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Samuel Kerridge live @ Varvara Festival
‘Samuel Kerridge may have only released one EP to date, the almost impossibly accomplished Auris Interna on Horizontal Ground, but youʼre about to hear a great deal more from him, beginning with his new Waiting For Love 12″, which is about to be released through Regis’ Downwards label. Bleak techno may have been attracting a great deal of press lately, but he’s no bandwagon-jumper. Dripping with distortion, his is a slow and sensuous take on the genre that draws from classic 4/4 music, but also the tectonic drones of Sunn O))), the occult industrial electronics of The Haxan Cloak, and even Pink Floyd, all the while retaining a caustic and noisy edge. Kick drums are frequently squashed into the background, but that never seems to detract from the musicʼs forceful impact – sometimes it even strengthens it.’ — The Quietus

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Twisted Krister Monolog
‘Twisted Krister is a young man living amidst a motley assortment of musical junk in the Töölö area of Helsinki. Krister´s was born in Sweden and has spent time living in some of the remotest locations in Finland. Twisted Krister also produces music under the names of Huuhkaja and Silmu. Krister´s conception of an ideal music: a combination of ‘excellently stupid’, simple rhythms and laconic observations on the current state of affairs of the world in which we live.’ — HIAP

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Container Eject
‘LP is the most explosive offering in the Container oeuvre, capturing the raw and unhinged essence of the live Container experience while exploring new compositional and sonic limits. The opening “Eject” wastes no time with it’s instant feedback squeal backed by a barrage of pounding, distorted percussion. The concomitant storm of misfiring FX and derailed drum patterns set the stage the for aural pandemonium that this third LP delivers. Ten Schofield has enigmatically crafted his most insane Container album to be the most architecturally dextrous and club-minded, never compromising his fundamentals while evolving the project in an utterly satisfying fashion. LP is the most locked-in full length recording to date, long overdue and absolutely essential.’ — Spectrum Spools

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Kara-Lis Coverdale IMGS /R
‘Kara-Lis Coverdale explores and celebrates the multiple voices of the machine. Synthetic instruments sourced from VSTs, sound banks, and personal archives are arranged into holograms of dreams once inspired by physical origin. Through digital superimposition processes, instrument profiles mutate and take on new forms of articulation. Crystalline organs support and prop plastic voices and insistent water flutes dance with metallically chromatic snake-like motifs in vignettes of compositional schizophrenia. Absurd and delightful fusions seething through temporal portholes are unexpectedly swiped left, enveloped by dense clouds of lament and remembrance.’ — Sacred Phrases

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Odour Trail Untitled (A)
‘Odour Trail ‎– Feminist Performance Artist Challenges The Phallic Mythology Of Male Creativity, 1993. Comes in large envelope with pasted on artwork and includes insert. Limited to 80 copies.’ — collaged

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No Revert
‘For me, the centerpiece of No has always been the guitar-playing; if you’ve followed the UK hardcore scene of the past several years closely, you’ll know Ralph’s name from Sceptres, Satellites of Love, and DiE. He is a really fascinating guitar player–he has ways of putting together a riff that just boggle my mind–and No seems to be his band where he lets loose a torrent of ideas in frighteningly quick succession while the rest of the band does their best to keep up. And not that I haven’t hyped up Ralph’s guitar wizardry enough, but this record is really something else. You can tell that there are two guitar tracks on here that are slightly out of tune with one another (a distinctive technique he first deployed on the first DiE EP), and there’s something about the dissonance of the two guitar tracks matched with the virtuosity of the actual playing that directly stimulates my musical pleasure center. At the end of the day No are quite cerebral–especially for hardcore–so I imagine that there will be plenty of people who just don’t get this, but I think it is just staggeringly brilliant.’ — Sorry State Records

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CROSSS Interlocutor
‘CROSSS is a Canadian trio who take inspiration from 70’s proto-drone, lo-fi indie, noise and metal. Their dirge, punishing volume, and composition intensity is offset by haunting and memorable vocal melodies. Prodigious drumming and ambitious improvised guitar create moments of complex prolonged trance and meditative phrase. The group began in Halifax, Canada in 2012 as a duo, but following several relocations and lineup shifts, is now based in Toronto, Canada and has grown into a trio.’ — Exploding in Sound

