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.

Now Showing- Masonna live at BEARS

Masonna, the noise project of Yamazi Maso, turned 25 years old in 2012. 

Yes, yes. Surpising, I know. Maso's performances are so high octane and violent that it's surprising he hasn't cracked his skull open jumping off of an amplifier or throwing himself at a member of the audience.

In celebration of his miraculous quarter of a century survival, Maso played a show in Osaka.

It lasted about two minutes.

Maso thrashed around a bit, made a hell of a racket, and then threw a few punches at an audience member before leaving out the back door.

Utterly brilliant. Exactly the level of confrontation that noise is lacking right now. 

Check it out below.

Scab Addict- "Otoobach Muehl" Review

Noise comes from two camps.

1. The intellectual, dada camp inspired by the likes of Merzbow and The Velvet Underground.

2. The very harsh, very confrontational camp, inspired by Boyd Rice. Often embraces controversial and sexually violent content.

I think noisegrinders Scab Addict, with their newest full length Otoobach Muehl, manage to straddle both camps with a good degree of skill.

This album is inspired by internet personality Otoobach, who reviews horrific, disturbing films, and Otto Muehl, a Viennese actionist famous for his sexually violent scenes and his role in founding the Friedrichschof Commune. 

For Each song on the record, Scab Addict takes a sample from Otoobach, normally about sexually deviancy and bodily fluids, and envelopes it in some of the haziest, most ferocious noisegrind I've ever had the pleasure (?) of hearing. 

It's hard to explain exactly what the music on the album sounds like, except that this is what I imagine Moloch sounds like. It is the sounds of tormented, hopeless, malevolent industrialism. Truly hellish. 

I laughed at several of the samples throughout this album, but the music is so creeping and hateful that I ended up feeling a lot of mixed emotions. If you like your humor as black as you can possibly be, this is an album for you. 

One track actually made me gag. Thirty one seconds of vaginal sipping and cybergrind flailing. 

The drums on this album are deserving of note. The kick drums come in as subdural bass drones, while the snare and symbols are incredibly high pitched and fast. I'm not sure what is an actual drum kit or what is electronic but it works just the same.

If I could offer any critique I would say that the album is a couple tracks too long. Noisegrind does not exactly leave room for variety, so keeping records brief preserves their punch and stops the listener from getting bored with the material.

Give this a listen if you'd like too laugh and maybe throw up.

8/10.

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Otoobach

New music.

Hello, everyone. It's been a while since I've posted here. An opportunity to pursue an Ivy League education has presented itself so I've been busy with my studies. Not that anything worth knowing can be taught...

I've fallen in love with music once more. I'm slowly learning to read music, which I'm hoping will aid the creation of some electro-acoustic works I've been thinking of making for a while. Because of this renewed interest, I've been listening to a lot more music, mostly ambient and avant-classical.

Since I know all of you are on the hunt for new music, these are some of the albums I've been listening to. They really deserve your attention.

1. Periskop- Dubworks 4

Helmed by a Dane with an obsession with submarines, Periskop makes dub-inflected techno and  power electronics/ambient made with submarine samples, depending on the album. There are 28 of them, by the way. All of them submarine themed. All of them beautiful. Periskop 4 is firmly on the techno side of things, if someone played a Burial record through four delay pedals in a box in the ocean. 

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2. Nagaal and Carl Mitchell- Improvisations I & II

A collaboration between avant ambient duo Nagaal and tenor sax player Carl Mitchell, this album is a beautiful piece of cosmic drone/jazz that manages to conjure the best of both Velvet Caccoon and modal-era John Coltrane at the same time. Near perfect.

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3. BBLV- Simsulvations: Lvng Lrg EP

I can only hope that this is where music is going. Music from how-to-type software mingling with Stravinsky's ghost in the hollow shell of a violin in a junkyard staffed by robots. 

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3. Cisfinitum- Rejection From Sympathy

Helldrone from Russia. Dada shot full of holes, left bleeding by European degradation. 

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EON-dimness rituals

Harsh Noise walls are a very difficult thing to write about. They are simply one or two static notes repeated until the recording is over.

Because of this, HNW releases are (1) dependent on imagery to carry across a particular message, (2) are impossible to differentiate (3) pointless to bother writing about.

 I will not be reviewing any HNW tapes. You know what this is. You understand what you've gotten yourself into. You don't need my opinion on this time of music.

With that said, you should check out this release by EON. Good stuff. Very analog.

