With the untimely demise of the Yellow Swans, I’ve been on the hunt for a new favourite band and I think I may have found it in this three peice from Brooklyn. Produced by Andrew W.K. last year  Through the Panama is Sightings fourth full length. I have no idea whether this record is representatyive of their previous output, but I will say is this is the sort of avant rock which really works for me.  It’s noisy, experimental but bases itself around normal rock song structure.

When I first played it last week the most immediate band that came to mind was the New York no-wave band Mars. I think that impression had more to do with the vocalist’s version of intimidating ambivilance rather thna the music itself.  I suppose to use more modern equivilants,  Sightings sit somewhere between the intentional obtuseness of Mouthus and the nihilistic, swaggering cool of Liars.  The majority of the songs have vocals (with lyrics even!). The first two tracks bely the strength of Through the Panama as an album.  Both sound like post-punk infused no-wave updated for the new millenium. Even when they do a Yellow Swans style drone/noise excursion (on Cloven Hoof)  Sightings really hit the mark.

Live 2008 Rhode Island

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In a couple of days time The Yellow Swans will be no more. Deterioration will not be their last record (there should be an “official” release in 2009) but if it had been then good lord what a way to go out. I had no idea that this had even been released and it was only by accident that I found it last week. This record is nearly a perfect distillation of how good the  Yellow Swans can be. In fact, I like this better than At All Ends (and boy did I love that record). It’s a thrilling ride through drone, noise and experimental rock. In fact it is an important reminder of just how vital avant garde, experimental music can be.  As I was listening to Deterioration again today it struck me how it sounds like a noise version of the  aural dynamics pioneered by God Speed You Black Emperor.  I can’t recommend this highly enough. 

The thing I find sad about this release is that it is clear from Deterioration that Yellow Swans were only getting better and better and I wonder just how far they could have gone. I have no idea whether this is in wide release and I urge you to track it down. This is the  first truly great record of 2008 (and it only took until June!)

When you think that Husker Du produced three of rocks best albums in less than a year, and one of those records was a double, you realise just how full on the work ethic of the SST bands was. Those three records, Zen Arcade, New Day Rising and Flip Your Wig, take up three places in my Top five punk records of the 1980’s. Every rock geek has their particular favourite and I’m no different. Flip Your Wig was their last record for SST before unleashing the less than satisfying Candy Apple Grey on Warners. I think Flip Your Wig is the best out of the three for the simple reasons that the production is better and they finally gave in to their pop instincts are wrote some of the strongest songs of their career. On Flip Your Wig, Grant Hart doesn’t sound like he’s playing the drums with knitting needles and the tinniness of the production on their previous output has been replaced with some real grunt. Bob Mould’s voice still sounds like the best voice in rock and when it kicks into gear on the unashamedly pop “Makes No Sense at All” you realise that you’d be hardpressed to find a better example of mid 1980’s punk. This record is the shit but just go and buy all three anyway.

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This is my first Vibracathedral record and thanks to the recommendation of Eric from Tapedrift Records I bought this a couple of weeks ago.  Vibracathedral  Orchestra are a long running experimental/avant-rock band from the UK.  Each of their records is recorded live in the studio which certainly gives everything on Wisdom Thunderbolt an improvised feel.   When I first put it on  I thought I was in for a stack of those meandering, kitchen-sink, Dead C type tracks and I’ll be honest the first track of Wisdom Thunderbolt does absolutely nothing for me. Self indulgence in experimental music often equate with a level of dullness. The opening track suffers as a result.

So it was certainly a surprise when the second track “A Natural Fact” began. It’s an improvised swirling sub-continental ethno-drone track. It’s like some wonderful transcendent acid trip. It’s followed by “Order of the Broad Eraser” another transcendent track based around an ethnic drum beat that had me thinking of Sun City Girls.  When the fourth track started the record was back in to the realm of drone and the improvised clatter of the Dead C although with greater focus and variety. One of the real stand outs  is the fifth track, “Rainbow Whirlwind” which starts with that nauseating wonkiness that Black Dice do so well (I was thinking of “Snarly Yow” from Broken Ear Record).