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Thomas Brinkmann Oxidrot
‘Thomas Brinkmann’s What You Hear (Is What You Hear) is the process of elimination at work par excellence. As an electronic music artist, Brinkmann is already familiar with and has utilized the many styles that fall between techno and ambient. Minimalism/isolationism is nothing new to him, his listeners, or people who regularly check out releases from the Editions Mego label. What Brinkmann has done on his collaboration with Oren Ambarchi and now on What You Hear (Is What You Hear) is he’s taken a deep, deep dive between minimalism and isolationism. The usual signposts are gone. Notions of climaxes and falling action are no longer there. Even the concept of a piece’s beginning and ending feel like they’re casually saying goodbye in the unfamiliar haze. What You Hear is sound without the shape. There are no artistic aspirations and no antsy need to communicate a theme. The Editions Mego website haughtily calls it “a strident development in the conceptual thinking of Brinkmann’s solid career[.]” But there’s probably something to that. What You Hear is purely machine-driven, underpinned by a feeling of detachment. If one of Thomas Brinkmann’s goals was to put no personal stamp on this recording, then bravo.’ — Pop Matters

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Chaos Echœs Kyoraksuhugi
‘This is a French group formed with the intention of expanding the thick, narrow walls of death metal by taking a improvisational, free form approach to the otherwise rigid structures of the genre. The album ‘Transient’ opens with bells chiming as dark, dissonant droning sounds builds up underneath creating a sort of ritualistic atmosphere, before turning into this slow churning marching beat, where a heavily processed, effect-laden voice is chanting, sounding like an otherworldly sermon. And though they tear through some brutal blast beats and evil riffing, I still think they owe more to free-jazz, avant garde composers like John Zorn (especially his ‘Moonchild’ series), and experimental rock and metal groups like The Melvins and Neurosis, than any of the current or former standard of death or black metal.’ — Metal Gallows

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Loke Rahbek & Puce Mary A Body Reimagined
‘The Female Form is the second collaborative record by two of Copenhagen’s most prolific experimental music personas. Frederikke Hoffmeier’s Puce Mary project is known from several solo records on Posh Isolation and her collaborative releases with Sewer Election, as well as countless shows and performances all over the world. Loke Rahbek is probably best known as a co-founder of Posh Isolation and his projects under the aliases Croatian Amor, Damien Dubrovnik, Lust for Youth, Vår, and an impressive body of work manifested both as records, performances, and strange places in between. The Female Form picks up where The Closed Room left of, walking a path in between industrial, drone, and electroacoustic music. The room is still closed, the doors are shut, and windows covered, and whatever insight the listener is granted is the kind of insight you get peeping through the keyhole or the crack between the curtains. Every motion is obscured and the outcome uncertain.’ — Forced Exposure

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William Basinski Cascade (excerpt) live
‘Basinski’s work has always crept up on a listener only to emotionally erupt at their cue. But here, he’s stripped aside much of the theoretical sprawl, resulting in a work that feels both minor, even by his standards, and gargantuan, even by his standards. Here we’re adrift among crystalline shards of piano and minor chords, which work because they work, with little else to hold on to. We can grasp onto his craft for help — there’s no doubting that a simple loop wouldn’t yield the power his nearly-unnoticeable but methodic, thorough manipulation of timings do — but his craft is so subtle that it nearly eludes us. This stripping down leads to strange avenues — Does one feel cheated? Have we approached the terrain of the “merely cinematic”? What does it mean to feel this much when there’s no signifier to attach it to? (Those burning towers made it so easy for us, validated our misery, put a narrative to it.) Is a sadness for no one in particular merely a form of ego-love?’ — Jeffery Dunn Rovinelli

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Grasscut Curlews
‘The band’s most live and organic album to date, Everyone Was A Bird sees Grasscut’s cinematic and immersive mix of electronica, post-rock and song augmented by live strings, drums, piano and guitar.The album is a search for identity and meaning, both through closely observing the places in which we live, and through digging around in the landscapes of our ancestors. Islander is set in the Jersey where Phillips grew up; The Field and Snowdown in the Sussex Downs, close to his current home in Brighton. The other songs are based in and around the Mawddach Estuary in mid Wales where his family comes from, and where he continues to spend much of his time. The album’s title meanwhile comes from the Siegfried Sassoon poem Everyone Sang. It concerns a moment of release in the World War One trenches, in which everyone bursts into song, and also reflects the album’s own journey from the landlocked Islander, via first single Curlews, to the soaring closer Red Kite.’ — Lo & Behold

