AALBORG NOISE JIHAD compilation CD

Club DNA 1000Fryd, Kattesundet 10, 9000 Aalborg, Denmark

“Noise” is right! Track 1, by MARQUIS KONSPIRATOR, sounds like a UFO landing. For five minutes. Their second contribution, “Faces,” sounds like aliens descending from the UFO. Heavenly ambience with soundtrackish embellishments. ‘Snice. The first five minutes anyway. After that it gets spooky and hellish for ten more minutes. LUCA BRASI’S REVENGE rocks some pretty possessed-sounding dark ambience as well on their “An Offer You Can’t Refuse” Parts 1 and 2. Chill-out music for Sa’an himself. KUMMERLIGE FORHOLD goes for the jugular on their 4 tracks with pure impure noise. Buzzing, feedback, buzzing feedback and more! Some tracks feature a dude screaming and a drum machine. MAALETHELLIGERMIDLET666 drops a tainted splat of hellnoize that’s punctuated by tense silences. Man. I feel dirty now.

Ian C Stewart

 

AARDVARK

INFOTECHTURE

Mutant Cactus Recordings POBox 31036, 25 Frederick St, Kitchener, ON N2H 6MO Canada

Thumping, percussive miasma. A marsh full of frogs, a drunk voice warbles backwards slowly. A machine goes around the edge of the swamp, driving spikes into the ground to keep the place from flying up off of the earth. Faster, like a mad sewing machine binding the earth at a seam line. More serene on side two with what sounds like a soft rain occasionally striking rusty harp strings. The earth binding machine miles off in the background. AARDVARK is KEVIN PAISLEY’s (of STATIC INSECT) side project wherewith he uses wholly appropriated material from uncited sources. This short, single length tape is the debut from that project.

C Reider

 

AGOG

DUST IS THEIR FOOD AND CLAY THEIR MEAT

Spagyric 19241 Kenya St, Northridge CA 91326 USA

Wow, AGOG…He must now be considered a real old-timer in the noise world. His tapes from ten years ago were great. Eek, it’s hard to keep in touch with everyone isn’t it? Well, from the sounds of this he hasn’t in the normal sense gotten any better at all, and that’s just fine with us. Noisy collage layering, you know, folk noise, taking any sound around and PLAYING WITH IT. Everything IS an instrument. Bad sound is good noise. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

od mcUB

 

AL + DEL

38 Avenue Pompidou, 69003 Lyon, France

petchanatz@yahoo.com

Epic melancholy folk pop with a French accent! After this long I figured I’d heard everything. Damn. Guess not. Track 2 features some mournful piano, bass and a harmonica solo. The singing is in English. The production is very good and the songwriting is so good it goes totally over my head. Some of the songs are pure pop. Awesome.

Ian C Stewart

 

AMBIENT INTIMACY VOL. 2 CD compilation

EE Tapes, Clement Herimanstr. 10, 9100 Sint Niklaas, Belgium

Another stunningly excellent compilation CD of underground ambient work from EE Tapes, who are quickly establishing themselves as a necessary touchpoint for anyone into the underground ambient movement.  AH CAMA-SOTZ starts things off with a swirling, ritualist piece with chants and screams…nice and fairly memorable. AUBE displays his newfound aptitude for quiet and subtlety with a slowly building atmosphere built entirely on modified metallic sounds. BAD SECTOR dishes out a frizzy drone melody with clinky sounds to nice effect. The omnipotent BIG CITY ORCHESTRA make their appearance with a fuzzy noise loop and dreamy incidental noises. DIETER MUH has a slowly building drone with buried rhythmic elements and a creepy vocal sample which sounds like it was lifted from Doom 64. DRONAEMENT has a whispery bit of tidal dreaminess to add to the fold. HELLFILLER goes even deeper into the nondescript with a drone that seems to disappear even as it’s becoming more dense. NO VS. KENOTAPH does a bassy rumble with odd intermittent quiet sounds blooming over the top. TARKATAK ends out the CD with what sounds like an outtake from ENO’s THE SHUTOV ASSEMBLY. A great CD of extremely quiet music. A must-have for ambient lovers.

C Reider

 

AMES SANGLANTES | EXPOSE YOUR EYES

CLUMP | STROBOSCOPE split

Fiend 18 Canal Rd, Sowerby Bridge HX6 2AY UK

AMES SANGLANTES rocks half a debilitating hour of pure hellish noise that’s sure to make any stereo system sound totally fucked. To hell. Guitarists: ya know that hum/buzz sound you get when you’re plugging your guitar into a distorted amp? Yeah. Imagine that shit for half an hour. EXPOSE YOUR EYES kicks it practically acoustic on STROBOSCOPE. Great name too. One layer of processed signal that includes narration, fucked bits of music and electro hums. Shit, it’s nearly YANNI after AMES SANGLANTES.

Ian C Stewart

 

STEVE ANDREWS

CHANGING FACES

22 Parker Place, Ely, Cardiff, CF5 4NS Wales UK

http://freespace.virgin.net/christopher.swambo/steve/mothership.html

CHANGING FACES is a collection of great material from Welsh folk singer STEVE ANDREWS, including a bunch of alternate versions and live versions of his previously released songs. Highlights for me include two rocking versions of ANDREWS tunes redone with lyrics in Welsh. After hearing “Cariad Jwngl,” and “Swn Yr Un” (known in English as “Jungle Love” and “Sound of One” respectively), I think STEVE should put out a whole album in Welsh! There’s also a funky slow reggae version “Real Love and Communication” with bleepy keyboards and a great Rasta rhythm. “Priest of the Venusians” is a bizarre psychedelic love song which has the lines “Boom shaka laka, shaka laka boom!” and “How’s yer father?” in the same song. The original version of “Jungle Love” offers a bongo rhythm and some nice guitar work. Some pieces work better than others but overall it’s an interesting collection and a great sampling of STEVE’s songs.

Ken Miller

 

ANTIFADE

BLACK PANEL MIX CD

4107B Speedway Austin TX 78751USA

wkhorse@aol.com

The first thought that enters my mind upon listening to this disc is that it sounds a lot like a FRIPP-ENO project. The second thought that enters my mind upon listening to this disc is that it sounds a lot like a FRIPP-ENO project (with beats). Ambient floaty guitars and sweeping, loopy synthy things comprise this disc. Lots of subtleties help keep it interesting and there are also some more abrasive grating textures thrown in here and there, lest we get too comfortable.

This Austin, Texas duo (JON COATS on loops, drones and treatments and TRAVIS HARTNETT on guitar) has created an excellent vehicle for sitting back and creating scenarios. The opening track “Waav” paints a picture in my head of a desert landscape. Subtle patches of feedback and odd reverbs suggest a confused man wandering across a barren wasteland, his head spinning in a desperate search for water. Track two, “Ambush”, reminds me of KING CRIMSON’s “The Sheltering Sky” (There’s a bassy thing going on that sounds like a TONY LEVIN bass or stick line). I’m on the third track now and I’m still making movies to go along with this music. Now I’m hearing the gentle sounds of water and birds, (at least I think I am, this is subtle and vague). The protagonist in my little movie seems to be alone on a small raft, lost at sea. Damn, not to be redundant, but I think these guys have heard a few ENO records. If it seems like I’m beating the “ENO” horse to death, it’s because ANTIFADE share with B.E. that EG Records aesthetic; subtle, with lots of unidentifiable sounds that morph and mutate as they resonate. This stuff is curious and mysterious.  The latter part of the disc is rather techno-ambient. (Look everyone, there’s ENNIO MORRICONE hanging out with APHEX TWIN!)  There are some nearly danceable things here, but it’s a thinking man’s cerebral dancing. You probably won’t hear this at the club, but maybe in a hip coffee shop. This is a fine disc for creating your own mental movies or just having on when you’re doing housework. Simultaneously non-intrusive and engaging.

mikadams

 

ARMITAGE 6

THE GRIME CD

6289 Donegal Drive, West Chester, OH 45069 USA

scheffbd@muohio.edu

http://www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip/arena/1996/

Synthetic instrumentals. “Alone” features film/tv samples over layers of analog keeeeys for 2 minutes then a dope-ass beat rolls in. Thumpin’! “Dream” sounds a bit like old SKINNY PUPPY with that processed rhythm box and spoken loop. “Serenity” sounds like ULTRAMARINE. Was it created using the fabulous and still-underused REBIRTH software? Oh, and I recognize that sample of BJORK singing from before that one SUGARCUBES track. Can’t remember the title but I do remember the sample. “Victim Of The World” features a severely fractured drum+bass loop with other beats tossed on to confuse things. “Plastix Explosives” just flat out rocks: distorted bass loop over a funky, uptempo beat. With blips and sound effects! “Section 9” is also pretty slammin’. Very solid dance music release though I must confess a preference for the tracks with latent beats over the more experimental stuff.

Ian C Stewart

 

ASRAI

AS VOICES SPEAK CD

PO Box 619, 3100 AP Schiedam, The Netherlands deianira_111@yahoo.com

Great music, not so great singing. Very organic goth with all elements in place: tribal drumming, dissonant guitar, prominent bass, female vocals. The disc features an excellent production; the drums sound especially vivid. The vocals, though, are the most focal aspect of the mix. Not uncommon, but in this case they absolutely dominate. The musical performances are all quite good and the vocalist is obviously a “performer” as screaming often takes precedent over hitting all of the notes correctly. “Name” is a good example, all of the elements are there, but the singing is just so… SO. And while it’s definitely unique—if you heard ASRAI in the context of other goth acts you’d definitely know it was them—over the course of an entire CD it gives me a headache. AS VOICES SPEAK is musically akin to BREATHLESS, THE CHAMELEONS, CATERWAUL and THE CURE with very slight heavy metal leanings. Very slight. I dig the music a lot.

Ian C Stewart

 

BRUCE ATCHISON

LAGOMORPH

8403 - 145 Ave NW,Edmonton, Alberta T5E 2J1  Canada

Analogue synth compositions in the grand old style of TANGERINE DREAM, et al…resplendent with heroic themes and retro-futurist tendencies, but lacking in readily apparent passion that I could engage with.  All of this stuff sounds like it was stuck in a time capsule since 1971.  None of this means that it’s an unpleasant listen, it’s really quite fine for a quiet afternoon, but inspires little but hollow nostalgia.  Each song is named after the word “Rabbit” in different languages, curiously including Esperanto, a faux idiom.

C Reider

 

ATROPHY

UNWANTED SOUNDS CD

Torture Music Records PO Box 685 Cannon Beach OR 97110 USA

A discomforting listening experience. A sixty-minute tape, UNWANTED SOUNDS bears no “song titles”, just constant unrelenting creepiness. Ghosts haunt a sunken ship or an abandoned airfield. This tape is saturated in flange, delay, echo and distortion and it tastes a little funny. This shit bugs me, but I can’t seem to press stop. And every time I begin to think it can’t get anymore disturbing, it does. Low flying jets part your hair. Electronic effects are put to the test as giant ugly birds flap their big fucking wings, swooping down to carry you off to hell. Synthesizer sweeps and swells bubble out of the mire and super-echoed clanging noises swim in huge-ass reverb. Delayed and echoed electronic sounds over a low, rumbling, distorted field. (This part reminds me of the final scene in “Eraserhead”). This is the opposite of new age. Parts of it remind me of NAKED CITY’s ABSINTHE. It’s ambient, all right, but it sure as fuck isn’t soothing.  Side two starts off with a rhythmic pingy-pongy sound and a clock striking the hour. Ominous synth drones. I want to go home now!  I’m hearing sounds that may or may not actually be on the tape. This would make a great soundtrack to an underwater sci-fi horror flick I might have a few nightmares as a result of this tape, but I can’t seem to press eject.

mikadams

 

ATROPHY

UNWANTED SOUNDSTorture Music Records PO Box 685 Cannon Beach, Or 97110 USA

Why the hell is this shrink-wrapped? Oh, I get it, you’re supposed to leave it on the tape so you won’t listen to it. What an amazing concept. What does the tape sound like you ask, well, I’ll tell you. It’s one great big sprawling industrial mess. The likes of which sounded dated years ago. If they don’t want their music, why do they feel that they need to share it with us? Avoid this at all costs, or at least leave the shrink-wrap on.

Mad Monkey

 

SYLVAIN AUBE

TROPIC OF PISCES

Monochrome 4546 Messier, Montreal QUE H2H 2J1 Canada sylvai@hotmail.com

Experimental 4-track pop soundtracks made with fleamarket synths. Heeeeeel yeah. “Triphopcathedralpop” opens with a slow Casio drum loop and features some hot-ass analogue keyboards in all their knobby real-time envelope filter glory. In fact, all of TROPIC could be seen as an experiment in analogue synth layering. With the somewhat tepid beats and the lo-fi recording preventing the rhythmic elements from flowering into prominence, the synth knobs take center stage and by all accounts put on a damn fine show. Except “Five Minutes.” Acoustic guitar, penny whistle and delayed vocals. “Amor Fati” is all about rhythms and distorted vocals, relegating the synths to the background. From here the tape descends into pure experimentation with mixed results.

Ian C Stewart

 

AUTODIDACT

WELCOME TO THE DISSONANCE ENGINE CD

Monotremata Records 815a Brazos St #515, Austin TX 78701 USA

http://www.lonestar.texas.net/~monorecs

I definitely get the part about “dissonance”! Whew! 6 tracks on this CD, the shortest clocking in around 7 minutes. The average is about 12 minutes. Moody, epic layers of guitars, bass and drum machine. Lots of effects. The interplay of the guitars and bass does indeed generate a fair amount of dissonance in many cases. It’s somewhat ambient but not exactly. Windham Hill meets the Church Of Satan maybe. While the majority of the dissonances are somewhat eerie and/or off-putting, several are actually pretty. So there’s a weird dichotomous ugly/beauty thing happening as well. “Romance In the Fallout Shelter” opens with some distant piano chording and then the drum machine fades in.“The Face Behind The Shutters” features a methodically mathematical drum pattern and effected vocals wailing and gibbering some nonsense. Very nice. Quite heinous and very sexy at the same time.

Ian C Stewart

 

TERRI B

WRAP ME IN YOUR SKIN CD

Stone Premonitions 271 Park Road, South Moor, Stanley DH9 7AP UK

terrib@stoneprem.freeserve.co.uk

http://www.mellis.demon.co.uk/index.htm

More confounding space blues rock from STONE PREMONITIONS, this time from SP mistress and BODY FULL OF STARS backup singer TERRI B. The disc opens with a spooky little bit of noise which cascades into “Ephemeral Fire,” which itself sounds much like FLEETWOOD MAC. And though the lyrics are pure STEVIE NICKS, TERRI B’s vocal delivery more accurately recalls CHRISTINE MCVIE. The production is ace and the songs are well-crafted. It’s a cross between new wave, goth, blues, FLEETWOOD MAC, easy listening and ANNIE LENNOX and LED ZEPPELIN.

Ian C Stewart

 

BELLE DA GAMA

GET YOUR BEARINGS

Bradley Skaught 1646A McGee Ave. Berkeley CA 94703 USA

The road to Poptopia is littered with the abandoned vehicles of groups who just couldn’t go the distance. BELLE DA GAMA seem to have gotten about half-way there and pulled into THE SMITHEREENS Rest Stop. Which isn’t a bad place to be at all.

Mad Monkey

 

BEAUTIFUL

BEAUTIFUL CD

Beautiful Songs Ltd. 1841 Claremont St NW Atlanta, GA 30318 USA

http://www.beautifultunes.com/

After listening to this disc, I think I know why BEAUTIFUL thanks NIRVANA in the liner notes. It’s because both bands only know the same three chords. The keyboards, bass, drums, and guitar all sound like they’re playing at full volume in different parts of the country. And seriously dudes, do all 17 songs NEED a guitar solo? These guys are trying to be everything, and it’s just too damn much!!! They sound like WEIRD AL, FREDDIE MERCURY, JETHRO TULL, the BEATLES (not in the good way), and your least favorite country band. I guess it’s safe to say that, with 17 tracks, I’m sure you’ll like something. Did I mention there were 17 fucking songs? No sir, I don’t like it.

Michelle Nollan

 

 

 

BIG CITY ORCHESTRA | EXPOSE YOUR EYES

BUTCHERED split

Fiend 18 Canal Rd, Sowerby Bridge HX6 2AY UK

It’s a C90, who did what is a mystery. Layers of buzzing sounds, sound effects and “other” all scrape in and become distorted. Digital delay. Ambient music for sick fucks. AKA “noise.” Side 2 is harsher (ie-recorded more loudly) and sounds like a motorized gizmo on a rampage. A big gizmo. OR it sounds like a source recording from the surface of the space shuttle launch pad during liftoff. Ninety fuckin’ minutes worth.