Every track on Wisdom Thunderbolt is unique, and although it doesn’t start well it certainly gets a fuckload better. It’s actually a pretty good starting point of you were considering dabbling in experimental rock. I’ve already ordered my next Vibracathedral record (Pete thanks for the tip!)

I’ve spent a fair bit of time on this blog trying to explain my reaction to Merzbow. When I read the majority of the posts there seems to be a theme based around which record encapsulates the best entry point for someone thinking of dabbling in his vast back catalogue. So as not to fuck with that theme, if I was new to this Merzbow thing I’d probably steer clear of Coma Berenices until I’d  navigated elsewhere first.

But for the initiated Merzbow listener, Coma Berenices is an absolute cracker of a record. It came out around the time of Merzbear and I’ll be honest this is a much better record. It’s dense, almost lush in it’s approach to noise. It’s certainly guitar heavy but leaves the beat heaviness of the “Merz” series behind. I’m still not clear on the whole analogue/digital divide but I read somewhere that this is one of his analogue works. I have no idea if that is right so lets just go with that. The tracks themselves are some of the most rewarding Merzbow works I’ve heard to date. This is one of the only Merzbow records where my ears don’t become “concerned with recognisable, familiar and friendly musical mechanics and motifs”. But it is still worth pointing out that there is this magic track towards the end, “Silky Feather”, which to these ears sounds like Merzbow attempting a doom track (seriously). Coma Berenices is intermediate level Merzbow. It’s now time to tackle Pulse Demon.

Lets get to the point and address the elephant in the room shall we. This is the most horrendous record art work I’ve seen for some time. When this arrived in the post this week I was pretty dubious about it but if there was ever a case where you shouldn’t judge a record by its cover then So Embarrassing would be it.

The music is some of the oddest, yet somehow strangely accessible, tunes I’ve heard for some time. I’ve listened to this pretty solidly since I’ve got it and I’ll be fucked if I can explain it properly. Think of the effortless cool of the Walker Brothers, then bash the crap out of it with the occasional screamo moment, mix it all up with some Moha type spazziness and there you have it, Capillary Action in all their glory. This is extremely compelling avant pop. The most over-riding reference point I can think of is Shudder to Think and in particular their Pony Express record.

So Embarrassing is basically a suite of music. All of the tracks concentrate around the same musical theme, the psychopatic lounge singer who is off his meds. Capillary Action is the brainchild of Jonathon Pfieffer who wrote all the songs and is also responsible for the aforementioned art work. The music itself is boosted by a string and horn section which fleshes out the tracks to make a strangely lush sounding record. I’m pretty impressed with the whole thing. If you have any interest in a big band Xiu Xiu or clever avant pop music then this may be the record for you. It certainly hit the spot for me.

Multila was originally released on Chain Reaction in 2001before being rereleased on Mr Delay’s own Huume imprint last year. One of my more recent tangents in experimental music is this whole genre of minimalist dub/ambient electronica that is being produced out of Germany. My local chain record store recently had a sale and got rid of things like Pole, Mouse on Mars, Ricardo Villalobos and Vladislav Delay for peanuts. I of course bought as much as I could hide from my ever suffering partner. The only way I knew that this stuff even existed was through a very good interview with Mr Delay himself, Sasu Ripatti, in The Wire a couple of months ago.

I’ve always been a bit partial to a bit of interesting electronica and artists like those listed above seem to take the whole concept in a very minimal, chilled direction. For a blog that focuses on the more noisy aspects of rock and, fuck it, noise, it may appear odd that minimalist dub is being posted on here. I suppose to use a very stupid analogy if Earth are Black Sabbath with only the good bits left then Vladislav Delay distills techno and dub to only the bare necessities. It’s all minimal beats, glitches, clicks and tones. It’s not immediately accessible but as I listen to it again and again Multila just lodges in my brain. I’m skeptical about how where an artist that produces this sort of thing goes to next but after listening to nothing but Pole and Vladislav Delay for the past week I might take the plunge again to find out. If your intersted in avant garde music then then I recommend you check this out. It’s not bad at all.