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Locrian An Index of Air
‘Devastating drone metal unit Locrian have shared the first ear-rupturing preview from their forthcoming Infinite Dissolution LP. Though the song title “An Index of Air” may initially come across as safe, it won’t take long to realize that the band are working with higher gale force winds. It’s a slow build, though, as the song spends its first three-and-a-half minutes examining a cyclical thud of drums and what might be the angriest sounding tea kettle of all time. At its breaking point, it erupts into a swell of blast beats, ethereal guitar lines pushed deep into the red, and glass-shattering shrieking. The back end is played much more melodically, though the amp levels are still punishing.’ — Exclaim

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RSS B0YS YYXXTTRRYYMM
‘The Polish duo RSS B0YS isn’t just an ordinary electronic group. It’s an artistic concept, an exercise in anonymity in the age of information overload, a total work of art. But the music of RSS B0YS is not as much an escape as it is an exit, the best part being the fact they don’t always follow the same structures. Sometimes the track will begin crumbling halfway in, at other times a track won’t even form a full rhythm or melody in favor of a series of glitches. It’s a bit similar to the approach of Actress’s Ghettoville, but while Cunningham’s effort was a downer urban panorama limited by concrete towers and cracked asphalt, HDDN is much more playful and experimental while retaining the same dark mood and lo-fi aesthetics. It’s an album that crafts a new sonic map out of hard electronic beats, distorted washes of synth, and occasional, vaguely exotic references dotting the landscape, never distracting from its own open-structured, loose ideas. RSS B0YS don’t really give a shit whether you like them or not; they just keep making music they enjoy — and if you happen to enjoy it too, all the better.’ — Tiny Mix Tapes

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Rectal Hygienics live @ Permanent Records
‘Sludgey noise-rock locals Rectal Hygienics welcome their brand-new Permanent Records release tomorrow night with two in-town shows, the first of which is an all-ages, free in-store at Permanent. The new record, Ultimate Purity, showcases the band’s twisted, heavy-handed Brainbombs worship, and today’s 12 O’Clock Track is the first public glimpse at the damaged LP, “Grandeur.” Employing the “play one riff over and over until it hurts” formula, the band smashes out the devastating, one-part song, its crushing tones and bad vibes steamrolling everything in its path. On top of it all is lead vocalist Matt Ibarra, spitting mean, distorted depravity. No dynamics, no melody, no pop sensibility—this is plain and simple old-fashioned sonic punishment that can destroy moods and eardrums with the best of the noise-rock greats. Rectal Hygienics are one of the gnarliest, most confrontational bands in Chicago right now, so this release event isn’t one to miss.’ — The Bleader

