DEADBEAT - Source Tape for Deviant Behavior - c15 out on Total Fucking Filth

I've sourced it too many times to know what's what. I won't stop. Not even when I go blind. Clean sounding dub, no labeling on the clear cassette. Orgy collage artwork printed on heavy stock. It'll make yer boat float.

• Noise sounds: dying cow moo pitchshifted down a few pegs, repeats at a slow paced rhythm. Here come the flies. Great big huge fucking flies with a low-ended hum like big, fat bumble-bees. Swarming disease. The agony of slow death. Decomposing tissue beneath sun bleached cowhide.
• Kill HN and then w/samples: How's your bicycle seat smell; after a long ride? Golden shower? Pee on me! Pee on my chest right now. Shit on my face. Would you like to do that? I can show you a good time.

COMA CENTAURI / CREATURE FEATURE split tape out on WORTHLESS RECORDINGS

Side A: Coma Centauri - The Story of Wood Acts 1, 2, 3. The guy comes on telling us: "This is the story of the most versatile of all living substances. It has held man in his cradle, it warmed his hearth, it will make him his last long home. This is the story of wood." The story turns out to be a classic tale of harsh noise. Soon as the scratchy vinyl sample drops out, there's a fast stick count and you're immediately drenched in full-throttle noise. Thick and harsh bursts of blown static mixed and layered with moments of degenerating delay decay and algorithmic squall. 2nd Act has mostly the same blown-out distorted cut-up walls of static but with a clean airy synth pad floating up above and some jacked-up knob frenzy fuckery resonated sine/pitch all up in the middle. Steady gear-shifting, but cohesive enough to keep it interesting. Act III: sample: Talking about how the metamorphosis of Dr. Jekyyl in Mr Hyde is void of all good; the embodiment of evil. Evil. Yeah I guess this is a pretty evil sounding harsh ass jam. Short and sweet, maybe 45 seconds. The buried and blurred source screams kinda give it a made-for-TV-evil sort of feel. So we know its not real evil; its Hollywood evil.

Side B: Creature Feature - More Than a Monster. This is some really good Harsh Cut-up Wall. Never still or stale, there's stereo wall weirdness and dual wall manipulation. Perfect swells and grueling lulls. Tonally blown. Overload reverberation stabbed with searing breaches. Constant contact. Steady restraint. United separation. Nay a sour frequency. Crashing waves in harsh and battered seas. Creature Feature didn't throw down any old monster movie samples. Nope. They just throw down. It'd be cool if they came throw it down in my town. Let me know if you come across any more of this killer Creature Feature stuff... and no, not that emo looking band called Creature Feature. No no no no.

Shattered Hymen / Hate Basement / Hadals / Fantasy Island - 4way split cs out on TOANG

Split out on Tapes of a Neon God
Masochistic artwork with translucent red cassette tape. These tracks are an ideal length, not too anything.
Shattered Hymen is our introduction to this loaded split. His track "Gay Scene" comes on full boar kitchen sink wall. A mountain of hate and junk noise dropping pianos, breaking glass, mowing the yard in the rain. Blustering discordance. Spitting out teeth. Choking on your own rage to the soothing sounds of a wind blown Dictaphone. Turn up the bass, hot or go home. Be glad knowing this is the first track, they all get better from here.
Hate Basement drops some guitar hits like gongs for the first minute of  "Semenalized Quim" before bringing it. Creeping in the deep down and dirty harshest of harsh walls. The guitar thing passes and gives way to the complete supremacy of all that which can attain harsh stature as this. This growing mass envelops and spins you up like Gravitron. Static tendrils flung into oblivion while you wait trapped in the vortex. Just when it gets to be too mind ripping: squeal like a pig and its done. Fuck. Its damn good. I could live without the intro all together, but that harsh tone is to die for. Brutal Brutes. This might be the new heavyweight contender shit.
Hadals - "Swaddled in Bape" begins with a new age medicinal synthscape from the twilight-zone with just a tinge of blistering overdrive. This evolves into more complex mix of thick pitched ear tweezing. An array of tonal layering manipulation. Is it alive? Does it breathe? Frantic unrest; blood pressure rising. Scattered bursts of lunatic screams beneath walls of static dismay right up to the breaking point. And then chill. A calming drone. Quiet, deep. Relaxed. Before you know it, you're swept back into the madness that which you have become attune. Only this time its in focus. It's slower. You understand. You're one with the dark side. This might also be a protest song against urban clothing. I dunno.
Fantasy Island - "Chris Brown" Reborn in an intense blast of phoenix fire. It burns hot, and it burns long. Feel the fucking heat. Who do you think Chris Brown is? Huh? This is some great Harsh Noise. Fuck all the lurking hipsters. Just blistering like a motherfucker. Revs and pulls in any direction with enough horsepower to put you back in your seat. Really full tones. Above par EQing and executioning. Tender juicy crunch. Balls out FTW. See if yer mom can get some KFC on the way cause I'm hungry for more.

