Miles - Faint Hearted

Miles Whittaker, who's had his fingers in acts as diverse as Pendle Coven, MLZ, Millie and Demdike Stare basically gives us massive nerd-boners with every new release, and has chosen to follow up Demdike Stare's obnoxiously heavy Test Pressing with a full-length album under his own name. Boiling down everything from contemporary electronica and techno, to retro Chicago and old-school jungle, it's a seething mass of intricately engineered sounds, smothered in distressing levels of noise - opener Lebensform takes the fairly ubiquitous filter-house / dub techno sound and pushes it to a terrifying level of extremity, dissolving into a wall of white noise and oscillation. It just gets weirder from then on, and definitely takes a good few listens to get into.

Shallowrave. Show One, Year One

Shallow Rave awaken the groundhog and welcome in spring with a selection of techno, electronica and experimental noise. Twisted machine funk, malfunctioning electronics, and some screwy samples make for the usual mixed bag.

1. Lakker – Death Mask – Love Love Records
2. Albert Van Abbe – Sugar Lobby Series 9090 – Curle
3. Raime – Told and Collapsed – Blackest Ever Black
4. Tropic of Cancer – The One Left – Mannequin Records
5. Alan Backdrop – PDST – Motoguzzi Records
6. Mike Shannon – Made in Belgrade – Exone
7. Lakker – Numb – Love Love Records
8. Mike Shannon – Sidewinder (Exercise One Remix) – Exone
9. Yves De Mey – Whispering Strokes – Sandwell District
10. TM404 – 02 303 303 303 303 606 – Kontra Music
11. Konx Om Pax – Twin Portal Redux – Planet Mu
12. Sandwell District – Immolare (Function Version) – Sandwell District
13. Kode 9 – Black Sun (Partial Eclipse Version) – Hyperdub
14. Stephen Brown - Mini Mood – Skudge
15. Energy 52 – Cafe Del Mar – Eye Q Records
16. Kresy – Crupier en Celo (Delete Remix) – Multi Vitamins
17. FRAK – Pulse Crack – Musika
18. Zomby – Spliff Dub (Rustie Remix) – Hyperdub 
19. Mark Pritchard & Om’Mas Keith – Wind It Up (Original Mix) – Hyperdub
20. The Host – 3AM Surfing – Planet Mu
21. Walton – Mangled Riddim – Hyperdub 
22. The Immortals – The Ultimate Warlord – RCA
23. J Dillah – Fuck The Police – Up Above Records

Shallow Rave: Year One, Show One by Radio Magnetic on Mixcloud

The Lay Llamas - Vatican Zombie (Jozik Records)

"The Lay Llamas is a tribe that in the year 2092 AD starts a trip from an unknown region of Nigeria on a self-built spacecraft (track A1) to reach a planet that they continued to observe every night from the earth and inexplicably attracted them. Once there, explore the planet (track A2) until they meet a totem called the Big Snake (track 3) who will point the way for the purification and elevation to a higher state of consciousness (track B4)"
Cheers to Rocket Recordings for bringing this to me.
Treading the fine line between epically psychedelic and bonged-out-their-nut-pretentiousness, this concept EP is a very cool piece of work out on Finland's Jozik records. On C30 cassette. There's bits of Caribou and Manitoba in there, touches of Can, a little Boards of Canada and the smudgy thumbprint of Hawkwind smeared across the whole thing. Somehow managing to maintain a solid narrative over messy, semi-improvised instrumentation, Nicola Guinta's Lay Llamas elevate brain-rotting fuzz and lurching dynamics to new heights of awesome.

I guess I'll have to buy a cassette player and mail-order from Finland.

Maria And The Mirrors - Travelsex

Not to everyone's taste, but nevertheless a well executed slab of hallucinomorphic noise with a  video to match. Or as user gerrdaa puts it on youtube; "you are terrible. i am so sorry for myself that i had to listen to you while at work.. stop doing this.


Out last year on Parlour Records, I found it via Astral Social Club's post on Bang the Bore.

