Every organic material got its different natural properties intact which is something that also gives different results and purposes depending on the state of the liquid. It doesn't only affect the color-spectrum of each liquid but also how it blends and interacts with other liquids, as well as the order those different liquids are used makes vast differences.

To wind things down, what music are you currently listening to? Anything new you would recommend?


As we're getting closer to our next recordings it's what is in my head most of the time when I don't open the window to listen to the fields and woods outside. Besides the debut album by "Kall", I'd recommend this years offering by Ill Omen.

Any final words?

Respect the silence and submit to it.

Action Pollock- "Songs of Hope" Review

I've always been attracted to avant-garde music made by people that can actually play. 

There's something about someone with obvious musical talent deciding to abandon any and all preconceived notions about music and just make whatever holy-hell racket they want that makes experimental music better. For example, Duchamp's Fountain wouldn't be nearly as interesting if he hadn't already done Father. 

Action Pollock, a sound-art group from New York, clearly have the ability to play. Their abilities, hinted at on the first track of the album and then fully explored on the second, are well above par. This makes the subversive qualities of the album, the drone, the noise elements, all the more interesting.

Songs of Hope is two tracks long, clocking in at just over half an hour. These are long songs, ladies and gentlemen.

The first track, "Songs of Hope," is a 22 minute ambient drone. Unlike a lot of music in the genre, it continuously kept my attention. It accomplished this by having absolutely brilliant textures. The track begins with a grinding, Swans-esque tone with buried guitar feedback. It has a certain musicality, a certain softness. Eventually notes start to take shape as a repetitive, cloudy pattern. This pattern degrades into a noise-break very similar to Metal Machine Music. Not a bad choice. I've always found that album to be immensely uplifting.

Make no mistake, this is a very happy, ecstatic record, one that spits in the face of the melancholy, self-seriousness of the experimental music scene. It's also very much informed by the city of New York. It seems to capture its vibe, its nooks and crannies, waking up at 5 in the morning and smoking a cigarette by the Hudson. It's nice, comforting.

The second track, "Blacked and Blue,"  is much more overtly musical, a post-rock, ambient guitar jam reminiscent of something like Explosions in The Sky or Angels and Airwaves. It has some subtle middle eastern rhythms that give the track a sense of uniqueness. It sounds triumphant, victorious.
This record is a beautifully-textured piece of happy-ambient. Highly recommended.

Darkwave/Noise mix

Made a mixtape of stuff I've been listening to.

Tracks are, in order:

Var- No One Dances Quite Like My Brothers

Puce Mary- Ultimate Hypocrisy

Prurient- Life Magazine (remix)

Poete Maudit- It is Difficult To Free People From The Chains They Revere

Pharmakon- Autoimmune

Justin Marc Lloyd- Thousands of Protons

Lust for Youth- Behind Curtains

Genocide Organ- God Sent Us!

Yoko Ono and... review

To celebrate her 82nd birthday, Yoko Ono has released two collaborative tracks, one with Antony Hegarty, of Antony and the Johnson's, and John Zorn, prolific avant-garde composer.

I'm quite the Yoko Ono fan. I think she's a brilliant conceptualist with a brilliant energy and that makes up for more than her lack of musicality.

I think she's at her most interesting when she is paired with excellent musicians, that way her avant-garde actions are tempered with a strength of sound. That's why that Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band album was so fantastic.

I don't think she could have chosen better co-conspirators for these collaborations. Antony Hegarty is an art-pop genius with a crystaline voice and Zorn bleeds the New York school of avant-garde with nearly every note, the scene that Yoko herself helped develop.

Her collaboration with Zorn is one, three-minute track containing Yoko's primal-screaming and Zorn's honking, skrnoking, screaming Kaoru Abe-esque saxaphone. The audio is taken from a 2012 live show at the Greene Space.

The Ono/Hegarty collaboration is two tracks. One is a duet of Ono's 1985 track "I Love You Earth," while the other is Antony's solo rendition of Ono's "I'm Going Away Smiling."

Their rendition of "I Love you Earth" is a starkly beautiful, wistful piece. Antony plays a booming, opulent piano lead while trading off verses with Yoko. The lyrics are particularly beautiful, describing a person so in love with Earth and infinity that they "have to scream about it."

"I'm Going Away Smiling" sounds like an epitaph and, with Yoko's advancing age, it very well might be. Antony plays a stark, cinematic piano part. It's very, very emotional stuff. A perfect tribute for Yoko and her life and accomplishments.



I'm hoping that isn't true, because, love her or despise her, Yoko Ono is a beacon for women in the avant-garde and I don't think the world would be the same without her.

Jonny Greenwood

Jonny Greenwood is a person gifted with the ability to hit something very hard and to come out with understated, fragile results.

I think that's every artist's dream, to swing a big bag of emotions at the very brittle wood of an artistic medium and make something more than splinters.

These are my  favorite things that he has been involved in. Only one Radiohead record will be on the list. They are presented in no particular order of enjoyment

5. Popcorn Superhet Receiver 

This track, written for the BBC Concert Orchestra, sounds like if La Monte Young was given access to synthesizers during his drone phase and possessed an in depth knowledge of Stravinsky and Disney music.

4. Bodysong score

Greenwood wrote the score for a 2003 documentary about the human condition in film. Just like the films topic, the music is heavy stuff. Surprisingly intense art-rock inflected with ethiopian music and jazz. He really tries to capture as much of the music of the world as he can in the small amount of time while still effectively maintaining musical craft.



3. 48 Responses To Polymorphia

This is a collaborative work with legendary composer Krzysztof Penderecki. Early chords are so, so Radiohead, but eventually the piece moves towards Polish classical territory.




2. Kid A

Strobe Lights and Blown Speakers

Fireworks and Hurricanes






1. There Will Be Blood Score

There Will Be Blood is a work of genius, a haunting tale filled with moral tension and stark beauty. The soundtrack reflects this with amazing passion and accuracy and with it Greenwood stepped into his own as a composer. This soundtrack is just beautifully finished. It feels rounded, whole, somehow perfect.

Scab Addict- "Lo-Fi Deep Space Power Electronics (Demo)" Review

I really, really hope that deep space/alien-themed power electronics becomes a trend. 

Bondage and sexual violence has become a cliche, vaporwave was naught but a dot on the map, but the deep blackness of space, now that has potential. What's more frightening, more uncomfortable, than the unforgiving, ethereal blackness of deep space, an expanse in which we cannot live but is creeping just outside the thin, crumbling shell of our atmosphere.

Scab Addict, an exceedingly prolific noisegrind/power electronics outfit from Ithaca, have done their best to capture this kind of dread and, for the most part, they've succeeded. 

These tracks are all very short, most of them clocking in at just over a minute, but they're so rhythmic and layered that they never quite feel that short. It's clear that there was some thought put into the noise presented here. 

The first track, Space Born/Earth Buried is a jittery, stop/start piece with what sounds like screamed vocals buried deep in the mix, though that could just be a particularly human-sounding pedal. 

There is a certain alien quality to tracks three and four, a kind of sharp, flanger synthesizer effect. It conjures images of abduction and probing, cold, totally unfamiliar physical spaces and medical examination. 

The fourth track, Space Born/ Earth Buried Pt. 2, is a highlight, a fast-moving, rythmic track with some horrified vocals. Waves of static engulf the rhythm.






This album lacks some, well, oomph in the recordings, but, being a demo, that's kind of expected.

I'd like to see this demo splinter off into its own band. The themes and ideas displayed here have lots of potential. They deserve a full album.

And, to anyone reading this who has a power electronics/noise project, start thinking about space. It is, indeed, the place.