REVIEWS: noise (Let's try that again)

[Jason Kushnir]

Cracksteel - The Kingdom of Pain C46 (Self Abuse)
The Digital Age rules Japan like it rules Its noise: with a steel
fist and a rather ubiquitous one at that. Spare your sympathies,
though. Crystalline, mathematically-precise waveforms fare well
enough in the marketplace. DAT-fisters regularly sport wide-eyed,
shiteating grins which prove quite infectious and difficult to rub
off. Save your pity for tightwad noiseheads like myself who prefer
their shit straight up the proverbial arse, and whose
stomach-churning appeals for sunny-side overbilge are falling on
increasingly deaf ears. Or is that a good thing?
In any case, this is where we introduce someone like Cracksteel.
Cracksteel differs from his Japanoise contemporaries only marginally,
but right where it counts: in the harshole. By harshole I refer to
the usual ear-damaging assortment: monolithic mud volcanos, spastic
skin-peelers, frigid frequencies and a special ingredient or two.
This side of Tokyo, Cracksteel has spent all of 3 seconds in the
limelight. Its an unfortunate state of affairs more responsible
noiseheads should feel inclined to remedy. Now, at long last,
Kazuhiro Matsuyama's decidedly cracked sense of genius beckons:
Welcome to the Kingdom of Pain.
The Kingdom of Pain comes housed an innocent enough-looking cassette
case with bits of discarded screendoor wire-mesh strung to the cover.
Two side-long shriekfests promise that something extra so many other
Japanoisers have been lacking of late: intensely ferocious overkill,
as sure to send dumb animals and small children into fits of
apoplectic seizure as it will elicit tears of joy - and fits of
apoplectic pleasure - from noiseheads permanently stuck on the Incaps
channel. Should this prospect fail to arouse your interest, picture
an alpine ski resort. Picture it paved over with slag-strewn graphite
and overrun with deformed zamboni ice-smoothers, rocket-powered
sub-buffers and misaligned ice-breakers, all thrashing and grinding
their way through twistedmetal drift and fibreglass sway. Yes indeed.
Therein lies the sensibility, if not the sonic landscape, of side A.
Maybe torturing dumb animals isn't part of your purpose in life.
Maybe partially-digested raw spewage will better suit your needs.
Matsuyama understands. Raw spewage is something of a trademark.
Unfolding more than a little crudely, the title track takes this
opportunity to root, rut and snuffle between the cancers and kidneys
of a tumorous Bowel of Hell. Chances of anything surviving this
phlegmatic onslaught are remote, so torture is definitely out. As
per noisical it's the outright grittiness, not to mention beatific
abrasiveness, that makes Kingdom a winner: necrotized reactor cores
overturn churn and burn before vomiting up the steaming, mangled
corpses of recently-kamakazied zambonis like there's no tomorrow.
Given the current status of my earholes, there quite probably isn't.
Goodnight.