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p.s. Hey. ** Saturday ** Nicola, Hi. No problem. ** Dennis Cooper, Morning. ** David Ehrenstein, Oh, I’m not sorry, ha ha. Sorry. What is that ‘perfect’ gif from? ** Tosh Berman, Thank you very much, Tosh! ** Misanthrope, Lyon was good. Kiddiepunk’s work was great, no surprise. It was boiling hot in Lyon, and then it would literally pound down the best rain plus thunder and lightning ever. ** Thomas Moronic, Thank you very, very much, T! It means a lot! I would say congrats on almost finishing your novel, but I looked ahead and saw that you did finish the next day, so even huger congrats on that from the near-past! ** White tiger, Thanks a huge bunch, Math! You doing great? ** MANCY, Thank you, Stephen! I’m really psyched for your Kiddiepunk siamese twin zines! ** James, Quite a fantasy you have there. Thank you for the very kind words about my documentary. I was up all night until 6 am this morning finishing our film, so I would say this week has been even over-productive so far. ** Steevee, I don’t know. Not on purpose anyway. ** Keaton, Hi. Wow, a lot of stink in that dialogue. Wind’s good. Thank you! ** Alistair McCartney, Hi, A! Yeah, real excited about the Australia trip. We were just trying to start figuring out when we can go over the weekend. Thank you about my wind thing. No, the gif work is very separate from the text novel, but I’m just as serious about the gif work as I am about my text work these days. The Honore opera is very good! Very strange and tight and, yeah, Michael’s visuals are amazing, and of course Christophe’s direction is fascinating. A true winner, I think! Me too, re: LA. I’m pretty sure so. Take care! ** Monday ** Nicola, Howdy. ** Scunnard, Hi, J. Away was really good. It was too hot, only. You’re going to drive? In a car? That should be really fun, if so. I’ve only done that betwixt thing by train, which, is you, know nice too. ** David Ehrenstein, Happy Tuesday morning. ** Cal Graves, Hi, Cal. Trip was very nice, fun, artistically rewarding, etc. By train. It’s only two hours away by train. It’s practically Paris’s neighbor. Yay about your poetry rolling. Being a post is the best, in and of itself, and, also, I think being a poet is, like, an ideal stepping stone if you ever want to write novels or make films or, I don’t know, make gif fiction or whatever. It’s a much better place to be and also to start as an artist in general than centering your talent at the outset in a medium that has heavy conventions attached to it. I was in Lyon to see the premiere of an opera directed by the French film director Christophe Honore, who’s also one of the producers of Zac’s and my film, with video projections by Kiddiepunk aka filmmaker/ artist/ publisher/ etc. Michael Salerno, who was the head cameraman and Director of Photography for our film. Thanks about my gif work, man! Re-calibrating-ly, Dennis ** Thomas Moronic, And, now, at the right time, mega-congrats on finishing your novel! What now with it, man? Very exciting! Very awesome! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. That is very good news about Art101! Fingers crossed re: the seeming smooth-ish final sailing! And the zine project sounds very intriguing and fun! ** Steeevee, Interesting thing to make a documentary about. Interesting to think about how it will be handled. How did you feel about it? I was just looking at snaps of Grace Jones’s topless perf. at the Parklife Festival in London. ** Armando, Hi, man. I’m good, but kind of out of it since I was up working all night, and I’m usually an early to bed/early riser kind of guy. Lyon was good and fun. I’m still wary of that new Larry Clark, but I will see it at some point for sure. Okay, yeah, I will keep you in mind should any me-related gig arise. Hugs, love back to you! ** Chris Cochrane, Hey, Chris! How very awesome to see you! Three foot surgeries?! Holy shit, man. Did that problem arise recently? You seemed pretty fleet the last time I saw you. I hope your recovery from that goes incredibly well. Excellent, excellent about the new music projects! Even the folky and sweet ones, ha ha! Yeah, it would be sweetness, key, and even necessary to get to see you sooner than later. I guess in New York? Buckets upon buckets of love right back to you! ** Keaton, Who’s Mary Ellen Trainor? I’ll go look. Fishing, interesting. Train from Lyon was pretty easy and uneventful. Waking up on a train entering a London wherein everyone is friendly to each other does sound like theater. Even like experimental theater. ** Right. I made a gig. Those of you who are interested in the gigs, please enjoy. The rest of you do whatever it is you do on the gig days. See you tomorrow.

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Obnox Carmen, I Love You
‘It’s hard to not read too much into Obnox’s upcoming LP, Know America. A concept record that has Obnox and crew highjacking the feed of Radio 420 AM WEDE in order to see their records finally spun, it’s clear that the record is about the current state of music, about race, about the integrity of musicians and the businessmen that make music their racket. Tired of being pigeonholed, ripped off, cheated, exploited, or — worst of all — neglected, Obnox is taking matters into his own hands, forcing his brand of punk on America. The great irony of it all is that Obnox’s Lamont Thomas chooses to place this within the confines of a radio station. Surely, Thomas understands the diminishing place that radio — even more humorous that he chooses an AM station — plays in the most of our lives, so doesn’t this give the record a sort of antiquated nostalgia? I’d argue against this. Much like radio, the musical landscape has changed. For all of the advantages that digital platforms and social media have brought to music, I think that Thomas has highlighted an important idea: that with the so-called death of the radio did the social role of music in our lives diminish as well? One thing is for sure, if only half the artists out there had even a fraction of the talent and drive of Thomas, music would be better for it.’ — Noisey

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Oil Thief Under The Sand
‘Even if you’ve never heard of a band before, if they’re on Chondritic Sound, you know what you’re getting…sort of. Truth be told the label trades in just about all manifestations and sub-genres of electronic noise, making Oil Thief, the new project from LA’s Lee Landley, a perfect fit. Power electronics, death industrial, classic Gristle noise, and a hint of the hypnotic proto techno that’s been worming its way into noise in recent years all slowly cycle through Obsolescence & Monality. Landley’s screeched vocals, which sound like they’re coming from the bottom of a well, act more as a secondary rhythmic device than anything, adding nuance to long and incessant deathmarches. “Under The Sand” is as emblematic as anything on the LP, with repetitive pressure valve clanging and wheezing juxtaposed against more organic and loping textures. For something with an ostensibly dirge-like mood, it’s a remarkably busy and dynamic track (and record on the whole), with plenty of elements oozing in and out of focus. Things close strongly with “Homesickness”, in which a driving beat and harmonic pads seem to be at war with high pitched static and sine waves, almost determined to push through the chaos and impose order.’ — I Die You Die