As an aside if you are a parent of a toddler who fights sleep, invest in a copy of Fabric 36 by Ricardo Villalobos. It knocks my son out in three minutes flat.

(While I do battle with a recent Valdislav Delay record I bought, I asked work colleague Tom to write down some thoughts about Smell of Female. It is their best record and as an aside please make sure you don’t buy anything they released after Date With Elvis. All of those records suck hard). Cheers Tom.

Why nothing will ever rule harder than LA in the early 80’s

I’m very new to the Cramps but I’m told on good authority that this record is the one to own. I’m putting that down to the fact that there’s no bass player on it and Kid “Congo” Powers handles rhythm guitar duties.

Listening to this and knowing Congo Powers was there, my mind can’t help but be flooded with images of LA in the early 80’s (even though I’m not entirely sure where the Peppermint Lounge was). I personally love LA in an totally smutty, shit-box kind of way. Even though all I did there was go record shopping, in hindsight I like to pretend I lived out all my Welcome to the Jungle fantasies.

Congo Powers embodies this probably unrealistic image I have of the city – all sleazy blues, awesome moustaches and living in the desert or something. Not content to just, oh, start the Gun Club with Pierce, he joins the Cramps and then rips the walls off the place on this record.

The record itself is all glorious, howling Gretschs with thick-soup humbuckers which are entirely acceptable in this situation.

I would like to conclude with the following:

1. waiting at bus stops in the sun

2. empty swimming pools

3. dinosaur shaped play equipment (in the days before civil liability when playgrounds were fun and only the useless kids hurt themselves)

4. having big hair before Poison

5. a passing interest in bogus spiritualism.

93/100

Live 1984

Yet another example of why Important is turning me into a slobbering, record-label fanboy. Daniel Menche is a recent discovery. The Wire had a bit of a write up on him a few months back and the description of what he did certainly pricked my interest. I’ve already posted my thoughts on the awesome Glass Forest and it was only going to be a matter of time before I dabbled again. I picked this up a  two weeks ago on ebay for no other reason than  that it was incredibly cheap (and still sealed!)

There seems to be a bit of a theme with Menche’s record titles. Consider some of these past titles, Bleeding Heavens, Beautiful Blood, Body Melt and Field of Skin. I have no idea whether Jugularis is representative of his back catalogue but for the  casual noise freak it has a lot to offer. Jugularis is a heavily percussive record and consists of three very long tracks (all called Jugularis) that are joined together without a break. It’s begins as an creepy ambient record (think of a more active Oren Ambarchi) before gradually building in intensity and changing texture over the next 20minutes.  The second track is an absolute cracker. Tribal drums are gradually digitally manipulated before being swallowed whole.  Menche’s use of percussive textures somehow build up a huge wall of noise without every relying on the hiss, squall and blast electronic fuckery of some of the other noise acts out there at the moment. There are noise textures throughout Jugularis but the focus is always on the percussion or some sort of digitally altered rhythm. It’s pretty good stuff. I’m keen to hear some of his earlier stuff which apparently delves into the dark ambient realm. Does anybody out there no enough about him to point me in the right direction.

I’ve spent time on this blog trying to get the word out there that Merzbow is nothing to fear. Despite his reputation as a non-compromising noise artist, I’ve found a lot of the his output readily accessible, exciting and just damn enjoyable. Given the fact that this has been my main focus I’ve struggled with what to write for Minazo. From the cover art it seems like another cuddly edition to the Merzbow catalogue. If you thought that though, you’d be very wrong.

