Archive for the ‘Noiseweek’ Category

Noiseweek: David Bowie, Failure, Drowning Hose, Iron Maiden, Tortoise & more

Sunday, October 11th, 2015

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

NEWS

Thank you to everyone who has expressed their condolences and celebrated the life of Pete Dunstan, AKA The Black Captain. Pete’s funeral service will be held at Fremantle Cemetary on Tuesday, with more details available on the Facebook event page. Pete’s co-presenters on Behind the Mirror presented a tribute show on Wednesday night, and Dave Cutbush dedicated his Thursday Out to Lunch show to Pete’s memory. Tangled Thoughts of Leaving have named their forthcoming EP The Black Captain in Pete’s honour, and you can read our archive of Pete’s thoughtful criticism here. Vale The Black Captain.

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Gail Zappa, the widow of Frank Zappa and the executor of the Zappa Family Trust, passed away this week at the age of 70. Rolling Stone have penned a touching obituary on Zappa, including quotes from an interview they conducted with her earlier this year about an Alex Winter-directed documentary about her late husband’s life which is due for 2017.

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The Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame has unveiled its 2016 nominees. Among those included in the list are Cheap Trick, Deep Purple, The Spinners, N.W.A., Yes and The Smiths, as well as more recently-eligible nominees Nine Inch Nails. Artists become eligible for nomination 25 years after the release of their first record. We’re now reaching the point where the acts at the centre of peak grunge and alternative — Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Jane’s Addiction et al. — are eligible for nomination, though they missed out this year. Fan voting is open now at the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame website, with the inductees to be announced in December.

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Continuing on the award beat, the ARIA Award nominees were announced this past week, with usual suspects Courtney Barnett and Tame Impala earning a handful of nods. The Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Album category leaves a lot to be desired — would it hurt to acknowledge something a little more boundary-pushing than In Hearts Wake or Northlane, when we’ve seen new releases from Tangled Thoughts of Leaving, High Tension, Dumbsaint, We Lost the Sea, Hope Drone and a buttload more I’m forgetting? Fuck it, maybe we’ll start our own awards. See the full-list of nominees at the ARIA website.

READ

Death and the Iron Maiden | NPR

“Whereas their forebears in Black Sabbath engaged the subject of mortality with low and slow misanthropy, Iron Maiden tackled it on frenetically paced, epically rendered cautionary tales, heralded by Dickinson playing the part of a maniacal prophet. The result has been one of metal’s most celebrated legacies, exuding a notion of the very glory and immortality the band’s songs depicted. Yet recently, Maiden’s lyrical themes, and that of many of their influential peers, have manifested as an unavoidable reality. The authors of the mortality narratives that have been heavy metal’s stock in trade for nearly 50 years are confronting their own.”

Why Noise Bands Are Playing at the European Organization for Nuclear Research | Motherboard

“The best parts in [Deerhoof’s] live shows are the points at which they push beyond the melodic and beyond the understandable, into the unknown, into the musical nether regions. But they do it from a basis. That was sort of what I noticed at their show and noticed that I had subconsciously understood the whole time—that a band like Deerhoof, they are doing what they do because they can’t help themselves. They want to start from a basis of well-known musical ideas and then want to push beyond that because they’re curious and they’re just pushing forward.
Which is really what we do here at CERN. The research that we’re doing here at CERN, we’re not doing this for a profit, we’re not doing this to make money. We’re doing this because we really just want to know what happened like a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. We want to know that. And to do that, we have to build a bigger detector to push back farther in time and higher energy to understand this. And that’s really the only reason why we’re doing this, because we’re curious.”

LISTEN

Tortoise — Gesceap

This beautiful synthscape is one of the most vital pieces of music Tortoise have released in their two decade-plus career. “Gesceap” is the first single from The Catastrophist, the follow-up to 2009’s Beacons of Ancestorship, marking the longest time between Tortoise albums. “Gesceap” bears no hallmarks of the jaunty rhythms that marked the previous record’s 11 tracks. This is soothing and uplifting, backed by jazz-inflected drum fills and a rich textural tapestry. The Catastrophist is out on January 22 through Thrill Jockey.

Drowning Horse — Echoes

Nothing comes easy with Drowning Horse. “Echoes” spends half of its length on building up tension, promising a cathartic release from a tension and menace that borders on unbearable. That release does come eventually on “Echoes”, though not in the form of a crushing crescendo as one might expect, but an otherworldly slow bleed of anger, like a resting predator that’s roused from its slumber only to return after a warning growl. The track is taken from Sheltering Sky, out October 22 through FalseXIdol Records and Art As Catharsis.

WATCH

Failure — Counterfeit Sky

Not many bands get a second shot at success — critical, commercial, personal, or however you define it. Even fewer make use of it the way Failure have. “Counterfeit Sky” is the most impressive and ambitious visual effort of Failure’s career. Forgoing Failure’s tradition of borderline cheesy performance-based music videos — the Undone and Stuck on You clips haven’t exactly aged well — this video is (or at least looks) big budget, high concept and timely in its release, given the hype around The Martian and NASA’s Mars announcements. It’s ironic that only now, two decades after the space rock opera that was Fantastic Planet, are Failure capitalising on the imagery of alien worlds. “Counterfeit Sky” is an appropriate choice for a single too; with that earworm of a chorus riff and the shimmering guitars in the bridge, it could fit on Fantastic Planet just as easily as The Heart is a Monster. With Troy Van Leeuwen back in the touring band for the next little while, there is no ceiling for the new Failure.