Ian C Stewart

 

BODY FULL OF STARS

WELCOME CD

Stone Premonitions 271 Park Road, South Moor, Stanley DH9 7AP UK

http://www.demon.co.uk/redshaw/

Nicely produced spacey epic blues with swearing in the lyrics! I’m so confused. The recording is spectactular, almost 3D. The rhythm section on “Welcome!” sounds particularly unique, kind of like MICK KARN and STEVE JANSEN on a smoothed out tip. (Did I just say “tip”? Word!) “We’re All Americans Now” features fretless bass and PRINCE-like funky clean guitar over a drumbox rhythm. TERRI B’s backing vocals sounds exactly like KIRSTY MACCOLL. This track would make an excellent single. Bassist MARK DUNN takes over the mic on “End Of The World (If You Want It),” sounding not unlike RICHARD THOMPSON. The song has a vast pop chorus. Kind of BILL NELSON. Me do like. DUNN sings about half of the tracks and his cool baritone is awesome, perfectly suited to this music. Musically, BODY FULL OF STARS sounds like PRINCE, CLAPTON, SYD BARRETT and something else entirely. MARTIN NEWELL a bit? Whatever it is, it rules.

Ian C Stewart

 

BOOK OF KILLS

SAINT JUDAS CD

Ain’t Records 206 High St Bridgewater VA 22812 USA

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Towers/4211/index.html

BOOK OF KILLS is a one-man band consisting of one JIM SHELLEY, a High School Teacher from Virginia. According to JIM’s webpage, he has a hell of a lot of recordings out. This one came out in 1995, and also according to the webpage, he hasn’t done much since. I’ve listened to this disc three times so far and I’m still trying to formulate some kind of opinion. SHELLEY seems to like 80’s punk. (He lists SEX PISTOLS, THE REPLACEMENTS, BLACK FLAG and THE PIXIES as influences). There is a decidedly straight-ahead rock and roll feel to SAINT JUDAS. “O To Be My Father’s Dragon” is a sort of rap with some interesting samples of someone speaking what sounds like German and a chorus that states and repeats “What the hell is wrong with you, you’re doing what you’re supposed to do.” I like the bass and guitar on this one. The violin and piano samples are a nice touch. “I Wish I Was A Machine” is a new wavy, punk rock song that reminds me of DEVO’s “Smart Patrol”. SHELLEY says, over and over that he wishes he “was a machine, I wouldn’t have to care”. I think this disc is starting to grow on me a little. “La La La La La La “ is a very poppy ode to a Punk Rock Grrrl. Terribly catchy. JIM SHELLEY is a pretty good guitar player and not a bad songwriter. His singing isn’t terrible, but definitely not one of his strenghts;  which are that he has fun and that he has a reverence for classic guitar rock and roll (and I don’t mean VAN HALEN). “That’s What She Said” has a cool slide guitar and hand claps that remind me of T.REX. “My Date With Kim Deal” is hilarious! (Is it supposed to be?). The question I found myself asking was: “If this guy was playing in a bar and I had a couple of beers, would I dig it?” The answer is “Yup!”

mikadams

 

BOOK OF KILLS

WEE JIM’S BLACKEYE CD

Ain’t Records 206 High St Bridgewater VA 22812 USA

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Towers/4211/index.html

Through the liner notes I gather that this is a solo work from one JIM SHELLEY. All the songs were originally recorded in a 4 month period in 1993 except for one piece from this year. Weird that, makes me wonder what happened in between. I could discern no real advance between the eras so one would assume that he put the instruments down for a while. Since this is a CDR, it reminds me that we will be seeing all sorts of old material resurface. JIM must have wanted to be a songwriter back in 1993, and he wasn’t too bad either, the song writing that is. The music itself is uninspired and turns to mush after 3 or 4 songs. File under new wave too late.

od mcUB

 

BOOK OF KILLS

SO FAR IN EVERY DIRECTION CD

Ain’t Records 206 High St Bridgewater VA 22812 USA

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Towers/4211/index.html

This latest release by BOOK OF KILLS is a wonderful thing. The melodic bass lines and drum machines remind me of the best of Brit-pop circa 1981. This is easily one of the best homemade products that I’ve heard all year.

Mad Monkey

 

DANIELE BRUSASCHETTO 

MAMMA FOTTIMI CD

via Scotellaro 71 10155 Torino Italy

brusaschetto@hotmail.com

He’s back, and no he’s still no picnic. Each of his CDs is a funeral procession through the dark alleys of his little neurotic mind - not a place where you want to spend your next vacation. This time Italy’s gloomiest noisemaker offers an 11 tracks CD tastefully named ‘’mother fuck me’’. DANIELE has been extensively reviewed in AUTO (most of the time by me) so you may know already that he makes creepy ‘’experimental’’ music like early NEUBAUTEN (“Kollaps”, anyone?), does not properly sing but recites, whispers and whimpers, and is actually rather brilliant if you like this kind of thing. This new CD actually sounds a bit more normal than the past efforts: ‘’Mamma fottimi’’ is a long litany with very gentle jangling guitars, ‘’Schiavo’’ has drum machines, “Odore d’infanzia’’ sounds very much like something out of THE CURE’s SEVENTEEN SECONDS, which, you will agree, is a huge step towards normality according to DANIELE’s standards.  The lyrics are in Italian but nice DANIELEwould never refuse you the pleasure to know what he’s actually talking about, so the CD also features translations into English. Now you, too, can share the joy of lyrics such as this: “The sack he carried on his shoulders was too heavy / But he was stubborn, wanted to carry it anyway / And so he did”. Excellent at every level for lovers of weird, strange, unusual, melancholy stuff. You know who you are. PS: Order the BRUSASCHETTO T-shirt now! It’s a blast! Sport it proudly at summer barbecues! Wear it at the mall!  (no, I’m NOT joking, nyaah nyaah nyaah).

Paola Sorrentino

 

DANIELE BRUSASCHETTO

MAMMA FOTTIMI CD

ZZZ Production c/o Officine 23 via Bellezia 6/D 10122 Torino Italy zzzprod@hotmail.com

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. There’s this really cool CD. And it’s got some really kool songs about fuckin’ your ma, and bein’ in the womb and stuff. And, oh yeah, lots of distorto-guitar to help create that oh-so menacing mood (SWANS-lite) that makes me wanna dye my hair black and go on a wild ramble-tamble rampage. So the CD, a donkey, and a sailor go into a bar and the donkey sez to the sailor, “if you play that useless piece of crap CD one more time and I’ll never sleep with you again”. So the sailor sez to the donkey... Shit, I forgot the punchline.

Mad Monkey

 

BUSTED...HARTFORD PUNK ’79 TO ‘85

Dagger Tapes PO Box 380152 E Hartford CT 06138 USA

Hartford is a city in Connecticut which is a state in the United States. This proves they had a generically themed and played “dunder punk” scene as doopy focused as any. The name you’ll be able to tag is “The Reducers;” one of many splitting the power pop/boppy punk/rock and roll menage like many were to do for decades after them, (witness the Break Up Records label in Columbus OH, another city in Estatis Unis). Yeah, so I kinda like this stuff, but none of its as good as the BLACK AND BLUE era GG ALLIN stuff.  OK so the music to “TV Wizard” by THE FOREIGN OBJECT is a nice stroll thru suburban guys re-writes LINK WRAY.

Cin De Lane

 

CAPTIVE AUDIENCE

MY MACHINE WILL FUCK YOU cassette single

7701 Blue Ridge Cir, Charlotte NC 28270 USA

http://www.blueray.com/captiveaudience

New stars of the dance music underground? I’d say so. CAPTIVE AUDIENCE is the real deal. Techno industrial dance ambient that thumps and grooves like the big boys. The production RULES and the songwriting is damn fine as well. The title track features an unsavory sample of a dude describing a machine he’s going to build. Guess what the machine will do. “Fire Hazard” has a nice industrial groove with some highly atmospheric synth layers on top. Hell yeah it fucking rules. Side B is pure atmosphere and ambience. With beats. Ooooh yeah. Contemplative. Captivating. Highly soundtrackish stuff. And it rules.

Ian C Stewart

 

CHICKLET

WANDERLUST CD

Satellite Records 920 E. Colorado Blvd #151 Pasadena, CA 91106 USA

http://www.interlog.com/~chicklet

Pretty, pretty...everything is soooo pretty. JULIE PARK’s vocals, the 60’s inspired pop sounds, the lyrics—”sun peaks through clouds breathes fresh-washed air kisses away patches of grey”—-does it get any cuter? And the songs stay in your head for hours. I guess they remind me of, well, no one, sorry. CHICKLET is oh-so-slightly dark and twisted though, which makes me like them better. This is just good music. You can’t ask for more than that.

Michelle Nollan

 

KEN CLINGER

KC.16 | KC.17 CD

Bovine Productions 311 Stratford Ave #2, Pittsburgh PA 15232-1108 USA

http://members.aol.com/kcmusik/kc.html

More from the BOVINE vaults, this time from 1987. The buzzing synths all sound about 3000 years old, which definitely adds to the charm. “5 Tales From Home” features an odd spoken bit over warped cyclical tones. “Radio” is pure Casiotone genius recorded as an ID for DON CAMPAU’s radio show. I knew I heard that somewhere before! The instrumental tracks sound like vintage video game music. The tracks featuring CLINGER’s singing are spooky, his doubletracked voice is hushed and demented. Every other track seems to have another odd spoken bit which distracts somewhat from the grandness of the synth backing tracks. “Man To Man” is a scary, droning 9-minute epic. “Insomnia” sounds like another maddening bit of video game soundtrack. This set displays the fact that CLINGER has extracted some of the most insane sounds from his synths from the very beginning.

Ian C Stewart

 

ROBERT CLUTTER

APERIODIC CD

Mu Records 788 Franklin Ave, Astoria OR 97103 USA

Slow ambient experiments. Track one: “Bell.” It’s a bell struck and processed variously. Interesting and not very soothing at all! “Autofall” sounds like someone raking broken glass up a rusty tin roof. With empty soda cans in their pockets. The violin, banjo and slide trombone on this track give the whole thing an even eerier presence. Man, I feel possessed now. “Rubber Luster” features lots of very scary synth effects and borderline noize samples. It too is ghouly as fuck and makes me very afraid of the dark. MU RECORDS should advertise their releases as “some radically scary shit.”

Ian C Stewart

 

CONCRETE

EQUATION OF THE BLUE HORSE CD

Knot Music PO Box 501 South Haven MI 49090-0501 USA

Synthesizers and electronically altered samples over big beats. At times this reminds me of crunchy industrial music, ala NIN, or even SKINNY PUPPY, but not as “song-oriented.” There are beats throughout most of the disc, but no lyrics, and the samples are usually snippets of spoken words from unknown films, “man on the street” interviews or PSA’s. This is sort of avant art-rock, only not too heavy on the “rock”. The liner notes suggest that this is a concept album about a superhero trapped in a single frame of film. I’m not sure that I understand the concept, but I also don’t think that understanding is imperative for the enjoyment of the disc. There is an overall arty quality to the whole package and to the music. (I have to wonder if these guys are art students, or visual artists as well as sound artists). On songs like “Superhero”, I swear that the whole point out (mostly like JEFF BUCKLEY - I’ll keep my fingers crossed). However, if you consider what goes around in the charts nowadays, this guy should become a big star and have 10,000 people burning their cigarette lights at his gigs. If you like mellow ballads, accomplished guitarwork (a bit on the flamencoey side) and lyrics like ‘’All I can see is your back and your cigarette / Your cigarette and your back to me’’, these songs are for you.

Paola Sorrentino

 

CYANOSIS

STAVE CD

Roger Hayes 788 Franklin Ave Astoria OR 97103 USA

Guitars and prepared guitars through lots of effects (I’d have to conclude that that’s some variety of Zoom), attacked in an avant-garde-ish kinda way. Helpfully included in the promo material are references to other artists including CAGE, IANNIS XENAKIS, ORNETTE COLEMAN, PHAROAH SAUNDERS, and somewhat surprisingly, the radio plays of ANTONIN ARTAUD. Whether or not any of that means anything to you or not may directly relate to your potential enjoyment of STAVE. Angular and often piercing and trebly, it’s not really easy to listen to, but it presents some interestingly edgy sound clusters at times, and the pacing keeps things fairly fresh. If you’re interested in some out-there avant-guitar, welp, here ‘tis, bitches.

C Reider

 

DE FABRIEK | C. REIDER  | IMPLICIT ORDER

TRIPLE OCCUPANCY CD

Wholeness Recordings PO Box 155 Smilax, KY 41764-0155 USA

Eleven tracks of post-industrial sonic-soundscapes for your enjoyment. This stuff just refuses to lay in the background and be ignored. The three tracks by DE FABRIEK make this an essential purchase. More DE FABRIEK please!

Mad Monkey

 

DREKKA

EXACTIONING | HERMITAGE

Blue Sanct Musak PO Box 14149 Chicago IL 60614-0149 USA

Ultimately, DREKKA rocks.  Thing is, they go about it in such a hazy, haphazard manner, that it’s almost offputting. Most of the time, though, it at least seems like they’re going somewhere with their nutty ideas, even when they aren’t.  Lo-fi acoustic guitar coupled with destroyed guitar marinated in distortion, finally covered with lazy-Sunday, offkey, blasé vocals, which are draped in cavernous reverb.  Somehow the whole cupcake ends up quite tasty. Reminds me of early HIS NAME IS ALIVE.  Let me say that one more time: reminds me of early HIS NAME IS ALIVE. On this K7 they cover tunes by CAT POWER, GALAXIE 500, RADIOHEAD, and they do a great version of DONOVAN’S “First there is a Mountain”. My brain always arm-wrestles itself while listening to this tape, not able to decide whether the music is too self-consciously post-hip or true genius. But, ultimately, DREKKA rocks.

C Reider

 

EFATHA

THIS IS WHAT YOU GET CD

Lamplighter 1814 Lampeter Rd, Lancaster PA 17602 USA

http://www.efatha.com/

Windham Hill with subtle Irish overtones via the violin and the emasculated SHANE MCGOWAN wanna-be vocals. The instrumental tracks go down most easily. The mood is heavier, palatable. Somber almost. And that’s basically chucked out the window whenever the singer dude feels compelled to step up to the mic with his acoustic guitar and reams of lyrics. Sounds like he learned all the wrong things from ANI DIFRANCO: the extreme wordiness and the overly dramatic delivery. There’s a fine line between being palatably somber and being overbearing. But yeah, give me a whole CD of those instrumentals and I might actually play it more than a couple of times.

Ian C Stewart

 

EULOGY

I HEAR VOICES CD

Liberation Through Hearing 224 Camac St, Philadelphia PA 19107 USA

Opens with “Fire In The Hole,” a detuned bit of sludge doom which eventually speeds up to a grind. The singer screams. But the screamer does not sing. Lo-fidelity to infinity but not in a detrimental way. You can hear everything. “Audio Radon Poisoning” is all distorted bass and cello, wedged right into a SOL INVICTUS (me neither) cover. With theremin! And much yelling. Actually that goes for most of the tracks. “Blindman” is a crazed, epic instrumental. Can’t say that I’ve ever heard a thrash doom progressive hardcore band with a theremin, cello and piano before. Props man, fuck yeah.

Ian C Stewart

 

THE E-VANS

R Woods 2049 W Shakespeare 1R, Chicago IL 60647 USA

“Busted Down In Alabama”: swampy white guy “blues.” Guitar bass drums and harmonica. Remember when BRUCE WILLIS was making records? Lyrics about getting arrested. In Alabama, oddly enough. The production is decent ‘n the boys are playin’ like they mean it. Which may or may not work in their favor. “White Collar Lament” is sped up to shit and features the same basic elements (ie-there’s that harmonica again), and the singer appears to be singing out his ass. Or is he just using one of those Green Bullet harmonica microphones to sing through? Same thing really. “Stranded In San Antone” actually sounds like “White Collar Lament.” About the lyrics: what’s the fixation with being detained in the Deep South? Musically, let’s say FABULOUS THUNDERBIRDS with one of the RAMONES on guitar (how ‘bout the drummer) playing at BAD RELIGION tempos. Kinda makes me wanna go get deported from Baton Rouge or something.

Ian C Stewart

 

FARCES WANNA MO

RECORDING @ HOME + 7 CD

1984 Enseneda St, Lemon Grove CA 91945 USA

http://www.homestead.com/farces

A hometaper singing about hometaping. Hmmm. Sounds suspicious doesn’t it? Track one: “Recording @ Home.” “They say hometaping is killing off the music, well if that’s true just let me know, I want to be there the day the music dies…I’ll help carry the casket at the funeral.” Guitar, drum machine and a singer with a very warbly voice. Definitely recorded at home! The obvious glee with which the tracks were laid down seems to be the real focal point of these tracks, as the songwriting seems to be almost an afterthought in a couple of cases. “Excuses, Excuses” offers something of a verbal explanation of the master plan here, with a narrator talking about the burst of “lo-fi songwriting” that inspired these tracks. “Toronto, Canada” follows and seems to be the most together track thus far, until some so-bad-it’s-not-funny Bad Singing shows up like a car full of jocks at a party. The music on that track is pretty good though, nice electric guitar/bass/drum machine rock. “Jacobsen’s Organ”: I bought a game for my PC earlier this year, WCW NITRO. The game is boring and the CD it came on contained a handful of bad heavy metal instrumentals that are heard during the game, all featuring the same type of lame-ass riffs and blah drum programming. “Jacobsen’s Organ” sounds like one of those tracks. Except, of course, for all the wounded-cat mouth noises the FARCES do on theirs.