Pain Jerk - Cacophony of a Thousand Pleasures 3xC40 (AMP)
The obligatory Pain Jerk review. Let's face it, when you're this
productive, this unacclaimed and this fucking ingenius, you deserve a
lot more attention than you've been getting. This is Pain Jerk in a
nutshell.
PJ has slowed down a bit in recent months, which is more than we can
say for other, less-deserving, peers. Possibly, however, this latest
calm only represents the requisite prestorm lull. In the meanwhile,
Gomi's left us enough storm for the duration of '96 - and a good part
of the next century. Nine skilfully-structured Jerks evenly occupy
three high-quality cassettes, each rattling about the loose confines
of a thin laminated box complete with slice of Jerknifed drywall and
nine-star rating. I give it two ears scorched but the Russian judge
only gives it one. This is, quite simply, the best Jerk ever.
The Thousand Pleasures, however broad, entertain few surprises. Gomi
opens Cassette-1 like he does all Jerk offerings: lightning-charged
loops reverse into thunder-clunked contact mikes, flatulate,
fornicate, accumulate, and rip the bleeding piss-shit out of your
tweeters, woofers and general sanity, such as it is. First, Gomi
heaves a non-stop volley of oversize anvils into glass-slippered
masquerade attendees whose off-beat inlaws keep glancing at their
digital wristwatches and going cuckoo. Then some poor damsel's giant
fairy godfather swings through the large bay window on the patio
wielding a thor-inspired gopher hammer and starts wailing on the
ones who've had a little too much punch. Ground up crystal balls fly
through exposed orifices as black-clad virtuosos grab for their
semi-automatic violin cases and start laying waste to any luckless
punks foolish enough to have offered them a dance. Eventually Gomi
runs out of raw material and has to substitute the rioting circus
freaks with various visceral lumps of bloody pulp and broken glass.
"Tick Tack Tumor" is his half-hearted attempt at reconciling these
rather sad machine-flesh stresses, though about two minutes later he
runs out of patience and ignites the whole ugly mess with rocket
fuel. We've all had days like that. Side B continues to explore the
ascending whitewash theme, this time Live At Show Boat.
"Anti-Treatment Front" finds Fumio Kosakai vocalizing and choking
his incapacitated best, apparently attempting the old one-man
Heimlich manoeuvre. He could do it, too.
Cassette-2 offers proof enough that Gomi hasn't yet exhausted his
fucked-up disco obsession. Sped-up, cut-up, fully-loaded effects
pedals, lumbering axmen and warped high-end circular saws treat the
listener to a club-friendly "Disco-Dance Macabre." Friendly in the
feline sense, of course. I tried 'thrashing' to this and ended up
pulling a tendon, dislocating my shoulder and tendering a bad-case of
whiplash. The cat fared a bit better, but only because the little
bastard always lands on its feet. It's at times like these that one
wishes he were an epileptic. At least then I could get the rhythm
down. "Animaterial," a short little epilogue, pounds out very
steadily by comparison - that is, until Gomi loses patience and
breaks out the rocket fuel, at which point the animated beats get
buried alive, then fried out of extinction. Once again, Gomi elects
to purify his contaminated noisehead on side B. "EEG ECG" seems an
appropriate choice of titles, since it's almost certain to induce a
combined state of heart-attack and nervous breakdown. Biting,
scalding, assaultive shockwaves irritate and inflame exposed internal
organs with deadly precision.
Gomi's final instalment follows a familiar pattern: looping
percussive headcrush overwhelms, sets the tone, then offers itself
as a backdrop to continuously spinning analog flitters. "A Wheel
Track on Face" only reinforces the trend: reduced but maxed-out
high-end seethes jealously in the background while repeating clunks
and heavy-things-falling-down take control. You can't second guess
dithering electronics, though, especially the PJ variety. Without
much prompting, impetuous screeing outbursts careen horribly
out-of-control across the whole field of frequencies, ultimately
settling on impermeable high-end burnout. Understanding dawns on side
B. "Animaterial 2" is just another series of loops with little birds
flitting about in flagrant violation of loop-stable regularity. But
then Gomi decides to "Fight Back" against the rhythmic urge, and
turns out a truly outstanding mass of ear-scorching bliss and
blister. It's precisely the kind of thing that restores ones faith in
the world. Failing that, at least it restores ones tinnitus.

Dead Body Love - Repugnance C60 (Bloodlust!)
Italy's most loathsome noisician is just beginning to get his due on
the noise front. Now that local noise reps MSNP and Self Abuse have
have formalized the acquaintance, and with his second release on
Bloodlust!, G. Guiliani should start popping up everywhere.
Everywhere that matters anyway.
Opportunistic as ever, Guiliani takes advantage of this Bloodlust!
follow-up by dipping a little deeper into the power electronic side
of the noisepool. Oscillating pulses form a backdrop to the slow
layering rush of DBL's trademark crunch. It's an a absolutely
fantastic sound and Repugnance only serves to demonstrate that it
works as well with temporal markers as without. Temporal markers
aside, this is a very well-developed, well-intentioned - need one
mention heavy-handed - bit of grit. Not an oversnuffingly heavy
onslaught, by DBL standards, but very forceful: we can see the hand
at work, and its hardly a limp-wristed affair. The sense of purpose
overindulges, the darkness descends. More melodramatic words, and a
well-timed flash of lighting help accentuate such an eerie statement.
Feel the fist ease around your neck, grab you by the throat and with
inexorable patience and cruelty, wring the living shit out from
between your ears, and shove some dead shit back in.
In we go: "Give Way to Grief" is first for the chop. Guiliani whips
out his orbital sander and starts buffing up a petrified elephant
corpse. He has a lot of raw material to work with here, but manages
to rip and tear most of it right off anyway. Sounds of dry shredding
and mechanical protestation accompany slow, grinding burn and
non-stop sobbing 'n sniffling. I can identify. It always breaks me up
to see brand new electronic toys reduced to useless lumps of warped
metal and melted plastic. They sure don't make 'em like they used
to. Elephant corpses, neither. After the failed attempt at corpse
preservation, Guiliani tries his hand at the internal organs:
"Flooded Lungs." No sense letting a perfectly good set of lungs going
to waste. This time he puts the circular handsaw to work. It takes
time. He goes through several hundred blades and a few fingers in the
process. But eventually, out of impenetrable grumbling dull-drudgery,
a crack of daylight: screeching saws work at the tattered edges with
a frenzied passion, repeatedly cutting into sharpened corners and
jutting scales. Periodically, he switches back to the mangled buffer
just to smooth out the dangerous edges. Then he hits paydirt,
splattering leftover embalming fluid everywhere. The crazed pervert
is in a state of fevered dementia by now, scooping up the shop-vac,
trying to suck-up the hard-to-get areas. I've no idea if he ever
succeeds in his task because at that moment, the track ends. I doubt
he would have noticed anyway.
Whatever the outcome, a new obsession blossoms on side B:
"Human Destruction". Now there's something we can all get behind.
At least it's a little more mainstream. Once again, electronic pulses
oscillate at the perimeter, though these tend to disguise themselves
with glaringly abrasive overkill. Razorsharp assemblyline
flesh-processors splice at a furious pace, blades whirling and
swirling through both ends, often grinding up against less-yielding
carcasses and other tissue-draped blades caught in the frenzy. Which
carries quite naturally into "Destruction Pt. 2": the final
processing stages, I imagine. Here its all blades with little raw
material of any kind. Electronic pulses be damned. Instead huge,
slavering jet-engines suck up everything offered up front and
indiscriminately reduce the writhing whole into minute
crystallized particles of frozen dust.