Tangled Thoughts of Leaving — Reprieve

The chaps from Perth’s most bizarre foursome push vans, flog merch, bang heads and generally faff about in this video for “Reprieve”, a compilation of tour footage from their most European jaunt. The track is taken from the aforementioned EP, The Black Captain, in honour of the late great Pete Dunstan. At the risk of being overly sentimental, I bet Pete would’ve loved this track. It’s a slow-burner in contrast from the majority TTOL’s recent output, but it’s a perfect encapsulating of the band’s ever-shifting dynamics — from tempered build-ups and understated riffage to a rousing but subtle crescendo that burns fast before giving way to a sombre guitar outro. The Black Captain is available now to those who pre-ordered Yield to Despair. Details on a full release are coming soon.

David Bowie — Blackstar

A one minute excerpt of new David Bowie music is still enough to get excited about. “Blackstar” accompanies the opening credit sequence of The Last Panthers, an upcoming British crime drama starring Samantha Morton and John Hurt. The series comes from screenwriter by Jack Thorne, whose credits include Skins, Shameless and This is England ’86. Bowie’s voice is sullen and sultry, like something between the Low, Outside and Hours eras, with more than a hint of menace. The Last Panthers debuts in the UK on Sky Atlantic on November 12.

Noiseweek: Sunn O))), Golden Void, John Carpenter, JAMC and more

Sunday, October 4th, 2015

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

NEWS

A friendly reminder that Le Guess Who? in the Netherlands boasts the best festival line-up of the year. Deerhunter, Swervedriver, A Place to Bury Strangers, METZ, Blanck Mass, Lightning Bolt, Total Control; a Constellation Records-curated stage with Ought and Last Ex, and a Sunn O)))-curated stage with OM, Chelsea Wolfe, Magma, Julia Holter and Goatsnake. Ugh.

Speaking of which, Sunn O))) just announced their next LP: Kannon Kommeth, out through Southern Lord on December 4.

Per Pitchfork, director John Carpenter will be making his live debut at next year’s ATP Iceland in July.

SBS News mistakenly flashed a picture of music vlogger Anthony Fantano of The Needle Drop during their reportage on Chris Mercer, the gunman responsible for the school shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon. More at Noisey.

Lush are reuniting to play their first show in almost two decades.

In other reunion news, per a recent Time Out New York interview, the Jesus and Mary Chain are working on their first new record in 17 years.

Pitchfork Radio will begin its first broadcast this Monday from Willy’s Detroit.

True Widow’s first two records, I.N.O. and As High As The Highest Heavens And From The Center To The Circumference Of The Earth, are now available on Bandcamp.


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Something on the outside: Cold Chisel reconsidered | The Monthly

“Someone somewhere in Australia is listening to a Cold Chisel song right now. Perhaps it’s you, tarrying with the ever-present ‘Khe Sanh’, or with ‘Choirgirl’, ‘Cheap Wine’, ‘Breakfast at Sweethearts’ or ‘Forever Now’. Maybe, without even needing to tune the radio to the nearest Classic Hits station or dig out the records, you can hear those songs in your head, like I can hear them, as if each were a part of some interior musical script learnt off by heart so long ago now that you can’t recall a time when you didn’t know it. What can I tell you about Cold Chisel that you don’t already know?”

Dissonant Joy: A Guide to Europe’s Punk Foremothers | Pitchfork

“Early punk histories tend to focus on New York and London, with hardly any credit given to the movement’s mainland European acts—and even less so when the creative forces behind those bands were women. Additionally, the continental identities of relatively celebrated female UK punk cornerstones like the Slits or the Raincoats are often overlooked. So while many of these European punks didn’t necessarily wield a significant amount of cultural influence, their lack of careerist ambition to appoint themselves as the faces of a scene is actually what distinguishes them.
A bona fide embrace of amateurism linked many of these groups; for them, punk’s anything-goes ethos wasn’t just a line to tote about while quietly cultivating expertise undercover. For most of their male peers, punk underscored natural freedoms, but the style’s sense of possibility offered these women a sense of liberation that was more radical, and they committed to exploring punk’s limits with dissonant joy.”

An Excerpt from the Memoir and Cookbook Red Velvet Underground by Freda Love Smith (the Blake Babies, Antenna) | The Talkhouse

“Being a musician on tour was the life experience that shattered my uptightness and helped me embrace a more flexible diet. Touring in a band presents a host of particular challenges: how to stay stable in constantly shifting surroundings; how to stay sane in often-crazy circumstances; how to stay civil in the close quarters of a van with four other humans; how to stay healthy in booze– and smoke-filled bars — and on the slim pickings of truck-stop food.”


LISTEN

A Swarm of the Sun — Deliver Us From Our Dreams

Caspian and Mogwai meet in a starry sky in this cut from Swedish duo A Swarm of the Sun. Taken from the sessions of their latest record The Rifts, this is the kind of thing you want to listen to from the window seat of transcontinental plane journey, when you’re bleary-eyed and trying to determine if the sun is rising or setting behind the horizon.


WATCH

Golden Void — Burbank’s Dream

Is this real life or a video game? The Isaiah Mitchell-led Golden Void favour cheesy vistas and visual blending to accompany the bluesy Burbank’s Dream. It’s like a Windows Media Player visualisation come to life, but somehow it works. The track is taken from the group’s second record, Berkana, out now through Thrill Jockey.