The Broken Penis Orchestra meets At Jennie Richie - Psychform Records 2006

The complete Dick Rage Sessions Vol 1 & 2

The Broken Penis Orchestra is Dick Flick (with several martian chimps in tow)
"Nuts!"
At Jennie Richie is Happiness & Forever + Johnny Mumbles
"Dedicated Perversionists Everywhere"

This is a double c1. Side stamped: AJR1/BPO1 & BPO2/AJR2 respectively. Slickly over-sized dual tape case. Trippy collage head-fuck/face-fuck artwork. It all looks and feels nice, but damn, this is sort of extravagant packaging for four 30 second tracks. It takes longer to read the liner notes than it does to listen to the tapes, especially if you're minding the gap. But these things and more are what's in store when you get these folks all in the same room.

BPO1 Have You ever tried to loosen the screws? - This is a song about vegetables. hysterical laughing thing trumpet accordion we dont understand people with diseases of their brains, because brain chemistry trombone fair cut snip loop fragmented collage wall.
AJR1 Streetsweeper Phone (Johnny Mumbles What?) -  is an inaudible vocal loop delay trip-out flashback. "Gip g-g-g-gip, whonuhtemr" I'm not really sure what Johnny was trying to say... My best guess: "Go, whenever you're ready"
BPO2 Marble Maker Breakdown - Distorted zips & blips blast rip tink and clank, happy little western tune sneaks in, cartoon sound effects style horns over the top. Makes me wanna go jump-up&down on the bed.
AJR2 Big Black American Homosexual (drum machine mix) - Stuttered uttered vocal wall echos, a single gong rings out, deep voiced guy says "BIG DEAL", a little jazzy trumpet jive tune with too much bass and the crowd roars. There is little to no drum machine flavor up in here.

It makes me smile, just knowing these exist. Someone in Canada has a copy for sale on discogs right now.
Just sayin'

The Barracks of Afghanistan - Mother Tongue on Spaceless Jam 2007

The Barracks of Afghanistan was the solo project of a young spunk named Ben-David. His live sets were balls to the walls all-out table-core harshness. He'd wreck his whole rig if he thought it would help it sound more rad. I read somewhere that he thought the project had run its course, so I grab-up old Barracks of Afghanistan releases whenever possible. Mother Tongue is a blistering hurricane of low rumbling distortion and errant feedback topped with aggressive knob twisting. This thing is completely solid. After toying with you and churning you out full blast, the hammer drops, completely full-bore wall on wall action. Top notch. This tape really captures the intense live feel. Levels so hot, my deck is almost smoking. Sound drops out of the right channel for a minute, just before the tape is over. Perfect cool down. Side 2 is blank. I'll get over it.

The Prowler

The Prowler, If you think you're safe, you're DEAD wrong! Coming from Worthless, you'd think this was another slasher film put to audio cassette. It's not. Pure HWN on both sides. Got to be a c40 at least. You guys know what HWN sounds like by now, but I'll tell it. Blown out static. Constantly exploding, forever. Little to no changes. Just Harsh Wall Noise. Thick. Loud. Crackling like fire. Steady like rain. Distorted Distortion. It can fuel the aggression, it can soothe the beast. It can drive you mad, it can keep you sane. It is everything all at once. It is nothing, never was, never will be. Or whatever. It's got just about all the ingredients of a bad fucking-ass HWN tape, but since The Prowler isn't here with his pitchfork all up in my face, I can be a picky-bitch and say that I'm just not feelin' this one. It's got some slight EQ issues. The levels are fine, one side is a little bass heavy and bloated, the other is just not as awesome as I'd like it to be. Fuck it. I like the splatter paint job, a lot. 