Skin Crime - Urge C60 (Bloodlust!)
With regular contributions to the Cause, and coming off the heels of
a singularly depraved manifestioso, Skin Crime is fast becoming The
American father confessor:
Yes, I have strayed from the Path. Yes, I am oft given over to
Temptation from impure heretics like Aube and BDN. Yes, I still
haven't need of a hearing aid.
But I blow my speakers out every month and offer up my hearing,
such as it is, on a nightly basis. I'll do my ten Heil Mikawas and
promise to be real Good next year, so can I please have some more?
Verily, when its there for the taking, who can resist the Urge to
sink his teeth into more? More, you ask? More of the same? Nay, for
that would be too predictable. Mr. S. Abuse has Strayed in his own
right of late. Where the aforesaid manifesto (AKA Whorebutcher)
focused most intensely on inexplosive smoldering fury, Urge is more
exploratory, more open to alteration and altercation. To a limit:
a limit that starts where your upper register follicle-receptors
thingies end. Say, 20 kHz or so. Such is the extent of "Random Need,"
recorded live at Taxidermy Studios, wherein the high-end nailboard
finds itself consistently overloaded and undermined by feeding-back
seismic wavehounds with bits of powdery charcoal caught in their
mucous-stripped throats. You can see why they don't record shit like
this in Japan or San Francisco - it would scare the hell out of the
natives. At least MSBR has the sense to warn the listener in advance
with revealing titles and detailed visual aids. "Random Need" my ass.
Sure enough, the truth rears its ugly head on side B - it has that
tendency: "Premeditated." Figures. He knew it from the beginning and,
as per sadistic disposition, was just stringing us along for the
ride. Minute, dysfunctional, radio-controlled transistor beacons
prowl an apparently-uninhabited crater floor, scrying, smoothing and
prodding the surface. Taking more liberties with their surroundings,
a series of capricious static charges start biting at the sky, first
zigging then zagging into the emptiness. There's a moral to this
story, though, cause suddenly the annoying bastards find themselves
imprisoned in an undulating, constricting prismatic energy field.
They go berserk, electrodes haywiring, needles spinning, frequencies
overloading and to some avail but not enough as it turns out: freed
from impending strangulation, the little buggers find themselves
burned beyond recognition and stripped of basic motor rhythm skills.
It's what we reviewers call poetic justice.