Noiseweek: John Peel, Space Bong, Erasers, KEN mode, Deerhoof

Sunday, September 27th, 2015

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

READ

How John Peel created our musical world | The Guardian

“Eleven years after his death, Peel still hovers above our record collections, silently guiding the opinions and judgments of the generations who grew up listening to him. When Brian Eno gives the BBC Music John Peel lecture at the British Library on 27 September, he’ll doubtless begin by citing the importance of Peel in his own life. It would be good to hear him talk about The Perfumed Garden, Peel’s psychedelic fantasia on the late-night airwaves of the pirate station Radio London, where teenagers in 1967 were introduced to the avant-garde sounds of the Velvet Underground and the Mothers of Invention. Eno will surely mention Roxy Music’s session for the strangely named Friday Night Is Boogie Night in January 1972 – it was their radio debut – which Peel offered them before they had a manager, a record deal or more than a handful of fans. And if Eno’s speech flags a little and he needs a laugh from the audience, all he has to do is recall the night in December 1973 when Peel played a reel-to-reel tape of the new Fripp & Eno album (No Pussyfooting), backwards without noticing. All 39 minutes of it.”

Ed Rodriguez (Deerhoof) Talks the Whole Illegal Downloading Thing | The Talkhouse

“If you’re like me, you feel powerless sometimes. The world seems out of control. But we have more control than we know. A sad truth is that you wield a lot of power with your bank account, no matter how modest it is. Spending money on what actually means something to you not only helps those who are making it, it lets the whole system know your vote. There have been times when, for brief moments, record companies stopped trying to tell people what they should like and instead began scrambling to give the public what it actually wanted. For instance, no one thought the world would freak out and embrace Nirvana like we did, so for a time, record executives were unsure of what was happening, and they were signing everyone who was “alternative,” hoping to find the next big thing.”

LISTEN

Space Bong — Slow Spring

Adelaide’s drabbest take things very, very slow on the first cut from the forthcoming Deadwood To Worms. And why wouldn’t they — Space Bong are the kind of band whose music unfurls itself like a snake shedding its skin — by the end, a fresh beast has emerged. That reptilian theme carries through to this song’s frankly evil vocal deliveries, which, for those heavily reverbed segments, sound as if they’re being screamed from an isolation cell. Yes, this is doom at its most dark and dreadful, just the way we like it. Deadwood To Worms is out October 13 through Art As Catharsis.

Erasers — Stem Together

There’s a ritualistic quality to Erasers’ new record, the way each element of percussion and melody emerges, surges and returns. It sounds almost generative, this strange mix of the synthetic and the organic, and it’s lifted up by Rebecca Orchard’s ghostly, heavily-reverbed incantations which seem to exist simultaneously apart from and woven into the fabric of songs like“Leaves” and “By Your Side”. Stem Together is available now through Pouring Dream.

WATCH

KEN mode — These Tight Jeans

Jesse Matthewson steps into the ring for the first video from KEN mode’s killer Success. These Tight Jeans is probably the most unusual cut from the trio’s noise rock reinvention. Matthewson’s done some legitimate MMA sparring, and this clip cuts between throwing fists and shouting the song’s rally cries with the song’s guest vocalist Jill Clapham. It’s a welcome way of injecting one of the year’s best sleeper records back into the limelight. If METZ can be a huge deal, there’s no reason these Canadian neighbours can’t achieve the same dizzying heights.

Brian Eno explores John Peel’s record collection

That previous John Peel article was published in the leadup to the BBC Music John Peel lecture, to be delivered by Brian Eno at the British Library later today. Below is another short piece from the BBC, where Eno explores Peel’s record collection, reflecting on how revolutionary Peel’s championing of The Velvet Underground was, as well as the time Peel played Eno & Fripp’s record No Pussyfooting, backwards, without noticing.

Noiseweek: My Disco, Ought, Heat Dust, Black Wing

Saturday, September 19th, 2015

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

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Hit Charade: Meet the bald Norwegians and other unknowns who actually create the songs that top the charts | The Atlantic

“Millions of Swifties and KatyCats—as well as Beliebers, Barbz, and Selenators, and the Rihanna Navy—would be stunned by the revelation that a handful of people, a crazily high percentage of them middle-aged Scandinavian men, write most of America’s pop hits. It is an open yet closely guarded secret, protected jealously by the labels and the performers themselves, whose identities are as carefully constructed as their songs and dances. The illusion of creative control is maintained by the fig leaf of a songwriting credit. The performer’s name will often appear in the list of songwriters, even if his or her contribution is negligible. (There’s a saying for this in the music industry: “Change a word, get a third.”) But almost no pop celebrities write their own hits. Too much is on the line for that, and being a global celebrity is a full-time job. It would be like Will Smith writing the next Independence Day.”

The slow death of music venues in cities | The Guardian

““It often starts from a relatively benign decision. The Troubadour in London is up for sale because they had a noise complaint related to their use of the garden. Kensington and Chelsea borough said they couldn’t use it after 9pm, their drink turnover went down substantially, and now there’s no guarantee it’ll be a venue in future. Someone wants to build next to the Fleece in Bristol,” he continues. “Bristol city council have fought hard for them, but they don’t have any support in law and flats are going to be built 20 metres from the main stage. In the next couple of years there will be noise complaints that will cost the Fleece £12,000 to £15,000 to handle, and it’s not making that in profit. The Point in Cardiff: they installed £68,000 worth of acoustic baffling to stop the complaints from a new development, and servicing the loan put them out of business. These little things just build up.””

LISTEN

My Disco — 1991

The second single from My Disco’s fourth album is the opposite of what a single is supposed to sound like. 1991 sees the trio exploring the same sparse sonic territory hinted at on Severe’s first single, King Sound, but here, that aesthetic is taken to its extreme. While Little Joy was all sunny, mid-ranged guitars, 1991 suggests Severe is ritual music — ominous, reflective and reverent, made not just to be heard but felt in the flesh. I can’t wait to see this new material live. Severe is out through Temporary Residence on October 30.