Minazo is a tribute to the elephant seal that died in 2005. Minazo was a bit of a celebrity in Japan and in the liner notes to this disc, Masami Akita despairs for the way he was treated and ponders if it caused his early death. Merzbow’s love of animals is no secret and his support for PETA is mentioned often. But how do you convey very personal feelings about the death of an animal through noise? When I first started tackling this disc I thought that it lacked the interest of some of his other records. In the last week I started to really listen to it. Not have it as some background noise when doing some other task. It was only through carefully listening that I started to get it. There are four tracks on Minazo and I have no idea whether this is intentional but there is a real feeling of panic on some of the tracks, especially the first untitled track which blew me away with the ability to covey an actual emotion like fear and panic through oscillations, pulse and noise. I felt the panic of the animal as it was kept in captivity, isolated and alone.

If you are startying out on Merzbow avoid this. It is dense and unrelenting. If you know your Merzbow then this is another classic. Seriously the man can do no wrong.

A couple of weeks ago a reader left a comment on this blog alerting me to the imminent demise of Yellow Swans. On June 30 of this year they will be no more. Now I fucking love the Yellow Swans and after the excellent At All Ends I was really looking forward to where they were going next. So I again look to greener pastures on my journey through experimental music. One of the bands that I’d heard of but hadn’t heard was Sunroof!. Sunroof ! is the band of Matthew Bowers, the veteran experimental artist that was also behind Skullflower (another band I’ve heard of but haven’t heard). I thought it was time to give them a go and I started with Panzer Division Lou Reed because firstly it is their latest and secondly because it was the only Sunroof record I could find in my local rip-off record store.

I’ve read a couple of other reviews and they all seemed to mention that his is one of the more aggressive and dense recordings that Sunroof! have produced and is a swerve to the left from their usual drone based recordings. I have no idea whether that is true. This is the only Sunroof! record I’ve listened to, so I have nothing to compare it to. What I will say though, is that this is one of the most challenging yet interesting noise records I currently own. It’s a big slice of improvised rock-noise that certainly took me aback when I first listened to it. I’ve wrestled with it now for couple of weeks and I’m pretty happy with the journey it took me on. This sounds similar to those Yellow Swans records when they preface their name with a word beginning with D. In particular I though that this sounded a lot like Dreamed Yellow Swans which is now sadly out of print. I’m a sucker for this type of noise and although the reviews I read weren’t exactly positive, having no knowledge of what their other records sound like allows me to approach it with an independent mind. This record is great and if you are a Yellow Swans freak like myself then Panzer Division Lou Reed is well worth tracking down.

Sunroof Live 2007!

If you hadn’t already figured out by the number of spelling errors on this blog, I’m often drunk when I post. In the interests of raising the standards and the fact that I won’t be getting my own copy for a couple of weeks, I’ve invited Seth (a reader of this blog) to write up his thoughts on a pretty exciting re-release. I’m not sure if I’m right but like myself, I think Seth is new to this noise/avant stuff. There is only one comment I’d make in addition to Seth’s thoughts and that is the fact that this is titled Volume 1 is a pretty exciting teaser that there might be more Sun City Girls re-releases coming our way. Take it away Seth.

The Sun City Girls are a bunch of guys from Arizona with not much to do other than make strange noises with distorted guitars whilst releasing numerous albums that are incredibly difficult to find. Which is nice, if you’re into that sort of thing. “You’re Never Alone With A Cigarette” is a singles compilation consisting of six songs that were recorded during the sessions for their most well-known album, “Torch of the Mystics”, and three previously unreleased tracks that all sound like something from a spaghetti western soundtrack (although with a LOT more distortion on the guitars). All of the songs are instrumental, except for “The Beauty of Bengazi” which seems to be sung in a made-up language.

Since the only release by the Sun City Girls that I had heard prior to this was “Dante’s Disneyland Inferno”, I didn’t really have much idea of what to expect from this album, but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the material contained on it. The first song, “100 Pounds of Black Olives” consists of a cacophony of distorted guitar and bass that gets faster and louder until the fuzz overwhelms your ears, before slowly burning out. It actually seemed very reminiscent of some of the material from Can’s “Tago Mago”, especially the improvised guitar parts from “Paperhouse”. “Sev Acher” is one of the three Morricone-esque songs, the other two being “Amazon One” and “Wide World of Animals”, all of which are all fantastic and probably the best songs on the album. The sheer skill of the musicians is also worth noting, with the hyperactive acoustic guitar twang on “The Beauty Of Benghazi” and the hypnotic riffs contained within “Wide World of Animals” being excellent testaments to the impressive skill of the Sun City Girls. The only song I’m not particularly fond of is “The Fine-Tuned Machines Of Lemuria”, which just drags on for too long and seems to be a bit self-indulgent. It does contain some nice trumpet parts, though.

