hijokaidan

Hijokaidan - Tapes

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"Volume Six in the "Hijokaidan Rarity Series" is another treat for all of you into UTTER DEVASTATING NOISE. As practiced in Japan, which makes it even better. Hijokaidan, despite fierce competition from Merzbow, Masonna, and quite a few others, are still the reigning Kings Of Noise in the Land Of The Rising Sun. With a cover and title paying homage to their krautrock heroes Faust, Hijokaidan's Tapes is a crucial entry in their discography, a record originally released in 1986 as sort of a career retrospective to date, comprising tracks from various eras and lineups, all only previously available on cassette. It starts off way back in 1979 with Hijokaidan's first ever recording, the studio-destroying (so they, rather believably, claim!) electric guitar and vocal skree of "Angel Dust" as performed by the founding duo of Jojo Hiroshige and Naoki Zushi. 1980's "Circles" adds more members and instrumentation (including drums and saxophone) and certainly doesn't let up from the noisy standard set by "Angel Dust". Then there's a 1985 track by the Incapacitants (members of Hijokaidan, equally noisy on their own), followed by two lengthy cuts from '85 and '86 inspired by horror film/fiction ("The Beyond" and "Salem's Lot", the latter an especially effective/destructive 18+ minute drones n' screams attack). And then Tapes finishes up with a cover tune, their beautifully blown-out take on the classic '70s space rocker "Silver Machine" by another band of Hijokaidan heroes, Hawkwind. Good stuff. Plus, the front cover features very personal notes on each track, and a history of the band '79-'86, neatly typed up in English. How can any Hijokaidan/noise fan do without this??"

sounds like: fucked up old movies

the gerogerigegege

The Gerogerigegege - Tokyo Anal Dynamite

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"Easily the most infamous and well known release from the gerogerigegege, this one really just can't be beat, no pun intended. a little bit more than half an hour long, this album ought to come with its own built-in safety belt. if the album cover (a line of naked punk looking cartoons all simultaneously vomiting and shitting in unison) doesn't prepare you for the album, then hopefully this review will. it is basically a live recording from 1987 that is indexed into 75 (!) separate tracks. absolutely no track is more than 1 minute long. juntaro is listed as playing NOISE BASS and another person is listed as playing both drums and vocals. the liner notes are fairly confusing even though there is not much written to begin with aside from who is playing and when it was recorded. this cd is generally considered to be one of the most important and highly significant releases of the entire Japanese noise scene. even though there were about 3000 copies pressed worldwide, it seems to be one of the more difficult gero releases to get a hold of. Every song follows the same formula: "___(insert Japanese curse word, phrase, etc.)__" then a count off into short spastic bursts of pure punk-driven dissonance. Every song title is generally screamed in japanese with the occasional American cover song thrown in. although this has always been pointed out in other reviews of this same album, hearing Juntaro (or whoever) scream, "boys-a don't-a cry!" (the cure) or "I can't-a getta no satis-a-FAK-tion!" (rolling stones) actually IS completely worth whatever amount of money one is willing to spend on obtaining this obscure gem. At one point, Juntaro screams his own name and counts off only to end the song after 20 seconds to scream his name again BACKWARDS. it is completely hysterical. Near the end of the cd, there are more drawn out feedback drones and less screaming, due to obvious reasons that one could assume. The production is very gruff, although one can make out the drums quite well and the feedback and/or bass add an another layer of sound. There is not much left to say other than the fact that this is THE quintessential gerogerigegege release."