Ian C Stewart

 

THE FLASHING ASTONISHERS

EVERYTHING IS GONNA STOP CD

Koala Records PO Box 70 Syracuse NY 13210 USA gcjohnso@mailbox.syr.edu

Energetic, mostly uptempo rock songs delivered so convincingly that it’s hard to say anything but “yeah, that’s pretty cool.” Even in a year when so many bands are taking a similar route, THE FLASHING ASTONISHERS have some hidden X factor that works in their favor and keeps them from sounding like everybody else. Is it the playing? The recording job? The songs or the lyrics or the riffs or what? Maybe all of those. Bottom line: guitar-driven almost-punk rock that definitely rocks. The playing is good, the songwriting is good and the performances are definitely inspired. Gotta laugh with some of the lyrics. “Lipbomb”: “she’s got a thing for MORRISSEY…” “La De Dey”: “I’m getting older and a little more bipolar.” “Anillo” rocks like a mutha, at least the intro does; and “I Come Up, I Go Down” is 8 minutes of U2-sounding epic rock. I say U2 only because of the delayed slide guitar action. “I’m Not One” swings like one of those big pukey swingy boat rides at any amusement park. Big swing, lots of drone. Nice. And these guys mean it.

Ian C Stewart

 

BRIAN FORDEN

THE TILLER’S LAMENT CD

General Ludd Music 600 Central Ave #297 Riverside CA 92507 USA

Melancholy acoustic guitar ballads are what BRIAN FORDEN offers up on this copyrighted CD. Soft drumming and an occasional flute or bass mix with throaty whisperings to create a sort of early seventies, GRAHAM NASH-ish folk rock sound that pervades all the pieces on this recording. The overall mood of the CD is one of quiet introspection that occasionally veers near depressiveness. A few pretty acoustic guitar leads brighten up the presentations, but generally this one is best for the darker and more thoughtful moments of life.

Swami Loopynanda III

 

FORK

PLAYS THE STUFFINGS

Blue Sanct Musak PO Box 14149 Chicago IL 60614-0149 USA

An irritating high pitch feedback whine begins the tape, but it eventually gives way to a cracked buncha guitar based loonacy that’s as demented and creepy as it is imaginative and enchanting. Enjoying this tape (as I do) is like enjoying the way a skunk smells. Well, they do kind of smell good in a way, don’t they?

C Reider

 

MITCH FRIEDMAN

THE IMPORTANCE OF SAUCE CD

168 Degraw St, Brooklyn NY 11231 USA

http://www.mp3.com/mitchfriedman

This CD is a homepop superplex with several lifechangingly good songs. Upon initial contact it seemed kind of drab, somewhat confined by its mechanized drums and seemingly monotone vocal delivery. But like any good pop, like any pop worth listening to for years on end, like any intelligent, well-crafted pop, somewhere around the 4th listen, the melodies begin to emerge. The vocals become increasingly dynamic. And the songs just take over. The first song to latch onto my brain was “Purple Burt,” with its seemingly silly SYD BARRETT rollockyness and playful lyrics. It’s almost like children’s music. but not. Then track one sprouted in my eardrum. “Simplification,” featuring a typically melodically-spastic burst of guitar glory by DAVE GREGORY, formerly of XTC. Again, at first the GREGORY bits just seemed like fast piles of notes whizzing past. Until you realize their complexity and their relation to the song. And pretty soon you find yourself with canker sores around your lips from trying to whistle along! Ow! Not recommended. And so it continues with THE IMPORTANCE OF SAUCE. “Indian Giver,” “This Friend.” Any fans of latter-day XTC, THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS, ADRIAN BELEW, ROBYN HITCHCOCK etc will know the drill. Absolutely classic and vital. Look for an interview with MITCH in AUTO10. That gives you a few months to study up. Buy this shit NOW!!!

Ian C Stewart

 

 

FRIENDS FOREVER VS DJ FRIENDS 4 NEVER cassette single

Insane Records 125 Chapel Dr #12, Tallahassee FL 32304 USA http://listen.to/insanerecords

FF opens with “Sillyheart,” mining the coy/clever vein with Casio drums, untuned guitar and a nice vocal melody all recorded with a condenser mic. Minimalist pop. DJF4N then fires up the INSANE RECORDS Casio Rapmaster for “XXI,” a lazy bit of lo-tech techno. On the b-side it’s the same thing. FF does “First Met,” another stab at minimalist pop; followed by DJF4N “RNR” which includes 2 dueling Casios fading in and out. Lo-fi of course. Pure bullshit that sounds like it was great fun to record. In the title match of FF Vs DJF4N, FF wins by a mile.

Ian C Stewart

 

DAVE FUGLEWICZ

PASSAGE

360 Sheringham Ct  Roswell GA  30076  USA

An older tape (1993) from the electronic laboratory of MEESTER MOOGLEWICZ heemself, (maybe that should be MR. ARPLEWICZ?) Hissing, chirping and washing analogue synthies with some drum machine clicking along underneath.  A bunch of voices through a lot of delay, at one point it sounds like some guy is chanting “…SANDRA BULLOCK, SANDRA BULLOCK, SANDRA BULLOCK…” which may be the most disturbing thing I’ve heard all month. There’s also a smecky, bubbling brew of electronic noise that’s titled “The Stone”. For some reason I kind of doubt lithology was the thing that was on his mind. All in all, a typically psychedelic sojourn from this ever consistent musician.

C Reider

 

FUTURA

LIVE 3.11.99 CD

4107B Speedway, Austin TX 78751 USA

futura@fringeware.com

Sexy ambient loops and grooves and scratching thrown down improv-like in a live setting! TRAVIS HARTNETT does the top layer of hazy guitar while CRAIG CHIN pins down the bass and MONTE MCCARTER mixes up the rhythms via turntables, loops and samples. The three ninjas let loose on 4 epic cuts here, sustaining the sexy rhythmic grooves for over an hour. It’s a great idea, wonderfully executed. “Boot” is the shorty of the bunch, clocking in at just under 10 minutes. The beat is steady mobbin’ and the scratching is pure ghetto funk too. The noodly bass lines and the ambient guitar action prevent it from being mere hiphop regurgitation though. Who here remembers the SYLVIAN/FRIPP track “Darshan”? Okay. That’s the starting point. “Torch” is the epic at 17 minutes, again a funky groove pulled in several directions. “Valve” is a slow, spacey pimp jam that is atmospheric as feck. Almost worth driving to Texas to check out! Or a live video would suffice. Hint.

Ian C Stewart

 

FUTURE STARS OF RAP

RAP ALBUM

Insane Records 125 Chapel Dr #12, Tallahassee FL 32304 USA

http://listen.to/insanerecords

So bad it rules. “Quality Rap Since Forever” it says on the inside cover. Recorded with whatever condenser mix tape recorder they had on hand, RAP ALBUM “features” an MC who sounds like the guy in the OFFSPRING “Pretty Fly For A White Guy” looks. The music is mostly done with a Casio Rapmaster. The MC isn’t afraid to sing either. “Preschool Rap” especially. Any rap fans will cringe and pound themselves in the face with a hammer when confronted with this tape. But it rules because the dude SELLS it. It’s so fucking horrible and hysterical and awesome that I think they might actually be the FUTURE STARS OF RAP after all. Laugh out loud you will, but you’ll probably also be singing “Nut Sack On Your Head” all day too.

Ian C Stewart

 

GARLANDS

PICNIC, LIGHTNING EP CD

Mister Records PO Box 653, Cooper Station, New York NY 10276 USA

http://www.garlands.com

Professionally-done ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN/NEW ORDER/CURE/SMITHS pastiche with ever-so-slight COCTEAU TWINS overtones (on the effected guitars and melodic, chordal bass playing mainly). Though the singer dude is no IAN MCCULLOCH, he does an admirable job of keeping up with the wonderful 80s pop behind him. The bass playing is prominent and the drumming is very solid. And okay, maybe the singer is an IAN MCCULLOCH. “Shroot” on the end starts off like a million COCTEAU TWINS songs and then veers off into the land of THE CURE when the drums and bass kick in. Yeah, it rules.

Ian C Stewart

 

GARY K

HAWKIN’ THE CHALK

Best Kept Secret via Biron di Sotto, 101, 36100, Vicenza-Italy acrestani@telemar.it

Minimalist guitar and keyboard from the UK. GARY K plays disturbing, questioning pieces on mostly guitar. Sounds like some synthesizers too. The songs are all rather short and have titles like “Launderettes of Whisky” and “Biscuit Sundial”.  GARY K’s arrangements are interestingly sparse. Many of the songs such as “Coated Aspirin” and “ A Burning Razor” would sound great done full band style, but MR K chooses to take a more understated approach, and it seems to work for him. Side two is a little darker than side one. This music reminds me of an EDWARD GORREY cartoon, or what CAPTAIN BEEFHEART might sound like if he had gone off Prozac, fired his band and moved to Victorian England. GARY K’s songs also bring to mind some of BILL FRISELL’s stuff, in that the guitar sounds occasionally somewhat country, but is stretched across a surreal and sleepy backdrop. Many of the songs sound really similar to the others, and overall, the whole thing makes me feel melancholy. That is to say, it’s strangely beautiful music.

mikadams

 

GARY K

HAWKIN’ THE CHALK

Best Kept Secret via Biron di Sotto, 101, 36100, Vicenza-Italy acrestani@telemar.it

BEST KEPT SECRET is easily becoming one of the busiest labels in the tape trading community. ALESSANDRO seems to put out two or three tapes every month. This release is a strange requiem done by a bedroom BEETHOVEN. This music instantly reminded me of BEETHOVEN’s arrangements because of all the minor chords and descending scales. The instruments are predominantly keyboards, electric and acoustic guitars that are washed in reverb. The sounds are pleasing yet disturbing but the tape as a whole is a bit too long. It would be more powerful if there were different rhythms and instrumentation.

C Browne Jr

 

BEN GOTT

ROOMFUL OF LOSERS CD

Loquacious Music 708 Smith Union, Brunswick ME 04011 USA

gott@tmbg.com

http://www.bowdoin.edu/~bgott

Oh, I don’t know how to review this. Such a classic cassette culture/home musician release. Both pro & con. Too outside of any popular genres to have any commercial use. But of interest for those of us who need a steady diet of new sounds from different voices. Bedroom music is best when it remains true to the artist’s own style and worst when it attempts to be important. This tape dips a bit back and forth. GOTT has a firm grip on technology, the cover is elaborate color with computer art front and the music showcases lots of devices.

od mcUB

 

BEN GOTT

ROOMFULL OF LOSERS CD

Loquacious Music 708 Smith Union, Brunswick ME 04011 USA

gott@tmbg.com

http://www.bowdoin.edu/~bgott

I listened to this album...oh, eight or nine hundred times before I could decide what to write. I enjoyed it so much, I kept forgetting that I was supposed to review it. I liked it, the breezy-sounding pop songs, the instrumentals in between, even the silly introduction. The mood swing from the enchanting “Heaven” to the melancholy “Another Kitchen” (my personal favorite) and back to “Eat (Part 2)” makes you want to reach for the Valium. The songs seem a little XTC-ish, but not so much that they slap you in the face with it. BEN GOTT is multi-talented, playing the instruments, writing the songs, arranging and producing it all. And he’s only 19. I feel so old.

Michelle Nollan

 

DOUG HARRISON

BIG BULLY single

PO Box 771 Chesterfield VA 23832 USA

Hazy monologue backed with electric guitar skrenge. HARRISON’s voice sounds like a deranged hitchhiker. The conversation he has with himself is like something from a SCANNER album. (SCANNER is the guy who uses his frequency scanner to spy on people’s cellphone calls, which he then puts on his songs.) HARRISON begins the monologue with the date and then he talks about the weather and then quickly moves on to a bit about killing people. Not unlike a CHARLES MANSON dialogue, this sounds a whole lot like a serial killer’s confession tape. With a soundtrack by THURSTON MOORE’s ass. This also sounds like recent MICHAEL GIRA output. Highly highly highly highly highly disturbing.

Ian C Stewart

 

 

DOUG HARRISON

TO BE RELEASED

PO Box 771 Chesterfield VA 23832 USA

When I first popped this tape in I was overcome by some interesting guitar riffs drenched in reverb and distortion. MR DOUG HARRISON thinks up some crazy shit, kind of like THE LEGENDARY STARDUST COWBOY on Quaaludes. No offense. He gets great guitar sounds with choppy distorted licks and riffs on this cassette. The tape deck at times seems to become possessed when DOUG manipulates the pitch by slowing it down and speeding it up. And with songs like “Evil Tongue Licks My Mind,” it’s clear just what kind of spirits are tasting MR HARRISON’s brain. The arrangements are sparse indeed and I am mostly left with the desire to hear more accompaniment. Some of his songs, I am scared to say, remind me of another deranged man, whom we all know as CHARLES MANSON. Don’t be afraid or insulted because some of his songs such as “Garbage Dump” are quite good, in a very disturbing way. This is a very interesting view into the mind of DOUG HARRISON.

C Browne Jr

 

HEBEPHRENIC

HIDE

Tapehiss 260 N Keswick Apt C Glenside PA 19038 USA

102465.41@compuserve.com

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tape-hiss

Very nice digital recording, almost too digital for me, analogue good, digital not so good, go ahead, call me old school, come on do it. Great pulse rhythms drone in and out nicely on mucho keyboards. A lot of effects and a lot of repetition. “Watch Me Close My Eyes” has constant vocal repetition throughout. “Hide” is the ultimate spaceman anthem of seclusion and paranoia. The recording quality is good; so where is the “hiss” implied in TAPEHISS? This cassette works best when it’s instrumental. The audio landscapes work best when the singing is left out. The music pans left to right smoothly and is best heard with headphones. Influences?  SPACEMEN 3, SUICIDE, and DARKSIDE to name a few.

C Browne Jr

 

HEBEPHRENIC

HIDE

Tapehiss 260 N Keswick Apt C Glenside PA 19038 USA

102465.41@compuserve.com

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tape-hiss

HEBEPHRENIC’s music is complex and keyboard driven, at times reminiscent of early SKINNY PUPPY or DEPECHE MODE. Layers of bleeping and flanging synthesizer soundscapes interact with tinny vocals over elaborate or industrial rhythms. The songs are great, melancholy and expansive at times, neurotic and paranoid at times, but always interesting. The title track has agreat bassline and rhythm track, and really captures the feeling of wanting to hide at home and avoid everyone. “Judgement” is a fantastic and wickedly catchy song that any number of new wave bands would be proud to call their own. Many of the instrumental tracks such as “Yellow” are somewhat reminiscent of JEAN-MICHEL JARRE, with simple melodies being developed over a base of atmospheric keyboard sounds. There are a few overly repetitive passages, but on the whole it’s engaging and fun to listen to.

Ken Miller

 

HELLFILLER

EE Tapes, Clement Heirmanstr. 10, B-9100 Sint-Niklaas, Belgium

Seriously spacious, reverby ambient. Curiously almost no information whatsoever above about 1 kHz. Sounds like what would happen if you threw a rock down a big 60 mile long metal pipe suspended in the air, recording it as the rock bounced back and forth between the sides. Completely impersonal, purposefully un-glamorous ambient making for a rather detached listening experience, which is OK. Sometimes music like HELLFILLER’s is called for, just not incredibly often.

C Reider

 

BRYAN HELM

RETURN VISIT

715 Goss Dr, Longmont CO 80501 USA

C100 of ultra soothing guitar ambience, opening with the slowly unfolding (and borderline SATRIANI) “Ye Olde Monkey Joke.” Is the title a reference to the wanky long guitar solo, or is there another old monkey joke I’m not aware of? Though it sounds like it was a hoot to play, it IS wank. The tape really begins with track 2, “Furrowed Brow #1” as HELM exerts a breathy g-synth solo (if not a synth then The Rack Of God) over a tranquil bed of random looped bell (sorta) sounds. “Steal From The Best #1” is a fat hunka guitar layers over that one BEATLES drum break. “The Rum Diary” is FRIPPertronics gone awry. Weird loops. RETURN VISIT is about experimentation and lots of long guitar solos. The purely atmospheric pieces rock most.

Ian C Stewart

 

HERMAFRODIT

ARCHITEKTURA OSTRÝCH HRAN CD

Tomáš Zavadil, Na Šancích 032, 143 00 Praha 4-Toçná  Czech Republic

No, ARCHITEKTURA OSTRÝCH HRAN doesn’t mean the architecture of running ostriches. Thanks to the handy dandy translations on the insert, I have divined that the title of the CD in English is “Architecture of the Sharp Edges”. This Czech electronica outfit knows how to rock a beat, if occasionally reverting to old school industrial ideas, which, apparently, never get old in Europe. Not exactly groundbreaking stuff, but it’s a not bad listen for a bit of rigidly funky industro-breakbeat riddim-werk.

C Reider

 

ZAN HOFFMAN | PBK

THE MAN WHO WOULD PBKING

Zidsic POBox 4730 Louisville, KY 40204 USA

Like laying on your back in a field of tall grass on a fullmoon night and watching alien spacecraft swooping around gathering specimens of birds, bats and insects.  A lightning storm is approaching, and it arrives shortly after a large freight train comes along to scare the whole mess away, back into the night sky.  Here, the profusely prolific ZAN recombines sound sources by PBK to nice effect, although the sound quality is a bit muffled. 