Stimbox/A.U.M./Death Squad - Enjoy Happiness CD (Hebi Like a Snake)
Whenever my ears get burned to a crisp - for instance, following a
lengthy dose of Death Squad - I'll ease up the pressure with
something a little more ambient. One of the key features about ears
is that you're supposed to hear with them. I'm not stupid, you know.
Stimbox fills the void to a T, though I often find myself later
reflecting, 'with ambience this harsh, who needs noise?' I still
haven't recovered from the last Stimbox session, and here I am
reviewing a split he's released with his harshead counterpart. Stupid
is putting it mildly.
"Enjoy Happiness" sounds like good advice, especially in light of
the coming apocalypse, which is due Any Day Now. If this CD is any
indication, The Four Button Pushers of the Apocalypse are suffering
from a fairly bad case of itchy-finger. They have my sympathies: I
sent Things Not Working Properly Even After You've Given Them A Good
Thumping a copy of EH as a get-well present and he reduced his stereo
into a pile plastic gupe. I think that's the 5th sign, but don't
quote me on that. (Sources suggest the 6th is Mr. Clinton flipping
off the Chinese National Assembly, but again don't quote me on that.
Just in case though, I advocate middle-finger amputation as a
prerequisite for presidential candidacy. Signs like these can't be
taken lightly. (The 7th is, of course, Merzbow taking a month off for
medical reasons.)
With the End as Nigh as it is, loss of hearing seems a small, and
rather petty sort of sacrifice. But the Noisehead can't be choosy.
It'll take what It can get. "Love and Truth" might be a good place to
start: mildly psychedelic, pulsing heartburn meets accelerated
dumpster avalanche, alternately munching and crunching away at
fleeting whistles, spasmodic creaks and shimmering, squeaky grinds.
I'd like to have used the phrase 'cascading waves of electronic
turbulence,' which fits this Stimbox submission to a T, but some
bastard already took that one. Fading quite naturally into a
not-overly distinguishable "Electronic Chattering," the dumpster
avalanche assumes control, spasmodic creaks assume the position, and
bit by bit, the whole messy spectacle gets levelled into somewhat
stringent chop-suey.
Japan's most lovable eccentric makes a special guest-star appearance
next. Stimbox and Death Squad collaborate on "AM 1476 kHz" to give
our man A.U.M. his due. We even get to hear the old devil rant before
squealing, piercing, radio signals get mixed up and gassed into a
stratospherical stir-fry. Following the prescribed path to
enlightment, legions of paranoid bomb-squaders converge, shrieking in
fake-castrato voice while an automated dry-hose detoxes their
overstimulated nervous capacities, runs out of ammo and gets switched
to manual control. I feel healed already.
Death Squad wastes little time unveiling his own little shockfest.
Up goes the blow-out ante and "Communique Shoko" takes aim: monotonic
air-raid buzzdrone gets razed raw by intermittent, ultrashrill,
severely overmodulated, crystalwhip. Contreras' almost blows it,
though. Destined to go down as the cheesiest intro in noise history,
a little snippet from Terminator 2 preludes. Fortunately, Contreras
follows with a short but incredibly brutal bleachbath that makes you
forget all about that. "Theological Genocide" presents Judgement Day
like you've never heard it before: raging nuclear cyclones turn
needlepoint grit-iron and steelgirded fundaments into seething
infernos of agonized abrasion. Hell on Earth never hurt this good.
"Electro-staticsphere," the de-cheesed closing supplication, speaks
for itself. It says, 'piss off.' Spewing radiation and good will,
writhing masses of mechanized corpses sputter and twirl through
leftover static-generating fields and cyclone holocaust.

