• Music

    Heejin Jang – Me and the Glassbirds

    February 5, 2023 - By 

    Heejin Jang is a sound designer and composer from Seoul, South Korea who makes noise unlike other composers in the genre.  The sounds are more subdued, sculpted, and in many ways, engaging listening.  It’s not anti-music, but something abrasive, yet pleasing, to listen to.  From her Bandcamp site: “The Korean producer’s new album features the most intricate and brutal tracks of her career. Here, she presents mosaics of sound that endlessly mutate and rearrange themselves in elegant ways. Jang’s ability to position harsher sections against moments of unnerving calmness provokes the listener into a variety of mental states, including panic,…

  • Music

    Li Jianhong (李劍鴻 ) & Wen Zhiyong (文智湧) & Deng Boyu (鄧博宇) – 歲​寒​三​友 Les Trois Amis de l’Hiver

    February 4, 2023 - By 

    I remember the Beijing lockups very well, as I lived in the city during the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis.  Some residents in Beijing, including the trio of Li Jianhong, Wen Zhiyong and Deng Boyu, made incredibly good use of the time and recorded an album of music combining free improvisation, electronics and ancient instruments such as gudi (bone flute) and trumpet.  A sonically stunning album. Respect to WV Sorcerer Productions (巫唱片), who continue to release quality Chinese new music.

  • Music

    Cabaret Voltaire – Dekadrone

    January 11, 2023 - By 

    With the passing of Richard H. Kirk last year and Stephen Mallinder keeping himself busy with his own projects, Cabaret Voltaire will be no more.  This final album, basically with Kirk alone programming the music, is a fifty-minute track that has much more in common with it’s early Industrial past than it does with the techno-funk sound that made them so popular in the 1980s.

  • Music

    Shopworn – How Could Children Disturb Internet Dialogu​è​?

    January 10, 2023 - By 

    I haven’t heard anyone do an album in a plunderphonics style in some time now.  Stanislav Aladev, who composes under the name Shopworn, is a Russian musician who has released one of the most charmingly weird albums I’ve heard this year. From Stanislav, regarding his work: “I thought for a long time how and from what to create this album. In 2015, I came across an article about the philosophical current Metamordenism, which was supposed to serve as the beginning of a new era and the end of the old postmodern pleasures. I have always looked at music and other…

  • Music

    Duma – Duma

    October 31, 2022 - By 

    Nyege Nyege Tapes out of Kampala, Uganda, is releasing some of the most brutal music in the world these days.  A case in point comes from Nairobi, Kenya, where the band Duma call home.  Within the first few seconds of this release, you get pummeled by a barrage of drumming and screaming that is so heavy that it would have held its own comparing to any industrial band of the genre’s heyday. From the label’s Bandcamp site: “Martin Khanja (aka Lord Spike Heart) and Sam Karugu emerge from Nairobi’s flourishing underground metal scene as former members of the bands Lust…

  • Music

    Doc Wör Mirran – Second Try

    October 9, 2022 - By 

    Doc Wör Mirran got its start as a multi-disciplinary project out of Nürnberg, Germany in around 1985, and for nearly 40 years, the band have continued to produce strange, intriguing avant-garde rock and experimental music.  From their Bandcamp site: “Contrary to most compilations which compile the greatest hits of an artist, “Second Try” is a compilation that highlights the drumming talents of DWM’s drummer Stefan Schweiger. He compiled, edited and partially remixed this album himself of his favourite tracks, and added new sounds and samples to make some of the tracks quite different from the “normal versions”. Stefan also contributed…

  • Music

    Siavash Amini & Eugene Thacker – Songs for Sad Poets

    September 26, 2022 - By 

    Siavash Amini, an Iranian sound artist and composer, collaborates on this album with author and poet Eugene Thacker on Songs for Sad Poets, though I hear no vocals on this disc.  What is on offer, however, are incredibly bleak soundscapes that range from engaging dark ambient music which settles well in headphones to abrasive post-Industrial music which tears at the eardrums in a most pleasant way.  From the pair’s Bandcamp site for this release: The collection of eight pieces draws its inspiration from the legacy of the so-called cursed poets (»poètes maudits«) as well as the German-language tradition of song…

  • Music

    Esa Ruoho – Collage

    September 12, 2022 - By 

    Esa Ruoho is a project out of Finland who works with really long, sinewy drones and atmospherics to get lost in on a headphone trip.  Fine ambient music, something rare in a time when the term is so badly abused.

  • Music

    Various Artists – Paroxysm: A Benefit Compilation For Leslie Keffer

    August 24, 2022 - By 

    Paroxysm: A Benefit Compilation For Leslie Keffer Unfortunately, there is no way to embed into the website in the normal way, so please click on the link above to get a taste of some of the bands contributing to this noble cause.  From our friends at No Part Of It Records: Leslie Keffer began making noise music with radios and vocals in 2003. Since then she has toured a good amount, and collaborated with key figures. Activity had to slow down when Keffer’s symptoms of epilepsy accelerated to the point of her being unable to work. She has been trying…

  • Music

    Citizen – Ars Humana Aedificavit Urbes

    August 20, 2022 - By 

    Today is a gloomy day in Budapest, as we’re in the middle of a heavy rainstorm, so it seemed like a perfect day to indulge in some pure noise.  I am new to the work of Citizen, who are, a believe, a Polish band headed by Jakub S, but I like the fact that, unlike most noise, this sounds like he took the time to sculpt well over 40 minutes of inferno-blasting ‘music’ that keeps you engaged.  Not bad at all.