C Reider

 

HOKUM

MARGINAL EP | WHAT WILL THIS DETURE

PO Box 900291 Homestead FL 33090 USA

http://members.aol.com/bluntzmil/page1.html

HOKUM is a punk band with jangling electric guitars, drums, occasional cheesy keyboards and dense lyrics. The music is excellent and catchy, and you’ll be humming along with the great melodies from the get-go. The vocals sound almost new wave at times (somewhat reminiscent of DEVO), and sound like they were sung through a cheap megaphone or over a telephone. They add a whole new rhythm to the music rather than following the guitar, much like another musical instrument. “Know Your Plan” from MARGINAL is a great song, with a guitar line that kicks ass. “Inactive Spawn” from DETURE has an infectious lick that will be running through your head for days. The songs begin and end abruptly in true punk style, and my only complaint is that with ten quick songs, this tape is too short.

Ken Miller

 

THE HOT BUTTERED ELVES

BEER VOTE LETS THUD

Tapehiss 260 N Keswick Apt C Glenside PA 19038 USA 102465.41@compuserve.com

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tape-hiss

Anagrams abound this year. BVLT is the HBE’s LIVE AT BUDOKAN, continuing the Yuletide insanity in live styleee, which accounts for the uneven sound quality! “Dead For Christmas” is the first proper song of the set, something of a ballad at the beginning, building into a thrash metal chorus. And so it goes, for 90 minutes. The bonus version of “Pyjamaland (Super Snuggly Version)” is a fine bit of synthetic treacly pop (which will probably wind up on the AUTOradio Xmas show along with RAY CARMEN and KEN CLINGER’s Xmas traxx). It sounds like the band LUNA. Can’t say I saw that one coming! Keep this one on hand for your drunken xmas parties. Or better yet, book the band!

Ian C Stewart

 

HUMANOID PRODUCTIONS

THE FORMAL EDUCATION OF A DEITY WHILST UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF BASIC CABLE TELEVISION

7437 Freeport Ln Apt D, Indianapolis, IN 46214 USA

mgb@pipeline.com

This release contains spoken word over the usual industrial/noise/improv kind of stuff. Kind of like bedtime stories for evil twisted children. Altered voices yammer on about dead bodies, burning houses and other such pleasantries. Bring me my pendulum kiddies, I feel like swingin’.

Mad Monkey

 

HUNDRED MILLION MARTIANS

MARSBARS CD

Hiljaiset Levyt PL 221, 33201 Tampere Finland

http://www.hiljaiset.sci.fi

1999: another year filled with fifty million big-budget pop punk bands with great producers and internal verve co-opted from their more worthy forebears. Which is to say that HUNDRED MILLION MARTIANS have imported the sounds of OFFSPRING, GREEN DAY, EVERCLEAR etc etc ad nauseam to Finland. Who knows, maybe it makes them seem cool there. Right down to the highly unpunk acoustic ballad (made okay for punks personally by GREEN DAY)! The songwriting is good, there are no hugely obvious flaws, and the production is basically your average major label job. I can’t fault them for delivering their cack with such energy, but I’m just so bored by it that it’s kinda hard not to. Give this CD to any American teen who likes MTV punk and you’ll be their hero for the rest of the summer. That’s what I’m going to do.

Ian C Stewart, who is so punk he doesn’t even claim to be punk anymore

 

HYDRA CD compilation

Wholeness Recordings PO Box 155 Smilax KY 47164-0155 USA

A short comp with three bands... Lets take a look: #1; BAC/THE IMPLICIT ORDER: pretty noise ditty, no vocals, a sense of rhythm. Pleasant. Perky. #2: THE IMPLICIT ORDER: BAC must’ve been the pretty part, this one is grating, no vocals. Grindy and boopy, no rhythm noise gritty. #3 STREAM ANGEL/AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY: bacckwards, loopy, creepy vocals. WHOLENESS has been slowly putting out some good stuff. This should have been longer. Both the project as a whole and a couple of the pieces seemed truncated. Sort of a sampler of the real meal. Fine snacking.

od mcUB

 

THE INFANT CYCLE

OLD PLUS FOUR CD

PO Box 26086, 25 Frederick St, Kitchener, ONT N2H 6T4, Canada

Rather unhinged electronica filtered through some strange mind. All the elements are actually there;  four on the floor rhythms, repeating synth lines, etc., but there’s something quite twisted and off about the sound. You can’t really dance, or even kind of bop around to this stuff at all. It’s really too square-wheeled for that, more head music than body music. These are some of the most intriguing clunks, clicks and blips I’ve heard in quite a while. Me, I say it’s pretty cutting-edge stuff, not really at the forefront of technology, per se… but certainly ahead of the game in terms of structure.

C Reider

 

JARBOE

ANHEDONIAC CD

Young God Records PO Box 420232 Atlanta, GA 30342-0232 USA

http://www.thelivingjarboe.com

A genuinely creepy album from JARBOE formerly of SWANS. Features a rich and unique palette of sounds, with excellent production. JARBOE is in fine form here, hissing out her vocals like some reptilian witch, a seductive Medusa, equally attractive and repulsive. Easily this is her finest solo work since her early days of hometaping. Only available through the mail, it’s a limited edition of 1500, all signed and numbered, with great packaging and unforgettable inset photography. Expensive, but well worth it.

C Reider

 

JEFF

CLUTTER CD

Evol Egg Nart Recordings PO Box 570763 Miami FL 33257 USA

nartmail@juno.com

Glam! Bam! Thank you Ma’am! Leave some space on your Summer mixtapes for JEFF’s fantastic first track, ‘’Rock Star’’: a huge glam Seventies MARC BOLAN -ROXY romp that comes complete with hilarious JAGGER falsetto and embarrassing lyrics (‘’You’ve got the look that mystifies / you’ve got a twinkle in your eyes / oh baby when will you begin / to open up and let me in’’. And that’s only the first verse! ). And right on the VELVET GOLDMINE bandwagon! The rest of the CD is just as brilliant, (if we forgive him some tedious hippy-shit moments where he sounds like SUPERTRAMP or THE EAGLES, luckily, he comes back to his senses very soon); but ‘’Rock Star’’ is the Good Song, and the one that I’d like to see promoted to death by radios, until it becomes a Summer hit. I wonder what JEFF looks like; somehow

platforms and a feather cut come to mind, although probably he’s just an ordinary fella who records in his Miami bedroom. Mind you, his bedroom sounds like Nassau Recording Studios anyway. Vote for JEFF!!! Buy JEFF! Hang JEFF posters on your wall! I’m off to buy glitter.

Paola Sorrentino

 

JESTERS LONGEVITY

ANALOG DUB REPORT CD

Jack Kettle Records PO Box 770071 Lakewood OH 44107 USA jkettlerecords@hotmail.com

Holy packaging! JL went off on this one. The CD and cover are encased in a matching green box with 2 rad little 1” badges inside. Damn. Awesome. JESTERS LONGEVITY features J MUNDOK and these boys are not fucking around when it comes to dub either. The elements of Jamaican dub are all there; the processed and mutilated beats, the fucked-with bass guitar and the gratuitous reverb and echo on everything. Track 3 opens with a sample from the cinematic masterpiece and cultural touchstone STRANGE BREW, so obviously I’m in love. Some of the beats are big but the whole dub package is the real focus here. “Voodoo Crew” is begging for a bigbeat remix. “Straight To The Head” is a synth bass line + a JFK speech. “Brasil” is a sweet little guitar/bass loop with nice synth strings on top like whipped cream. “Dancehall Monitor” pulls out all the stops. Dark dub. “Slow Children” sounds like a SEEFEEL remix, it’s basically ambient. And very hottttt! “Cold Damp Streets” could be a soundtrack piece. The last track “Benediction” lets a funky beat roll while a few itinerant guitar samples loop nearby. Awesome and unique project.

Ian C Stewart

 

JO & JOE & FRIENDS

MOUNTAIN VIEW SESSIONS VOL. 4: INjams CD

736 Mountain View #3 Mountain View CA 94041 USA

Let me admit right up front that I’m sort of prejudiced against the whole idea: the “music here is entirely improvised... the players jam around... while setting levels, then recording starts and whatever happens, happens. No editing, overdubbing, or second takes.”  I mean, if they can’t take the trouble to rehearse, why bother to record it? With that said: the CD itself does very little to change my mind. They find an actual groove on “2X Better” and “Phidias Web”, for example, but on, say, “Pieces Of Man” they might as well be tuning up. The lyrics on the tracks that have ‘em appear to have been improvised. Sorry, kids, GOD ALMIGHTY probably couldn’t improvise lyrics worth listening to more than once. Anyway, JO & MICHAEL T. sure can’t. JO can at least sing a little (she sounds sort of MANHATTAN TRANSFEResque); MICHAEL doesn’t even try. JO is also a good keyboardist... but this CD just doesn’t get it for me. Learn a few songs and try again.

Indy Ana Jones

 

MASON JONES

MIDNIGHT IN THE TWILIGHT FACTORY CD

Monotremata Records 815A Brazos St #515, Austin TX 78701 USA

http://lonestar.texas.net/~monorecs

Ghouly, hellish FRIPPERTRONICS! Experimental dark ambience created mostly with one guitar. Four pieces stretched across an hour. “Tone Clouds” opens with some nice backing drones over which a reverbed-to-hell guitar does some freaking out and wailing. Imagine a horror movie. Imagine the scene where the lead character accidentally wanders into the woods. Alone. At night. This would be the soundtrack to that scene. The recording quality is very good, the production is ace and keeps everything in line. “Slow, Wide Vibration” is the most overtly confrontational piece, clocking in at 27 minutes and featuring a fair dose of feedback. It’s not pure harsh noize exactly, but it’s certainly uneasy listening. MASON JONES: soundtrack for the accidental trip into the woods. Notice I didn’t say MAIN once. Nor FINAL.

Ian C Stewart

 

NIGEL JOSEPH

GRUDGE

Face Like A Smacked Arse 216 Dividy Rd, Stoke On Trent ST2 9JT UK

Picking this up, I’m all ready to make an enemy and launch into a real tirade, the cover is a BADLY Xeroxed sheet of almost scribbles. Low bias tape with no label. This screams of someone who doesn’t give a damn. This is not product or in the least bit saleable...crap crap crap. BUT, the music is really a hateful blast. I mean that in a good way. Now this is music to drive out a roommate. Incoherent, with every knob on his equipment turned to distort/mangle/overdrive. And all of a sudden I remember those other cassettes with no covers or labels that got left left on the television and marginally erased and then arrived in my mailbox. A perfect place to start a debate regarding noise and whether one needs instrument talent/ability to be a musician. Is noise ‘music’? How is some better than other? Does a person over time get a discerning ear and become able to tell chaff from grain? This release, while pushing no real boundaries, is delivered by someone with a sense of balance of decay. As ugly as the cover is, I’ll actually keep this one.

od mcUB

 

JUPITER LOOP

THE FORGETTING TREE

Splushnay Records, 11 Menin Road, Allestree, Derby DE22 2NL UK

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dragonheart/splush.htm

The songs are interestingly constructed, sequenced keyboards and drums with looped guitar riffs. Good rhythms and catchy melodies are then overlaid with strange spoken word vocals which are looped. It’s very much unlike anything else I’ve ever heard because the vocals don’t really match the rhythm of the songs and are kind of off-key, but it’s often interesting and entertaining listening. “Reflections of a Vampire” gives you a few sing-songy lines repeated throughout the song along with loops of distorted guitar. “Sell Me The Future” has some great sampled drums and a funky bass sound. There’s nothing really to compare this music to because it’s quite unique... sometimes it’s like listening to two different tapes at the same time. Usually it works quite well, but sometimes it’s a bit too repetitive. Overall, though, it’s a whole new approach to song structure that has to be heard to be understood.

Ken Miller

 

KAPOTTE MUZIEK

R-INVST

Apraxia POBox 85155  Seattle, WA 98145 USA

A short, 15 minute tape of quasi-ambient looped machine drones.  DE WAARD obviously has this style down to a science, and one could feel nauseous and stressed by this, or drowsy and relaxed... the impassionate machines trudge on. All sound material was remixed from a previous KM record. 

C Reider

 

EDWARD KA-SPEL

LIVE AT THE BLUEBIRD THEATRE

Vuzh Music PO Box 1204 Lyons CO 80540-1204 USA

vuzhmusic@autoreverse.net

Firstly, this is a bootleg. From having discussed this topic with THE DOTS we know that as long as it’s for trade only that they endorse fans enjoying the music. In fact a lot of the early k-7 community grew out of tape traders...I probably shouldn’t give out names. So, this is from one of EDWARD’s few solo shows during the last LEGENDARY PINK DOTS tour. Recorded on DAT, the sound is still boomy, (fault of the soundman). Let’s give it a 4 out of 5. Good set, fans of LPD will already be writing the above, the rest of you can move along.

od mcUB

 

KINKO’S COWORKER ROCK CD

Larry Fish 2428 Westbrook Toledo, OH 43613 USA

When I received this CD I thought the Editor was pulling a prank on me -Kinko’s coworkers? And he’s not even on it?!? (don’t get me started—Ian) One distracted listen while doing housework gave me the impression of boring all-American mush, (mostly because the first song isn’t up to much, so you know, you tend to lose interest...). But compilations require more patience, so I listened to it really carefully, and lo! Some great songs! Kinko’s Kinkiest are surely the explosive THE SURAHOOLIES, surely the most energetic ethnic-dance combo ever to come out of Richfield, MN; they are a dead ringer for MANO NEGRA, and I would LOVE to see them live, they must be a total hoot. Second best: UNIVERSE CREW from Toledo OH - smooth, smooth, smooth acid-jazz bastards who will titillate your eardrums with two sexy numbers very similar to URBAN SPECIES’ first CD (you know, the one with “Spiritual Love’’, that ended up as a L’Oréal hair gel commercial). Third best, THE PILLBUGS, again from Toledo (double bill, guys?): listen open-mouthed at their epic THE WHO pastiche, ‘’The Kick-Around Boy’’, and put it on your summer mix tape next to JEFF’s ‘’Rock Star’’ (reviewed elsewhere in this magazine). Pats on the head to BITTER DELORES, smart balladeers with a lovely, strong and slightly anguished female voice, and WHIPPERSNAPPER because shoegazer dirges are always mildly appreciated around here. The other bands, LARRY’S FISH EYED LENS and THE AFFECTIONS are not really bad, they just tend to drown in that tedious AOR stuff, like BON JOVI or REM (Mission - not BITTER - Delores are so REM it hurts). There’s something for everyone...the first 3 bands are worth all the CD.

Paola Sorrentino

 

KRANKHEIT DER JUGEND

AM RAND DER JAHRE

Tim Seibert, Haupstr. 75, 74206 Bad Wimpfen, Germany

Starts off with a bit of diddling around, hand turning a record player, eventually some rather random percussion emerges from the fray and then some diddling bass guitar & a 20-something male voice incanting in German. Something tells me I’m better off right now not understanding the language, ‘cause this sounds unsettlingly like poetry. Then again, maybe I’m missing something really important, as this segment goes on for quite a while.Eventually a bass, percussion and synth jam begins, a half-organized improv that kind of limpingly fizzles into a real song: a slow 2/4 pop piece which is whisperingly danced through, and which I cautiously enjoyed. After that, more improv, with a JOY DIVISION flavor, (right here, imagine JOY DIVISION -jamming all night long.) Jarringly, this is followed by a big, gothic punk song with flanged guitar, the whole bit…even yelled vocals. Right here I come to the conclusion that KRANKHEIT DER JUGEND have a serious identity problem. The improv - song - improv - song structure kind of establishes itself after a while, but it’s still an unfocussed sequence, and mildly confusing. I wasn’t overly impressed, but who knows, K DER J may be of interest to someone who’s into conflicted, experimental, lo-fi gothic.

C Reider

 

LAND SPEED RECORD

THE CORPORATE SECRET CD

Resin Records PO Box 5601 Washington DC 20016 USA

http://www.resindc.com/

Energetic, quirky rock band with professional production. The playing is stupendous, the lyrics are goofy enough to be cool, and the songwriting kicks ass. “Interoffice Copulation” sounds familiar for some/no reason. And it rules. They cover BAUHAUS “The Three Shadows (Part 3).” Musically they’re like an even more spastic BUILT TO SPILL with elements of PRIMUS and a couple other bands on ALIAS RECORDS. Highly awesome.

Ian C Stewart

 

THE LOGIC BOMB CDFusion Audio Recordings 6289 Donegal Dr, West Chester OH 45069 USA

scheffbd@muohio.edu http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Arena/1996/

Electronic ambient-whatever that begins nicely, sort of like that instrumental bit in THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON (ok, so I forgot the name. Shoot me.), and then builds up very very slowly, to a rather nice crescendo after 10 or 15 minutes. It seems that these are nine distinct tracks, or at least that’s what it says on the cover, but you won’t be able to tell the difference. In all, it’s like an instrumental UNDERWORLD album with a nicely hypnotic value. It never gets really boring, and I rather like it. Surely the most accurate portrayal ever of the mental activity of a Mercedes Benz.