Taint/Smell & Quim/Con-Dom - Perverse/Oral/The Beautiful
3xCD box (Red Stream)
If you're feeling generous this year, and you think customs doesn't
appreciate the finer things, Red Stream has a treat for all. Customs
agents are sure to get a thrill from this triple-CD, a keenly tasteful
excursion into utter depravity from three of the leading perverts of
our time. It's what falls into the category of all-in-one:
perversity, twisted obsession and hate.
To be fair, the individual elements that go into this work are not
particularly 'bad' by noise standards, but it's the thought that
counts. And a lot of thought has obviously gone into this one.
Visually-stimulating snaps, including an attractively-rendered
damsel-in-distress, cover a well-padded cardboard box. Each
plastic-wrapped CD comes with a full-size CD-insert and each artist
takes this opportunity to unveil his own twisted vision. Taint is
especially eloquent in his liner notes, a heartwarming tribute to the
enlightened philosophy of 'perversion at all costs.' "The more
repulsive they are, the better," he notes, and I'm sure he speaks for
us all on that count.
Always the pushy sort, Taint articulates the first vision: Perverse.
Perverse consists of several short but pointed scumnoise bilgeries.
The first, "Guttural Pleasures," finds Taint returning to his
traditional style: massive grating metallic screech unloads from
every which end while various wretches communicate their perverse
pleasures in the background. Then things get a bit sick. "Perverse I"
posits harshass evisceral commiseration over the more expectant
low-brow, bungplug buckling. I have no idea what's going on back
there but it sounds damn saucy. The theme continues for much of the
remainder of the CD, only progressively lower on the frequency pole;
way beneath the gutter, and some several levels below the sewer.
Low-end perversity eats up the lingering transitional tastes, all
culminating in an out-take from the Victimology manifesto: Amber.
Our man twisted-shit closes out with a bonus sampled soundbite
featuring a thoughtful dame who defends and commends the occasional
liberties and excesses men seem prone to take. 'Pervs are encouraged
to contact Taint,' and no wonder.
Oral offers a closer peak at Smell & Quim' favourite fetishisms and
even endeavours to answer the leading question 'where did I put my
earplugs?' England's most famous degenerates initiate a heads-on,
no-utensils-barred exploration of overtweeked contact mikes and
previously-neglected cavities. Richard Ramirez provides loopfuck
accompaniment on "Mouth": washbasin fanatics invite tinfoil pajama
throngers to partake of philosophical discourse and bodily fluid.
"Attempted Mutation Without Jacket" is a concrete collage of creme
boulez, military butterfly collars, poisonous diarrhoea, York holler,
stolen infants, fundamentalist perversion and Dennis Cohen, all
swinging together on rusted chariots and crowded subway tunnels.
Kapotte Musiek gets in on the fun for a frolicsome dose of
repetitive buzz-cut power electronics titled "The Recovery of the
Thighs." Next, Expose Your Eyes go down on some "Athletico Spunk,"
most of which gets immersed in pools of wriggling larvae before
ricochetting down vertical drainpipes plugged up with anal leakage.
"Matthew Bower's Shitpump" also sees a little droning action, while
cavernous underbellows gloat with dark glee. Finally, acid fudgcicle
hum-piddle pieces together fragments of the above and then, with Tea
Culture's blessing, veers off into disco land.
All the loose ends - and Smell & Quim do that to ends - come
together on The Beautiful. Three unsettling sermons call the faithful
to arms and rain all the shitty glory of hell down upon their
perverted brains. First, a stirring rendition of "America the
Beautiful" gives way to plucked repetitive birdsong, heavy breathing
and militaristic percussion complements of Militia. Con-Dom ascends
his pulpit and spends thirty minutes spewing fire and brimstone with
all the authority, wrath and incomprehensibility of God. The faithful
will, of course, easily identify this as a withering condemnation of
"The Beautiful," but just in case we didn't get the message - and it
is pretty incoherent the first time out - two shorter tracks nail the
point home. Glittering, crystal-driven swallow-squeals pour out the
smoldering gates of fundamentalism, low-ebb bongos eke out a
presence, while a Southern baptist-type reverend ministers to his
flock. Soon Con-Dom takes up the chant: "Heed my warning," he
admonishes, then "Get right with God," a chilling intonation with
obsessively ironic conviction. The final sermon features funkier
rhythms, flitting insect chit-chatter and mild, somewhat sporadic,
controlled overload, all backed by some good Southern soul. Sure,
Praise the Lord, but remember: before the Day comes, you're gonna
suffer. Punk.

Knurl - Flat Bastard 2xC20 (Knurl)
Absolutely the best thing to come out of the Great White Hole in,
let's see... ever, Knurl has already established himself as Canada's
leading noisician. Here with his 8th instalment, a self-released
double cassette, the transition may be declared complete. Flat
Bastard actually represents older material, recorded early '95 and
originally destined for releases as "Dystopia". 'Purchasers of "A
Cosmic Noise Compilation" will need to know this.' Don't ask me. I'm
sure it's really important.
Ironically, his most recent works, those composed with a four-track,
have strayed away from the harsh end of the spectrum, favouring
concrete, almost ambient sources like scrap metal, scratching
chalkboards and the occasional seismic disturbance. You could say his
older work is pretty Flat by musical comparison, but noisically, Flat
is where It's at.
Side A obliges nicely: unrelenting, uncompromising, thoroughly
satisfying, hollowed-out shrieking extremity. Breathing room is
unusually clear for the duration - by Knurl standards, that is - and
to this we can attribute an exceptionally raw fidelity. I'm sure some
useless fucks who don't know better will find this consistent with
"Japanese Noise" but in fact what Knurl dishes out is 100% pure
North American blisterfest. The differences are extremely visible
and amount to far more than price, but for the uninitiated, let's
just say, in North America, expect a far more raw, far less digitized
commitment to excess. Exceptions abound but that's beside the point.
As per tradition, regardless of geographic disposition, Side B
notches the intensity-level up a few harshtones. Mr. Bloor interrupts
the previous sides' jaunty little expedition with some unbridled
ferocity that peaks and rages before succumbing to a new vitality and
utterly reckless abandon: storms of sweeping, suffocating, whitewash
destabilize sawmill vacuum suck-cess and unload several barrels of
hair-trigger accelerant, the result of which appears courtesy of the
next tape over. Bloor must have been thinking, 'damn, I've hit a high
spot here at the end of side B, better get another tape out quick!"
And thank Noise he did, cause Side C rips into some unabashedly
powerful brutalization. It's about par for the course: just when you
think Knurl has exhausted the destructive avenues of this latest
session, he turns out an even more explosive sequence of unfortunate
circumstances. First, some poor sod gets his sleeve caught in a
whirring bolt-thrower. Then, as metal spikes drive into and through
various newly-realized orifi, the proverbial cigarette hits the fan
and barrels of liquid hell turn the sorry shityard into a nightmarish
implosion of careening circular saws, dense, smoldering airborne
sawdust, competing woodshavers grinding one another into filings, and
fits of widespread asphyxiation combined with muffled squeals of
chainsmokers getting burned alive - which tends to happens in reviews
like these. The aftermath, if there is such a thing, differs only
insofar as it lacks the crucial human element. Left to their own
devices, our machines fare little better, each vying unsuccessfully
for attention, grinding against one another in an attempt to escape
ever increasing masses of smothering pulp, and covered with breaths
of smoke like snow. A last ear-bleed inducing hellhowl for the road
and then surrender to oblivion.

