decayREVIEWS: REVIVER “Total Load Shed” CS (Temple of Pei, 2008)

REVIVER “Total Load Shed” CS (Temple of Pei, 2008)

Despite being from CT, while I was there I was never able to stumble upon the clandestine yet articulate New England noise project, REVIVER, aka Chris Donofrio. OK we pop the tape in; WOAH, have to say this is some of the more interesting and well articulated “drone” ish? releases I have heard in a while, although to just call it drone would oversimplify a style which goes, at times, beyond the structure and pacing of what we think of as “drone”. The tape starts with a low rumble of buzzing broken boat engines sputtering in the dark, creeping with a pulsing drive, REVIVER takes the listener on a tour of desolate landscapes, barren buldings, and crumbling consciousness. The simplicity of this release makes it approachable to fans of music outside of the traditional noise “genre” yet dynamic and textured enough to hold the interest of those who can no longer take the quick melodic shifts and westernized structures that pop pushes-THE “NOISEHEADS”. The changes in tone and pulse are slow but they are PRESENT. This is not just wall drone, where the sound may be unchanging (or perceptively so) for 20 minutes, rather it’s modulations shift just when your wondering if your tape player is caught in a loop (NOT possible) This could easily be taken out of the realm of “noise”or “drone” music and be placed as a soundtrack to a yet to be made film, or a live score. Don’t have any real evidence to support this, but it breathes a pacing that would map well onto an abstract film architecture; it’s well balanced. This cinematic edge lies in REVIVER’s progressions and spacial awareness. Not to me, but I could see how some might dismiss this release as “synth noddling” or “droning” but WAIT, this is made using ONLY GRAPHIC EQ’s ?!?!?! In some sort of feedback loop or something? regardless, in my opinion it just makes this release that much more interesting.WHAT? Couldn’t be, so I wrote the artist and he confirmed that he proudly uses ONLY graphic EQ’sas the sound source. So simple, yet so elegant, and yet still conceptually interesting. Not totally integral to listening experience, but listening to it again, after knowing the sound source, gave it a new breath of complexity. The A side starts out solid and ends solid, with three or four different movements in between, all varying tones and explorations with similar pacing.

The B side picks up right where the A side left off with low crawling squarewave pulses, a grey modulating din of tonal patches stitched together with decrying buzzing, humming, hammering, and hills and hills of psychotropic pillars of color and timbre. Sometimes sinister, and sometimes soothing, Reviver accomplishes much with little in terms of controls, though it’s quite clear he has some control of the machines that he’s working with, grabbing distant radio blips of distorted transmissions.

The A side overall is a bit more solid, spaces on the B side tend to be a little underdeveloped compared to the former, but it’s quite cohesive overall, and the recording quality is good/consistant throughout, so it seems it was all done with a similar process? Nice full color artwork in one of those semi transparent plastic “jewel cases” for cassettes, which for some reason, I CANNOT FUCKING STAND, I feel it would look alot slicker in a regular norelco box, but then again i think 99/100 cassettes that come packaged in those would look better, so it’s just my own shitty bias. but that would basically be my main criticism, which is null at best, so a great release overall.

Overall : 8.1/13
Written By: malo 3/5/12

REVIVER

TEMPLE OF PEI

decayREVIEWS: DEVELOPER “OOBR004″ CS (2011)

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DEVELOPER “OOBR004″ C20 (Out Of Body Records, 2011)

DEVELOPER "OOBR004" cs (2011)

dEVELOPER blazes forth sharp, visceral, hills of harsh noise walls, pausing and chopping for various lengths only to punch back in at the oddest time where your ear-mind just begin to orientate itself to the sound, and then it slices-dissappears-kills back in again. Super high pitched feedback blasts knife their way through blown out bass hammerings, and then swell together to once again enduce a choppy form f nausea. The parts of this tape that work best for me, are where it gets really choppy, as opposed to the places where the walls build up to a point of density where things become blurred and sashed out, but this never happens for long, as DEVELOPER stays on the pace quite swiftly throughout the majority of the A side. Roaring, pummeling mechanized broken up loops sift through the blown out pillars of chaos and take brief rests, before jackhammering the cavity with thousands of white noise ghosts. The more the tape goes on the less and less breaks there are between the chaotic buzzing walls, yet it never totally looses it’s chopped aesthetic and frenetic pacing. Developer’s style, on this release at least, doesn’t come off as a bunch of tracks piled upon each other digitally, but rather a line-in style of recording where the cuts are being made live, I have no REAL evidence of this, but that’s the “organic” nuance that I pick up from the aesthetics of the pacing and editing, done quite well.