Paola Sorrentino

 

THE LOVE UGLY COMPILATION TAPE compilation

Love Ugly PO Box 06300 Columbus OH 43206 USA

Coming at you from every direction! Starting with KILL THE SCIENTIST, who proffer a prefab funkybeat with samples from MONTY PYTHON’s HOLY GRAIL. Then we shuttle quickly to PAPER BOY, a lo-fi rock band with a good song and obvious instrumental skillz; pity about their “singer.” MOLLY AND THE REGICIDES are even lower on the fi chain and their track features guitar, bass and a singer (no drums) recorded with a ghetto blaster. The always fascinating FUNERAL GIRL rocks “Not Titled (Inquest),” a reverby atmospheric vocal piece with cheezykeys accompaniment. Her fuckin’ voice is an ISDN line straight from Thee Afterlife. The good one. THE DYNAMICS float some 4-track drum machine guitar rock. NIKKI ATWELL breaks it down with a 2-chord acoustic guitar/vocal dirge that’s also highly lo-fi. The song is decent, the vocal harmonies are especially cool. THE TWO TRACK TERRORS do a very old school karaoke cover of “Humpty Dance.” I am not with it. ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR goes all punk rock on that ass with the spunky “Empty Seat.” Is that a Casio or a real saxophone? Does it matter? No. The song rocks either way. NANKO KASHI does a boomy acoustic folk dirge that sounds like it was recorded behind an idling semi. Or a dumptruck. One of those loud ones. QUESTION rocks a old school beatbox/Casio-y fake dancehall thing. From every direction, I tell ya!

Ian C Stewart

 

LUSTER

ABANDON

Vuzh Music PO Box 1204 Lyons CO 80540 USA

vuzhmusic@autoreverse.net

Some of this shit is really good and some of it is really annoying. The nonsensical stuff gets a bit too much, like some “Pank Flohweyd,” outake from THE WALL or something. However, the sounds are nicely recorded and with a cast of collaborators such as the one, the only, IAN C STEWART and JEHN CERRON (who does owe me a tape) the bottom line here is good, especially wearing headphones. I think it’s fair to say that some of these people might even smoke pot, uh oh, did I say a bad word? Put this tape in and freak your own self out of the house. You’ll be looking for men in the closet and aliens under the bed, dark, droney, echoey, loopy and brainy. I think I might be having a flashback.

C Browne Jr

 

THE MACHINE IN THE GARDEN

ONE WINTER’S NIGHT CD

Middle Pillar PO Box 555 New York NY 10009 USA

http://www.io.com/~tmtig/

Sexy sexy synth goth with hot female vocals. “Falling, Too” opens the disc. It’s a sequenced piano/cello/synth dirge with wandery waif singing. Mmmm yeah. “These Illusions” continues the theme. When the drum programs are front and center and there’s chugging distorted guitar (ie “Central”) the effect is almost industrial dance music. But not quite. It’s still basically ghouly and beautiful. “Lost In Side” is classic goth: driving beat, focal bass playing and processed female vocals. Yeah baby. This CD rules, it’s spooky and sensual and nice.

Ian C Stewart

 

MAD MONKEY

DON’T LET’S GET DEEP CD

Mirandette Popular, 46 Balboa Ln, Franklin Park  NJ 08823 USA

It’s: clickety clackety drum machine patterns and some samples thrown on top. The sound quality is notably poor and there’s so friggin much reverb on everything that is sounds like they just ran the entire CD through a NanoVerb while they were mastering it. This makes it sound like it’s actually someone else at the end of a long hall listening to this CD, and it’s not really in your own player. In the early ‘90’s, the era of early trance techno, some of this stuff might have translated well to an obscure 12”, (albeit minus all the reverb), but now it just sounds like a hollow artifact.

C Reider

 

MASTERS OF THE UNGENTLEMANLY ART

HOW WE KNEW WE WERE HERE

Zidsic POBox 4730 Louisville KY 40204 USA

An excellent cassette from insanely overprolific nutcake ZAN HOFFMAN. The modus operandi for the MOTUA project is to take ten or twenty recordings from other artists and creatively recombine sections and samples of them to create something new and separate. A well-balanced and dynamic tape with quiet passages building to louder parts. Jagged, fractioned, highly gated bossanova riff, rhythmically delayed backwards burblings, helicopter thumping and bursts of condensed digitized info, grunting froglike noises with pipe organs, a repeating big beat drum loop with distorted bass scrapes and a warbling voice. More beats and screeching tire noises, a weirdly un-dated sounding GEORGE BUSH sample, devil-may-care drunken singing in some other language with compressed machine gun noises. More than the sum of its parts, this here’s a collage tape that works.

C Reider

 

ARNOLD MATHES

DEVIATIONS CD

1425 3 Ave, NY NY 10028 USA

HOWARD COWELL raved about MATHES’ NYC97 in AUTO6. And IAN C STEWART said some nice things about his “best of” collection ENDLESS FLIGHTS (but also remarked that one track “quickly turns into an exercise in “How many buttons can we push during this song?””). I’m pretty indifferent to this kind of stuff myself. Here’s some notes: (0) Funny HITCHCOCK quote. (1) Spacey and somber. (2) With a beat.  8 minutes; 4 too long.  (3) Lyrics!  By KEN CLINGER! (Interviewed in AUTO 7; 2 reviews in AUTO 8.) (4)  Really really fast.  (5) The “channel changer” effect — like turning a radio dial randomly — I turned it off. ..(8) “Sax and Violins”: no damn sax, no damn violins. More like a hurdy gurdy. Not bad, though. (9) Even more KEN CLINGERish than the actual CLINGER song. (10) Sounds like the soundtrack to some cheesy Z movie. A tease; it sounds like it’s gonna build up to something but never does. (11)  Breathy. Birdsongy. (12) Distorty loops of spoken voice. MATHES is apparently one of those guys who loves his equipment more than life itself. He lists 7 different synthesizers and 19 other gadgets in the liner notes. Also of the two photographs I’ve seen of the guy, two of ‘em have a bunch of electronic toys in the background. Which, you know, OK, fine, whatever. A great player can break my heart with one rusty guitar string; there’s sure as hell none of that kind of playing here. Don’t get me wrong; there’s some nice sounds and hardly anything I actively hate; I’ll play it again, maybe even several times. Some of it might grow on me. 

Indy Ana Jones

 

MIKE MERZ & THE CAN O’ WORMS

THE ODD SIDE OF THE STREET CD

Archangel Media Empire Po Box 50392 Minneapolis MN 55405 USA

 http://www2.bitstream.net/~arch

…so MERZ really can write after all. “Easy For You To Say” opens rather moodily but the overall effect is pretty uplifting. And the female backing vocals, tambourine, handclaps and theremin solo are just icing. MERZ is a deft songwriter along the lines of MATTHEW SWEET or that E guy from THE EELS. The production is professional and the playing is very good. “Like Riding A Bike” is RED HOUSE PAINTERS sweet acoustic guitar action. “Higher Beings Command” also rules. There’s nothing bad to be said about this disc, you either love it or despise it instantly for all the same reasons. “Gates Of Hell” is a 4-part epic that should earn MERZ some soundtrack work at the very least. “More To Life” sounds like the band SPAIN. A lot. Slow, slinky, moody and with a xylophone solo! You could ask for more but you’d soon find out that you really don’t need it. Buy this shit.

Ian C Stewart

 

MG15

CLONYCORE CD

Alva Records PO Box 164, 29780 Nerja Malaga, SPAIN

Wow. This is crazy. Drum machine metal that sounds kind of like PANTERA with lyrics in Spanish. It’s insane and unique. Some of the tracks go for more of a thrash deal while a couple slow it down to El Doomo Bueno. “Polvo Y Cenizas” especially. The drum programming is very good. “La Arana” is a slow doomy ballad thing. The cover of “War Pigs” is sociologically interesting and would be good on mix tape for a laugh. This CD is a compilation of MG15 tracks dating back to 1984. “Derecho A La Vida” is probably the oldest track and is highly insane: live drums, double tracked distorted bass, and yelled vocals layered with Radio Shack reverb! It’s VENOM on even less of a budget! “Campos De Exterminos” is an 80s hardcore/thrash track. CLONYCORE: all the MG15 you’d ever need on one CD!

Ian C Stewart

 

MINDFLUXFUNERAL

BIRTHMARK CD

New Underground Media 1933 Slayton Ln, Glendale Hts IL 60139 USA

http://www.num.com/

Professionally-done industrial dance music along the lines of SKINNY PUPPY, FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY etc. The beats are vicious and the synths are all set on “stun.” The vocals are menacing. And the production is damn good! SKINNY PUPPY is the most obvious influence; the vocals especially, but also in the polyrhythmic layering of the samples and the prominence of the effects on everything. Good for banging your head and shooting heroin to! “Melting Spirit” is kind of like SP’s “Killing Game,” an industrial ballad, if such a thing is possible. “Dream It Dead” has more straight-ahead dance vibe like old NITZER EBB or even prehistoric MEAT BEAT MANIFESTO. And I don’t invoke that name lightly. Very well done and sounds good with a subwoofer pointed at your neck!

Ian C Stewart

 

MINMAE

MICROCASSETTE QUATRAINS

BlueSanct Musak PO Box 14149  Chicago IL 60614-0149 USA

This full-length cassette of slow but loud noise-based music isn’t for everyone, but for feedback fans, it’s a great piece of work. The tape opens with “Perpetual Shift,” a droning mantra of guitar distortion with a subtle drum rhythm in the background. Harmonic changes seem like revelations in this environment of simple music, but it’s not boring in the least because of the density of the sound. From there the tape becomes more varied, but with the common thread of plodding, heavily distorted guitars and simple melodies. SPACEMEN 3 or SPIRITUALIZED come to mind as a comparison, only with less music and more noise. Chaotic samples of TV, low-key vocals and drum machines enhance the environment, but it’s experimentation with noise that’s the star here. Sometimes it gets a bit too chaotic, but usually it works pretty well, and those moments make the tape well worth listening to.

Ken Miller

 

KEN MISTOVE

PROCRASTINATION CD

Studio Seventeen Productions PO Box 461363 Escondido CA 92046 USA

http://www.eclipse.net/~kmistove

Whatcha got here is an hour of sexy, crystalline ambience rendered on gweetar with much processing and loopage happening. So much so that it often resembles nothing even remotely guitarlike. And that’s a good thing. The disc is divided into Past, Present and Future sections, with Past getting the lion’s share of tracks. “C-Scape” is sixish minutes of subtle crescendos all sort of reverbed out to the point of aahhhhhhhh. Many of the other tracks explore similar sonic themes. The Present is represented with a 17-minute freeform jam via the Koan music software program. Half of the fun of Koan is watching the little icons bump into each other, and I must confess that this track is the weak link. Maybe I’ve messed around with Koan too much on my own but listening to a random bagpipe solo for a quarter of an hour with a random (though tasteful) backing ambience of synth strings has the effect of listening to the end of a soap commercial… for a really long time. I keep waiting for the guy to come on and say “…Dial. Now available in Dewberry.” The Future is more damn fine melodic ambience. Layers of swishy tones. Again I say “very nice.” MISTOVE developed the software he used for the Past tracks, which in itself is a good thing. But he’s also taken the loops themselves to a very sexy plane. Aw yeah.

Ian C Stewart

 

MJB

BUFFALO GEEGAW CD

Semper Lo-Fi 11 Orchard St, Cold Spring NY 10516 USA

Classic pop that I musta missed the first time around. “Candy Tongue” is a sweetly melancholy acoustic track with nice keyboard and drums. “Little Green Man” is fortunately not a cover of the similarly-titled STEVE VAI track from FLEXABLE. “Let’s Get Down” is uptempo and funky and points the way for MJB’s later instrumental work as CLOUD. “Thee Exceptional Childe” is another classic bit of pop with nice distorted bass action! “The Rocktober Of Unlimited Youthquakes” is musical melancholia with lyrical goofoffica. And I’m not even getting into the “Mysterious Boner Trax” at the end, which really do point the way to CLOUD. And the last one is really pretty. So there.

Ian C Stewart

 

MOLOCH

HOKUM

PO Box 900291 Homestead FL 33090 USA http://members.aol.com/bluntzmil/page1.htmlThis five song cassette somehow manages to channel the spirit of late 1970s new wave bands like SKAFISH, PINK SECTION, maybe even DEVO. I really wanted to give this a bad review, but I just couldn’t do it .The whole tape has a cheesy endearing quality about it that got to me.

Mad Monkey

 

MOLOCH

DEMO ONIONS

PO Box 900291 Homestead FL 33090 USA

http://members.aol.com/bluntzmil/page1.html

3 track single. Opens with “Advance Formula,” which sounds like an ultra-jangly track by         THE FALL, right down to the distorted, compressed vocalization narration permutation. The dog whistle/high teakettle keyboard sound rules the song. “It’s Hard Getting At It” continues the vocal theme, which is a bit unfortunate given the highly melodic and awesome instrumental bed which is just BEGGING for a great vocal melody. Not bad as is, but coulda been huge. “Eldritch.” You guessed it. Those vocals. The drums are struck imaginatively, the bass is prominent, the guitar jangles on some odd chords, the toy keyboard makes one look at the speakers… overall very interesting.

Ian C Stewart

 

MOONBABIES

FIVE FRESH TUNES FROM THE MOONBABIES

Ola Frick, Kamrerg. 7a, 211 56 Malmo, Sweden

malmobabies@hotmail.com

To say that one band sounds like another is not necessarily a bad thing. Especially if the band they sound like is one of your favorites! So I am certainly willing to cut MOONBABIES a great deal of slack because this particular release sounds SO much like MY BLOODY VALENTINE that it’s almost kind of troubling. Is “OLA FRICK” a weird anagram for “KEVIN SHIELDS”? Nah? I didn’t really think so, especially since OLA himself has already sent me a couple of emails. All of this is irrelevant in light of the laconic beauty of FIVE FRESH TUNES, which is an absolutely stunning masterpiece of gorgeous melodies and fabulously BLOODY recording technique. I mean, in some places it sounds like a damn choir of backing vocals and harmonies there’s so many layers. It rules. The fidelity is excellent, everything sounds really clear. But of course none of the recording particulars would add up to the tiniest amount of butt-lint were it not for the stunningly high quality of the songwriting. The songs have already taken up permanent residence in my brain, and they ain’t leavin’ anytime soon. “I’m Insane But So Are You” opens with multigender vocals and a great, I mean GREAT chorus. Great. “Spanish Fork” is slower and has a high melody played on bass guitar—very MBV, that’s what I’m talking about. It rules though. I love MBV, so I gotta love MOONBABIES. “Happy When Smile” is debilitatingly gorgeous, with the slightly danceable drum pattern and the instantly catchy melody. Sigh. Man, I’m in love. I know these guys hate being compared to MBV but that’s tough crap for them. If it quacks and floats you gotta call it what it is. I have latched onto this tape wholesale and play it constantly; in the car, at home, at work, and it sounds good as hell everywhere. I sold my soul to the MOONBABIES.

Ian C Stewart

 

MOONBABIES

SWEET MORNING THEMESONGS

Tangerine Tapes 5185 Rosemary Dr Beaumont, TX 77708 USA

http://members.spree.com/entertainment/moonbabies

In a word, yummy! Not descriptive enough for you? How about this: FUCKING AWESOME guitar-driven tunes with pretty vocal harmonies and bad-ass bass playin’. Folky pop with some 60’s psychedelic retro stuff thrown in for fun. Even the gloomy songs are too incredible to make you really sad. Anyone who doesn’t love MOONBABIES is just stupid. I love this album so much I just might marry it.

Michelle Nollan

 

R STEVIE MOORE

THE FUTURE IS WORSE THAN THE PAST CD

429 Valley Rd, Upper Montclair NJ 07043 USA

http://www.rsteviemoore.com/

What do you say about R STEVIE MOORE? If you like self-referential smartass partydownnaked guitar pop you’ll wonder why you haven’t heard him sooner. If you don’t, you won’t, simple as that. “Misplacement” is a lo-fi bit of glam rock with lyrics about having a job. Sung in a bogus British accent. “Everyone, But Everyone” is more beautiful pop. R STEVIE MOORE is a true mad genius capable of basically killing you with melodies, in a league with MARTIN NEWELL, ROBYN HITCHCOCK, THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS and even ANDY PARTRIDGE without hesitation. “Where We Are Right Now” even gets kinda techno. Oh yeah and add BRIAN WILSON and SYD BARRETT to that list. Get this now. Do your homework.

Ian C Stewart

 

SIMON MORRIS

SPOKENWORD

Face Like A Smacked Arse 216 Dividy Rd, Stoke On Trent ST2 9JT UK

Brit reading vulgar travelogue poetry...Yawn. Instead, go get the BRYON GYSIN CD on SUB ROSA.

od mcUB

 

MR QUIMBY’S BEARD

THE DEFINITIVE UNSOLVED MYSTERIES OF… CD

Stone Premonitions 271 Park Road, South Moor, Stanley DH9 7AP UK

http://www.silkyuk.freeserve.co.uk

hardy@quimbys.freeserve.co.uk

Spacey blues rock, you know the deal. At least every other track is over seven minutes. Heavy on the atmosphere. Good production. Live everything. Rock band instruments. Lots of long instrumental passages with whooshy keyboards. I guess that forces me to say PINK FLOYD. Or maybe EMERSON LAKE AND PALMER doing a blues jam. In a good way. “Deejam” is my favorite because it sounds like a GARY NUMAN instro from 1980. Or there’s this COZY POWELL album I have that sounds a lot like this track. This reminds me of that.