Nervous Corps + Peiiste c62 out on Human Ignorance

Nervous Corps + Peiiste is collaboration tape, near as I can tell. Nervous Corps, or Nervous Corpse as we like to say, is a solo project from one of the Blue Sabbath Black Cheer dudes. Peiiste, prolific purveyors of PE and harsh noise, are a duo from Louisiana. The first side, Against Art, Against Religion, starts off with Nervous Corps's unique brand of skewed HWN. Not all fully-blown super harsh as can be, but subtly tweaked or notched for specific frequency response. A sustained wall of unchanging harsh noise like listening to t.v. static through a hole in the wall. The track seamlessly blends into something a little crunchier, thicker, more distorted primal HN with some agro-vocals buried in the back. I may be wrong here, but this sounds more like the power electronics of Peiiste. The mix seems to blend effortlessly back and forth between the two respective styles every 5 minutes or so, which would make this a collab rather than a split, I think.
Side 2 is like a boat trolling hard through the waves of concrete distortion. Chunks fly. Sputter into overdrive, it's gunna get hairy. Crashing walls of chaos and restrained garbled harsh wall. Shit, maybe this is Peiiste's side. Maybe its going back & forth again?  I'm not even sure whats going on anymore. Somebody's making a fuck-lot of noise on this tape. No breaks, no beats, no drones, no samples, not many stupidtones to speak of, just the clutter of clatter that is HNW.

COMPACTOR - Self Destruct Sequence c20 out on WORTHLESS Recordings

Worthless Recordings finds some pretty diverse & interesting acts, like COMPACTOR. Self Destruct Sequence, Step 1 starts out like a death-industrial track with repetitious modulated pitch bursts. Some heavy breathing of Morpheus. The structure unfolds into an honest to goodness old school industrial beat sequenced with noisy little extras. No vocals, no samples, no bullshit. Think old Front 242 without the "vocal" loops. It's not a big hit really. You may not hear it spun at the local goth club; but it is cool to find out tracks like this are still being made.
Step 2 is the real gem here. It's a well plotted stroll through dark industrial-deathland. Pitch-down motor sound with low-res scraping and clanging clatter grow a rhythmical living wall of cold & grey. Eventually this single huge crashing distorted kick drops in with the decay of a falling chunk of iceberg, and its looped in perfect time: fuck-yeah, rules. Thanks for that.
Cool black and white photo of some wasted old motor from one of those Thunder Dome cars. Nice layout with the label and band contact info. Check out their Bandcamp, there's some more stuff on there. I haven't checked it out, but let me know if you come across any more physical releases of theirs.

Repeat Offender - Porn Fed out on Total Fucking Filth

With a name like Repeat Offender - Porn Fed, you should have a pretty good idea of what's in store. PE vocals. Gratuitous cliche standard: pissed-off yelling over some punchy pedal chain wall. I can almost make out the lyrics, but rest assured they're the same lyrics that every other Power Electronics act has.

I never loved you. 

I hate every thing. 

I fucking fucked to fuck!

On your knees!

You never loved me... 

The harsh noise seems thin and distant. The vocals & microphone feedback overpower the mix. That's the only trick this pony knows. These are 7 different takes of the same track maybe? The final song finds itself a balanced mix. I can actually begin to hear the raw appeal this type of PE has. RO would have been better received by trashing the rest and putting this track on a comp or split.
No liner notes. The artwork is a full color printed porno-collage on heavy paper. Attractive but shallow and ultimately empty.

Astromason + Blue Sabbath Black Cheer - Endless Black out on Worthless Recordings

Worthless didn't even put their name on this. Shame. The sides are called Endless Black I and Endless Black II. I'm guessing that this is a collaboration, not a split per say. Side I has the signature sounds of BSBC, with the super-low pitch-shifted gnarled tree-trunk vocals and hellacious rumbling wall of static. There's is also a bunch of high pitched caterwauling on top here that must be the trademark styling of Astromason. I don't know much about them, other than they're seasoned noise junkies in Japan, and that this is the 2nd Astromason/BSBC split tape.
Side II has a little bit more of the heavy wall of rumble and distortion with the high-pitched fuckery lurking slightly in the shadows. It goes down easy if you can dig easy-to-listen-to re-fried HN sludge. Overall I like side II better, because it's a solid hunk of what I love about BSBC tapes; the harsh low-blown bog-drudge goodness. Still though, the discerning ear can tell there's amateur bits of crap layered in there that makes me think BSBC has started slightly diluting their standards in regards to quality control. Even with that being said, this tapes still more jammable than most. bitches.

Vomir ‎– Petites Amoureuses Ensevelies cdr out on Victimology Rec.

Vomir - Petites Amoureuses Ensevelies. I guess I've never gotten around to checking out Vomir. Always assumed he was some dude dressed like The Crow, puke&gag vocals, slobber and tears running his make-up. Especially with album titles like this, I may still have my suspicions. As it turns out, this album is just a big rad HNW tack. Blast this like napalm in the morning, your neighbors will love it. Full bodied low-end rumbling, rich with crackling texture. Robust aroma of pure Harsh Noise Wall stench. Static, suspended in motion. Hmmm, time for a pot of coffee.