DecayREVIEWS “GNAWED- Patience is Waste” c40 (OOBR, 2011)

 

“GNAWED- Patience is Waste” c40 (OOBR, 2011)

Dont know much about this project (seemingly cause im
Out of the loop) but from the second the tape starts rolling, it caught my attention. It starts with a throbbing dissonant beat with druid?esque synth swells, slowly building up to a chaotic explosion of exploding throat vocals spliced with sharp blasts of dense white Noise. Grating throbbing pillers of STATIC trigger machine guns synth and drum blasts tear apart the cochlear as overdriven howls of repeated pain pulse the speakers. Distant drum patterns start to build
Up to a creshendo of chaos, but all while Keeping the overall tension between the instruments. While mny harshnoise/rock/industrial hybrid bands go for an all out sonic assault, obliterating all traces of “traditional” instrumentation, GNAWED rides the line very well. Dark pulsing low to
Midrange synth tones
Provide a balanced and textured backdrop for the drums and vocals to breathe as voices of their own , yet building up into a swelling breathing, bleeding storm of sonic chaos. DECAYED~ blasting stabs of ear pain keep building and building into your speakers and start to short circut your system then silence, ear ringing silence.

Side B picks up where side A left off but with a slightly quicker pacing. A crumbling church bell modulates in the distance as subtle machines begin scraping and shaking at the fabric of time. Slow Building tones create a chaotic space of confusion and disorientation. Before you know it your back in fhe whirlhind of self hate. Each miniture explosion of sound is another howl into the whistling winds that curl off of the slopes of gravestones. Slow churning peels of distorted spun around vocals swell into a. Unscalable wall of noise. The second track on the B side is the most developed spacial of the tape, dispaying a great call and response style of spacialized development between the oscillating vocals, and crawling syntn a d percussuin blasts. Most ofthe tracks have noticable intros ans outros which helps to demonstrate them as movements within themselves. The tape slows down a bit toward the end to a last breath type pacing, a creaking ship of dangerous winds. Are you the last one left on the boat before it sinks? Buzzes again build into a shaking chaotic nervousness that keeps the listener on a delayed edge of sanity, as black winds smother the percussive sounds of machines malfunctioning in the vacant hole of the afterlife. Good luck with that :/

This release isn’t terribly varied in the sonic spaces and or structures that it explores., yet GNAWED manages to create articulated chaos and TENSION with a fairly simple and stripped down sound palette, something many projects in this genre seem to have difficulty grasping, a very solid release overall. Top notch death/power electronics! Will be looking out for new stuff by GNAWED for sure. Pro dubbed chrome tapes with pro printed labels and color covers with black and white inserts, beautiful decaying artwork wraps around the black tapE.

OVERALL : 8.7 /13
Written by : Malo
2/29/12

GNAWED

OUT OF BODY RECORDS

DecayREVIEWS : SEXORCYST “Sangue L’Esorcista” cs (Tusco/Embassy, 2012)

SEXORCYST “Sangue L’Esorcista” cs (Tusco/Embassy, 2012)

Remember that feeling when your walking a little ahead of your group back to the campsite, and then you look back, and everyone has vanished, and you hear a slight rustle, breaking of
Branches and then you start to smell BLOOD mixed in the wet leaves, and then an exploding GREY LIGHT???? THAT IS SEXORCYST.

On the A side, Deep resonant bass crawls up your spine and slowly twists as black inorganic puss leaks out of bones onto the forest floor of the desolate space that is your future. GUESS WHAT? ITS O V E R !!!! A slow dying hum creeps in and out of a blurry noir nightmare, deserted, screaming into the mud, you jam your head into the mud until your ears fill with blood. At times just a distant disturbing warbling hum, at times a cuchophony of slicing sound, This cassette is a leaking, lurking soundscape of the decaying thudder of your soon to be broken nervous system. Crawling bass, static blasts, circuits frying, creeking broken guitar drones hang necks cords, creeping in the distance, off kiltered dying drum machines, sequenced to stop a heartbeat, slow, sllloooowwww

This tape carves out a space in your ear’s inner brain that’s all too familiar – DESOLATION, FEAR, THE END!
You can try to live again, but you’ll choke in your own curses, but you will always get stabbed in the back, let go, back into the dirt, the soundtrack of your last breath timestretched, fucked
Fucked And more fucked,Just give up now. Sigh. Ok going to crawl under a rock now…….. classic Tusco/EMBASSY silkscreened full wrap Around covers with artwork by Bowers. Verrrry sharp looking, Top notch!

Overall : 8.6 / 13
Written by : malo
2/15/12

TUSCO/EMBASSY

DecayREVIEWS : DAVID RUSSELL “Futures EP” CDr (ASR, 2012)

DAVID RUSSELL “Futures EP” CDr (ASR, 2012)

“A new direction for Cleveland,OH noise renaissance man David Russell. with this new disc Russell delves into a insane mix of broken beats, precise industrial and at parts, dare i say IDM. This disc blends thwarting bass programming, trebelly stabs, and warbling midranges which hybridize into concise yet dense electronic compositions. A new, yet focused direction of “post-noise” or just doing something different/similar with a ne w emphasis. This lacks the rawness and emphasis on freejazz like hammering persuccion and custom wind instrumentation that has become
a staple on select solo works,but takes a cleaner more “programmed” approach yet that still retains a visceral edge. Ya knowwwwwwwwwwwwwww it’s got chops and screws that he’s so well known for, as well as well um, almost dance music….