Heat Dust — I Warm My Hands

I’m putting it out there: The Flenser is the best record label in the world right now. No one else is putting out such a diverse swathe of exciting music, from extreme black metal to conceptual doomgaze to genre-bending electronica. Take a look at that stellar roster: King Woman, Black Wing, Planning for Burial, Sannhet, Kayo Dot and Wreck and Reference. Heat Dust are one of the more conventional additions to the venerable collective, but by the sounds of the brooding, cerebral post-punk on I Warm My Hands, they’re an ideal fit for such quality company. Heat Dust is out

WATCH

Black Wing — Luther

This one’s all kinds of fucked up. Agent Cooper and Laura Palmer become pawns for a Windows Media Player visualisation filtered through a conspiracy theorist’s fever dream in the clip for the opening track of Black Wing Is Doomed. There’s nothing more to say about this one.

Ought — Sun Coming Down

The title track from Ought’s second full-length album is all jarring rhythms and discordant guitars, so it’s fitting the video match that mood with narrative dissonance and uncomfortable lightning cuts. Three girls ride bikes on suburban streets, shooting heavy looks over icecream and milkshake breaks. Shattered plates and glass flash in time with the beat. It’s uncomfortable and unknowable yet somehow welcoming, much like everything we’ve heard from Ought so far. Sun Coming Down is out now through Constellation Records.

Noiseweek: Black Sabbath, Jessica Hopper, The Warriors, Caspian, METZ & Windhand

Sunday, September 13th, 2015

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

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Guitar hero Tony Iommi — Why Black Sabbath tour will have to be our last | Birmingham Mail

““We’ve been doing this for getting on for 50 years now,” says the guitarist whose innovative technique has influenced countless others. “It’s about time we draw the line, don’t you think? It’s been great but it’s time to stop now. Don’t get me wrong, I still love gigging. It’s all the travelling and the exhaustion that goes with it that’s the problem. That side of things has a big impact on me. Yes, we may fly in luxury, stay in the very best hotels, ride in the most comfortable limos but there’s still a physical cost to touring. Even when we build in rest breaks – I have to have blood tests every six weeks – I find it tough going. You take a long haul flight, arrive somewhere at five in the morning and book into a hotel. There’s the soundcheck, the promotional work, the gig itself, then you’re back at the hotel to collapse into bed. Then next day you get to do it all over again. I love being up there onstage, playing with Sabbath. What I don’t love is all the other stuff necessary to enable that to happen. None of us are getting any younger, you know.””

Meet the Man Behind the Distinctive Soundtrack of The Warriors | The Village Voice

“Barry De Vorzon has always enjoyed creating music; he certainly never expected to be revered for it. It was quite the shock, then, when the musician, composer, and songwriter found himself being fawned over like some kind of rock god at the music conferences he’s attended for the past three decades. “My gosh, I was treated like a hero!” De Vorzon, 81, recalls of his fellow musicians’ praise for his soundtrack work on the gritty 1979 film The Warriors. Adding to his surprise was the fact that the film was in many ways a critical and commercial flop upon its release. “I said, ‘Wow! How did that happen?’ ” De Vorzon recalls with a chuckle. “But it did! The film just became this cult classic.””

How Japan’s New Nightclub Laws Threaten to Decimate Their Club Culture | Pitchfork

“Japan’s fueih? (or “entertainment business control law”) code governs everything from dancing, to drinking, to sex work, to nightclubs. Since its inception in 1948, the set of laws has technically forbade the existence of nightclubs under 66 square meters in size to allow dancing or for any sized club to allow dancing after midnight or 1 a.m. (depending on the area). For decades, officials turned a blind eye to the code, but in the last five years, police began enforcing the laws, leading to the closure of many dance halls and clubs. That, coupled with factors like the aging of Japan, threatened to decimate the country’s clubbing culture. Fearing extinction, several promoters and club owners in the scene organized—through a coalition called Let’s Dance—to use the 2020 Olympics as leverage and put political pressure on the government to update the laws. After several failed attempts, they finally forced the government to rewrite some of the code earlier this summer. This revision loosened some of the dancing restrictions and now allows for certain clubs to be open past midnight or 1 a.m. (provided certain stipulations, like having the requisite amount of light in the venue, are met).”

LISTEN

Caspian — Arcs of Command

Caspian are never going to be one of those bands to break the post-rock mould, and that’s perfectly fine: they don’t really need to when they’ve developed a knack for wielding its tropes in the best possible way. Arcs of Command from the forthcoming Dust & Disquiet doesn’t get going until about halfway into its 8-minute runtime, but that build-up fields necessary as waves upon waves of riffs alternate between crushing and uplifting. At the end, the noise gives way to that crushing crescendo that Caspian do better than just about anyone else. Dust & Disquiet is out in Australia through Hobbledehoy Records on September 25.

Windhand — Grief’s Internal Flower

Windhand give a masterclass in rhythm on their third record. Grief’s Internal Flower isn’t your typical doom record — for one, it boasts Dorthia Cottrell ethereal vocals, offering a ghostly presence amongst the plodding riffs that drive songs like Hyperion and Two Urns. But there are fascinating interludes folk interludes here that recall Mark Lanegan’s post-Screaming Trees reinvention. Doom metal’s a genre prone to homogeny, but Windhand prove there’s still plenty more aesthetic territory to mine with gloomy and gargantuan instrumentation. Grief’s Internal Flower is out September 18 through Relapse.