ORPHX - Obsession and Progress C60 (Bloodlust!)
If noise isn't quite your sac of shit, and you still think the
Great White Hole is worth peering into, look no further than ORPHX.
Canada's premier power electricians have set new standards in the
field and Obsession and Progress is no exception. I'd originally
expected to review their new cd, which is supposedly out - or will be
'any day now' - on Malignant, but in the absence of the big Digital
Debut, this cassette will provide a more than worthy alternative.
Before I continue, I should point out that ORPHX are not only power
electricians; they are Artists. I won't repeat the A-word, but I
feel you should be aware of it before reading on. Words like that can
be scary when you spring them up on people unawares. I may comment
more upon this particular status in the future, but for now the
sounds.
The sounds alone amount to pretty cool stool. Side A's got
"Cathexis": oscillating, crunched-up bass-tones filtered through
grainy, feeding-back electrostatic fields and lurching over faded
backgrounds charged with faint, agonized vocalization and
protestation. Depressive rather than aggressive, subdued rather than
crude, and quite a lot darker than anything else they've produced.
Solid, brooding hatred and placid stony-eyed glare. Cathexis doesn't
like you and its sludge-mired stability is contagious and a difficult
habit to break. By now, you'll find yourself in the ideal position for
"Possessed/Disposed." Broadening the scope to permit more osmotic,
shaded atmospheres entrance, and funking-up some battered, wrinkled
beats, the attention to morbidity wanes. Not an entirely welcome
state of affairs, but fortunately "Consumatory Experience" quickly
remedies the dipping palatability curve. Dense, crackling bulldozers
grate over ill-kept gravel roadways, jolt and spit aluminum-encased
chlorine canisters into wide open reservoirs packed with unwilling
toxicity test applicants. Bulldozer grinds to a halt, eerie shivering
death'sheads arise, victims gasp their confused surprise and watch in
mute fear as steel columns, growing decidedly impatient in their own
right, plunge overdramatically out of frozen gravelpits. Churning
electronic molestation overloads to the point of placid torpulence,
rumbles, crumbles then stumbles out a sputtering spread of putrid
pleasures.
No fucking around with subtlety come side B. "Tanha" belts out the
newer, rhythmic ORPHX with little regard for doom-laden decorum.
Where heavy duty base-tones once oscillated between tribal and
funeral sensibilities, this one grabs the unassuming listener and
pitches him headfirst into the jungle. Trademark sinister atmospheres
play about the background and foreground, whining, wailing and
scaling the limits of intensity before creeping into obscurity.
Sheltered rock-tumblers roll over steadily-swigged gravelpocked
esophogi, bounce in one ear, out the other, and occasionally sheer
off into skittering metallic hiss. Electronic beacons form a familiar
pattern of pulsing abuse, alternating with small furry animals bent
on ruling the world, such as it is to your average squirrel. Shock is
therefore pretty much out by the time "Words Once Spoken," a quality
funeral drudge for the underdone corpse in you, takes the stage.
Hovering at first in a state of quietly stagnant smogulation,
guttural layers of thirst-quenching bloodsplatter attempt to
destabilize the torpid gloom. Instead, self-absorbed grating
electronics implode in on one another and soon occupy a blank field
of absolute zero dynamic fluctuation. A few words of stuttered
warning rise up from way down in the mix, but without much immediate
effect. Inexpressive creaking waves waft in through the edges, only
to disappear without a trace. Freeze-grind blankets, overwhelms,
grinds to a halt. Stylish.