Some tracks take a more minimal approach to the rhythms and background textures similar to an early slowed down Oval while other tracks resemble a more put together instrumental Skinny Puppy. time and time again this dude busts out new sonix tricks from up the sleeve. Never saw this one coming, o ya, WHERES THE EMCEE? I say go for It.!!!! This is a really varied disc (for just an EP) and it has a wide appeal, covering all of the moods and emotions, articulate and vast-a great collections of more structured pieces that gel together quite nicely- not just for noise heads, by any stretch, just so ya know. Plus some great cover songs to boot, don’t wanna spoil them, but you should just check it out for yourself. One missing item again is vocals; could take this album to a whole new direction, and we know he’s got the pipes! Packaged in a slimline DVD case with classic Polar Envy style artwork, clean, dynamic, and dense, Layout by DR himself.
Overall : 8.6 / 13
Written by : malo
2/15/12

DAVID RUSSELL
POLAR ENVY

DecayREVIEWS: BASIDIOMYCOTA/PLAYING WITH NUNS Split CDr (No Label)

PLAYING WITH NUNS / BASIDIOMYCOTA “Split” CDr (2010?)
First three tracks are by a project from Argentena, “Playing With Nuns” who seem to have a lengthy stream of work according to their discogs. The disc begins with some well prepped tape snake hiss mixed with lower rumbles, which subtly gains structure and textures of what it might sound like the last few seconds of being trapped under ice, and all death’s inherent delays. Easily the best paced track? on the disk? churning, churning, tense, lower fidelity tape scraping, mixes with oscillator explorations, CBradio gone awray, parts recorded through a coca cola bottle gas mask??? higher pitched feedback carves into solid middle range timbre, eight broken speak and spells slowed down to shopped and crude pacing, all while still moving forward and backward at the same time. The second and third tracks are more rhythm brain ? pop? (haha) forward, but UMMMMmmm, don’t make me feel as uncomfortable (shoot me brains in) as the first piece (I think that’s OK, right?). Good movements in themselves but the first piece caught me most by the throat,ALL the way up to the oscillator heli attacks of the 1:20 mark of track number two, another high point. sssssspeaking of “by the throat” type stuff, track four and five, Basidiomycota and Co. graft dense, layered lobotimone$$$y hook systems for self taught surgery school in the girl’s bathroom with the hairdryer in the sink, the SOUND OF NEURAL SHOCK, again and again and again. Frothy architectures of warbling delayed LFO and LSDee buzzsaw waveforms, from tooth to throat—cutting through your speakers and turn them into high pitched frontal-lobe modification receptors, the sound design of your own death/reincarnated/incinerated as a 222,220 volt power inverter. calmer delayed waves of voice structures give way to alien flutters, nanobot druid hums for the 23rd century. Outer space music to abate the post pre- post-human… Charge your 9v brain supply to die 1000 times over and over again with this mix. Does your skull still work? Is it still holding in the flesh??? Leave the volume set alone to pan out decay your neighbors into the ground where they belong. Sharp,sharp, sounds throughout. Pretty good release overall, seems that maybe they should have done more than 10? maybe not though,,,
Packaging was standard color xerox printout in thin plastic bag with yellow CDr w/ sharpie. Not the worst, NOT the best, though the drawing and layout are quite snazzizy…
written by: malo
Overall : 8.1/13.0
BASIDIOMYCOTA – @ LEWCID JOOSEBOX
PLAYING WITH NUNS @ Discogs

DecayREVIEWS: Dental Work “Anxiety, Addiction, Abuse” CDr (Placenta Recordings, 2010)

Dental Work “Anxiety, Addiction, Abuse” CDr (Placenta Recordings, 2010)

This disk is a tiny tiny sliver in the mass of archived and releassd material from Traverse City, Michigan’s own Dental Work aka Jay Paul Watson , head honcho of Placenta Recordings, an extreme music and art label and distro boasting hundreds of releases, in less than five years time. A true archivist of all strange and absurd, the website and discography are a MUST SEE. These people are dedicated and inspired, and this album is no exception This album brings forth some of the most spastic cut up noise we have heard in a while. Starting out safe and slow (but for only a split second does he hang you in this space of tranquility before taking you on a sonic adventure of frequency debauchery, using computers, records, contact mics, broken turntables, too short samples? Axes, blow up dolls and a slew of other objects which he brings to have a sonic life of their own. Bass piezo and thrwarted mixer feedback squeal into psychoacoustic like highfrequencies, which shread through innear ear drum, with the broken needle that he drops randomly back on the record. The recordings are blown out drummed stutter battles, and, many times throughout, the nervous “percussion” plays into the overall anxious vibe of the album. This CD IS NOT FOR SLEEPERS BUT FOR CAFFFIENE FIENDS, at times this cd is straight noise wall, other times its cut up digital drums and shrieks of mic feedback which breakup , well the CHAOS. a great listen for fans of VENETIAN SNARES,VANKMAN, DJ SCREW etc . The disc is packaged in classic Placenta Recordings slimline DVD case with full color collage artwork by the artist himself! Would live to see some art on the disc is the only thing, just blank white CDr. but a solid release overall!
written by : malo
Overall : 8.5/13

http://www.placentarecordings.blogspot.com

http://www.ratskun.org/artists/dentalwork.html

(sound samples)