Yukio Mishima- Top 5 works

If anything should define Yukio Mishima, it should be his commitment to casting a literary eye on cognitive dissonance. The everyday agony that people face when confronted with the knowledge that the human psyche is capable of holding two contrary beliefs at once. This was more than present in his life. A man who was dedicated to both poetry and violence, traditional Japanese art and avant-garde theorizing, beauty and decay. He was, to say the least, complicated. All of his written work reflect this, each one taut, stark masterpieces filled with both the classical, ethereal beauty and the brutality that he was so enamored with.

These are my top five, in no particular order. 

5. Sun and Steel

Sun and Steel is a long, autobiographical essay about Mishima's relationship with his body.

It's fascinating. He describes his powerful physique as something to be both admired and detested. 

One particular paragraph that stands out to me, in reference to Mishima's  body, was this. 

“If my self was my dwelling, then my body resembled an orchard that surrounded it. I could either cultivate that orchard to its capacity or leave it for the weeds to run riot in. I was free to choose, but the freedom was not as obvious as it might seem. Many people, indeed, go so far as to refer to the orchards of their dwellings as “destiny.”

4. Kyoko's House 

Kyoko's House is perhaps the most semi-autobiographical out of all of Mishima's fiction. It follows the interconnected stories of four young men, a boxer, a painter, an actor, and a businessman. It's safe to assume that these characters represent the different sides of Mishima's personality, and that makes the businessman character so terrifying. He is the total nihilist, holding contempt for absolutely all life. If he is indeed meant to represent Mishima in some way, this adds another  facet to his, already-troubled, psyche. 

3. Five Modern Noh Plays

These five works are testaments to Mishima's ability to honor traditional Japanese art forms without ever feeling constrained by them. A Noh is a classical musical drama, often based on repetitious fables and folklore. Mishima takes these bits of folklore and updates them to a modern setting while forgoing the structure of the Noh play. It's an interesting effect. The second play, The Damasck Drum, is a highlight. The story centers around a particularly cruel, horrifying trick on an old man. 

2. The Sailor Who Feel From Grace With The Sea

This novel will probably be the most familiar Mishima work to Western readers, as it was quite popular. It tells the tale of Ryuji, Fusako, and Noboro, and the horror of Nihilism acted out.

1. The Temple of The Golden Pavilion

If you read one Yukio Mishima novel, it has to be this one. An absolute masterpiece of the written word.

It details the life of young Buddhist acolyte Mizogouchi as he contemplates the efficacy of symbols and the horrible pain of beauty.

I'll leave you with this quote.

“Beauty is like a decayed tooth. It rubs against one’s tongue, it hangs there, hurting, insisting on its own existence. Finally it gets so that one cannot stand the pain and one goes to the dentist to have the tooth extracted. Then, as one looks at the small, dirty, brown, blood-stained tooth lying in one’s hand, one’s thoughts are likely to be as follows: ‘Is this it? Is this all it was?’

Sperm- Yahweh brings us to this hell

One of the things that make it so exciting to be a music fan is the ever-present possibility that you might stumble on some hidden gem, something that few people of heard hat really resonates with you in some way. There's few things better than blind buying music, and it turning out to be a favorite.

And, what's more, it can happen anywhere! I learned that last weekend, when I stumbled across this tape at the local fleamarket, nestled in between Shelter's Mantra and 311's Transistor. I pulled it off of the rack and looked it over. The black and white cover and the relatively icky band name made me assume that this was fairly basic power electronics.

I asked the seller what the tape was. He simply shrugged his wide, tattooed shoulders and said "Fifty Cents." It sounded like a steal so I flicked him two quarters and was on my merry way.

When I got home, a cursory internet search revealed that this was actually a new-ish release, put out in February of 2014. Not bad for 50 cents. They were apart of the Buffalo underground, and seem to have disappeared. A right shame, because Yahweh brings us to this hell is an excellent record, good enough that, if I had heard about it, I would have included it in my top 10 albums of the year. 

Far from power electronics, this tape is spacey, blown-out hardcore/punk. The best way I can describe it is Coke Bust filtered through The Birthday Party. Very unique stuff. 

Atomized, Automized, Homicide is a highlight. Hardcore wrapped in a cocoon of spidery guitar. There's a guitar solo. Nothing better than a solo in hardcore.

Animal Life In The Demiurge is, surprisingly, a bit of a ballad. Constructed entirely of one repeated bass riff and vocals, it's minimalist, but effective.

Hyperborea is a bit of an oddity. An instrumental track that honestly sounds like a Taking Back Sunday b-side. It's strange, but not at all bad. An interesting choice.

Unfortunately, the tape is sold out, but you can listen to it here. You really should. We need more hardcore bands that experiment like this.