In conclusion, this album is a great starting place if you have even the slightest interest in exploring the vast discography of the Sun City Girls. All of the songs are enjoyable and the production is top-notch. Check it out if you can find it (or just steal it!*).

*You probably shouldn’t actually steal it, you might get in trouble or something. Not that you have much chance of finding it, anyway.

You know I only walked into my local record store to buy sunroof! but walked out with this as well.  The Grey Daturas are a trio from Melbourne who have been churning out their particular brand of antipodean  noise for a couple of years now. Some don’t regard what they do as noise, and I get the hesitation. For the most part the Grey Daturas churn out a wonderfully satisfying brand of heavy psychedelic guitar workout but they also allow a more experimental, and dare I say noisy, side to come to the fore. This is a very good record. It’s actually the first full length I’ve heard from them and it threw me in many ways. There are only seven tracks on Return to Disruption but they seem to cover a bundle of different noise style over the length of the album.

When I was listening to the first track I thought: Lightning Bolt but less arty farty and less annoying.   But if that’s the only thing I’d heard I would have developed a very wrong impression of this very impressive band. The second album titled track owes more to the kitchen-sink sound and drone experiments of Sandoz Lab Technicians. The third track starts off sounding like Lightning Bolt before taking an abrupt left turn into Birchville territory. A pure drone track was certainly not expected but considering that I’m a bit partial to droneI was pretty happy with its inclusion. I suppose the one major impression I get from listening to Return to Disruption is the heavy influence of The Dead C. Just like the Dead C, the Grey Daturas are not afraid to mix up their styles.

By the time we get half way through we’re firmly in the land of doom before descending into a psych-metal freakout. There is still time for another avant-garde Dead C-esque noise experiment before the whole thing is closed out by two psych metal melt downs (think Boris ). It’s a great album and well worth picking up if you’re interested at all in noise, drone, sludge psych and doom.

This was recorded in 2006 mixed last year and released a couple of weeks ago. Somehow I don’t think this band are going to be churning out a shit load of product any time soon.  Return To Disruption almost plays like a well thought out noise sampler and certainly puts Australian noise on the map even if it does remind me of a stack of bands from across the Tasman Sea.

Live in Oakland 2007

There a couple of records that never leave my Top 10. Sister by Sonic Youth is a good example. One of the other ones is this, the mighty second record from Girls Against Boys. I remember buying this record in 1995. I’d just moved to a big city from my buttfuck, redneck, bullshit town and I knew no-one. Every Friday night on my way home from work I’d pop into my local indie record store and buy something for the weekend. One of my first purchases was this. Buying this record probably didn’t assist my isolation but it sure as shit made the bus rides to and from work alot more bearable.

Girls Against Boys really should have been a dischord band. Equal parts Fugazi, Shudder to Think and Nation of Ulysses (but somehow sounding a lot cooler than all of them), they were certainly one of the more unique bands coming out of the US in the mid-1990’s. They released three very good records, this, Cruise Yourself and Girls Against Boys before signing to a major label and releasing an absolute turd of an album Freak-on-ica. I still think the pick of them has to be Venus Luxure No.1 Baby, the songs are strong and the power of the twin bass guitar hammering away is very special indeed. Its the album that started their flirtation with lounge-noir. In fact I always thought of Girls Against Boys as the post-apocalyptic house band at some seedy martini joint. There are obviously limitations to their sound and I suppose Girls Against Boys are a great example of an excellent band that stayed around too long. If your only experience with this band is Freak-on-ica put that out of your mind and listen to this record. They really were one of the best things to come out of the US in the mid-1990’s and I only wish I’d seen them live.

