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The Soft Pink Truth Black Metal
‘The Why Do the Heathen Rage? LP, the first in ten years from Matmos member Drew Daniel’s The Soft Pink Truth project, is set to see a release later this month via Thrill Jockey. But before the record drops, Daniel has let loose a wild new video for LP cut “Black Metal.” An electronic cover of Venom’s classic metal song of the same title, The Soft Pink Truth’s hyperactive “Black Metal” is accompanied by a strange sequence of images, with the song’s vocal contributor, Bryan Edward Collins, donning a cape and covered in face paint as he runs through the track’s lyrical phrases, while Daniel himself and House of Revlon voguer David Serrotte also make frequent appearances amongst the fiery backgrounds and Satanic animations which mark much of the clip.’ — xlr8r
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Madalyn Merkey Mend
‘Madalyn Merkey describing the scene of Scent’s encoding to The Wire: “On one side of the screen is the darkened, unseen process; on the other side is the light of the generative substance. It’s impossible to observe the inner workings from the outside.” What does she say to her machines, alone in the Art Institute? What sounds, what words, are sequestered in those boxes?’ — Tiny Mix Tapes
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Opéra Mort Anaïs ou Satan
‘Luke Younger’s Alter label is one of the UK’s best kept secrets, and has long been a source for some of the most unexpected belters. Dédales was edited down from a series of improvised live recordings, and as such is imbued with a kinetic energy and creativity that’s often left for dead on most po-faced experimental full-lengths. ‘Les Spirales Messmer’ is our first taste of the record, and exhibits Opera Mort’s soupy, unsettling explorations perfectly with wobbly basses, cooing synths and percussion that chatters more than grandad’s dentures after a sneaky rub of whizz.’ — collaged
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Alex G Sandy/Take
‘For the better part of the past three years, the Philadelphia-based singer-songwriter Alex Giannascoli (known professionally as Alex G) has chunked out a series of small, scrappy bedroom-to-Bandcamp missives. June 17, Giannascoli will finally emerge with DSU, his first proper LP. Giannascoli’s been ambling down this woozy, pitch-shifted lane for a number of releases now (which you can download for free over at his Bandcamp).’ — collaged
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Sculpture Hackle Scam Populator
‘The self-described opto-musical agglomerate was born in 2008 after a chance encounter between British musician Dan Hayhurst and New Zealand animator Reuben Sutherland. By combining practices, the pair’s first test splattered a psychedelic palette that pushed them to explore sensorial intricacies emerging from chance operations. Raw materials for Sculpture’s music include a mix of analog and digital practices. In Hayhurst and Sutherland’s hands, tape manipulation, samples, found sounds, aleatoric and algorithmic programming and live improvisation become more complementary than you might imagine. Sculpture draws from experimentalism to promote new potentials for pop and electronic music in an age where many of our sci-fi fantasies have become mundane occurrences. “I’m aiming to make a coherent, adventurous electronic pop record with its own voice and identity,” Hayhurst explains. “I don’t think experimental music has to be dark, difficult or joyless. I try to make something playful, and maybe a little absurd.”’ — Mexican Summer
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Torturing Nurse vs. Animal Machine
‘Torturing Nurse emphatically tear to shreds the idea that Shanghai is a city incapable of pushing artistic boundaries. The harsh noise group’s performances have featured brutal walls of static, screeching distortion and spine-chilling screams. Although guitars and microphones are occasionally used, instruments at past shows have included umbrellas, computer chipboards and meat cleavers. The group has garnered international acclaim in the noise community, and Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore reportedly names them among his favourite artists. ‘I don’t care if he’s a fan,’ says Junky with trademark defiance. ‘I don’t like him or his band, they’re too rock ‘n’ roll.” — Time Out Shanghai
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Black Bananas Physical Emotions