WATCH

METZ — Live on KEXP

No other organisation has crammed as many amazing, loud and vital bands into a tiny space as Seattle radio station KEXP. A Place to Bury Strangers, Built to Spill, Swervedriver, Nothing and Speedy Ortiz just scratch the surface of the station’s long list of alumnae. Here, Canadian noisefuckers treat listeners to a four-song set featuring Wait in Line, The Swimmer, Spit You Out and Acetate. How did a group of nice Canadian boys come to sound so mean?

Jessica Hopper’s Keynote at BIGSOUND

Don’t let the hour-long length discourage you; Jessica Hopper’s keynote this past weekend in Brisbane for BIGSOUND is vital viewing for everyone involved in music. Whether you’re working in the industry, playing in a band or going to shows, you need to watch this. Hopper — who’s been working in music for almost two decades, is currently a Senior Editor at Pitchfork and recently published The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic — addresses the systemic misogyny she and countless other women encountered in her 20 years in music. She details her conversations on Twitter — which she projects behind her during her speech — with women around the world who’ve shared the same experiences — sound guys fucking with female musician’s sound because of rejected sexual advances, women having their interest or involvement in music constantly called into question by men, as well as countless instances of death threats, condescension and sexual harassment. Hopper’s message clear: these issues are not isolated to one sector of the industry or one country: they run deep in every aspect of the music business, and that it’s on men in music to address them. That means listening to women’s experiences of misogyny rather than doubting them them or justify the abhorrent behaviour of perpetrators, calling other man out on their bullshit, and understand your role to make sure you’re not a part of the problem. I can’t emphasize enough: this is required viewing.

Noiseweek: Hardcore Architecture, Flying Lotus, Windhand & Fait

Friday, September 4th, 2015

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

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Inside Hardcore Architecture | Pitchfork

“Chicago-based artist and teacher Mark Fischer of Public Collectors has given us a strange and revealing new window on MRR and the ‘80s underground with Hardcore Architecture. Hardcore Architecture explores the relationship between the architecture of living spaces and the history of American hardcore bands in the 1980s. On his Tumblr, Fischer unites band info, demo tape, and record reviews culled from MRR issues from the ‘80s with Google Street View building images of the original contact addresses for bands. The juxtaposition of punk/hardcore/metal band names, ranging from the familiar (Sonic Youth, Judge, Didjits) to the unsung (Public Enema, Abra Cadavers, Death Puppy) plus text samplings from MRR’s quick hit reviews (“thrash” is inescapable) against images of fairly innocuous, sometimes charming, and often suburban homes (Fischer removes the exact street addresses from his postings for privacy reasons) gives us a different perspective on hardcore and its proponents. Ultimately, the blog tells a story about hardcore as a loose but passionate nationwide cultural network.”

How Flying Lotus Built Brainfeeder, His Spiritual Little Empire | The Fader

“This latest turn in Flying Lotus’ career hasn’t come out of nowhere. Born Steven Ellison, Steve to his friends, he has spent most of the past decade as the figurehead of the beat scene, an awkward term for a movement that sprung up in the late 2000s following years of experimentation at the edges of hip-hop and electronic music by artists such as Prefuse 73, Dabrye, and Madlib. A network powered by the internet and manifested through various physical nodes—the biggest of which remains Ellison’s hometown of Los Angeles—the beat scene reconfigured independent hip-hop by moving the focus away from rappers to instrumentals, and drawing on a wider sonic palette. It also helped make Ellison a household name, following a string of critically acclaimed albums on British label Warp Records and regular tours that had him circling the globe. In 2013, he was given his own radio station on Grand Theft Auto V, the fastest selling entertainment product of all time. He started 2015 with a six-month residency on BBC Radio 1. And now he has his own corner of a late night comedy show on U.S. television.”

LISTEN

Windhand — Hyperion

Windhand channel True Widow in this latest cut from Grief’s Internal Flower, which is shaping up to be a ripper of a record. It’s a surprise it took so long for that beautiful mix of doom and shoegaze to become in vogue, and her it works so well, with those ethereal vocals sailing atop an ocean of thick, plodding fuzz. And how fucking heavy is that riff? Grief’s Internal Flower is out September 18 through Relapse.

WATCH

Fait — Solace

Fait’s latest clip is low-budget — all harsh light and smoke machines in a darkened sound stage — but it’s an apt accompaniment for Elise Higgins’ latest offering of slow-burn builds and unresolved tension.

The Last Audio Cassette Factory

In this fascinating micro-documentary, Bloomberg Business profile National Audio Company, the Springfield, Montana, factory which now stands as the last bastion of audio cassette manufacturing. It’s a fascinating look into the staying power of analogue, the reversal of predicted technological trends and the business sense of defiant stubbornness in the face of presumed obsolescence.

Noiseweek: Sunn O))), My Disco, Iceage, Pere Ubu, Heads.

Saturday, August 22nd, 2015

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

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South Of No North: Greg Anderson Of Sunn O))) & Goatsnake Interviewed | The Quietus

“Honestly, I’m both surprised and grateful about it every single day. When we first started no one, and I mean no one, really cared. And, if I’m to be really, really honest, we didn’t really care. Especially about what people thought. We just wanted to experiment and play music together, really the audience, the idea that people would actually listen to it was kind of an afterthought, we were really making music for ourselves – in some ways Sunn O))) is a very selfish project. I mean, we weren’t even sure if we were ever going to play live, we imagined that it would just remain a studio project. And then when we did start playing live eventually it really started connecting with people and honestly that kind of gave me a lot of hope for people because it’s obviously very difficult, very challenging music – I was like, ‘Wow! People can get into this? That’s awesome!’ Because you wouldn’t expect most people – or really anyone – to be that into it. So yeah, I totally see where you’re coming from and I kind of agree. I think Sunn O))) somehow connects with people on this super primal level – it’s very real, but at the same time the music helps create this alternate reality, and people seem to want to be in that dimension for a couple of hours or so.”