Portism/Scissor - Split C60 (Puncture/Xcretaria)
It's been a long time coming. Canada has produced some excellent
noise in recent years, but most of it has been confined to the rot
in the bowels of the Great White Hole. Until now. Until now, the
world's most productive noise band - well, second most - has
wallowed in glorious obscurity. Until now, the harshass genius that
is Myke McAvella has been the stuff of rumour. Now, at long last,
they've teamed up to present something we all can cheer about.
Actually, I'm not sure Portism is the world's most productive noise
band - I think it's Tropism I've got them confused with. Well, no
matter. Portism, Tropism, what's the dif? If you ask the esteemed Tr,
he'll tell you, although chances of getting a straight answer are
slim in any case.
Despite the incredible mass of noise Tropism, excuse me, Portism,
have churned out over the years - some 200 cassettes, most of them
self-released - I must confess to having myself only heard a very
small percentage. I never quite knew what I was missing. I suspected,
sure, but until now, who knew what perversities lurked behind the
Portism facade? Their Split submission should give us some idea:
high-end overcompensation and the subsequent invocation of excess
canine fornication. Worker rights have a place here, just don't let
the factory bosses know you're listening to this shit at home:
massed sheets of aluminum-based tarpaulin pitch and slither into
ex-Desert Storm midget mudwrestlers and doped-up pole-vaulters
while enraged flocks of dive-bombing shithawks mark their territory
with coprophilic zest. Probably the harshest Portism I've ever
heard, in other words, and therefore, some of the harshest noise
ever recorded. Virtuosos of the once-lost art of autocannibalism,
Portism indulge their craft using a combined spewage of feeding-back
trachea-severing screech, vacuumcleaner-induced hyper-ventilation and
mindless, trigger-happy insurance salesman who regularly mug clients
as part of their sales pitch. In case of emergency, always carry a
spare supply of duct tape, and for the troublemakers at the back who
forgot to pack a role, Portism helpfully issue a free sample. I think
they speak for us all when they say, "Life Sucks, Luckily it Ends,"
and no doubt the musically-inclined will have similar feelings for
this particular excretion.
From the harshead standpoint, Scissor looks very promising. Hearing
Aid manufacturer's should also be encouraged by this sort of product.
"Labrador Smoke (Rake 5)" resembles Portism's "Life Sucks" only
insofar as it concerns intensity: eg. extremely harsh. Outside of
the Incapacitants, nothing comes close. Where Portism excel at
autocannibalism, though, Scissor simply hang with shit flying out of
every corner and oblige permanently scathing walls of
spleen-satisfying blisterpiss scorch. Smoke *will* start rising from
your speakers if you play this long enough - as I found out the hard
way - so the title isn't too far off. Just by way of warning, if my
review starts to come apart now, or more apart than usual, it's cause
I'm tripping out on ozone fumes. Don't take it personally. "Gigan
Ink (Rake 1)" offers a slightly more regulated series of overcooked
tweeters, each belching out mild variations on the universal
crispy-tenderized meatgrinder theme. Competing at the surface,
gyrating whirlies of open syringes whip through the cardboard,
perforate windows and pierce through overexposed earholes. Ducking
will only make it worse, I'm told, so your best bet is to hold out
for more duct tape. "Adhesive Electricity (Rake 3)" appears willing
to relent before it latches on to smoldering cardboard and tears it
into shreds. Patience is a virtue Scissor clearly doesn't believe in,
and the count-down to hearing-aid applicability just took a massive
lurch forward.