‘Jennifer Herrema, half of ’90s trash punk icons Royal Trux, has unveiled the first track from her second Black Bananas album – and it’s a curveball. Departing from the hair metal inversions of her previous troupe RTX (virtually the same band as Black Bananas), ‘Physical Emotions’ sees Herrema channelling retro Parliament-Funkadelic flavours through the lens of Zapp, Dam-Funk and Daft Punk, all in her distinctively fuzzy and freewheeling fashion.’ — FACT Magazine
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King Buzzo Boris (acoustic, live)
‘Buzz Osborne, the legendary grunge progenitor who has helmed the MELVINS for thirty plus years, will release his debut solo full-length album, “This Machine Kills Artists”, on June 3 via Ipecac Recordings. “I have no interest in sounding like a crappy version of James Taylor or a half-assed version of Woody Guthrie,” said the grunge progenitor of the 17-song offering, continuing, “which is what happens when almost every rock and roller straps on an acoustic guitar. No thanks… ‘This Machine Kills Artists’ is a different kind of animal.” Rolling Stone gave listeners early access to music from Osborne’s acoustic release, premiering the song “Dark Brown Teeth”. The magazine described the track as “doomy, ill-angled” and with the “Beefheartian edge his band is renowned for.”‘ — blabbermouth.net
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Guided by Voices Table At Fool’s Tooth
‘The nice thing about the continued prolificacy of the current GBV line-up is that, with every new album, we get more and more distance between this band and the nostalgia that we associate with reformed acts. We don’t even really need to call this the “classic” line-up anymore, and not just because March has stepped in. This is a current, working band, history and great past records be damned. And this, their sixth full-length in four years, celebrates that more clearly than any of its five predecessors. It’s a nicely polished continuation of the scrappier Motivational Jumpsuit, but it rarely loses its bite in polishing its grin.’ — Pop Matters
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Innode Rotor
‘If one day the machines develop artificial intelligence and decide to take up music, their attempts to simulate dubstep might sound something like Gridshifter. There’s a strange sense of organic rhythm being deconstructed and then recombined under the force of implacable machinery. Gridshifter has brains amongst its electronic brawn. The album plays on opposing shifts of established sequences of tone and texture, resulting in a sense of dislocation that, whilst unpredictable, is masterfully controlled by Radian’s Stefan Németh and bolstered by Steven Hess of Locrian and Elektro Guzzi’s Bernhard Breuer. As the album’s title suggests, electronic pulsations and buzzing static bristle across all 10 tracks, like electricity coursing through a generator (a grid, perhaps).’ — Dusted
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Karen Gwyer Missisissipippi
‘The spiraling sonic helices of Karen Gwyer, fusing classic house and avant-techno sensibility with East African wedding songs and psychedelia, have recently snared considerable critical praise. The U.S.-born producer was trained in cello, viola, and violin growing up, but after re-situating herself in London, adopted electronic production as a more personally apropos expressive practice. Moving through organic cyclical rhythms and ‘disorientating psycho-physical disequilibria’, Gwyer’s debut album, Needs Continuum, is a uniquely dark, brooding and slow-burning masterpiece – a result of personal experiences and lifelong musical progressions, a defining record of a transitional period rendered physical.’ — collaged
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Kim Doo Soo Mountain
‘Kim Doo Soo is the deepest and most introspective of Korea’s acid folk singers. Many are the legends that cling to his songs — political oppression, alcoholism, suicide, a ten-year period of mountain seclusion. Despite having been active since the mid-’80s and having released four acclaimed albums in Korea, most Western listeners only became aware of him through his tracks on the recent Damon & Naomi compilation, International Sad Hits. On 10 Days Butterfly, his fifth album, he mines productive veins of profound melancholy, animistic nature, and unfathomable, hermetic affection. The whole is couched in a veil of the most gorgeous, still melodicism, Kim’s vocals and guitar shaded with subtle accordion, violin, piano, organ and harmonica. A reflective and unearthly beautiful masterpiece.’ — cafeoto.co.uk