Church When The Church Hits The Fan - Under The Last Dust

Under The Last Dust from harlequinade on Vimeo.Played it as part of the new Shallow Rave radio, just found this rather awesome video in my email backlog. Shallowrave likes Harlequinade

Vatican Shadow - Pakistan Military Academy

Vatican Shadow - Pakistan Military Academy (Hospital Productions)

Shallowrave are big fans of Muslimgauze; Bryn Jones' output of truly surreal electronica, with its penchant for fucked up time signatures, eastern instrumentation and deliberately wrong production levels, is full of hidden gems I'm still discovering. I've been inundated lately with suggestions that I check out Vatican Shadow (solo project of Dom Fernow from Prurient & Cold Cave), who have had a whole bundle of accolades thrown at them lately, most of which reference the quintessentially lunatic style of Muslimgauze. It's a valid comparison, as VS utilise many of Jones' technical tricks - warping tapes, skipping beats and generally adding in at least one thoroughly sickening moment per track. As well as the aesthetic similarities, track names are equally long-winded and descriptive; Prime Minister Defiant As Pakistan Outs CIA Agent, closes off this particular 12", and Vatican Shadow imbue Bryn Jone's signature skewed aesthetic with more contemporary middle eastern issues; the death of Bin Laden and the Arab Spring unsurprisingly contributing much of their imagery.

However, casting aside Vatican Shadow's cursed compliment - their slew of recent releases have been great genre-crossing material, managing to channel the best of hip hop, techno, classic braindance, drone and noise, driving it all through a filter of sandblasted desolation. Whitewashed Compound Stealth Helicopter Crash opens the EP with Murcof-inflected noise compositions, skull-crushing Merzbow-isms and folk-drone hybrids that wouldn't sound out of place on a Carl Sanders record. Following it up with the cinematic Staccato Bursts Of Gunfire, which comes across like finest Shackleton, it's not exactly easy listening. Continuing through smacked out breakbeat and hard-wired techno, Fernow achieves a breadth of vision rarely seen from modern producers, clinically engineering a myriad of styles and conjuring a twisted, paranoid atmosphere. Deserving of recognition and a joy to listen to, Fernow's work is a genuinely pleasant surprise.

Winning Sperm Party Xmas Downloads

WSP goes from strength to strength - as well as having a recent website overhaul, they've just put out a new batch of releases as a Christmas gift to the public. There are 5 releases by 6 bands, repping the best in underground art-rock from the Glasgow scene, including FUCKNO act Blue Sabbath Black Fiji. Also featured are Triple School, North American War, Phat Trophies, Gropetown and the amazingly named Pro Life. Here they are:



Blue Sabbath Black Fifi "French Cuisine" EP



North American War "Me And MY GI Joes" EP



Pro Life "Pro Life" EP




Triple School "Triple Sick" EP




Gropetown / Phat Trophies split tape

Browntown's 24 Top Noise Tracks of 2010

As chosen by Andy Brown, the drummer in Remember Remember and the mighty Divorce. So his noise-rock appreciation credentials are impeccable. And it looks like it's been a good twelve months for this kind of thing:

THE JOIZE OF NOIZE 2010 by Andy Browntown


Andy says:
"Here's a bunch of noisy songs that came out in 2010 that I really really fucking loved. It's not a best-of-the-year or anything (there was lots of not-noisy stuff I liked this year too, shocker!), and it's not any specific order either, it's just a bunch of awesome tunes that I am basically demanding you listen to. Sorry if it all seems a bit ego-centric, this isn't me going 'isn't my taste amazing, recognize' (not entirely), it's more me wanting to share the wealth. I've included any and all details I've got so you can maybe track down more shit by the bands featured, plus my personal opinions on them all too, cos I've got a big gob."

If you go to the Soundcloud page there's a bit of info and links for each band. Noice!

DeathKill4000 Mix / Minterview

DeathKill4000 - it's a club night. And also some kind of weird religion. We hear they worship noise and have a third sex deity. Primarily active in the Glasgow underground in the middle of the last decade, DK4K has recently returned from beyond the grave to the new venue of Bloc. New for them that is - Bloc is old. We asked them to do us a mix, and resident Dirty Marc (aka Monty Funk - he means to have you boy) was only too happy to oblige. Here it is in all its noisy/post-dubstep/glitchy/slightly-rocky glory:

Dk4k Is Back From The Dead by Dirty Marc (Aka Monty Funk) on Mixcloud

Brian Eno - Complex Heaven
Whitehouse - Foreplay
Evil Nine - Die
Borgore - Saturday Night
Rustie - Hyperthrust
Monty Funk - Robocop
Kanye West - Power (Loop)
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - Eventually We Find Our Way
Eels - Get Your Freak On (Loop)
Bot'ox - Tout Passe, Tout Lasse, Tout Casse
Joker - Digidesign (Om Unit Mix)
Herrmutt Lobby - Fat Manual
Mux Mool- Death 9000
Grinderman - Super Heathen Child
Grinderman - Heathen Child (Weatherall Mix)
Luke Vibert - Lfo
Zola Jesus - Night
The Bug - Poison Dart (Dj Baku Megamix)

And as a special Brucey bonus I managed to corner Marc to do us a wee interview, 9 questions in total:

Where did the name come from?
My fellow selector FiFi Chops and our good friend, guitar ace Gunthor Manhunter were discussing humorous names for a fictitious metal band back in 2003. The best one seemed to fit the idea for a night we were planning to start and so we stole it.