Ian C Stewart

 

NEPHEW

Luke 9 Wroxham Close, Northgate Village, Chester CH2 2HA U

 luke.luke@virgin.net

Fires up with backward guitar drenched in reverb, joined by skeletal drum machine hits on “Rotterdam.” Very distant vocals and some spoken samples as well. The guitars bear a faint passing resemblance to ROBIN GUTHRIE’s cleaner sonic moments. Pure soundscape. “Blue Eyes” opens with a rhythmic bit of guitar striking and strumming on the headstock (or behind the bridge if you have a Fender Jaguar or something similar). SONIC YOUTH on a soundtrack kick perhaps. “Suck” kicks off with a grungy drum loop and minimal keyblip action eventually sprouting a bass guitar line and a vocal track. ADD N TO X somewhat. Exploding into a big distorted mess. “Gone” finishes off with some fingerpicked guitar and whispery vocals. Lots of spoken samples from tv or a radio play or something. Crazy stuff.

Ian C Stewart

 

N:FIOS

COMPILATION

Macka  PO Box 356 Brunswick  Vic 30566  Australia

The great song title “I’m Jumping on your Bandwagon, Noisewonkers!” unfortunately sums up perfectly the sound of all I was able to bear of this blustery nonsense. The irony of the whole thing is that the lame noise itself didn’t really annoy quite all that much.  What really irritated me…what really rubbed me raw was the repeated misspelling of the word “excerpt” in the hand-written song titles. Yes, folks, there’s “Nuclearmageddon (excert)”, “World of the Wars (excert)”, “Lemiscrate (excert)”, and on, and on. And on.  This only brings to light the point that if you’re going to “excert” out the supposed best bits of unnecessary drivel like this, then what exactly is the point of having a full length version in the first place?

C Reider

 

THE NONCHALANTS

DRIVE CD

2503 E Oltorf Street #1831 Austin TX 78741 USA

TheNonchal@aol.com

Take a great big bowl and throw in a little blues. Mix in some pop and rock. While you’re at it, add some folk. Now, stir everything up until it’s nice and frothy. Put the bowl in your car and drive out to the nearest desert while listening to this CD. Please don’t feed the coyotes.

Mad Monkey

 

NOODLES

PATRIARCH NOACHITE 21u

Jim Barker, 76 Elmwood Way, Basingstoke, Hants, RG23 8LQ, UK

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jimthing

This is a great sound collage work by JIM BARKER. On a bed of subtle background textures, JIM assembles fragments of popular songs, BBC radio, and spoken word pieces, which are chopped up, looped and distorted. If NEGATIVLAND were from England and didn’t play as much music, they would probably sound a bit like this. Side one is a long piece called “Jim World (Internal Dialogue)” which is really well put together, and quite fun to listen to. Imagine being in a room with six broken radios which turn themselves on and off seemingly at random, playing fragments of cultural sludge. The second side consists of a group of shorter pieces, which relate to one another in odd ways. Excellent.

Ken Miller

 

NOXIOUS EMOTION

COUNT ZERO

ADSR Musicwerks 1106 E Republican Seattle WA 98102 USA adsr@adsr.org

Dance! A cute (can I say ‘’cute’’ about this kind of band?) electro-dance-EBM 4-track tape, sounding very much like FRONT 242 or kinder, gentler NINE INCH NAILS. My fave song of the four is “Integral” because of the blippy and bouncy early-DEPECHE sounds, but the other three - “Mark 13”, “Boundary” and “The Unknown”- are rather pleasant as well. I can definitely imagine a crowd of black-clad and generally lofty and gloomy people bouncing “happily” - well, figuratively -  to this. (Never mind that my English teacher at school always used to say you should never use too many words ending in ‘’-ly’’ in the same sentence). Somehow I can’t imagine Seattle as a hotbed for industrial music, I hope the guys aren’t too lonely up there...This kind of music is more like German EBM. Little Euro-tour, guys? Please please please? Funny bit: during a song there was a strange rattling noise...it went on forever...I started to think that it surely was damn long, and ruined the general dynamism of the music. Only after five minutes I had a suspicion and checked, and the noise was my tape deck trying to eat the tape. (I saved it anyway, don’t worry). So now you can imagine what kind of music this is - music that sounds like a broken tape deck. And nicely so.

Paola Sorrentino

 

OLIVE’S ARMY CD compilation

25 Records PO Box 3006 Poole BH12 2HU UK

http://www.25records.com/

Another mixed bag compilation from 25 RECORDS. SPOTLESS do a 2-chord near-punk pop deal that works okay. TROPHY WIFE’s “Tall Chicks” opens a bit math-rock-ish and then the singer chick comes on sounding very LA. Not bad for 90 seconds. Many of the lesser bands on this CD tend toward The Blues and I just can’t get with it. CURIOUS OYSTER were good for a bit of COCTEAU TWINS pastiche on 25’s previous comp, OOER, MISSUS, can they deliver the goods again? Survey says: Oh yeah. Even more so this time. The singer wisely doesn’t try to emulate the unemulatable ELIZABETH FRASER, instead opting to do her own thing. So it’s cool. Beautiful atmos-pop. RED ASH AND THE LOVE COMMANDOS do “Short Happy Song” followed by “Very Short Song.” The former grooves along happily with a monotonous vocal bit and a highly catchy chorus. It’s 90 seconds long. “Very Short Song” is 9 seconds of pop, if you can believe it. More pop bands should follow this lead. Just think, entire albums could clock in under two minutes. GARFIELD’S BIRTHDAY sounds a lot like LUSH… or is it BUSH… (sure ain’t RUSH, or ZZ TOP’s song “Tush,” I know that much). It’s good whatever it is. That dude’s voice is sweet. MEMIL’s singer rocks a crazed falsetto on the GENEish “Crash.” Explosive emo pop rock. WEEKEND WITH ADAM wields an array of acoustic guitars and comes off like, well. THE SMITHS crossed with DAVE MATTHEWS BAND. I mean, few singers can stretch out the word “far” to three syllables without sounding a trifle MORRISEY-like. BLUSTER rocks on like a mix of MOTORHEAD and MANIC STREET PREACHERS. I just made that up. The majestically named ARSE do a song called “Your Mother” that basically rules. Not that they could go wrong with that name and that song title, but it’s a relief when they do actually deliver. Britrock with a great chorus. DECKCHAIR’s “Lost” is rad. The recording sounds shite but the song itself is like the band BREATHLESS: active (some might say “busy) drumming, strummed bass and wordy, emotive vocals. Oh yeah. Pity about the recording job because I love this shit. V.ELEMENT veer the closest to electronica with “We’re On Maximum.” It opens with synths and a sweet groove but then there’s guitars and a big chorus. Nice. As I said, a very mixed bag but also invaluable for a few great finds. And ARSE!

Ian C Stewart

 

ORANGE CAKE MIX

RED ROSE SPEEDWAY

Best Kept Secret via Biron di Sotto, 101, 36100, Vicenza-Italy acrestani@telemar.it

20 tracks of spacey guitar/synth pop. The guitars are lush and edible (?), recalling most easily ROBIN GUTHRIE’s output with COCTEAU TWINS. The mood overall borders on ambient but with so many melodies it’s more meditative than anything. Obviously it fucking rules.

Ian C Stewart

 

OSKRIN S CASSOT

BOUT

Face Like A Smacked Arse 216 Dividy Rd, Stoke On Trent ST2 9JT UK

This release contains the following elements: short-wave noise, drones, mindless guitar skronk, and tuneless singing (?). All arranged in such a manner as to be completely uninteresting. I’m not saying that people like this shouldn’t have a creative outlet. I’m just saying that maybe, just maybe, that they shouldn’t make other people listen to whatever it is that they’re spewing out. It says on the cover that amends will not be made by including “bonus beats.” Well, it might have helped. It also says “for those who do not see it, this is not music.” Who cares what it is, it’s just too bad that everything about this tape is just so lame.

Mad Monkey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PARAGON NULL

WELCOME TO THE MACH-2 CD

House Of Tears 7802 E 170th St, Belton MO 64012 USA

http://www.missouri.edu/~c742040/gateway.html

OHHHHH yeah. Sequenced, hittin’, slammin’-ass techno industrial beats! I must be in love. The beats are thumpin’ and the other sounds are all sweet too. Except for that fucking JOHN TESH piano action on the first track “A New Inception”! Whoa. “Artillerate” is vast, with an amazing trance techno backing. It’s definitely love. There’s something slightly menacing about these tracks, I don’t know what it is. “Falter Wave” opens with a very industrial sequenced 2-note bass thing that gives way to some damn fine uptempo elektro beats. Or, in English: it’s very good instrumental dance music. The production is muy bueno and the synth sounds are all damn fine as well. The beats, well, yeah. “Now We May Have Hope” and “Oceans Of The Morning” break out some sexy melodic ambient techno. Can’t get enough at all. Might as well send everybody else home, this is the only thing I’ll be listening to for the rest of the day.

Ian C Stewart

 

PATHOFALLYSON

THE ORANGE EP CD

PO Box 4957 Marietta GA 30061 USA

http://www.pathofallyson.com/

Blah alternarock with glam-rock sidetones. Good production. The songwriting hits me in the same way SOUL ASYLUM always did. You can tell they “mean it man” but it just seems so pointless. Guitars dominate the mix and the singerdude tends toward the dramatic. The band likes to rock. I suppose. Track 2 is a ballad. The singer does a little crooning whenever possible. Track 4 is another ballad. WALLFLOWERS anybody? Track 5 rocks kinda nicely but overall it makes me wanna die. Basically.

Ian C Stewart

 

PBK

DIE BRUCKE

Realization 9452 Telephone Rd #116 Ventura CA 93004 USA

Richly layered, thick textures. Hissing, thumping loops of purely abstract noise, and an almost musical, distorted phrase. Every sound working independently of the other, and yet meshing together into one... this is seemingly the one unchanging theme of PBK’s work. Swooping distortion, gritty and alarming, yet somehow calming as well. An after the storm calm settles in for the last track on side one, with a modal 4 note phrase, backed by a drone. Smeared hints of angry & scared voices screeching and multiplied with delays.  More obscured voices burbling with what sounds like a violin playing lightly intimates a nightmare party, ghostly debutantes and gentlemen and ladies echoing from a distant past. Walking through a hall nearby an aviary with a public address system speaking in tongues in the far distance. Resolute bong of an ancient alien bell, and clockwork. This 1988 work from PBK is important in understanding his early work, and is available only for a short time from Realization, who are phasing out their cassette catalog.

C Reider

 

FRANK PECK

YEAR OF THE RAT

KAW 2 Carmuir, Forth, Lanarkshire ML11 9AR UK

Another slam-dunk of melancholy goodness from MARK RITCHIE. The guy makes it sound effortless. He sweats great sorrow-filled balladeer type shit and YEAR OF THE RAT is just the latest in a very long string of increasingly sharp releases. This recording is suitably lo-fi but of course the songs themselves are the star attraction. The hooks are prickly and the lyrics resonate for months, years, decades. Obvious (and frequently made—by me mostly) comparisons to MARK EITZEL, MARK KOZELEK and maybe a pinch of NICK DRAKE. Mostly EITZEL though. I just hope that emulating MARK EITZEL doesn’t doom MARK RITCHIE to a similar commercial fate.

Ian C Stewart

 

THE PHANTOM TONES

PHANTASTICO CD

Hiljaiset Levyt PL 221, 33201 Tampere Finland

http://www.hiljaiset.sci.fi

Not to be confused with the DAVE VANIAN / THE DAMNED early 1990s goth rockabilly band THE PHANTOM CHORDS, this batch of PHANTOMS has more in common with slick alternative rock acts like GIN BLOSSOMS. Four songs here, all professionally done; the songwriting ain’t bad but it’s hardly anything new either. Uptempo, mostly happy-rockin’ pop. And they close with a BLONDIE cover, “Hanging On The Telephone.” If you have a college radio show and you want TOM PETTY fans to think you’re cool, er… here ya go.

Ian C Stewart

 

THE PHOEBE CATES

TURN ON THE PHANTOM CD

Davenport Records 118 W.Streesboro Rd #200 Hudson OH 44236 USA

http://www.davenportrecords.com

I was just visiting Davenport Records’ website in hopes of some help describing THE PHOEBE CATES’ sound. THE CATES remind me of tons of other bands, but they don’t really sound like anything I’ve heard before. The disk starts with a very short, backward, piece called “Further Reverse” and segues into the ultra-dreamy, surreal “Radiation Sickness”. Murky, reverbed vocal harmonies and mysterious, picturesque lyrics (“If you find that you’re asleep, and you’re staring at the bottom of an ocean where you drowned, and the sky is there but you can’t see the ground, Don’t worry if the lightening hits you hard”). The music sounds like a strange hybrid of PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN-era PINK FLOYD, shoegazer music and very indie rock. Track three, (“Underwater Gurls”) begins with a guitar riff reminiscent of THE MONKEES or THE BEATLES when they wore black-leather and hung out in Germany. But that doesn’t last long. Now it’s more like something off of SONIC YOUTH’s SISTER album. “(Theme from) Under Lake Nightmare” is warbly as hell, dark, and well, sounds like its underwater. “In Between the Stars” is anthem-rock, but not any “Freebird” shit. Vibratoed, muffled-vocals sound sincere but not cheesy, swimming in real visceral emotion. THE PHOEBE CATES’ webpage lists “influences” such as THE BEATLES, GUIDED BY VOICES, SONIC YOUTH, and MY BLOODY VALENTINE. I can hear all of those things in there, but THE PHOEBE CATES wear their influences tastefully without copying them. This is my new favorite disc. It’s full of surprises and non-pigeonholeable. Get this!

mikadams

 

PRAYING FOR OBLIVION

THE LOVE GENERATION CD

Final Judgment Church Of The Great Oblivion PO Box 22103 Nashville TN 37202 USA

praying_for_oblivion@yahoo.com

Highly highly highly highly highly nihilistic and confrontational sheets of pure fucking noise slaughter. Towers of shrill drones and scrambled loops. Endlessly. “Collapsing God Part 1” has lyrics, oddly enough. Screamed through a vocoder or a very tight reverb. Yeah, it makes me wanna die. Basically.

Ian C Stewart

 

THE PRETENTIOUS BANDNAME

KRILL BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

Macka PO Box 356 Bruswick VIC Australia 30566

This is, as it were to me, somewhat no...actually what Herr NUMAN woulda done had he been able to integrate his early guitar TUBEWAY tunes with his later synthetic jabbering. Jesu be my witness these tunes (no words/voice) beat ass on 90% of the “stuff” pushed by Spin/Stone etc.

Cin De Lane

 

REMORA

AMBIENT DRONES FOR ONE GUITAR

PO Box 18062 Raleigh NC 27619 USA

I’m not so sure about “ambient.” Let’s check our copy of MUSIC FOR AIRPORTS and see what ENO says. Hmmmmm: “ambient music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular, it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.” Well this tape ain’t ambient...Sure is loopy though!! All the pieces are one take guitar thru effects. REMORA sounds different than anyone else while using a familiar palate of sounds. Not grating, not soft, not songs, not indistinct. Sure is loopy though.

od mcUB

 

REMORA

ANADIA

PO Box 18062, Raleigh, NC 27619 USA

Yet another one with BRIAN JOHN MITCHELL, REMORA being his main recording project. Most of this guy’s stuff sounds like PRE-demos, the kind of stuff that someone might take to band rehearsal so everyone can learn and add to the ideas so they can go about recording a demo, that they can then improve upon in the studio, so that they can then record the actual songs. This is a roundabout way of saying that the material here is not fully realized. Heavily effected guitar jams through simplistic riffs. Sometimes there are vocals which call to mind an UN-scary MICHAEL GIRA. My favorite song title here: “Met” is also my favorite song, a brief and vaguely oriental guitar idea sketched down for posterity. This is REMORA in a nutshell, a lot of creative ideas, and little refinement.

C Reider

 

REYNOLS

LOH FENSER PATAGONIA CD

Semi-Roar, Suginami-Ku Ogikubo 3-39-7, Hirokawa-SO #102 Tokyo Japan 167-0051

semiroar@gol.com

http://www2.gol.com/users/semiroar

Typically crazed shit from REYNOLS. Musically improvised with spastic vocal freakouts. Possibly recorded live. Rock band instrumentation and a very very lo-tech recording. Unfortunately further investigation of this particular release is made impossible by a glitching static sound on every track. Unless… wait, is that part of it?!? Sick fucks.