Does Anybody Even Have Time For An 80-Minute Album? | NPR

“It’s interesting to think about the different ways that album length has evolved over time. For most of history in the album era, it was defined by format — first the 45 minutes or so of an LP, then the 80 minutes of a CD. In the LP era, you really had to justify the additional expense of production and the fact that you’d have to charge more. With CDs, that was no longer an issue, and in the ‘90s in particular you had some people feeling “ripped off” if an album only had 45 minutes of music, so in some cases artists would put on CD-only bonus tracks to make it seem like they were making the most of the format. But then of course file sharing and digital files changed all that, and suddenly, you could have albums be as long or short as you wanted very easily. There was an initial trend toward shorter releases, experimenting with a four-song or eight-song release, like the mini-albums Robyn released in the run-up to Body Talk.

But the longer albums now, in a lot of cases, and especially in all of these cases you mentioned, is a way to say, “This is important. You are going to have to spend time with this.” It’s a little harder to make an “event” out of a release if it’s 35 minutes long. The initial feeing is, “This is all I could do.” Whereas these [long] releases convey the idea of sprawling masterpieces, and by extension, they are presented as demanding art. I do think that, even though artists want to say, “This should be taken whole,” in the vast majority of cases the albums are rarely ever experienced that way. It’s a little bit of a thing where artists present the work this way and the listeners kind of play along, and may even pay lip service to the idea, but probably the truth of it is that people are picking and choosing.”

Pere Ubu’s Dave Thomas talks being an underground legend and why he won’t call himself special | Noisey

“I don’t like photos. I don’t want to waste my time generating the limitless supply the industry requires. I know what I look like. I know what my mother looks like. I recognize her every time. What do I need a photo for? The government wants photos. Whatever the government wants I try to avoid. Good basic policy. I’m not in the business of being a pop star. I am a musician. The eye is a deceiver. It relies on the physical world and can be too easily fooled. It takes only 24 frames a second to deceive the eye into seeing real motion. It takes a minimum of 44,100 frames a second to deceive the ear. Sound is the authentic expression of human consciousness. The world is silent. Sound only happens inside the head of conscious beings. It is the by-product of consciousness. Why waste time with anything less?”

LISTEN

Heads. — At the Stake

Chris Breuer’s bass sounds like oozing pus, and I mean that as the highest compliment. Heads. imbue this slithering Melvins track with intoxicating menace thanks to the snarling tone of Ed Fraser’s flat-out evil intonations, along with his swampy guitar tones and the plodding rhythms. If the future of Heads. sounds more like this — brooding, meditative and plain evil — sign me up.

My Disco — King Sound

This is the the darkest track My Disco have ever made. While everything on 2010’s Little Joy was vibrant, King Sound is a faded strobe light in an empty prison cell. There’s a distinct Swans feel here, from the ritualistic rhythms to Liam Andrews’ prayer-like repetition of the song’s title. King Sound is taken from Severe, out October 30 through Temporary Residence.

WATCH

Iceage — Untitled (Live at Pitchfork Festival)

Pitchfork saved the best footage of last month’s Chicago festival ’til last, finally uploading clips of Iceage performing this new, as-yet-untitled track alongside The Lord’s Favorite. Elias Bender Rønnenfelt is as magnetic as ever, slinking and slithering around the stage, singing from the floor and equal parts confidence and nonchalance. No one else right now is making music or playing shows that feel so fucking vital.

Noiseweek: Depeche Mode, GWAR, Lollapalooza, Sumac & Tideland

Sunday, August 16th, 2015

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

READ

Are Depeche Mode Metal’s Bigget Secret Influence? | Rolling Stone

“As with like-minded groups the Cure and New Order, Depeche Mode’s mid-Eighties appeal to Future Metal Leaders of the World lied in an almost morbid, matter-of-fact gothy iconoclasm. What set them apart from their peers, though – other than a sparing use of guitar – were the ornate lattices of synthesizer counterpoints and clanging rhythms that defined their albums beginning with 1984’s Some Great Reward (and its hit “People Are People”) onward. It’s a sound that has gone on to inspire many industrial bands, notably Nine Inch Nails and Ministry (though the latter, who started out sounding like Depeche Mode, would later disavow them). That sound would become increasingly sexually charged and trance-inducing on albums like 1986’s Black Celebration, the following year’s Music for the Masses and their masterpiece Violator.”

Alternative nation’s last stand: Lollapalooza 1995, an oral history | Washington Post

“Lollapalooza ’95 would mark alt-rock’s peak, and the beginning of its decline. Metallica would headline the festival the next year, radio station megashows would begin to compete for headliners and the genre eventually collapsed on itself with the arrival of shamelessly commercial bands such as Matchbox Twenty and Third Eye Blind.
But on the road, in those twilight days of alt-rock, life was crazy, fractious, boring — and hot. While some made friends for life, there were outcasts, at least one backstage brawl and even an altercation with the audience.. It was the world’s strangest summer camp, populated by artsy rock stars, a disappearing diva and one giant, inflatable Buddha.”