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Prurient Dragonflies To Sew You Up
‘After over 15 years of releasing material as Prurient and ventures into experimental dance music as Vatican Shadow (not to mention Exploring Jezebel, Fernow’s implied involvement in Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement, and outings with JK Flesh, Cold Cave etc.), Frozen Niagara Falls feels like a reflection not only on past experience, but also on the styles of music that helped to create them. The album is dripping in homage to power electronics, harsh noise, and ambient synth music; it’s a combination of influences that have been explored to varying extents throughout his back catalogue, and it’s been done here to impeccable effect. The resulting tracks make for a celebration of the most diverse city (the atmospheric synths on “Every Relationship Earthrise”) and a lamentation of its curse (the bludgeoning dirge of “Cocaine Daughter”). The album plays on the unknowable possibilities that one might encounter in a metropolis — it fucks with any expectations by combining unexpected instrumental techniques (“Wildflowers (Long Hair With Stocking Cap)”) with the crushing dominance that was ramified with harsh noise on And Still, Wanting. These subtle contrasts are brought to the fore from the opening track onward, where cool synths and building percussion allude to a precious state.’ — Tiny Mix Tapes

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Blood Ma Monaco
‘James B Stringer took the name Brood Ma from his favourite China Miéville novel, Perdido Street Station. A classic of New Weird fiction, it paints a Tolkienian fantasy grown urban, strange and sprawling. “There’s a plasticity to the world, a civilisation that’s gone mouldy and organically adapted”… For the past few years, Stringer has been running his own free digital-only online label, or collective, or “whatever Quantum Natives is”, together with Awe IX, who provided its first release as Yearning Kru. The pair met at a London art school in the mid-2000s, where they became frustrated with the art world and academia. They were interested – especially after Stringer’s “crap” paintings were all stolen – in digital image-making, then peripheral and derided but now fashionable. But Stringer and Awe IX were (and are) not interested in the clean, cold aesthetics of so much contemporary net art. They also turned to music, especially the messy power of noise and grime. “Grime made garage seem dangerous. You go from gloss to realism. It was created in a very functional way, quite immediate in its expression, and it was the same with noise.’ — The Wire

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James Blackshaw Summoning Suns
‘A decade ago, James Blackshaw emerged as a leading young stylist for instrumental acoustic guitar music. He’d started as many of his peers have, offering knotty revisions of songs with “blues” or “rag” appended to the title. But he soon assimilated new influences (Van Dyke Parks, Bert Jansch, Sandy Denny, Joanna Newsom, Harry Nilsson, Elliott Smith) into his six- and 12-string songs, from a classical grandeur borrowed from romantic composers to immersive atmospheres that seemed to reflect an interest in mysticism. Between 2006 and 2010, he issued a string of impossibly beautiful records in that vein, epitomized by his cascading Tompkins Square debut, The Cloud of Unknowing. Droning chords provided ballast beneath fluid fingerpicking, gilded sometimes by coruscating piano and strings. Blackshaw had transcended those formative blues to reposition existential sadness and spiritual wonder as self-made sanctuaries of sound.’ — Grayson Haver Currin

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Inga Copeland Miss Understood
‘Inga Copeland flexes a new moniker and altered palette in the surreal chamber pops of RELAXIN’ with Lolina. At an avant intersection of R&B;, dancehall minimalism and electro-pop, Lolina creates her own world of sonic oddity and nursery rhyme delivery. The self-titled opener sounds like Autechre’s ‘Piezo’ given a lo-fi baroque pop make-over, while the MIDI keys and grubby bounce of ‘Miss Understood’ warp like a funfair mirror version of a Palmistry riddim. Most unsettling of all, ‘Relaxx’ hits stranger pleasure centres with deliciously discordant piano and disconcerting vocal reminding us of Carole Caroompas. It’s really kinda genius.’ — Boomkat