When did you start Deathkill4000?
The 1st DK4K was at the Woodside Social Club on 26th June 2003 - it was a wonderful mess.

What was the inspiration for the club?
I'd been DJing at some gigs put on by the other DK-founder, Clitoris Party, and we thought it'd be good to try a club night. We wanted to put on something that always had an uncompromising live act and with a music policy that reflected the breadth of our tastes in rock and electronic noise. We needed a good name though, and FiFi not only provided one, she also came on board to add to the musical breadth with her own extreme tastes. At that time, there was really nothing else like it in Glasgow.

Electric chair or lethal injection?
Firing squad - so much more heroic.

What one tune will always ignite the DK4K floor?
Slayer - Angel of Death is always a winner, you can't really argue with Slayer!

What is the best band you have ever put on?
That's a tough one. A couple that stick out for me are The Bronx's 1st ever UK headline show at DeathKill at the Barfly - total punk mayhem. Lesbians On Ecstasy blew everyone away and on a personal note, I always had a blast with Vancouver electro-shock-rappers Stinkmitt (and they put on a hell of a show). [I can confirm that as I was there - it was aweosme!]

Charles Manson or Ted Bundy?
I'll let FiFi take this one, she's the serial killer expert.
"Manson. He MADE OTHER PEOPLE KILL, that's power right there."

During the DK4K hiatus, what clubs would you frequent?
Mainly, anywhere that would let me DJ, but I did sometimes go other places... The Sub Club is hands down my favourite place to frequent, and to DJ at - in Glasgow at least.

Ideally, how would you like to die?
Ideally, I wouldn't - but when I do I'd like my remains to be shot into space - let the infinity of the Universe make some eventual sense of me.

Ekoplekz live set

(From FACT Magazine)
We've blogged before about the uniquely dark stylings of Ekolplekz, and since then, his 12" for Punch Drunk has been on continual repeat on the stereo. Connecting the dots between Daphne Oram, Merzbow and Bass Clef, he imbues the lead-heavy textures of industrial noise and radiophonic soundscaping with a warped sense of rhythm and deep skanking vibes. Whilst Stalag Zero / Distended Dub touched on Throbbing Gristle, Einsturzende Neubauten and the post-punk sound, his live set is a more melodic and spacier proposition, full of depth and warmth. Here it is on Fact magazine's soundcloud.


Ekoplekz' blog, World of Eko, is a great resource for the discerning analogue fiend - full of snapshots of vintage hardware, links to some beautiful soundscapes, and some seriously cool artwork.

Ekoplekz - Stalag Zero / Distended Dub

Ekoplekz - Stalag Zero / Distended Dub (Punch Drunk)
Wow. Punch Drunk's 20th release, following on from their four year compilation Worth The Weight (to be reviewed once I get my promo copy) is a massive departure from previous releases. I've loved the stuff Punch Drunk have put out from the likes of Joker, Gemmy, Pinch et al, but this is totally different to anything that's gone before. No syncopated percussion, no wobble bass, no purple wow synths; Ekoplekz makes experimental electronic music with just enough distinct rhythm and percussion to avoid the "noise" bracket. His productions are created using tape recorders, broken electronic equipment and rare analogue machinery, and remind me of Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle or Einsturzende Neubauten. Punch Drunk have always been a dubstep label, but the only contemporary of Ekoplekz' warped drones I can think of is the recent Chris Carter re-issue on Optimo music, or the darker works of Machinefabriek. Loop-heavy, squalling electro based around extending and contracting samples that feel like the groaning lungs of some gigantic machine. Awesome.

Limited to 300 copies with the definite disclaimer that "No reissue means no reissue"

Divorce/Comanechi TONIGHT

You do know already that Divorce and Comanechi are on tour, and tonight is their date in Glasgow. So maybe if you're some kind of crazy person who doesn't like disco OR rave (loser), you might want to check this gig out. Then again if you don't like dancing AT ALL you should probably stay away.



Here is the Facebook page. And here's a nice wee animated video get you in the mood:

New Radio - Molotov Disco pt.2

Molotov Disco return to Little Rock, again bringing a cocktail of classics, past, present and Future.

Armed with white noise, punk rock, techno, post-punk and that awesome new M.I.A. tune, Molotov Disco present two hours of the finest crate-digging. Establishing themselves as the latest addition to Team Little Rock, Molotov Disco rip it up big time.