White Gimp Mask / Dead Body Collection - "My Grandfather, The Hoarder" / "Rues Sanglantes" split cdr

White Gimp Mask - My Grandfather, The Hoarder is a straight-up slab of nicely executed HNW. Static, unchanging, slow moving, fully-blown. Deathmetal pedal set to kill. Amped-up agro-noise to the nth degree, counter-intuitively soothing harsh drone or beard-stroking fodder for the nuances-of-crackle fixated, it is, what it be.
Dead Body Collection - Rues Sanglantes turns up the heat with an even more blistering display of restraint. I'm thinking DBC lit up his rig and didn't so much as even touch it for the entire 20 minutes. In pure-HNW terms, this is much more a compliment than a complaint. For some reason, less is more. This insert says "No mastering!!" So you know it's as raw and pure as can be.
Slim-sleeve 2-track cdr, no frills keeps it simple; will likely check out more from these artists. They have like 500 releases between the two of them, so it's bound to happen.

Wilt / Bereft - First Chain To the Moon / Gathering Strength out on Danvers State Recordings 2009

Wilt - First Chain To The Moon. Wind whispering soft and hallow. The deep-dark drone machine comes to life. Low and subtle wavering darkness swallows you slowly. Journey of the damned. Rotting feedback. Clanking iron. Choir winds. Numbing the pain. Haunting the abyss. Restless turmoil comforts you down. Float the blackest sea. Face the primordial nothing. This is the shit you wanna listen to for hours.

Bereft - Gathering Strength. A thick and sturdy slow-burn lone bass drone out. Just a tinge of distortion. Sinusoidal saw-tooth zonefest. Dark ambient industrial tone from the depths. In the red +1dB, just where we like it. 15 minutes of this flies on by. A Cleansing is Coming. The bass drops in. Big sustained hum answered by smothered feedback, plays a game of tug-o-war. Bathe in the ebb and flow of charred sludge.

WEEPING SWORDS - death wins every war C40 on WORTHLESS RECORDINGS

This isn't noise, but I'm digging it. It's an ethereal gloom-doom black-metal project with some sort of post martial-industrial side. The recording is pretty clear, polished, the overall sound is potent. The vocals have a raspy hoarse texture, not all gag&puke sounding. Down-tempo drum machine, dark-choir synth, dreary extras. The tracks are each solid and bring something unique to create a refreshing mix. There'r no sore thumbs here, just an unexpected sense of renewal. I'm not sure what circles Weeping Swords run in, but it feels like I'm listening to some well kept secret.

Modest, black&white Jcard, no mention of Worthless Recordings. Seek this out, you'll be glad you did. 

DEAD! vs. Dolly out on Crystal Death Records - 2007

DEAD! - Now retired Harsh-Noise solo act from the PNW.  DEAD! also is, and or was part of groups: Microscopic Suffering, Crystal Warrior, Goly Grim, and Funeral. My first DEAD! experience was at MethFest circa 2006. Back then, he was just some guy making a bunch of noise; since then, he has become one of my all-time favs.
Side 1). Dolly, yeah, that Dolly, reads aloud a letter written to her folks when she had just moved to Nashville. She's telling them not to worry, and she loves them, and she'd gotten a job etc... A sad harmonica plays to her monologue. Then there's some blown out honky-tonk yea-haw hey-hey yoda-laaaddyyyy hoe down'n. It's pretty bitchin'. Thow ya money down. Thow it down boys. Thow it down.
Side 2). DEAD! starts off with some low DSP clipping: klig;klig;klig;klig, introduces the low modulation, and sprinkles in the decay and delay. Its not super harsh really, it even gets a little wonky for a minute. The bass-fuzzed drone groove kicks in, drags you through the fog and it's smooth sailing for a moment and the tape is done. Hail DEAD!.

Wyrm - Gnothi Seauton C20 on PsychForm Records 2007

Wyrm this time around was Allan Zane and Bruce La Fountain.
Ambient drone pads, lo-fi nature sounds, rattles, baby cries, modulated vocals. Pretty boring minimalist shit. I think one of these tracks is supposed to be a minimalist mix, or abstract cover of a Psychic T.V. song. I don't know. I can't get into it. I tried. It doesn't sound particularly bad besides the low master levels, but it'll be here in my trade-pile waiting for you; needer of major boring shit.