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Félicia Atkinson Against Archives
‘The strangest and strongest album we’ve heard yet from avant-garde traveller, Felicia Atkinson. Arriving from Oregon, USA, via the French Alps base of Shelter Press – the publishing platform she runs with Bartolomé Sanson – it unfolds a highly visual sonic topography built upon collaged and randomly selected texts taken from her 2014 publication, Improvising Sculpture as Delayed Fictions, plus Rechereche de la Base et du Sommet (René Char, 1955), and Madame Edwarda (Georges Bataille, 1937). We’re informed that the production is DIY, recorded with super basic software on a laptop, yet we wouldn’t describe it as lo-fi in the usual, gritty sense; it’s more a surreal and poetic arrangement of jarring elements – pulsing ambient techno noise and drowsy vocals in ‘Against Archives’; crisply roiling doom scapes at whsipered erotic texts in ‘LOeil’; tactile bass tones and Lynchian chamber space in ‘Carve The Concept And The Artichoke’. Colour us enchanted.’ — Boomkat

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Akufen 1 1 (Thomas Brinkmann Remix)
‘Marc Leclair, better known by his stage name Akufen, is a Canadian electronic musician. His music is electronic music that is often described as minimal house, minimal techno, glitch, or micro house. His 2002 release entitled My Way introduced his concept of “microsampling”, which was essentially a way of using extremely small and short clips of samples he had randomly recorded off of FM radio broadcasts as a key musical element. Leclair’s pseudonym comes from the French word for tinnitus (ringing of the ears), acouphène, and he has also gone under the pseudonyms Horror Inc., David Scott, Nefuka, and Anna Kaufen.’ — collaged

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Holly Herndon Interference
‘Holly Herndon works in a post-human mode that’s become customary in electronic music, yet remains abstract in realms beyond. Voices figure heavily in Platform, her follow-up to a breakthrough album in 2012, but they’re spliced, diced, dissected — too processed, in any case, to suggest origins in a fleshy human being with dynamic feelings and moods. That doesn’t mean dynamism is absent, though. From the start, Platform draws drama out of changes in speed and texture and many little parts that work together to make a sort of musical machine. Not music by a machine or for a machine ­— it’s music as a machine itself, with working orders and operating procedures that make for different kinds of effects. Some of those effects prove surprisingly human in the end. “Interference” opens with a stuttering, strobing display of many of the techno-minded sounds enlisted throughout; the track has a gentle sense of propulsion suited less for a dance club than a movie scene in which a forlorn protagonist drives down a highway at night.’ — Andy Battaglia

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Lotic Slay
‘There are familiar ideas in J’Kerian Morgan’s music, but they’re rarely left undamaged. Rather than working within existing genres, Morgan takes templates and smashes them against the wall, letting the resulting splatter form a sort of musical Rorschach pattern. As Lotic, he shares a penchant for destruction with his fellow residents from Janus, a roving Berlin party that emphasizes weirdness and otherness. Initially known for his love of R&B; and pop, Lotic’s music took a darker turn around the time Janus’s monthly event ended, resulting in the tortured 27-minute collage Damsel In Distress. Morgan described the free release as a “cry for help” and a “clean slate,” and his debut for Tri Angle follows in its footsteps. Heterocetera is a confrontational EP. Opener “Suspension” is laced with antagonistic tones, as if in listening to it you’ve triggered an intruder alarm. The title track turns the infamous Masters At Work “ha!” (a ballroom staple) into a cloud that hovers over hissing gaskets and turning gears, while the rat-at-at attack of “Phlegm” is just as erratic. “Slay” and “Underneath,” both of which bring to mind fellow Tri Angle newbie Rabit in their use of blank space and reverb, offer a zero-gravity respite, though they’re still crunchy and foreboding.’ — Resident Advisor

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Elvis Depressedly N.M.S.S.
‘Elvis Depressedly’s New Alhambra is a dark horse contender for the best album of the year. It’s a record full of lush, sedate, synth-heavy pop music that weaves in samples of televangelists and professional wrestlers, each side essentially functioning as its own extended, multi-part song. The songs conflate worship and entertainment,fire and brimstone and hell in a cell, a choir in a cathedral and entrance music over a tinny PA. It’s an engrossing listen, by turns tranquil, terrifying, heart-rending and inspiring. The specter of Chris Benoit — the pro wrestler who, suffering from brain damage brought on by repeated chair hits directly to the head, killed his wife, son, and himself — hangs over the album. The lyrics seem concerned with the point where ring violence becomes real violence, where biblical wrath becomes personal tragedy.’ — Flavorwire