This is the first single from the album, In Like Flynn, played live in 1993.

There are albums that I return to again and again. Today’s Active Lifetstyles is one of them. Before Battles reinvented Math Rock for the new millennium, Polvo were the most visible members of a rather small club of math rock artists that existed around the early to mid-1990’s. I have already posted on their third album Exploded Drawing and although I really like that record, Today’s Active Lifestyles works for me a little more. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s a little rawer than Exploded or whether i find the tracks more evocative than it’s follow up.

The sheer joy of Polvo is the complexity and denseness of the music they create. I think this record really capture Polvo at the height of their powers. It isn’t as sloppy and college rocky as their debut Cor Crane Secret and not as tediously dull as their final record Shapes. What you get is a sophisticated primer to math rock and probably one of my favourite records of all time. This may be heresy to some but I think it’s way better than Spiderland and a much better may of spending your hard earned dollars.

The only thing I can find from Today’s … is a short exert of Kimino.

Lucas Abela (Justioce Yeldham) criticised me for not covering more Australian noise music so here’s one from the vaults.

Thug were a shotlived band from Sydney who released a cople of records in the late 1980’s on the avant rock label Black Eye. Besides also being the home of Kim Salmon and the Surrealists, Lubricated Goart and the Butcher Shop, the actual output of Black Eye was pretty limited. The mover and shaker behind Thug was the awesome TexPerkins who also fronted The Butcher Shop, Salamander Jim, The Beasts of Bourbon and later Cruel Sea. In Australia he is best know for his work with the Cruel Sea, a twangy pub rockband that actually won Best Band at Australia’s equivalent to the Grammys (an ARIA) ten years or so ago. When you consider his output in Thug (scroll down for a video snippet) you’ll understand that to those who remembered Tex from his early days his later success was a bit of a shock. For those overseas it’s the equivalent Aaron Dilloway from Wolf Eyes fronting up for an MTV award after forming a supergroup with Wilco.

Unfortunately the only thing I could of Thug’s short lived output is this hobbled together compilation released 13 years after the band folded. The fact that it this was released on Universal is an ongoing mystery to me. I mean, what the fuck were they thinking? It’s difficult to reconcile this with the full length albums they released but over its 28 tracks Everything … seems to cover the majority of their output.

The incredibly frustrating thing about this record is the complete lack of liner notes. Thug have an interesting history and their story deserves to be told. The tracks themselves span the gamit of experimental music. Some of their outputsounds like the intense noise fuck of Whitehouse, the frenetic cut and paste technique of John Wiese, the bonged out psychedelia of Butthole Surfers, the fart joke ambience of the early Boredoms records and a hunderd other strange and wacky bands through the ages. Although the compilation itself is disappointing due to the lack of info or context, Thug deserve to be heard by more people.

The excellent Dave from Lexicon Devil has a very good write up.

manwithoutshame.blogspot.com/2004/09/thug-mechanical-apeproud-idiots-parade.html

I’ve posted the first thing of Thug’s that I’d ever heard. This is from the excellent Carry on Disarming video released by the NME in 1988.

For a blog that seems to concentrate on the tuneless and obscure many would find it suprising that I’m posting on this. Boxer was in a whole bunch of critics best of lists for 2007. I think that there is some justificatioin for that.

I first heard of this band through my mate Andrew and was somewhat skeptical when he raved about how good they were. Favourite band blah blah blah. Anyway I get a call from Andrew a couple of months ago, and he and his wife Sussanah have bought tickets and are flying 1500 km’s to see this band. Did I want to go with them? Why the fuck not I thought. Since the birth of my son I could count the number of times I’d been out at night on two fingers.