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Young Widows King Sol
‘The fourth album from Louisville, Kentucky, noise-rock trio Young Widows is a suffocating aural submission hold that refuses to let up on your carotid artery. Easy Pain is all tension and menace, laden with reverb, distortion and migraine-inducing beats that deliver inspired reinventions of everything fans of metal-gaze (“Doomed Moon,” “Gift Of Failure”), noise rock (“Bird Feeder” sounds like Coliseum, ZZ Top and Sonic Youth in a three-way knife fight) and post-punk (“Kerosene Girl” is what Interpol might’ve sounded like after ingesting near-lethal doses of tequila and trucker’s speed) hold dear.’ — Alternative Press
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Xiu Xiu New Life Immigration
‘Angel Guts: Red Classroom, named after a 1979 Japanese erotic movie, is a hell of a comeback: with longtime foil Angela Seo back on board, Stewart is now joined by percussionist Shayna Dunkelman and Swans drummer Thor Harris in what sounds like one of the most Xiu Xiu records to date. Employing only analogue synths and drum boxes, the album falls back in love with rawness and cacophony, going full circle with the sharp-edged sound of their debut Knife Play. The crime and poverty of the MacArthur Park neighborhood of Los Angeles is the album’s narrative backdrop; some of the songs are even named after shops and businesses found in the district. Angel Guts: Red Classroom is the typical blend of passion, pain and awkwardness which makes Xiu Xiu what they are. Fearless, demanding, relentlessly subversive.’ — Drowned in Sound
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p.s. Hey. Thank you to everybody who has answered Chris Goode’s questions and/or otherwise participated in his DC’s theater project. If you haven’t yet or missed the weekend post and don’t know what I’m talking about, click on the photo of Chris pretending to chop my head off in the blog’s upper right hand corner, read about the project, and learn how you can participate. Thanks very much! ** L@rstonovich, Larsty! Hey, buddy! I do wonder how you are! Are you psychic or something? Congrats on turning 41. Not bad! You saw GbV live, you lucky motherfucker! Pollard’s no-fun attitude towards touring in Europe is no-fun. Don’t give up. No doubt your self-styled-poo poo would be others’ highlight reel. Man, sweet to see you. Thanks for talking to Chris and crew. Much love back to say the least. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T. So awesome to read about your ‘Hey Mathew’ experiences. I’m going to go read your ‘HM’ text again pronto, cool! Everyone, mighty scribe/d.l. Thomas Moronic contributed text to Chris Goode’s theater work ‘Hey Mathew’ that you probably read about here over the weekend, and … here I’ll let Thomas finish my sentence thusly: ‘… which Kevin Killian and Dodie Bellamy very kindly and cooly published in their Mirage zine a little while afterwards, is up online. I just re-read it for the first time in years and yeah, it all came back. Yeah, so my Hey Mathew contribution is here.’ Please click over there and read it for all kinds of reasons. ** Sypha, Hi, James. Thank you a lot for talking/answering to Chris and the gang. ** Keaton, What I just said to Sypha applies to you too, man. Thanks! ** Tosh Berman, Thank you, Tosh! ** David Ehrenstein, Morning, Mr. E. Interesting. Things are certainly very different. I suppose ultimately that I’m only interested that time and politics and capitalism and evolving societal acceptance and whatever else has revealed that the so-called community of self-identifying gay guys is full of subdivisions, undergrounds, a mainstream or two, etc. It doesn’t seem good or bad to me. I guess it only contributes to my feeling that definitions of people based on notions of collective identity for which they happen to qualify based on their sharing a given genetic trait results in a prefatory understanding at best. ** HyeMin Kim, Hi. Thanks for addressing Chris’s questions. Consider me a cheerleader re: you finishing the topology. ** Chris Goode, Hey! That was and is intense, ha ha. In a fascinating way. Really strange, really helpful, really clarifying and reinventing and stuff. Oh, sorry about the images. Shit. Blogger’s image-sizing function is really faulty, and it can and does do something unpleasant to the images I upload here a lot of the time. I’m sorry. Oh, gosh, thanks about ‘Gone’. I have, like, no objectivity re: it and only a very strange, moody