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Raketkanon Herman
‘Raketkanon blaast, spuwt en knalt alles en iedereen op zijn doortocht aan flarden. Met een bezetting bestaande uit een handvol gevestigde muzikanten Pieter-Paul Devos, (Kapitan Korsakov) en met vertakkingen naar Waldorf en Tomàn. Voor de opnames van hun tweede langspeler RKTKN #2 wist de groep niemand minder dan Steve Albini te strikken. Deze legendarische producer was in het verleden verantwoordelijk voor onder andere albums van Nirvana, PJ Harvey, The Jesus Lizard en The Pixies. De bedoeling was om de plaat zo live mogelijk te laten klinken, en dat is blijkbaar gelukt. DaMusic heeft het zelfs over een “hyperkinetische concertervaring”. Ook elders niets dan lof: “Als we het onszelf makkelijk willen maken, dan zouden we er de recensie van 2012 bijhalen en er nog wat superlatieven aan toevoegen, want nummer 2 overtreft nummer 1 toch wel.” – Enola. “En Raketkanon smaakt zo explosief lekker, dat je daar sowieso vrolijk van wordt!” – Cortonville.’ — DEMO

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Blanck Mass Detritus
‘Benjamin John Power’s first official recorded venture away from his fellow Fuck Button Andrew Hung, under the name Blanck Mass, felt instantly familiar, but a particular absence nagged in places. On Dumb Flesh, containment is a central theme. The title alludes to how humans are limited by the imperfections of their bodies. For all the supposed evolutionary advancements and achievements of the human mind over civilization’s lifespan, there are more ways to get cancer than ever before, and death still awaits us all – at least until Google figures out how to upload our consciousness to the cloud. Powers puts the body at the forefront of his audience’s mind is by suggesting that they move it. In a U-turn from the cerebral escape of Blanck Mass, Dumb Flesh stretches tautly over gnarled techno bones. Like a shiny new penny left submerged long enough in Coca-Cola, the elements of dance music corrode here in Power’s hands. Like Fuck Buttons, Dumb Flesh doesn’t deconstruct electronica, but it does repurpose it, skeptically questioning its motives. Unlike Fuck Buttons, Power isn’t interested in creating immovable monoliths on Dumb Flesh. The cyborg groan of the opening “Loam” is about as close to Blanck Mass as the album gets, though its surface is craggier. From there, first single “Dead Format” erupts without notice, throbbing fully formed and foreboding, as if the second half of all those tracks from the debut had been found after all. “No Lite” makes a similar first impression, throwing the listener into a cacophonous whirl. Instead of raging on, it simmers down to a few remaining wisps, then finds its slalom and builds back up in a completely different form.’ — Pop Matters

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Palace of Swords Ringstone Round
‘Palace of Swords are an experimental /garage/ visual band based in Aberdeen, Scotland. Formed in July 2010, the band consists of a shifting line-up overseen and orchestrated by multi-instrumentalist Peter Lyon. Palace of Swords’ music has been variously described as ‘medieval dirge’, ‘pop art gothic’ and ‘space-minimalism’. Their cited influences include Erik Satie, Kenneth Anger soundtracks, The Fall, Felt, Neu! and Nico.’ — collaged