Ian C Stewart

 

REYNOLS

VECTOS SILAGA

Lonely Whistle Music PO Box 9162 Santa Rosa CA 95404 USA

courtis@cvtci.com.ar

Yes, this is what I call the indie rock. Archetypically individual defined by parameters set by the heart and worked by the hands. Rough held actual tunes that could get spun on your minds eye radio, where freedom is just responsibility and GBV is nothing more than a Midwestern tangent on the MONKEES. Mix the age old impulse of scary drone eastern Euro-folk melodies, raw crackle noise, stupe locked in the bedroom gibbering, some type of scuffling bummed bluesoid meandering and a buncha guys that could really “get some thing” from the way deep Expressway/New Zealand zoner-indie-means-never-having to-qualify-desire ethic. It works about 30 % of the time. Even when it’s a mere blip snippet it’s cool to listen to as aggro ambience. If this is what happens when the influence of the SUN CITY GIRLS makes itself felt, well if Mr. Gates really is thinking of dipping into “philanthropy”  he needs to start a label dedicated to real freedom have BYRON COLEY pick the releases and put one out a day. Including 6 or 7 by this troop, including improvs w/SWEET GENE CHADBOURNE and DEREK BAILEY. Some times it’s as simple and dumb as listening to the end of a family fight where Maw gets everyone’s attention by banging ‘n’ scrapping a pie plate with a ladle. If that doesn’t sound good go ahead and turn on the radio and listen to the spawn of that shit eating WEEZER band.

Cin De Lane

 

PHIL RHODEN

HEARTBREAK HOTEL CD

Reverse Fish Records 132 Amblecote Road, Brierley Hill, West Midlands DY5 2YE UK

philip.rhoden@dudleycol.ac.uk

Kill me now for using the word quirky but hey, ya know, this here’s some quirky synth pop that suits me just fine. A rhythmic, sample-happy pop deal overall. Opens with “Blood Storm,” a nice bit of ambient pop with a sub-reggae upstroke/upchucking kind of rhythm. “Shut Up!” features an annoying New Yorker sampled saying “shut up” that’s almost too annoying. The title track is a very odd interpretation of the Durden + Axton hit made popular by everyone from the Big E to FRANCO TURRA. I didn’t know that Durden + Axton had written “Heartbreak Hotel,” I just read that off the CD cover. I don’t want people thinking I know shit that I don’t. RHODEN’s version is just so damned skewed that it’s actually kind of funny. The singing is all weird and out of time and the background music is just so damn quirky that it actually adds to the song. I mean, hell, I wouldn’t usually listen to “Heartbreak Hotel” this early on a Monday. RHODEN’s strength is in his compositions and his selection of synth sounds, not in his vocal performances, which is why the highly effected vocals of “Down Below” leave me diving for the forward button…. which brings us to “Dean Surly,” the last track, another very nice instrumental backing tainted with effected vocals. Shite singing through a vocoder is only funny for about a minute. Overall very good compositions with very questionable vocals.

Ian C Stewart

 

ROBOT CD

Helicopter Records Box 1146 dk 1010, Kabenhavn K, DENMARK

http://www.delux.dk

Live drums, acoustic guitars, Rhodes and Moogs and other analogue synths, nice singing, very good songwriting and sweet production. It’s all good, man. Seriously. There’s a dude singer and a chick singer, the chick sounds like the chick singer in GUS GUS. The songs alternate between heartfelt ballads, space rock, and funky combinations of the two. Similar in execution to BECK’s MUTATIONS record. The prevalent analogue synths recall AIR without sounding obsessively retro. Very sexy and nice! “Soda” is a live one-minute Moog groove. “I Wish” is uptempo and sweet. Awesome. Which is lucky for them because it came packaged in a mailer filled with little 2cm paper circle punches. Filled. To the top. So when one opens the package, the paper circles go absolutely EVERYWHERE. And they don’t come out easily. So now every time I look down in my car and see a little white paper circle stuck to the unreachable part of the passenger’s seat I can think about this band. They’re so fucking lucky this CD rules.

Ian C Stewart

 

THE SCHMOLL COMPILATION

Dhyana Records, Bernd Spring, Carl-Schurz Str. 29A, 86156 Augsburg, Germany

M. NOMIZED: sounds like a FRIPPertronics loop set to a techno beat. Tasty. EVERYTHING AGAINST HIM: Thicky, wobby casio bass with some ancient and great sounding rhythm machine and weak trebly guitar.  It’s all quaint and odd-ish and I’m not sure what this song says about the rest of their stuff, but I like it.  It’s all over the place with weird changes and unresolved themes. Cool. DEEP: Griddling up some bacon with a bouncey little bit of synth pinging away. ORDERLY CHAOS: Stupid band name. Stupid track. Thucky electronic kick with an offtime delay and wimpy strains of string sounds. Oodles and oodles of hiss. For five minutes, fourteen seconds. Don’t know what they were thinking. At all. HERMAFRODIT:  They lend a track directly off of their CD. See the review elsewhere in this issue. WURZELBEWUSSTSEIN: Several of my close friends have died trying to pronounce that band name, and apparently the translation is; “those who do beatnik improv nonsense”. Nice sounding tape delay echo effect though. VOLTOLUX: An aimless, but not horrible band improv with squirty analogue synth noises. MATHIAS HUBER: The hottest drum hook so far, sounds like a loop from an unreleased dub version of BAUHAUS’ “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”. Too bad the rest of the song is just stuff happening around the great drum loop. PARAMECIUM: A drum pattern played through a very fast delay, which is then made more interesting by a nice bass line. Their song title is “Gel-Tauchfahrt” which means “touch the gelatinized flatulence”. GENOVEVA DMS: Phatter than phat old analogue beats that go all madhouse mayhem. It rocks. BLUMM: Weird thing to put after the last track.  It’s bird sounds and slide whistles with a plastic guitar jangling. SPAKKEN KNORKE: Nice track. Big phat analogue beats. Actually parts of it sound like they sampled old video games. HAROLD>SACK<ZIEGLER: A jangly guitar and lo-fi vocal sample, and someone with Down’s Syndrome singing. Or something. DISUMANA RES: There may be a melody in there somewhere, but really, it just sounds like crumbling concrete. BIG CITY ORCHESTRA + DAS: A buncha noisy absurdity with a little girl telling a story about GEORGE WASHINGTON. NO:  Somebody named their band NO, imagine that! It’s tweaked vocal samples and un-rhythmic woofy noises and then a lot of silent spaces followed by brief electronic blurbs. So, if YES is blustery, new-age nonsense, then NO is non-blustery, non-new-age nonsense. NAJBAR-AJO: Sampled clanging noises, and then an underwater plink. DAS RHYTHMISCHE ORNAMENT: Feedback plus distant rhythm.  FORCES VIVES: Their song title sums it up well; “Low-Fi Tranquility”. Sounds like VIDNA OBMANA would if he taped his ambience on a ghetto blaster in his mom’s basement. POLIFONICA LUGUBRE:  Ending the CD is this little noise / ambient thing. A few clunkers, but I like this tape. I play it at work sometimes. My friend Cory likes this tape too. He plays it at work sometimes too.

C Reider

 

THE SCROUNGERS

ONE BIG WHINGE

PO Box 256 Brunswick, Vic 3056 Australia

This shit ROCKS ASS! Good music for a bad fucking day. THE SCROUNGERS are punk all the way to the bank. The music is distorted and so are the vocals, can you say “let’s put distortion on EVERYTHING?” I hope so. There ain’t much else to say except: pop in the tape and fucking kill everyone in sight. Insane titles like, “Here Comes Capt. Chaos,” “Ho Fucking Hum,” “You’re a Fucking Rapist,” “Verbal Diarreah,” “You’re Shitting In My Ears,” just to name a few. This is good shit, haven’t I said that enough already? Damn it. Sounds to me like THE SCROUNGERS have busted amps, busted mics, and old cassettes that just keep getting recorded over and over and over until they wear out. Keep fucking rockin’ MACKA, I’m ready to hear more.

C Browne Jr

 

SHY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

LIVE + DEAD

KAW 2 Carmuir, Forth, Lanarkshire ML11 9AR UK

Damn it. Well, as implied by the title of this recording, SHY RIGHTS MOVEMENT is toast. Damn it. One of my favorite bands has bit the dust, thrown in the towel, called it quits, screwed the pooch and basically quit. Fulfilling their fate as a UK DIY version of AMERICAN MUSIC CLUB. Shit. MARK RITCHIE is the MARK EITZEL figure of SHY RIGHTS, crafting melodies and gut-wrenching lyrics with a heart-on-sleeve delivery that seems somewhat plain on initial contact. But with repeat listenings the intricacies become more apparent and lyrics like “my soul is not my heart” suddenly leap out. The guitar/bass/drums/keys arrangements recall somewhat COUNTING CROWS, like if they weren’t total bullshit. The melancholy delivery will find favor with fans of RED HOUSE PAINTERS, NICK DRAKE, IDAHO, etc. Fortunately, RITCHIE will still be able to kick the hard-soul acoustic action as FRANK PECK. So it’s not a complete loss. But what pisses me off about the demise of SHY RIGHTS MOVEMENT is that they never even had a chance. They should’ve been bigger, they should’ve had a label behind them and they should’ve done some gigs very near my house! It’s funny, I said the same things when AMC broke up. The songs on LIVE + DEAD are mopey, moody, melancholy but oddly uplifting. The recording job is basically DIY. Side 2 is total lo-fi, but it’s good enough that you can hear all of the instruments and all of MARK’s lyrics. LIVE + DEAD makes a good definitive statement about SRM, it’s just a pity that the band had to be offed to accomplish it. 90 minutes of woe.

Ian C Stewart

 

THE SIDE PROJECT

THE HOUSE OF BURRL CD

Orange Entropy PO Box 1198 Hightstown NJ 08520 USA

http://www.sideproject.com/

Opens with a goofy 4-chord ballad with lyrics about all of the band members. Regressing quickly to the melodic “Fecal Delight” which features the Disney-approved chorus “Shit for breakfast, shit for lunch.” The recording is slightly lo-tech. The sound quality varies between each song. Sounds like they had a blast making it. The performances are really good and the fact that the main singer has a decent voice probably means that this really is a side project (though a side project with its own domain name is probably pretty serious). “It’s OK To Be Johnny” is a goofy ballad that sounds like…SIMON AND GARFUNKEL. Ha. “Satan Is My Pillow” is a big dumb ZZ TOP riff with processed vocals. “Sex Pillow” starts with a guitar bit lifted from that one JOHN LENNON xmas song you hear every year. Lyrics about…ugh, a stinky pillow used for post-coital cleanup. Err. “Save The Bedpan For Me” is more sensitive, politically-correct action—this time about Christmas! These guys should hook up with THE HOT BUTTERED ELVES.

Ian C Stewart

 

SILVER STRAP

IT SOUNDS LIKE AN AEROPLANE TAKING OFF

Face Like A Smacked Arse 216 Dividy Rd, Stoke On Trent ST2 9JT UK

This am deep dark garage boom crash crash. Little songs hard to hear in deep dark garage. But foot still kick with boom crash crash. Still sound bad even if clear. Sound bad good for boom crash crash. Much fun to play boom crash crash, not so much to listen. Everyone play boom crash crash, make many friend.

od mcUB

 

SISSY SPACEK

SAD SATELLITE LIGHT EP CD

Rooftops Are My Heaven Recordings PL51, 04321 Tuusula, Finland

http://www.dlc.fi/~oranssi/sissynet/rooftops.htm rooftops_recs@hotmail.com

Melodic rock band with weird tendencies. Great production, good songwriting. The singing is somewhat COBAIN-like but the rest of the band sort of defies comparison. “They Make The Clouds Weep And People Call It Rain” opens with a light rhythm-section groove and some wandering vocals. Toward the end they bring in one of those tinkly little bell mallet keyboard things, which is pretty sweet. It’s light and poppy. “Rat-tat-ta Torpedo” opens with some fuzz bass and Seattle wailing from the singer; leading into a quiet breakdown part with nice backing vocals. Then it ROCKS out with that bass intro again. For some reason I keep thinking that if SILVERCHAIR were from Iceland they might wish to gig with SISSY SPACEK. The band. Not the actress. “I Like Sad Satellites,” is ballady, morose, reverby. Has a violin! It’s kind of spacey as well, the many layers of reverbed everything multiply themselves by each other. Or not, I don’t know. “And Gasflares” is the 8-minute epic on the end… another slow moody ballady affair, this time with freakoutage and a little dub action on the snare drum. Did LEE “SCRATCH” PERRY oversee the production of the drums? This is one of those bands that you’d see opening for your favorite band, and you’d think “wow, I gotta get some of their shit sometime” and then you never do. Not because you don’t dig them but because you’re the lameass you are. If you’re me, I mean. And I am. SISSY SPACEK is cool!

Ian C Stewart

 

RAY SPEEDWAY + THE DEVILS OF PACE

Luke 9 Wroxham Close, Northgate Village, Chester CH2 2HA UK

luke.luke@virgin.net

Improv rock band action with random voice samples and spoken shiznat. “I Want To Go To Hospital” is so thick with samples it’s hard to tell who’s doing what. It’s a pop rock patchwork thing. “Two Day Weekend” is a similar paste-up with spoken and sung vocal samples—it’s actually very intricate the way all of the samples fit together like a big jigsaw puzzle. Man. It’s like FUTURE SOUND OF LONDON gone pop rock. Awesome. And when the singing kicks in on “Continuous Endless Quest” it’ll have you rolling around on the floor hugging yourself.

Ian C Stewart

 

 

SQUIM

Circle X PO Box 42570 Portland OR 97242 USA

Hell, I remember SQUIM. From a few issues ago. Where has they been to? This here tape is lo-tech electronica with subverted beats and imploded synths for melodies. Patched together with impure noize loops, source recordings and distorted samples. Some aspects are somewhat melodic though not necessarily by design. Odd.

Ian C Stewart

 

ERWIN STACHE

HARMONIE DER NICHT GANZ RELLEN TONE CD

Rund um den Watzmann, Boulevard Heuvelink 176, 6828 KX Arnhem

Opening with scattershot grand piano and mumbled (German?) narration. 2 minutes in, the piano sound is run through an effects processor so it comes out all harmonized and weird. Experimental sound as art. With a budget. “Basset-Duet” features clumps of piano notes followed closely by a double bass? With weird sound effects on top. Compositionally, my working class ear feebly stumbles to compare this CD to JOHN CAGE and GLENN BRANCA because I don’t know anybody else who sounds even remotely like this. KRONOS QUARTET? Hell, I don’t know. It’s spooky and experimental and comes in a sexy package and will make a fine addition to anyone’s collection of “out there” sounds.

Ian C Stewart

 

RUSS STEDMAN

CRACKED CD

Hell Bent For Lather PO Box 89224 Sioux Falls SD 57109 USA

http://www.hellbentforlather.whatisthepoint.com/

“My Soul Has Risen” opens with an absolutely classic 15 seconds of wailing guitar feedback, which leads to a gentle piano bit with brushed drums and slap bass. The song is a classic autumn pop gem. Totally unexpected! “Just Feeling Right” is a 1970s arena rocker complete with a cowbell on the intro plus fifty guitar harmonies. Hard rockin’ like fuckin’ BILLY SQUIER or something. Awesome. Or FOGHAT. “Remember Me” is a happy pop song about, eh, stalking somebody. Lyrically, STEDMAN definitely got it goin’ on. “Nobody Home” is a STINK FLOYD cover that may or may not sound like the original. “Howard Hughes” sounds like a leftover from STEDMAN’s band ~STICKLER, uptempo pop punk. “You’re In My Dreams” is an odd atmospheric ballad type deal with acoustic guitar, synths and drum box plus, uh, feedback guitar. Hmm. “Lime Slurry” is something of a glam rock dirge, if that makes sense. T REX at half speed. This CD is fucking crazy and that is definitely to its credit.

Ian C Stewart

 

STUNTED

SPIN SPIN GIRL EP

James 465 Craig St, Parksville BC V9P IL2 Canada

MAN that fucking song is annoying. The music is all sequenced and there’s a very warbly keyboard phrase that’s kinda cool. But the singing! Aghh. ON the Coyness Chart, this falls somewhere between “Lovecats,” “Karma Chameleon” and “Friday I’m In Love” and I don’t know exactly why it enrages me so. Every time I see this tape I can hear that fucking dude singing “spin spin spin spin spinning girl…” and I’m blinded with rage. It’ll probably be a huge hit. Even if I do agree with the lyrics. “Eye Games” combines the same basic elements in a far less abrasive manner. An approximation of MAGNETIC FIELDS and happy CURE. “Conditional Love,” though, makes me want to kill again. The singer gives wussy-boy singers like me a bad name. And you know he must sound like a puss if I, Mr Pink Cardigan himself, want to slap him and say “be a fuckin’ MAN!” “Purple Shirt” is a slow syntho ballad deal that’s not bad. The vocals are just so blah and blah. Throwing in an extra “version” of each song (with a giggle stick track) is bad. Bad move. Good idea but. Annoying.

Ian C Stewart

 

SUBTERRA

THE SPEED OF PAIN CD

American Horse Records PO Box 90485 Houston, TX 77290 USA

http://www.subterra.net

The most obvious comparison to make here is to NEIL YOUNG, so, what the fuck, I’m new at this,  I’ll make it. But I like NEIL YOUNG and I don’t care who knows it, dammit! HOWIE DOYLE sings appealingly off-key, although I wish he had picked better topics than cloning and Y2K and shit like that. Folky protest rock in the 90’s, who knew? There’s even a cover of a WILLIE NELSON song. Who fucking covers WILLIE NELSON?!?!? Apparently, SUBTERRA. And it kicked buttocks, and neck. Not at the same time of course. That would be silly.