Reptile Worship - Obeisance C30 on Nictitating

To understand Reptile Worship and their ideology, you must first be familiar with the books of David Icke, or at least have a basic understanding of the reptilian bloodlines that have been controlling and enslaving the human race since forever. Or whatever; it's not really necessary to dig on this tape.
A sample of a woman describing some sort of surgery she underwent where they implanted something behind her eye. She overheard them saying "No one, in a medical check-up, would think of looking behind the eye." Mechanical wench ratchets chains and low rhythmical drones are lulling. The suspense sprawls across death-industrial factory floors. Sparks flying, grinding torture surely awaits. Levels knee-deep in red. The machine Churns onward.
B side gets a little more cosmic with the synthetic drones and blown low-end portal opening loop. The Manson girls are sampled, chanting something witchy for an intro to the next more harsh and ominous tonal squall through Satan's lair. Magnificent artwork of an alligator reptile with a key in one hand, a flogger in the other. Printed on heavy stock, there's also an exceptional image of reptile handa performing the eye surgery. The recording is crystal clear. The tape looks and sounds amazing. You can fetch one from Crucial Blast if you act fast.

BONESFIELD - FACIALMESS "Sabatoge" out on Phage Tapes

First off, this looks killer. Custom die-cut & 2-color all-over screened folding cardboard box houses orange tape with detailed imprint. Orange and black paint look awesome on the natural cardstock color. Nice. Tight. Durable. Phage Tapes pulls no punches. Neither does Facialmess. Blasting harsh bursts of the goods. Dead stop. Reverb. Blasting dynamic layers of freq feedback. Dead stop: sample. Blast, blast blast, stutter blast. Chop it up, whip it out, put the screws to it. Sample it, pull it's hair, wall it up, cut off its ear. Facialmess has his way with the noise and wouldn't even think of buying it a drink or kissing it goodnight. Broken-Headboard Whiplash-Glitch. +3 in the red. Would be lame to learn that this laptop noise, so we wont go there.
Bonesfield side is pretty much the same basic stuff, just a little more brutal. Thicker, longer blasts of harsh sweeping necessity. Less samples. Effect heavy. Processed signal overload. Glitched & stuttered in every direction. It's like the V-snares of HN up in here. This is a lot to take in. Again, hope it's not, laptop noise, cause that would take the fun out of it.

Striations - Piss, blood, hypnosis

Striations: junk-metal vocal PE noise from California. Cool packaging with collage and even a small zine thing , however, the tape is spray-painted white, on the leaders to boot. Not putting this in my nice-ass tape-deck. Good effort though. Trade pile.

DEPTHS - self titled cassette out on Dead Medium Tapes

This is a Tape I picked up like a year ago. Since today was going to be one of those sunny/hot ass days, I needed the right soundtrack for it. This was the first tape that came to mind due to how awesome it is to roll around it on summer days dressed in black, jamming the fuck out of it .This cool youtube some guy made about it doing just that i guess (he says he's playing side A, but it's really the first track on side B). This is Black Metal. Not the schtickly BM yer thinkin about, but the real shit. & it's from Texas. Not that I'm the biggest Black Metal head on the block, but I know what I likes. The riffs seem to hit all the right spots in my head. It like I'm listening to a band I used to play in. Like an old hat. It all fits just right. Depths have depth. From eerie ambient to blistering fast wall-of-hate hatched from stoner-doom love. Even some freak-out spazz. The vocals, drums, bass stuff and guitar are all kick-ass. The recording sucks, but we'd have it no other way. The guy on youtube says Depths once opened for Inquisition and are currently in hiding. Word. 6-panel J-card, Dead Medium doesn't fuck around. Hit em up and see if they has copies.

Hadals out now on Worthless Recordings

Tape starts out with a Hip-Hop intro. Back-up back-up! 20-12! Shout-out to my boy Ray-Ray! Some guy all sounding like Swedish rapper, Atmosphere; before you can say WTF!?, the noise drops. All up in yer ear with highs and lows. High rpm power tool revolution and low-low nightmare bass. Gets the groove, build ups  and then smooths. Rumbling crunch, rhythmical squeal. bass hum & done. This must be a C10. I'm into it.
B side is even better. Shit's unreal how bad ass this sounds. Crashing waves of cascading Death-Industrial goodness. Fucking wet. High on this. Tape outs with a phat beat and some cutting it up on the 1's & 2's which can only mean one thing, these guys rule. Worthless puts together a nice looking tape. Gold motif is pretty neat. The levels have their fingers and toes in the red. We like it hot. Hadals have a couple other tapes out. Ima go hunt em up. See ya.