LISTEN

Tideland — All I Know

There’s an earnest quality behind the slacker vocals of this first track from Tideland’s Love Luster. You hear it in the verses more than anything else — those subtle fluctuations in delivery that expose an emotional nerve and make the song all the more endearing. It’s all guitars awash the rest of the time, and even though this kind of song could’ve easily been made two decades, there’s a timeless vitality to Tideland’s irresistible hooks. All I Know is out August 21 through Robotic Empire.

WATCH

GWAR and Regional Identity in Richmond, VA | TEDxRVA

Though this particular GWAR performance is Cuttlefish– and beheading-free, there is a de-skinning to introduce this thesis on the relevance of GWAR to Richmond, VA, courtesy of GWAR Slave Dr. Michael Bishop. In his talk, Bishop examines how the coalescence of Richmond’s urban decay and the GWAR members’ academic disillusionment with Virginia Commonwealth University led to the creation of one of the most fascinating and enduring art projects-turned-global-musical-phenomenon’s in the the last half-century.

Sumac — Live at Warsaw

There are few things on this Earth heavier than the force of Aaron Turner, Nick Yacyshyn and Brian Cook. This live clip from a recent show at Warsaw in New York shows you why the trio is the best supergroup in metal right now.

Noiseweek: Dave Hill on High on Fire, Dumbsaint, Mess + Noise, Battles and more

Friday, August 7th, 2015

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

NEWS

Steel for Brains is closing at the end of the year.
In a Facebook post earlier this week, music critic Jonathan K. Dick revealed that he’ll be shuttung down the amazing metal publication he started three years ago. Dick — whose writing credits include NPR, Pitchfork and SPIN — suffered a setback with his work earlier this year following the health problems of a family member, slowing down Steel for Brains’ production schedule in the process. There’s also a Steel for Brains book in the work, combining interviews from the website as well as unpublished material. In the meantime, if you’re looking for some heavy weekend reading, head on over.

READ

Dave Hill Talks High on Fire and Keeping It Goddamn Heavy | The Talkhouse

“For the uninitiated/fucking stupid, High on Fire has been a 100% reliable resource for Viking-worthy heavy metal Armageddon played by goddamn men since 1998, when main High on Fire dude Matt Pike rose up from the ashes of his other awesome band Sleep like some sort of shirt-hating phoenix to form yet another one of the greatest bands of all time. Ever since then, I and a lot of other people have turned to them for our recommended daily allowance of face-melting heavy music that makes you want get on the back of a horse with a torch in one hand and the reins in the other and give everyone in the nearest Burger King parking lot a fucking night that will haunt them for weeks. In short, they are the best.”

What Went Wrong at Mess + Noise? | The Daily Review

“Mess + Noise covered all the music that the rest wouldn’t touch. Along the way, it provided an important early platform for some of Australia’s best music writers — including Kate Hennessy of Fairfax and The Guardian Australia, and former M+N editor Doug Wallen, who has more bylines than you can poke a stick at. Anwen Crawford, pop music columnist at The New Yorker and The Monthly, once wrote for Mess + Noise under the pseudonym “Emmy Hennings”.
Moreover, the magazine (Mess + Noise began life in 2005 as a bimonthly print publication) nurtured a vibrant grassroots community — one that most Australians are probably unaware of, but which is celebrated the world over.
That’s probably the most staggering thing about the website’s sudden halt: Australian music has never been so healthy, nor so popular — from the DIY and punk scene in the nation’s capital to Sydney garage, Perth psych pop and the extraordinary energy coming out of Brisbane and Melbourne. Our underground artists feature on some of the most forward-thinking music websites across the net. Perhaps a savvy, homegrown, youth-focused publisher could find a way to exploit that kind of cultural capital …”

It’s Time to Put our Cameras Away | Pitchfork

“Sadly, memory-making as visual bootlegging is now wholly a part of the live music experience and it has been since the advent of smartphones. Watching people not watch, or watch through their screens, or simply hit record and clumsily loft the phone above them—what’s the purpose? To remember for all time? To share the experience? What friend is going to be impressed or even have the patience to watch a barely focused video shot from hundreds of feet away, the audio blown out, the shouted-along chorus of the superfan in seat 78JJ muting the band itself?
It’s time we stopped being so tolerant of these serial snappists.”

LISTEN

Black Wing — Death Sentences


Black Wing is all bombast and cascading synths on the second cut from …Is Doomed. Dan Barrett opts to let his voice sit low in the mix largely untouched by effects in the track’s earlier moments as he deadpans about heartbreak and words unsaid, before reverb consumes everything as the song climaxes. Black Wing Is Doomed is out through The Flenser on September 25.

Dumbsaint — Panorama, in ten pieces.

The new Dumbsaint is out today and is now streaming in full on Bandcamp. As with their past releases, the album features an accompanying full-length film component, a portion of which is also viewable on their Bandcamp page. Dumbsaint sound more confident on Panorama, embracing the anthemic and imbuing their sound with more cathartic, explosive post-metal tendencies than their past releases. It’s a kinetic and frenetic record that progresses from movement to movement without warning, and sure to be a hell of a trip live.

WATCH

Fridey at the Hydey

The 2013 documentary on the grimy North Perth haunt the Hyde Park Hotel is now available online. Now a swanky restaurant-and-bar, the Hydey was a rock ‘n’ roll institution for grimy punk and rock ‘n’ roll up until it closed for renovations and a rebranding in early 2010. Fridey at the Hydey interviews the people behind the venue and the scenes in a eulogy to one of Perth’s most beloved live music spaces.