Michelle Nollan

 

SUPERFINEMAGNETICPARTICLE

LITTLE ETERNITIES

7"Immp PO Box 418 Princeton NJ 08542 USA

Weird waltzes collide with disjointed electronics on this eight-song vinyl excretion from the kings of twiddle. This is the perfect soundtrack for the evil carnival in your head. Featuring special guest appearances by WILBO WRIGHT (UI) and RON GEESIN (PINK FLOYD).

Mad Monkey

 

SWIM

SAFE UNLESS CD

4717 Manchester Road Middletown OH 45042 USA Dobro2@infinet.com

A solid example of what passes for alternative rock nowadays, if that’s what stacks your sandwiches. Chiming guitars back-up the ever-so emotive vocals. Extra points for the cello though.

Mad Monkey

 

TALL BALD GRANDFATHERS

INCOMPLETE INHERITANCES

Vuzh Music PO Box 1204 Lyons CO 80540 USA

1988 underground classic eagerly reissued by VUZH MUSIC. It’s safe to say you’ve never heard anything like this before. Bass guitar, sax, keyboards, acoustic guitars and female vocals all processed to hell and back, mixed in a dramatic, reverbed, HEARTS OF SPACE kind of way. HUGO LARGO jamming with JOHN ZORN on Valium and Nyquil. The bass guitar is my favorite bit though that sax is pretty damn fine as well. The production could be the real star of this endeavor though. Just like the various musings of THIS MORTAL COIL would’ve amounted to dick had someone clicked off the life-giving effects processors. It’s spacey and somewhat psychedelic—mostly the whackjob vocals—and still, after 11 years, sounds very fresh and vital. And definitely unique, there’s still nobody that sounds like this.

Ian C Stewart

 

TANK CD

Mu Records 788 Franklin Ave, Astoria OR 97103 USA
Not the power metal trio fronted by ALGY WARD after he left THE DAMNED. The way I understand it, these two dudes climbed up into one of those big empty water tower deals and took all their recording shit with them and just kinda, you know, went off as it were. If the photo on the insert is anything to go by, it looks like they took one of everything, there’s a banjo in the picture, an accordion, a bass drum, a clarinet-lookin’ thing. More stuff I can’t identify. The sounds they created up in that, um, TANK, are spooky and haunted and highly experimental in nature. Any instrument that can sustain a tone does so while something else gets pounded or squawked or otherwise sounded to accompany it. It’s a very intriguing and disturbing milkshake they make. Four individual pieces make up the hour long CD, all are spookier than, er… DJ SPOOKY. This is some truly ill ambience! I especially like the bits where they kick it on the banjo, they play these long, intricate, noodly riffs over and over and it all just comes together very nicely.

Ian C Stewart

 

TARKATA

LYSSNA

Trummer Kassetten c/o Lutz Pruditsch, Hartenkamp 11-D-26127 Oldenburg GERMANY

A cavernous marble sanctuary filled with slow clicking sounds, a lush synth loop joins, then both fade into a less melodious pool of low frequency tones. Bubbling textures, dripping, dribbling wet sounds from some underwater cave. From out of the reverberation a series of polyrhythmic pulses. A moaning loop with chirping night insects, and a murmuring piano. The tonal bits are quite pretty, kind of indicates an interest in minimalist composition. Very nice tape.

C Reider

 

TIETCHENS | PBK

FIVE MANIFESTOES CD

Realization  9452 Telephone Rd #116  Ventura, CA 93004-2600 USA

#1: Rhythmic ringing and whining like a braking train, changing pitches suddenly. Weirdly reverbed voices like people in a claustrophobic indoor swimming pool. #2:  Filtered tapping noises, like a mad robot randomly drumming on a layer of ice over a flowing brook. Cold, in more ways than one. Toward the end of the piece, the effects are mixed in more, warping into a metallic phased illusion. #3: A bowed drone fizzles into a swarm of beetles swooping through a long trembling metal pipe. #4: A chorus of flaming smokestacks huff out and are re-lit only to blow out again. In a more distant part of the factory, one can hear machinery chewing up the mountainside, great rockslides gobbled up like candy, causing a great polluted cloud of charged dust to reverberate like fog. #5: An airy drone and slowly building loop that breaks up, distorting itself with delay. Sounds like a hypnotized murder of crows thoughtlessly chanting to some humming, buzzing monolith. This is a strange, although somewhat short (at 40 minutes) CD documenting the collaboration between these two renowned noise sculptors, and is recommended.

C Reider

 

TIKTOK

A SINGLE GLASS OF WATER… CD

pH Base Productions 4107B Speedway, Austin TX 78751 USA

tiktok@sprintmail.com

Now this is what the fuck I’m talking about: ambient guitar action! Yeah baby. Fitty-two-thirty-three of liquid tones and soothing drones. FRIPPertronic, sure, and all the better for it. A SINGLE GLASS OF WATER… (subtitled “…could light the world,” I don’t get it either) is split into two halves: “Trust” and “Brunel.” Is that like ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL, father of Swindon Town? The tones loop and fade and loop and fade and are added to and altered slightly before dissipating. It’s fucking beautiful. TIKTOK is TRAVIS HARTNETT. My man knows what time it is.

Ian C Stewart

 

TIMO

IT WAS MORE THAN COMMUNICATION WE LACKED

Best Kept Secret via Biron di Sotto 101-36100 Vicenza Italy

acrestani@telemar.it

Oh dear. Sincere and dull “personal” blues/country less folk/campfire derived pop. “It means nothing to me Oh Vienna!” After the REYNOLS tape this is depressing.

Cin De Lane

 

TIMO

IT WAS MORE THAN COMMUNICATION WE LACKED

Best Kept Secret via Biron di Sotto 101-36100 Vicenza Italy

acrestani@telemar.it

Sorry, but me no like TIMO. I have tried to but I can never seem to really get into it. Me no like his words, me no like his music, me no like this tape. The drum machine gets old quick and since it’s on almost every song, it’s hard to get away from. The guitars sound as though they were recorded straight to tape without any amplification. I find myself getting very annoyed with his music and then very bored. The vocals are dry and plain and so is the guitar. Sorry TIMO.

C Browne Jr

 

TRIAL BALLOON

FOOL ONE ANOTHER CD

Big Time 39 Central Ave #321, Dayton OH 45406 USA

irockdude@aol.com

14 guitar-driven tracks of varying styles and with divergent production. The disc opens with “Party Killer,” a slow-brewing tension-builder with canned rhythm and slide guitar slayed with delay. “Chance Happening” is next, a dark, fingerpicked acoustic ballad with live drums. “Asymetrical” is a one-minute splat of solo guitar wank; the kind of chording and phrasing one does at Berklee in the hallway between classes. “Fool One Another” falls under a similar heading, but with strummed acoustic backing, live drums and 2 tracks of vocals. The guitar playing is good in a sort of CLAPTON or RICHARD THOMPSON way. “Troubled Individual” is 1:40 of backwards guitar noise; it’s somewhat out of place on the otherwise ROCK plane of the rest of the disc. “I Know” starts off very slow with a blues-infected guitar figure that somehow recalls the stately slo-mo grandeur of the band SPAIN. And yet not. The guitar track in the right speaker does the same kind of wank that RICHARD THOMPSON is guilty of on the early NICK DRAKE sessions he played on. The placid mood of the piece would’ve been better served by having no guitar wankage, not filling every single hole with more guitar. A few nice acoustic pieces later on the disc and a few more acoustic rockers. Sounds like the guitars wrote this album themselves and poor TRIAL BALLOON was just their instrument!

Ian C Stewart

 

THE TUTSIS

ONE LAST SHOT

Dagger Tapes PO Box 380152 E Hartford CT 06138 USA

“Suburbohemia” comes off like a crazed mix of THE MISFITS and THE VENTURES. Melodic uptempo punk rock with emphasis on the hooks. Might even pay the bills for THE TUTSIS. “Snake Dance” includes some sexy middle-eastern sax ack-shawn throughout and very low growly yelled vocals. That sax is something else. It is prominent on “Cover Me,” which is sort of like, a ballad or something. It’s not the SPRINGSTEEN song either. “Heroin Bitch” is the star of the tape, opening with sax, clean guitar and female vocals singing of the perils of someone else’s bad bad ride on the Smack Train. And they yell “heroin bitch!” a lot. The production is pro and the songwriting and performances are very good.

Ian C Stewart

 

 

TWELFTH HOUSE

Best Kept Secret via Biron di Sotto 101-36100 Vicenza Italy acrestani@telemar.it

6 track EP of well-produced folk rock with female vocals. Anybody remember OCTOBER PROJECT? Subtract the overwrought fake drama and you’re in the ballpark. “Looking” opens with alternating time sigs and a vaguely catchy chorus. “The Plant” is sexy 4AD folk, slow and introspective. The songwriting is very good and the recording quality is also mighty fine. “Passive” continues the 4AD theme though veering closer to LUSH—especially that upper-register bass and the layered vocal bits. Oh yeah. “Autumn Song” is wholly evocative of, well, autumn. You can practically hear the leaves falling in the background. Any questions?

Ian C Stewart

 

TWISTED TOWER DIRE

THE CURSE OF TWISTED TOWER

10021 Scenic View Terr, Vienna VA 22182 USA twistedtower@earthlink.net

Holy old school metal! I was never a fan of SAVATAGE but that’s who TTD reminds me of. The riffs are highly IRON MAIDEN and the performances are very precise. The singer sounds like he could be influenced by BRUCE DICKINSON, mostly singing in an upper register. But it comes off more like, well, SAVATAGE. The instrumental bits work best for me. This takes you back to the time before mosh pits and songs without harmonized guitar solos. It’s so fuckin’ retro you gotta love it. The production is very good, though the vocals are extremely prominent. “Hall Dark Rider” recalls even first-album QUEENSRYCHE. Pure epic metal. Oh yeah, maybe like HELLOWEEN too.

Ian C Stewart

 

UNCLE TOM

UNCLE TOM CD

Fuse Records

http://home.earthlink.net/~uncletoms

Stylistically confused guitar rock. Opens with “I’m In Love With My Gun,” which features a most unfortunate bit of slide guitar. Then it rocks. Rock band stuff. The fake British accent on the singing is neither humorous nor ironic. But I took mental note of it, so yeah, uh, mission accomplished I guess. “Out A This World” recalls the opening strains of the KISS classic “Save Your Love” but degenerates into a post-NIRVANA duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh. With a thrash/polka/punk chorus! Man. So yeah. Alternative rock with the emphasis on the guitar. Yeah, it makes me wanna die. Basically.

Ian C Stewart

 

UNHORSE CD

Knot Music PO Box 501 South Haven MI 49090-0501USA

“I will make the coyote stop and listen to admire my rage, my grief, my fury,” says ANDREW of UNHORSE. Indeed, that’s the gist of this entire recording. The pieces center around ANDREW’s (no last name provided) angry poetics. He clearly is enraged by the state of affairs in his Freesoil, Michigan environment. “May the military industrial complex take sick leave...I will rage against the Pentium II... Nothing matters—only the dawn at the beginning of the day when the hatred’s gone,” are some examples of ANDREW’s discontents. He speaks and sings his unhappiness with a male voice of average dynamics.  The pieces are embellished with many different instruments and samples. The arrangements of these sounds vary from punk to collage to folk to noise. Among the sounds I could decipher were distorted electric guitar, bass , drums, flutes, rattling keys, harmonica, whistles, a number of animal sounds and bits of random conversations. There are a several shushes, squeaks, and rumblings on the tape which I could not decipher as well. Andrew uses a lot of echo and other sound effects to color his work. The entire recording projects pure unbridled rebellion.

Swami Loopynanda III

 

UNPOLISHED GRIEF

BRAINWRECK CD

PO Box 620953 Littleton CO 80162-0953 USA

Hmmmm, good thing I woke up in a really bad mood today. This fits perfectly, as I go around the house slamming doors and kicking the cats. Not pretty, either me or the music, both of us acting like teenagers just WISHING we had a gun. Sometimes the point isn’t to be creative or constructive. Sometimes you just want to fuck shit up. UNPOLISHED GRIEF at least show a couple of different voices here, ranging from speed core to death metal to black industrial.. Oops, thats all the same thing isn’t it...Well there’s lots of fast guitars and drums and yelling. Since the recording itself is of good quality I can tell that these boys have technical talent and some nice toys to play with. My creative comment to them would be to delete the badly done collages of dog barking and such between the metal riffing. It pointlessly breaks the pacing and says nothing.

od mcUB

 

VLOR

LUXATE

PO Box 18062  Raleigh NC 27619  USA

I’m beginning to think that one could call BRIAN JOHN MITCHELL “the man of a thousand well-named recording projects”. This particular one is a collaboration with RUSSELL HALASZ. Apparently, it consists entirely of live guitar pieces. The first is a swoopy chaotic mess with ladled on effects. Directly after that, with no further ado, we witness VLOR contract a severe case of the Jangles.  I remember BRIAN saying something to the effect that he refuses to take measures to make his recordings sound better, fidelity-wise, as doing so would compromise the realness and honesty of the recording. The lo-fidelity is definitely in-your-face on this short K7. The guitar pieces on display here are fairly disposable, like a couple of guys jamming to come up with ideas for future “real” songs. I like some of the names of the tunes:  there’s “Hiver” and “Valge” and “Guilt Jersey”. I’d recommend he become a poet, if only I didn’t hate poetry as much as I do.

C Reider

 

WARSER GATE

MIRAGE

Best Kept Secret, Biron di Sotto 101 - 36100 Vincenza, Italy

This tape, released in Italy by a British band with a pseudo-German name, presents its listeners with some grungy rock of the style made popular by groups in the Northwestern United States a few years back. RICH STOKES’ crashing cymbals and thrashing tom toms combine with KEITH WARDLEY’s gritty guitars and bludgeoning bass to shake their victims’ stereo speakers good and hard. The high voiced lead singer KEV FLYNN yells out his lyrics in a near desperate attempt to make them understood over the pounding instrumentation. Contact these guys if you’re looking to party with the raw and untamed.

Swami Loopynanda III

 

BYRON WESTBROOK

ON THE OUTSIDE CD

PO Box 49596 Austin TX 78765 USA

http://bwest.home.texas.net

Nope, its not a FRANK ZAPPA cover, it’s pop. The kind of pop that is oh so popular on the alleged “alternative” radio stations these days. You know, GOO GOO DOLLS, HOOTIE AND THE SUCKFISH, (or whatever the current bland, corporate flavor is at the moment), etc. Jangly acoustic guitars and deep heart-felt lyrics are what WESTBROOK is all about. The songs aren’t horrible, and the performance is polished and slick, but WESTBROOK is following the formula of a man who wants a major label record deal. I know that this is exactly what 95% of the population of the earth want to hear, and God bless BYRON WESTBROOK for giving it to them (I guess). Call it personal preference, but this stuff leaves me cold. The first two tracks of  “On the Outside” sound to me like… well, HOOTIE AND THE BLOWFISH. Things become slightly more engaging as the disc wears on. The third track, “Was It You” sounds like a guy with a pretty-boy seventies kind of voice doing an imitation of ELVIS COSTELLO doing an imitation of TOM WAITS (with an intro by JIMMY BUFFETT).  The guitar is not uninteresting.  Nice KEITH RICHARDS comping. Track four brings more E. COSTELLO imitations. In all fairness to BYRON, he does what he does well. He is a competent guitarist and there are some nice melodies. “Shine”, sounds like a great song to have on one’s radio on the way to work as the sun is rising (Would be a great jingle for a coffee commercial, too).  “Soon After Dark” kind of sounds like ICEHOUSE doing a DEF LEPPARD song. Occasionally interesting lyrics. This guy will be on MTV any day now and if  you come from the school of thought that contends that  the world needs another fucking DAVE MATTHEWS BAND, you’ll love this. Nicely produced, safe pop for people who don’t like to think. 

mikadams

 

W.W.N.A.T.T.O.

PROMOTAPE

Face Like A Smacked Arse

I don’t know what the hell to make of this. The sound is low, low-fi. Sounds like it was recorded on a K-Mart miniature boom box. The words, though usually unintelligible, are quirky and idiosyncratic. I’ve taken a few psychology classes and met a few schizophrenics on the streets, and to me this sounds a lot like their ranting. It also kind of makes me think of the “find the fish” scene in “Monty Python’s Meaning of Life” Minimalist CHADBOURNEesque guitar and casiotone, incessant ranting. Kind of interesting at times, but listening to the whole thing in one sitting makes me feel like killing. A little info would have been nice, but oh well. Music to wander the streets and root through dumpsters by.

mikadams

 

JIMMY YOUNG & THE TORNADO BAIT CD

Step Mama Records PO Box 547 Braselton GA USA

Yep, that’s the stuff I like. Straight up rock-and-roll that’s not afraid to have a good time. YOUNG’s singing reminds me sometimes of THE RED HOT CHILLI PEPPERS. There are some fairly amusing lyrics in there too. Mainly he’s just one heck of a fine guitar player (but without beating you over the head about it). His backup players are SHAWN RENSHAW (Bass, Recorder) and JOEL SEARLES (Percussion), but most of the tracks also have one or more guest artists sitting in. Most notable for me were MARIANO PACETTI on sax and BOBBY MILLER on mandolin (on “Grain of Salt” and “Run Screaming”, respectively). I’ve played this whole thing through several times and I’m not tired of it yet. Recommended.

Indy Ana Jones