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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Mm … I don’t think I know it. I should, post-haste, I gather? And will do. Well, your Sacks piece was superb, if I didn’t so say so before, so a ton and half just sounds like justice to me. ** David S. Estornell, Thanks, David! ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. Thank you. That sounds familiar about Louis the 16th. I’m going to hunt that down. ** Bill, The gun key was sweet, right? I don’t know ‘Locke and Key’. I wondered where that came from. Super good book haul there. ** Sypha, Hi, James. Oh, okay. Yeah, I’ve never investigated Ligotti other than reading one book of his fiction whose title escapes me but which I thought was quite good. I’m with you on ‘Hospice’. If you knew how much work it takes to keep Harry Styles away from this blog as much as I have thus far. ** Cal Graves, Top of my morning and maybe even yours (?) to you, sir! Insanely high is good. No apologies necessary. I even like insanely high commentary. No, I mean … I think there are a fair amount of tourists who don’t realize that the infamous Bastille prison, which is what the place was originally named after, burned down centuries ago, so you do see a bunch of foreigners standing around there wondering what the big fuss is all about. I can’t wait for our film to be out too! I hope you fixed the writing thing, as planned. Oh, wow, your blog is full of heavenly looking stuff by you. Awesome! Should I read it from the beginning, or should I read it backwards, blog-style? Everyone, Cal Graves, d.l. and, much more significantly, writer supreme, has finished a writing project called ‘The Daily Assignation’ whose location is his blog, and I highly, oh so very highly, urge you to go here, which is where it is, and then either start devouring it right now or else bookmark the thing pronto for imminently future reading. Do that, okay? Trust me. Yum! Err, pristinely, Dennis. ** Brendan, Ha ha ha! Yay, Brendan! ** Steevee, Hi. Well, I still haven’t seen ‘Mad Max’, but if all it takes to be important and genius is making wise character and casting decisions, that seems kind of crazy. It seems like a ‘whoo-hoo’ might suffice? ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. I agree. Well, I’ve never made a DJ mix, so I can’t agree authoritatively, but that seems very right. Everyone, before we consign the keys thing yesterday to history, how about adding some sound courtesy of _B_A, and, more rootily, Klaus Nomi’s ‘Keys of Life’. ** Kier, Hi, Kierageous! Cool, I’m glad you liked it. It was fun to make. It was National Day of Norway? I think Zac and I were there on that day a couple of years ago. Is it the day when people dress up in ancient Norwegian garb and walk around all day. In Oslo, at least? Two new lambs, awww. I wish I could see a video of your deftly walking feet surrounded by hungry, excited chickens. Wtf about your farmer boss! He’s just a sour dope. Fuck him! With the Eiffel Tower! I hope your psych things do everything you want them to. Yesterday I think I mostly — yeah, I did — worked on the script of Zac’s and my new film. It’s getting really close to being a finished first draft. I kind of really like it. I’m going to talk to Zac about my latest adds and revisions and ideas today and see if I’m on the right track or not. So that wouldn’t have been too exciting to watch, and it isn’t colorful enough to talk much about, but it was really good. Otherwise, mm, more film stuff. We were told we have to get a bunch of stuff together for ‘LCTG’ right away. Like, in addition to finishing the special effects and doing the last color correcting, French subtitles and also English subtitles for this short part in the film that’s in French, and other stuff. We’ll be planning all of that today. Not much else. Tell me how today treated you, okay? ** Etc etc etc, Hi, Casey. It’s semi-uber touristy. But I’ll get accustomed to that, I guess. There are a fair amount of artists making very good noise stuff nowadays, in no small part due to Merzbow’s pioneering. But I am kind of easy with noise. It’s rare that I hear noise music that I don’t find a lot to like about. Sort of like I am with horror movies or disaster movies. Yeah, yeah, ‘The Infernal’ is incredible. It seems like it has been received well, but it deserves to be hailed and dissected a lot more than it has been, so I’m excited for your in-depth look. I wasn’t very into ‘House of Leaves’. I liked the concept a lot, but not the thing itself so much. Yeah, I exchanged some emails with Ira just the other day. He seems like he’s doing well. He’s restless, but he has always been restless, and that’s part of why he’s great. Bon day! ** Chilly Jay Chill, Thanks, man. It is completely mindboggling how much extremely good fiction is being published with amazing speed right now. Like I’ve said a bunch of times, I’ve never seen anything like this before. A total, maybe unprecedented American fiction renaissance. We take it for granted, but, man, this is an important and amazing time. I’m glad you’re at least getting hiccups of work in on your novel. Mine remains in waiting for me. Hopefully soon. I’m really fired up about the new film that Zac and I want to make, so I’m concentrating on that right now. The new Gisele piece is, I think, written and all but finished, writing-wise, apart from toying and a bit of fiddling, so it’s not so consuming anymore. That’s weird: yesterday I came across an article claiming that Dal Solstag is Norway’s greatest living writer, and I bookmarked it to read, hopefully today. Handke and Davis being fans is obviously a big lure. Exciting possibility, it seems. Thanks, Jeff. ** Misanthrope, Oh, my charm, that old thing? Glad to hear it’s still humming. Ha ha. Jesus Christ, now she’s in jail?! Dude, it sure doesn’t seem like it’s going to be all that hard to emancipate LPS. Not that even an easy emancipation isn’t a massive headache, I’m sure. That’s nuts. I’m so far out of it on WWE these days. I don’t even know 80% of the names you mentioned. I only know Orton, Kane, and Cena. The next Undertaker? Wow. Bray Wyatt, you say? Okay, I’ll get all over that/him. Gracias. ** Michael_karo, Thank you kindly, Mr. Karo. I do remember when you showed me yours in SF. Wow, memory is so interesting. I remember that distinctly in all of those details. Dude, you have so many photos. It’s nuts. Very good nuts. ** Okay. So, today I give you the latest gig made out of some of the latest music I’ve been into in a positive fashion recently bordering on now, and now you will do what you will do with it. Listening/watching at least some of it would be a very good way to deal, for instance. But, yeah. See you tomorrow.