BLISS: FLESH vol. 1 - v/a (Puncture/Xcretaria)
Feeling Blue? Try some Bliss. Bliss is an ambitious new compilation
series from Xcretaria sub-label Puncture committed to the exploration
of harsh sonics and pleasurable themes. Packaged suggestively in
twine-bound meat-packing paper, Flesh vol. 1 takes a closer look
at everyone's favourite subject. It's a winner for sure and without
a doubt the feel-good comp of the year. I'm getting all tingly just
looking at it.
California's En Nihil gets to do the enviable initiation: "Black
Meat." Yeah, I suppose it's inevitable that we're going to get a lot
of literalists here. Noisicians have always suffered rather badly
from one-track mind syndrome either by nature or design. Whether
that's a good or bad thing I leave to you, but the noise itself
sounds mighty meaty: looping, gutteral debasement grates and
crinkles through meat-processing plant ambience and fluttering
psychedelic analog permutations. The mysterious Nagasaki Fondu do a
good job following up with "Arbeit Mein Fleisch". Maybe too good.
Meat-processing carries to the next stage of the procedure, although
here it sounds as though some live ones got caught in the mix.
Difficult to ascertain in any case, since the majority of gurgling
hotdogs-to-be get bass-eaten pretty badly. Next, "A Piece of Flesh"
from Pain Jerk: lightning knives and oversize staple guns flare up
and self-destruct, but manage to regurgitate themselves in time to
avoid Gomi's overanxious stash of blenders. 666 Volt Battery Noise
takes a peak at the "Flesh Expiration Date" and it doesn't look
very encouraging: maggot-ridden digitization, pill-popping worms fed
on nitro-glycerin and bits of aromatic pulp grind through the
wriggling mass. Tired of playing with their food, OVMN instead decide
to "Fuck That Ass": sequences of overamped buttramming, slapping,
slurping, slipping and the occasional satisfied sniggering snort.
Taint turns out "Tales of the Bizarre" in which an excitable bloke
with a bit on an inferiority complex gets mistaken for Captain
Kangaroo and goes ballistic. You guessed it: another impenetrable
parable from everyone's favourite noise pervert. Unfortunately, we
can't what he's saying because, after doing a pretty obvious William
Bennet (which may serve to explain the Cpt Kangaroo mix-up), his
voice gets submerged beneath metal pile-drivers and skull-raking
hell. It probably wasn't very important anyway. Armenia swallows
several rolls of magnetic tape and makes quite a spectacle of
"Exposicion Funeraria," shredding bodily tissues and 12-ply kleenex
with little apparent effort.
Palate Clamp open Side Two with a brave, genre-busting experiment in
comedy relief. "You've Got the Flesh" proudly goes where no band has
gone before - mostly to save themselves potential embarrassment -
with the very first lounge/noise fusion. Overamplified low-end
grumble submerges soulful croonings and disturbed whiteout scrape.
It works surprisingly well, actually, "if you know what I mean...".
"Beaten Lump," is, by extension, the noisiest Aube I've ever heard:
funky-ass rhythmic scouring, slicing, greasing and creasing. The man
is totally in control, and by the time he finishes beating on his
lump, the ears are nice and toasty. Which almost prepares the
listener for Cazzo Dio, a new Italian noiser who may start impressing
the hell out of me. I don't know who the hell this guy is, but "Mort
Solitaire" kicks ass like a motherfucker. Simply, an outstanding wall
of ultraharsh high-end overkill. Pretty minimal, actually, but with an
intensity like this, who needs complexity? Skin Crime finally reminds
everyone what we came here for. "Peeled to the Bone" is perhaps the
only track that really grasps the essence of 'exploration.'
Industrial-strength skin-peelers go to work, razing, slitting and
ripping large strips of right off the goddamn bone. Easily the most
consistently painful submission. Demeulemeester, Richard Ramirez'
latest one-off side-proj, do a traditional rendition of the jolly
old "Torched Skin Song": two-dimensional, overdone flesh charred
beyond recognition and sputtering happily about the upper registers.
Bacillus multi-dimensional side-project Womb finish off with a live
extract, possibly recorded in a haunted airline garage. "Liquid
Trimester" is surprisingly easy-going, hollowed out and ambient,
and should serves as a nice salve for hopelessly incinerated earholes.

SELF ABUSE RECORDS
26 S. Main St. #277
Concord, NH 03301
USA

e-mail: self...@selfabuse.mv.com
http://www.mv.com/ipusers/selfabuse

PAIN JERK
c/o Kohei Gomi
2-5-11-201 Toyotamakita
Nerima-ku, Tokyo
176 Japan

BLOODLUST!
c/o JAF
PO BOX 7962
New York City, NY 10116
USA

e-mail: blud...@interport.net

HEBI LIKE A SNAKE
c/o T. Oliviera
1618 Polk St #14
S.F. CA 94109-3680 USA

e-mail: sti...@emrl.com
http://emrl.com/~stimbox

KNURL
c/o Alan Bloor
17 Mozart West, MTL
QC H2S 1C1
Canada

PUNCTURE
537 Woodland Ave
Burlington, ON
L7R 2S3 Canada

e-mail: mike.m...@sheridanc.on.ca

XCRETARIA
26 Cloverhill Ave
Dundas, ON
L9H 2P2 Canada

e-mail: odd...@muss.CIS.McMaster.CA

enjoy!

Jason
---
"I will be under control of The Mikawa,
Anybody helps me, now!"
-- T. Mikawa (T.Sakaguchi)