DRIED UP CORPSE / BLSPHM split out on Husk Records

DRIED UP CORPSE / BLSPHM split out on Husk Records

Dried Up Corpse is a little side project from one of the dudes in Blue Sabbath Black Cheer. DUC always delivers the thick slabs of harsh-as-fuck wall noise, and here we have another wall of brutal chaos boiled down to its essence. "Death Moves Quietly" This 15 minute track is easy for a heavy wall fan to digest. Super low end rumble gets your rear-view mirror on vibrate; no subs required. Up the volume. Churn & burn. The signal's fairly low on the right side, like 10dB lower. Sucks, but I'm over it. Aint bummin me out much. When the track is done, the silence at the end isn't really all that silent. Turn it up loud enough, the tape hiss sounds like the end of a record, left on 33rpm, spinning 'til infinity, slowly eroding the needle. Not sure if its a bi-product of the cassette production or if just maybe its the bleakest DUC outro ever... The Blsphm side ends in the same fashion. Must be me. Crank it either way.
Blsphm is a newer side project from one of the dudes in Great Falls. He also happens to write reviews, just like, if not much better than the one you're reading now. Y'ever heard of Devdformats? Check it out fer sure. "The Devil" is a bleak sounding wall of static in waves and... Rather sickly sounding. Really it just sounds like the high & low frequencies got sucked out; probly in some haphazard compressive mp3 file sending or what-have you. Hate to say that I think the recording sucks, but it sorta does. I guess "I get it", if it's supposed to be some sort of wall-noise take on bedroom black metal or something, but I just picture in my head: pulling/stretching taffy over miles of gravel road. Not sure why that is. I haven't given up on Blsphm yet, I've heard great things about the live setting, and I'm sure there'll be more tapes floating around, and we'll be eating em up.
Husk Records did a nice job here. Dig the inverted cross logos for side A&B. The artwork is cool, probly designed by Blsphm. White shells are a nice touch. Hails.

REDNECK S.T. Redneck Vol. 5 - AHR37 C10

Stoked. Bought this one up2nd hand; still building up my hoard of Suicidal Tendons, aka RedNeck. A tornado of brutal harsh noise. Static on distortion. Twists and turns. Hold it, now hit it. Hellbent with intent to noise. Total destruction. Zero high pitched microphone feedback. Fucking ripper. The only pussy-footing around with a contact mic on this tape is in the first 30 seconds or so; the rest is harsh noise for dudes that like harsh noise, in stereo. The liner notes say Fuck You. short and sweet. Jcard has an extra flap with full color graphic close-up of eyeball edge. Long out of print on pdx's Alienated Hominid Recordings.

Mixed Band Philanthropist - The Impossible Humane

This tape is a trip. 

Winters in Osaka / Plastic Crimewave - Swamp of Fogs LP out now on Dismantle Records

Bought this one on a whim. Was mostly attracted to the artwork and the spooky swap fonts. How could one go wrong with having a snake spiral up a tree, a gator, and a terradactal looking bird all hand drawn on yer cover? Right? 
I've seen Winters in Osaka's name around for years, but haven't delved in til now. This LP is a collaboration between Chicago artists Winters in Osaka and Plastic Crimewave, the latter is a name I do not recall seeing before. WIN lists their 6 band members with the preface on this recording as, which leads me to believe they have somewhat of a revolving line-up. PCw does not list any names, just prepared guitar/vox. 
Side A is one long track. It starts out pretty damn quiet with a thin drone and slowly the tide rises. Things begin to pick up speed. Whizzing hums like living inside of a bee hive. Sweeping buzz-drones make up the bulk of this track. Half way through, there's some choppiness like that of mode selecting yer DL-4 mid drone. Sort of a buzzkill but brief enough to forget about it quickly. Some degraded lo-res echo vox are added to thicken the broth. Buzzing and wavering drones make a come-back and the climax portion of the track falls away to reveal some odd pulsing and bizarre vocal echos.
Side B has all kinds of cool sounds on it. Footsteps echoing down a hall, repetitive scraping that reminds me of those windmill things with two lumberjacks perpetually sawing a log, and some didgeridoo. And that's in the first seconds! As more layers materialize, the thickness of the dark-ambient doom pulls you in. There's a lot going on here, but it not muddied or spastic. It's easy enough to latch onto a sound and follow it through, or just lie back a let it all wash over you. Erie synth? Ominous horns? I'm not really in the know, but its ambient groove from the dark side for sure. Next track has distorted guitar wanks and drums (played backwards?) along with a smooth mess of I don't know what else. The Final track is.... oh... wait a sec... I've been listening to this whole record pitched down 10% from 33rpm. Fuck. I guess it's slightly less dark than I thought... It happens... B3 is an ambient wall. Pretty solid, but not much for me to blither about. Side B of this LP always gets an instant replay.
Pressed on awesome Trans-Grey vinyl. 
Jacket is made of thick white paper, but still fairly flimsy.
Main gripe with the LP would have to be the low levels. Got my volume knob pegged, but aint in the red.