entrance back into it. Yeah, the community thing here, extremely interesting. Sometimes I think I understand it and have it ingrained in my response and building of this place, and sometimes it seems way beyond me or something. Strange. Of course I’m completely and severely interested to ponder, daydream, and know — as much as the reality-meets-blog configuration allows — about what’s happening in your respective community. Oh, I should know later today when I’ll be freed-up from film stuff and able/excited to Skype with you guys in the next few days. I can let you know tomorrow (here) or by email if that’s better? Thank you so unspeakably much, Chris, and same goes to all you guys there w/ Chris reading this, if you are. So incredible! ** Matthew, Hi. You’re moving to LA! When, where? Is there a why? You’re coming to Paris too? I think I’ll be around and free to meet to some degree until Friday, and then Zac and the crew and I head off to Bretagne to shoot a scene for our film. So, yeah, hopefully we can meet up. You want to write to me with your details? dcooperweb@gmail.com. Would and hopefully will be great to see you! ** Kyler, Thanks a lot for the words for Chris and his gang! ** Bill, Hi, B. So the cave is a relative concept. I hoped so. My room here at the Recollets is my cave, but it literally is a cave given the mess of stuff I’ve acquired over the years and piled randomly everywhere in this cramped unit. Paris weather has been real schizoid. It was mostly quite hot the last two days, and now it’s raining like a celestial firing squad. The enigmatic Omar … wait, Omar Berrada? Or who? ** Paul Curran, Hi, Paul. Yeah, it’s in the clear, whoo-hoo. Your book, not the France football team. I guess I hope they will be at least vaguely. Thanks so much for participation in Chris’s project! ** Scunnard, Hi, J. You’re in CA, so sweet. My heart is kind of crumpled up in a good way. Maybe crumpled wasn’t the right word. And you did the Winchester House! You’re writing about it! Dude, I so want to read that so please nail it down and then nail it to some spot where I can. Thanks a bunch for being a collaborator with Chris. ** Kier, Hi, K! Thank you so much for being there for Chris’s project! It is exciting, right? Chris’s project. I’m kind of totally blown away. I’d like to see your arboretum photos if you want to put them somewhere lookable. LA has an arboretum. I grew up a short bike-ride away from it. It’s not, like, amazing, but it was cool to have it as a getaway when I was a kid and teen. That old TV show ‘Fantasy Island’ was filmed there and a bunch of the early Tarzan movies. You guys have a lot of Jesus holidays up there. Weird. Maybe France has them too, though. I hope you have a great time with your old friend today. My weekend was kind of semi-off. I mean, I worked on the film stuff, but I didn’t run around town doing so like I will be doing again starting today. I worked on my novel some, which is good. It was excellent enough. Happy Monday, my pal! ** Steevee, Hi, Steve. Thank you very much for speaking to Chris and his collective! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben! Hooray about the ABBA availability. Early period, late period? I’m a mostly later/last period ABBA guy myself. Thank you very, very much for involving yourself in Chris’s project! ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. I suppose that everyone under my age probably only knows Roy Rogers as the title of that franchise. Which is interesting, weird. There’s a metro stop one stop away from mine on the 5 line called Jacques Bonsergent. To me, that name is just the name of the stop, but I guess he was some flesh-and-blood big deal guy that French grandmas probably known about like the backs of their hands. You’ve got LPS for the summer! That’s some sweet shit right there. Speaking of shit … shit, memory awakening moment, i.e. I’m going to send you his Japanese money bills in the next day or two. I don’t think I have your street address, though. Can you email it to me? ** Gary gray, Hi, Gary! That’s so cool! You talked to each of the guys individually. What an amazing way to respond. Nice, man, and thank you a whole lot. What’s good with me is a fair amount of good, man, thank you for asking. Oh, yeah if you remember what you wanted to tell me, I’m all eyes a.k.a. ears. ** Okay. You get a gig of new stuff that I’m listening to and into of late today, so, yeah, there you go. Take some tips, if you like. See you tomorrow.
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