sounds like: tokyo, anuses, dynamite

john wiese

John Wiese - Soft Punk

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"John Wiese is no stranger to the manipulation of others' music; he's mangled his own sounds and those of others on past releases, but Soft Punk contains his most obvious reworking of found sounds to date. The disc's liner notes credit Denny Mclain, Grand Ulena, Sissy Spacek (Wiese's band, not the actress), and Die Monitor Bats as providing source material for a few of the disc's tracks, but more overt sampling is evident on a few other tracks, and, alongside the digital pyrotechnics that Wiese usually employs, it offers bit of organic counterpoint to the proceedings.The use of samples isn't a necessary addition to Wiese's arsenal (in fact, "Recorded Hologram," heavy on such use, is one of the disc's weaker tracks), but Wiese largely avoids hackneyed use of the plundered material, and the trajectory of the disc isn't put noticeably of course. Soft Punk is another "debut" by a musician whose catalog is already bursting at the seams. There's an issue of semantics at hand, but, whether or not it seems ludicrous to call an album released at this point in John Wiese's career a debut, one can safely just call this album another quality release from Mr. Wiese, the cream of Los Angeles' noisemaking crop.
Wiese likely doesn't use tools unavailable to his contemporaries in noisemaking, but listening to a track like "Spectral Hand" might make it seem that way. When at its best, Wiese's sensitivity to timbre and his logic in sandwiching sounds are top notch; there's a cleanliness and clarity in even the most decimated masses of half-digested static and the swirling tones that surround them. Wiese works in sound that, at times, is practically three-dimensional, and through stereo panning and architecture of sound, he's capable of impressively immersive sonic environments, especially considering the hectic pace that much of his work has a tendency to take. Soft Punk is the sort of album to proves that noise isn't purely the realm of the talentless hack with an ear for discord, and though it's indiscernible in any truly tangible way, there's certainly a method to Wiese's madness, and an art to his crafting and arranging of sound.
Selecting a favorite Wiese album is somewhat akin to choosing the best looking blade of grass in a yard; there are way too many to choose from, and keeping them distinct in one's mind often proves to be a challenge. Soft Punk, however, seems a fitting entry to the upper echelon of Wiese's oeuvre, and a worthy wearer of the title of his full-length debut, no matter how contentious such use of the term, in this case, might be."

sounds like: grinding teeth

prurient

Prurient - And Still, Wanting

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"A follow-up to Dominick Fernow's Pleasure Ground tract, And Still Wanting maps out a fresh set of paths into the abyss, with an initial, limited edition CD run accompanied by a 5" slab of vinyl featuring 'Prologue' and 'Epilogue' pieces as bookends to the album proper. The voice tends to be at the epicentre of Fernow's infernal compositions, and on this album you're even supplied with a lyric sheet, so you can screech along at home. 'Memory Repeating' uses a straight forward spoken vocal as its lynchpin, while layer upon layer of horrendous distortion collapses in on you. There are plenty of noise records that cake on the fuzz and feedback, but just as there ain't no party like an S Club party, there really ain't no racket like a Prurient racket. Fernow always manages to go that little bit further into the filth-pit of extremes than just about anyone else. It's that particular kind of extremity to his work that makes it all that little bit more terrifying than the industry standard. Even by No Fun standards this is not for the squeamish. And Still, Wanting is hardly pushing things forward but the dark poetry recital aspect gives the noise onslaught an added depth, particularly in the deep, cavernous musings of 'Strict Ideas' which sounds like someone incinerating a William Basinski Disintegration Loop whilst reading out some unintelligibly overdriven statement in the midst of it all."

sounds like: speaker problems, beetles, solitary confinement

incapacitants

Incapacitants - No Progress

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sounds like: skidding cars, fingernails

yellow swans / the cherry point

Yellow Swans & the Cherry Point - untitled

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"a collaborative effort that starts off by lunging at you with a furious velocity. you don't get a chance to do much more than blink before this track has you on your knees & deep in the violently gross wreckage. and on your knees is where you'll stay for the almost 19 minutes the track lasts. it is varied and layered, but never lets up. give up & give in. the three currents behind this pummel through you & drag you in. this is being overwhelmed at it's very finest, you surrender your struggle and sink to the bottom in a defeated stupor. there is no delivery here because delivery calls for consideration and this track considers nothing. it is a maliciously persistent piece that has little mercy for tender ears or faint hearts. there are no second guesses here. action is king and the action is nonstop. exploding slabs of sheet metal, sounds that mimic static frying and bubbling over. nonstop. for those who fancy a faster hand, you're in for a treat. not just fast hands but forceful hands. no means yes hands. nonstop hands. hands that push shards of ugly sounds into you & through you. if you favour being handled with a certain roughness, this is highly recommend. play it loud and get thrown around. the caustic symphony will mute your tender cries."

sounds like: being caught in the wheels of a train moving at 400 mph toward the center of the earth

the rita

The Rita - Thousands of Dead Gods

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"The Rita returns with his second full length cd, his ultimate tribute to the GREAT WHITE SHARK. Almost academic in his noise purity obsession, The Rita mercilessly charts every nuance of crunch & crumble, the space between demolition, white out & heavy flood. Dead Gods pushes nearly 60 minutes thick of RAW WALL, recorded live using source sound from great white shark cage diving."

sounds like: not sharks (unless maybe they're biting you)