SCARD - Hellscum c30

Hails from the pacific northwest, SCARD is the solo work of Jared Huston. Side A, "Locked Within" offers up some seriously remorseful and life-loathing drone noise. It's not really fair to call it noise though. There are black oceans of evil lurking behind these sounds. Maybe this is actucutally some SDBM. Skillfully crafted scapes that make yer skin crawl. Think BSBC w/well laid growling, spooky synth, static creaks, tribal war-drums, and frothing at the mic. Exquisite melody that bleeds through toward the end is really sort of breath taking. You'd be into it. Side B, "A Serpent's Coil" is some straight-up bedroom blackmetal the way it's meant to be. One man, one drum machine, some real drums (maybe), blistery guitar, gag'n vocals chords. Jcard: b&w image of the sun through the trees is a nice touch. These dubs sound awesome too. Get one. http://scard.sonicmunitions.com/

DEADBEAT - Source Tape for lonely Nights

Does your noise suck? You need a better sound source. Just pipe this baby through your rig and you're noise'n like the big dogs! Add as much or as little variation as you wish. You can even do nothing if you just wanna knob-sync, and you'll still sound like a harsh noise god. The foundation is laid. All the fundamentals of pummeling harsh rumble and wicked crackle can be yours for the sourcing. DEADBEAT is on point. This really is a noiser's noise tape. Each side serves up a 20 minute slab of moving but not changing HNW. Not the stale static walls, but the kind you can really sink yer teeth into. Get yer panties wet walls. No sour notes or bogus tones. The end of side B degrades into a bass drone, so you can tell when you're almost done sourcing. Cover photo of gross human tugging shirt collar, showing off hickey. MADE IN U.S.A.

Mutant Video - "Head Scan" Part Two out on IRON LUNG Records

Kick back & relax. Act normal. Go on about your usual business; let "Head Scan" Part Two do its thing. Creepishly lurking at your back, this minimally invasive full-length cassette is the shit. General vibe is subtle seething dirge of synth drone and bass gut. Simmering pads, haunting throbs, and the occasional old school industrial drum beat tastefully comprise the trove of slow burnning jams. Track names like "Comb Over", "Oil Change", & "Business Expense" fail at eluding to the vast awe you succumb to when you realize the sinister truths hidden between the lines of routine monotony within your everyday life. If Mutant Video aimed at pulling off a masterful album with real staying power, without having it sound the least bit over-produced or schtiky, then they hit the mark. Bar raised. Nice looking pro-dub just like real tapes back in the 1980's. Download code included with tape if yer into it. Look for your copy over at IRON LUNG

Sunshine California - Leavin' on a Jetplane C40 on ghost dad

I remember hearing some Sunshine California circa 2007, and it was some thick&burly harsh wall. I've been searching for that release ever since. The problem with noise releases, is that its hard to collect all 12+ releases of any particular artist when they only put em out in editions of 7 or 12 copies. This tape happens to be of an edition of 50. Leavin' on a Jetplane starts out kinda flat, another low-fi bedroom recording of clicking hissing bare patch cord buzzing fuckery that doesn't really do much but lay there and squirm. In fact, all of side A and the first part of side B are more or less trash. By about the time you're ready to give up on this tape, SC hits a groove and drives it into a distorted echoing mess of awesome guitar that doesn't sound like guitar. Crush and reel. It's one of those heavy noise jams that hits your noise-spot if you listen with the right kind of ears. Spray-painted tape and case (something I usually wont tolerate) wasn't a deal breaker this time around. This probly isn't the Sunshine California I'm looking for, but it ain so bad. The search goes on.

Cover Art by Chris Ando

CIEN MUCHACHOS AT JENNIE RICHIE C20 out on Readymades Tapes - Quality Since 1893

AJR gets weirder every time. This tape offers up a dose of everything under the sun. A "smooth" flowing collage of  this and that: soft ambient walls of pad drone harsh bursts trippy bluejazz breakdowns lo-res xylaphone loop samples darkened dirge trumpet riff more bell manual cd skipping vynil starting hop crafty processing full spread stereo panning the works. Never muddy, never dull. J-card printed on semi-translucent paper w/red insert + photoshop guy. Side A: The Dance Of A Thousand Dances. Side B: Arrojado, Audaz, Inteligente. AJR fans seek this. Edition of 5. Good luck.