Listen here:

http://radiomagnetic.com/main-features/molotov-disco-pt-2/

Linkage:

Shallowrave.com

Littlerockrecords.com

soundcloud.com/molotov-disco

Tracklist

1. M83 - Run Through Flowers – Gooom
2. Fuck Buttons - Surf Solar – ATP
3. Koenig Cylinders – Carousel – IST Records
4. Mogwai – Fear Satan (Surgeon Remix) - Chemikal Underground
5. Jesus And Mary Chain – Never Understand – Blanco y Negro
6. Killing Joke – Millenium – Zoo
7. Muslimgauze – Uzi Mahmood #12 – Staalplaat
8. The Ramones – Blitzkrieg Bop (Acapella) -
9. Drums of Death – Ozzzy (Black Sabbath Remix) – unreleased
10. The Mob – Witch Hunt (JD Twitch Edit) – Unreleased
11. Liquid Liquid – Optimo – 99 Records
12. Wu Tang Clan – Shame On A Nigga – Loud Records
13. Fugazi – Waiting Rooms – Dischord
14. The Monks – I Hate You – Israphon
15. Cabaret Voltaire - Nag Nag Nag – Rough Trade
16. The Stooges - Loose – Elektra
17. The Misfits – Where Eagles Dare – Plan 9 Records
18. The Dwarves - Drugstore – Sub-pop
19. Dead Kennedys - Holiday In Cambodia – Alternative Tentacles
20. The Fall – Big New Prinz – Beggars Banquet
21. Joy Division – Digital - Factory Records
22. The Cramps – Human Fly – Vengeance
23. Talking Heads – Cities – Sire
24. Aphex Twin – Come to Daddy – Warp
25. My Bloody Valentine – Freeze Me With Your Kiss – Creation
26. Redshape – Mucky Bones – Present Records
27. Claro Intelecto – Above – Modern Love
28. Sandwell District – Sampler #3 – Sandwell District
29. Harvey Presents Locussolus - Gunship – International Feel
30. Martyn ft Spaceape – Is This Insanity? (Ben Klock Remix) – 3024
31. Wire – I Am The Fly - Harvest Records
32. The Damned – New Rose – Stiff
33. Vitalic – Newman – Pias
34. Benga – One Million – Tempa
35. Modeselektor – Cash – Get Physical
36. The Sonics – Witch – Etiquette Records
37. M.I.A. – Born Free – XL

Damo Suzuki

The world-renowned singer / multi-instrumentalist / improv co-ordinator Damo Suzuki will be playing at the CCA later this month (promoted by our friends at Cry Parrot), and amongst his line-up of improv artists this time round is the very talented (and totally nuts) Hamish Black, also known as guitarist in XMRV and Christfuck. At the age of 20, this will be his second time playing with Damo Suzuki, and he's previously shared the stage with Einsturzende Neubauten, as well as having self-released six or seven albums and toured Europe with XMRV. As well as shredding lead guitar for XMRV, Hamish also programmes, plays bass and generally fucks shit up, making drone, metal, improv and free noise. He is insanely talented.

I've been listening to his stuff for ages and thought I'd post a few links to some of the free EPs he's put out through his myspace / last.fm etc.
Hamish Black - Khudo: Heavily texturised noise - relying more on the keyboards and synths than on the guitar as a prominent instrument.
Hamsh Black - Baby (L)P - Darker, noise-based tunes.

A fair amount of music can also be found on his last.fm, and myspace. I'll try to get a condensed package up soon.

Vuvuzela!

 Add this seasons noise to your favourite site!

Tonight

If you're in Glasgow with nothing to do tonight, you should check out this gig, featuring as it does two stars of FUCKNO - Kylie Minoise and the Radiation Line. Both are very good live acts, if quite different, so this promises ot be a good gig.

And anyway the poster is awesome - risspek!

Countdown to FUCKNO: Part 24 Kylie Minoise.

Live in fear puny mortals! The "slobbering one man aural Hari-Kiri" of Kylie Minoise is once again unleashed on the world. Using microphones, effects pedals, electromagnets and physical contortionism, KM creates devastating blasts and waves of feedback which pummel the listener into submission.

Something of a local legend, as well as an international superstar (check his 'live in Japan' EP), we're very pleased to have had him play for us back at our 2008 xmas party. It was terrifying, though not as much as his legendary one-on-one shows at Instal. Line up to get locked in a small, darkened room with Kylie and his high end sonic assault. What? You're scared you say?

Well here's a little something to get you in the mood, taken from his forthcoming album, the fantastically titled "Sid Vicious Occult School Of Motoring":

KYLIE MINOISE Wizard Puke