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!.