I went with no expectations. The opening band was some horrible local act that sounded remarkably like Drop Nineteens (that band were OK in 1993 but seriously it’s 2007 people). So The National start and fuck me if it isn’t one of the best live shows I’ve seen in some time. Each track they played ended with this wall of transcendent white noise which made me all funny. The band were tight and the singer has one of those voices which is equal parts bourbon, cough syrup and honey (think Tindersticks). They also had two little hobbit guitarists which was fun. But seriously his voice is something very special indeed and fuck me if he doesn’t write some of the best bitter love songs since David Gedge and the Wedding Present. Their stuff is all dark and evocative but they really know how to write a tune. And sometimes I really need to hear a tune. Not often but sometimes. Cheers Andrew for the ticket and yes I did buy their fucking album. It was like $12.00 on Fishpond but i would have paid more, honest. Sure there is a little it of crap on Boxer but when they get it right (see below) they fucking nail it.

Mistaken for Strangers

This was the first record by a band that made some very good records indeed. A sort of compilation of early singles, Tonite .. the Singles Bar is a fantastic homage to primitive, sleazy punk rock. Equal parts Gun Club, Birthday Party, Morphine and Tom Waits, their star shone very brighlyt for a couple of years as the NME flogged them to death in the early 1990’s. They were eventually picked up by a major label and nominated for the Mercury Music prize. Besides producing some vital swamp-billy music they also hosted James Byfield, the only professional maracas player since Bez from the Happy Mondays. I think that this early compilation really nailed their sound and although I own everything they’ve ever done, I don’t think that they ever bettered it. From The Heart of Town (their album from the following year) exhibits a less ramshackle (dare I say polished approach) and although the songs are strong it lacks the primal vitality of their early singles.

The lead singer James Johnstone has gone of to play with the Bad Seeds which seems in retrospect to be a natural destination for him. All the Gallon Drunk albums were re-released with extra tracks last year. The expanded version of this has some live versions of some stuff that appeared on later records. If I was to repurchase any of Gallon Drunk’s records it would be this one. They released a new record last year. I haven’t heard it but am curious. Anyone care to profer an opinion?

Town and Country Club 1991

The thing I like about Mouthus is that rather than settle as a pure noise band they attempt to smash together  power electronics, a live drummer and a guitarist with oddly dissonant vocals to produce something thats combines noise, rock, avant-garde experimentation and drone. I think as a whole it works pretty well. The first track on Follow This House doesn’t really work for me but by the time I got to the second track Cameras, I realised just how good Mouthus can be when they are on form. For each of their tracks they don’t deviate from their original idea . They  beat it with a stick until it falls over and then move onto the next track. I’ve said before that the reason why a lot of this noise stuff appeals to me is the journey of discovery it takes you. With Mouthus its much more a straight up rock vibe (although like no other rock band you’ll ever hear. There is none of the extremity of Wolf Eyes or Skaters etc.  There is an improv feel to most of the tracks and it’s obvious there is some love of the Dead C happening here. I think Mouthus are a pretty unique example of the width of the noise genre.

Here is a live show they did this year:

I’ll be honest, I never thought I’d become a label whore again but Important are the most appropriately named record label out there. Not since the heydays of Blast First has a label released so many amazing records. The latest addition to this club is Daniel Menche’s Glass Forest. The album itself is comprised of three long pieces all named oddly enough Glass Forest. It is some of the most pure, transcedent drone I’ve ever heard. It’s both subtle and captivating, yet contains the odd shock here and there. In some ways it charts a similar course to some of Birchville Cat Motel’s blissed out drone epics. The difference with Glass Forest compared to say Seventh Ruined Hex, is that Menche actually goes somewhere with his noise. Its continually evolving and progressing, layers of field recordings are manipulated and layered on top. Occasionally a pulse finds its way into the mix. At other instances a more sinister beat takes control of proceedings. Static and hiss give way to tweaked frequencies before rejoining again. At time its like a long march through drone and noise with the odd attack and retreat thrown in for good measure. It’s noise penetrated by shards of light. The good thing is that this is now in my list of favourite noise records of all time. The bad thing is, my bank balance is going to suffer as I try to track down more of his past output. Very exciting stuff indeed. If you have a passing interest in drone or noise art for that matter, this may well be worth tracking down.

Here is a video I found on youtube. I think the CD is far better but it give s a taste of the drone.