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AT JENNIE RICHIE The Vest Coast Volume 1 C20 out on Readymades Tapes - Quality Since 1893

I'm posting these tape reviews in tandem because, well, I'm not entirely sure that I haven't gotten them mixed up. The tape artwork doesn't list the titles, and I've been swapping these tapes back&4th-in&out my tape deck for the last few days; as far as matching track titles to tracks on the tape, I'm at a loss. It could go either way. With that said, I'm high to see that all of these tracks are courtesy of The Nine Day Antler Society And The Seven Gallery. Side A titled Mixtape Found In Karadesh (Get Down, Get Back) is a track that I would totally believe was a tape found in some place that sounds like a Hindi-Buddist sort of country, or I could see it being a looped sample jam of an old b&w disney cartoon set in such a place. Solid jam fer sure. Crank it up and roll through the mall parkinglot. Windows down. Straight face. All Summer long. Side B. Organ Operator Footage - Raw Organ Footage I - Automatic Perception seems like a darker drench of players .Not as happy-go-lucky but well worth the wear on your tape head. Edition of 5. Trans Jcard W/Captivating Jcard insert: pages from Romaji Diary TAKU BOKU. 

Hangedman Vol. 1 cs comp.

Ever wonder where Seattle's noise-friendly mystics and granola-eating folk-doom vegan hockey-mask artists are at? Well, there'r all right here on the HangedMan Vol. 1 cs comp. J-card is screened and even appears to be embossed. 2 sets of liner notes indicate artist and track titles.

MegaBats - "Lawbreaker" kicks off the comp with a gleaming track of murky ambient synthesized bliss. Richard D. James couldn't have done it better himself.

Kristian Garrard - "Iced Axe IV" earthy machines, throbbing hearts, streams of consciousness. Ethereal harmony puts zen in motion.

Karnak Templers - "Spiral Chasm" ritual string worship mournful of thyself.

Josh Medina - "Scotch Broom" guitar-vocal-folkl, conceived by firelight in the absence of moon beams.

Them, There - "Ghostwood" blending cello, wind, and bleak guitar to formulate an exquisite aesthetic.

Side B

Demian Johnston - "And Then it Drags Across the Bottom" is Demian's most successful attempt at sounding like Blue Sabbath Black Cheer to date. Well played.

Inh Halentropy - "Arp Grey Magic 2600" lo-fi beat machines and spooky thermionic leads pre-dates dub-step.

Thunder Grey Pilgrim - "Iaospel" láðspel  actually. Classical black metal picking and strumming with disgusting vocal oddness.

Nightjar - "Bottom Road" even more crusty black metal guitar.

Sokai Stilhed - "City of Love" an enjoyable gem weaving together of backwards flute and loop manipulated vocal frolics. Fun stuff.

marcel duchamp at jennie richie c15 - ReadyMades Tapes

Side A - The Creative Act - a 1957 spoken word recording of Marcel Duchamp waxing rhetorical about art. The conception, execution, perception, critical interpretation, and prostration of art is brought into question with a hypnotic monologue. If verbose artistic philosophy is yer thing, then you probly already have a poster of the Mona Lisa with a mustache on your wall, and you already know about Marcel's contributions to the Surrealist and Dadaist movements of the early 1900's. If not then you better get digging and start doing your homework.

Side B - The Man Who Suffers - a live recording at jennie richie from Sevilla Spain in 2002. Rumble hum and grinding terror haunt the children in B ward. No one can escape.

ArsenLives c20

Seattle & Oakland based artist Arsen Gogeshvili is known for his work with bands OK Thanks and Honey.Moon.Tree., but is perhaps more well know by his glitch bending elecxtronica solo moniker, ArsenLives. There is nothing indicating anything as far as J-card liner notes here, just two electro-microscopic images, pretty enough to display on oh, ahem lets say, a 7" record jacket? hmmm?
This isn't a noise tape, it's more like a polished up ambientempo/chill/trip-step tape. Programmed beats and dub-steppin bass synths eloquently arranged to deliver a very pro sounding electronica EP. ArsenLives may be ready to transcend the realm of DIY to embark up the tree's of WARP Records and the likes. Move over Crystal Castles, Arsen Lives!!!