Battles — The Yabba (live)

Battles continue their hype for record #3 La Di Da Di with a live performance of The Yabba, a nervous and jaunty cut from the new record. This panoramic video is excerpted from a larger performance the trio recorded and broadcast on YouTube for 24 hours earlier this week. La Di Da Di is out September 18 through Warp.

Noiseweek: Nardwuar, Blank Realm, Ought, Gold Class & Minor Victories

Friday, July 31st, 2015

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

NEWS

33 1/3 have announced the longlist of pitches from their latest callout. Bloomsbury received a whopping 605 submissions for its call for submission which closed earlier this week. Included in the list were 8 pitches for for Tori Amos’ Boys for Pele, 6 for Weezer’s Pinkerton and 4 for Guns ‘N’ Roses Appetite of Destruction. There’s a fine selection of gems and modern classic’s in the list — Coil’s Scatology and Gold is the Metal (With the Broadest Shoulders), Failure’s Fantastic Planet, two submissions for Fugazi’s In on the Kill Taker, Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Lift Your Skinny Fists… and The Cure’s Disintegration amongst the highlights. You can check out the full list here. Series editor Ally-Jane Grossan says she plans to compile a shortlist of 100 titles within two months before making the final selection of titles by the end of November. Check out the full long list here.

READ

30 Years Of Eclectic, Eccentric Interviews: Nardwuar On Nirvana, Snoop Dogg, Blur And More | NME

“Time and time again people don’t take Nardwuar seriously — they either wish to end the interview or simply become dismissive or antagonistic. But gradually Nardwaur will charm them into submission. This approach has created some incredible interviews over the years: his research left Pharrell utterly speechless whilst it caused Slipknot to walk off mid-interview. He’s asked Iggy Pop and Henry Rollins about their penises and become a personal favourite interviewer of Snoop Dogg. Dave Rowntree of Blur, meanwhile, managed to put in one of the most horrifying on-camera interviews ever committed to tape with Nardwuar. Trying to sum him up in words is tough though: “I have a hard time explaining myself to myself, so I can’t imagine people trying to explain me to others,” as the man himself explains… ”

Turning Bridges into Music | The New Yorker

“As part of her research-and-development process, Di Mainstone has experimented with the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge in Omaha, Nebraska, which produced “a beautiful zapping noise,” she says, like “Star Wars” lasers. She has experimented with Tower Bridge, in London, which made “the sort of sound that would make your ears bleed, static and screechy.” She has experimented with the Brooklyn Bridge, in New York City, including a movement test using modified dog leads for strings. Currently, she is organizing a road trip across America—a “mobile laboratory,” during which she will test and refine the Human Harp prototype on bridges and other structures all the way to the West Coast. “Imagine a farmer playing a giant grain silo in Idaho,” Mainstone says. “Or a musical old lady playing a wind turbine in Colorado!” Her ultimate goal is to release the Human Harp as an open-source design, allowing others to build their own version of the instrument so they can play any resonant structure in the world, from a submarine to the Eiffel Tower.”

How to put on a mega-gig: the production manager’s story | The Guardian

“It used to be different. Up until 10 years ago, the record companies would give us money to fund tours. Now, touring is the main income, which is obviously good for my business. It’s almost snowballed, in that bands have needed to play bigger venues to generate more income. The productions have had to become bigger to catch up. This has driven an industry of companies who design massive productions and have created the means of taking them down and putting them back up again very quickly. If I can do two or three more shows a month than another tour, we’re going to be making lots of money, and by creating greater income, you can move things very quickly. We’ve got to be able to build a massive stadium show from grass pitch to doors opening within around 48 hours and we’ve got to be able to take it down within four hours, and clear the pitch for the next day. As a guitarist finishes with one guitar, someone will be packing it away. We turn smoke machines and whatever that aren’t going to be used any more off, and they’re in their cases before the show is over.”

LISTEN

Ought — Men For Miles

The second track from Sun Coming Down sees ought frenetic and scattered, but it’s that unpredictability that makes the Montréal outfit so compelling. Tim Darcy may never sing like a regular vocalist, but he boasts a remarkable range, at once fragile, confident, disaffected and threatening over Men For Miles’ six minutes. Sun Coming Down is out through Constellation on September 18.

Blank Realm — No Views

Ever-evolving Brisbane outfit Blank Realm are a restless psych-punk war machine on No Views, the raucous, harmonica-laden single from the forthcoming Illegals in Heaven. That record takes its name from the present refugee crisis in Australia and the batshit response from all parts of the political spectrum, as the band explain in an interview with Noisey. No Views feels like a head rush, an eruption of pure adrenaline speeding down the Autobahn where destinations don’t matter. Illegals in Heaven is out September 4 through Bedroom Suck Records.

WATCH

Minor Victories — Film One

Film One isn’t strictly a music video. Nor is it a short film, a teaser trailer or a preview, but all of these things at once. Minor Victories is the new collaboration from Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell, Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite, Editors’ Justin Lockey and a series of co-conspirators-to-be (including Mark Kozelek), and this intimate piece — half of which is virtually silent — does a great job of building intrigue in what’s sure to be an excellent collaboration, especially if the track that starts at 2:30 is anything to go by. Colour me very interested.

Gold Class — Life As A Gun

Adam Curley is disaffected as the Christ figure in this knife-play-heavy clip for Life As A Gun. It’s a trait reflected in his vocal delivery — distant, at times overwrought, somehow disconnected yet always compelling as he plumbs emotional depths over a barrage of jaunty rhythms and nervous guitars to create a post-punk noir tapestry. The single is taken from the group’s debut, It’s You, out September 4 through Spunk.