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Wade Marynowsky Black Casino (2013)
‘Black Casino involves five flying V guitars mounted atop a rotating spin wheel as used in popular game shows such as ‘The Wheel of Fortune’. The guitars form a five-pointed star – a pentagram, which conjures certain magical associations and is used today as a symbol of faith by many Wiccans and Neo-pagans. This pentagram, however, depicts Diabolus in musica: the ‘tri-tone’ musical interval that has been used since the sixtenth century as the signature of the Devil – an association exploited by many heavy metal bands.’

 

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Torbjorn Rodland Infernus (2001)

 

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Alexander Binder Traum (2017)

 

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Jan Hakon Erichsen Obvious Art Work nr.12, Black Metal Art (2010)

 

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Bjarne Melgaard Kill Me Before I Do It Myself (2001)
‘For the uninitiated, Frost engages in a performance piece composed with Bjarne Melgaard that they call, “Kill Me Before I Do it Myself.” In a profoundly angry display, Frost, mere inches from the audience, engages in aggressive torching of the set, destructive stabbing of furniture and outright overt blasphemy. As viewers watch burning embers rapidly descend from the exhibit’s structure and experience Frost destroying a multitude of items, they have only seconds to prepare to watch as Frost uses a menacingly long knife to slit his arm vertically from wrist to elbow. He then follows suit on his neck. The audience, clearly in shock, is not entirely sure if they are witnessing an actual suicide and they stand in silence as Frost reclines down, eyes open, with blood oozing out of multiple sites in his body.’

 

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Harmony Korine The Sigil of the Cloven Hoof Marks Thy Path (2000)
‘Harmony did a show where he photocopied a bunch of pictures from Lords of Chaos, and blew up pictures of Fenriz and hung them on a wall in a gallery! He put a picture of Varg up there too, and this is in some bullshit gallery in Santa Monica, what do others think about him? Is he ripping off BM culture, does anyone care? I don’t but this show is funny, a bunch of pictures of Fenriz and some national socialist looking runic art, stuff that has been on Black Metal album covers for ages, put up in a gallery under his name.’

 

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Mickaël Sellam Black Metal Forever (2010)
‘Equipped with sound sensors that amplify the noises it makes while moving, the machine becomes a massive and worrying musical instrument that plays in a dramatic atmosphere. From the top of the picker, the operator directs and synchronizes the movements of the machine so as to produce a spectacular and wild soundscape, a mechanical black mass.’

 

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Joachim Hamou J’ai Froid (2014)
‘Tapping into the unrest and general neoliberalisation of the Scandinavian welfare-states, a new generation of artists’ interest in anarchistic expressionism and Black Metal has emerged. Their interest in this subculture lies perhaps in the promise of an oppositional position and the potential for expressing angst, distress and feelings of being overwhelmed.’

 

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Nader Sadek Re:Mechanic (2014)
‘Since 2009, conceptual artist Nader Sadek has been directing and producing an epic undertaking. The first phase of this project was the album In the Flesh released in 2011 (the band, a Death Metal supergroup brought together by Nader), the second phase involves videos based on the album’s tracks, and the final phase is a type of Metal opera—a magnum opus, if you will—which promises to be a spectacular fusion of art and music including sculptures, installations, and performances. Born in Cairo, Nader draws upon his direct experience with the use of Metal and art as a form of political protest, which he has written about here. He is currently based in New York City and has established an international reputation in the Metal community for his artistic collaborations with Attila Csihar, which have produced costumes and stage designs.’

 

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Juan Pablo Macías BSR Complete Stock #1 (Ratas – Zona roja) (2017)
‘Juan Pablo Macías devotes part of his work to the restoration of the Biblioteca Social Reconstruir (BSR), a libertarian and anarchist library founded in 1978 in Mexico City and now dismantled. For the sound installation BSR Complete Stock #1 (Ratas – Zona roja), shown in the exhibition Altars of Madness, he invited Mexican metal bands to record their music.’

 

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Nancy Pagan Animation Sons of Northern Darkness, Ep. 1 (2015)
‘In the fall of 1995, Black Metal band, ‘Immortal’, set out to make a string of music videos for their upcoming album. With little to no-budget, they walked into the woods outside their hometown of Bergen, Norway, never to be seen again. This is their story. Featuring King Diamond!’

 

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Vincent Como Paradise Lost 001 – 004 (2011)
Oil on Linen with Wood, Wax, and Fire

 

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Terence Hannum Further Desecrations (2017)
‘I think a lot of my friends and the initial people who turned me on to death metal were incredibly intelligent people who a lot of society had really written off. They had intelligence about books or electronics, or records, just this depth that I didn’t know. I know I am romanticizing it a bit, but I pulled a lot from my friends who I grew up with who were super smart but somehow got written off in school or by their families.’ — TH

 

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Per-Oskar Leu Vox Clamantis in Deserto (2010)
‘Vox Clamantis in Deserto (“The voice of one crying in the wilderness”) shows Per-Oskar Leu performing the aria Vesti la Giubba (“put on the costume”) from the opera Pagliacci (Ruggero Leoncavallo, 1892) in Black Metal attire.’

 

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Banks Violette Various (2008)
‘Death metal, ritual murder, and teenage suicide are mere starting points for Banks Violette; his gothic installations construct operatic analyses of the dark side of American culture. In works such as Black Hole, Violette aptly portrays this phenomenon of excess. Heavy-metal aesthetics become a mirror of youth culture anxiety, an adopted language compensating and empowering sensations of immense sorrow and despair. Citing examples where musical lyrics become instigating factors to real-life violence, Violette refers to an over-identification with fiction where artistic expression exceeds critical confinement, and fantasy and reality are blurred.’

 

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Tereza Zelenkova Various (2016 – 2019)

 

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João Onofre Box sized DIE featuring Sacred Sin (2007-2008)
‘Box sized Die featuring No Return, 2007-2011 is both a sculpture and a performance. It consists of a black metal cube with sides measuring 183 cm. Making a direct reference to the minimal sculpture work by Tony Smith, and in particular his piece Die, João Onofre explores the potential of this black box by getting a Death Metal band to play inside it. Activated, the work offers an invisible show contained in a closed space. Only the residues of the sound vibrations attest to the inner power. The length of the performance is variable since the musicians are putting their physical limits to the test in experiencing imprisonment and asphyxia.’

 

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Erik Smith Perfect is My Death Word (2007)
‘Perfect is My Death Word is a recreation of the James Lee Byars sound work of the same name. The original work was produced by Byars and the Neues Museum Weserberg Bremen in 1995 and exists as an edition on CD of twenty minutes of silence followed by Byars saying the sentence “Perfect is my death word.” Smith asked Dutch Black Metal band Sammath to recreate the sound work by adhering to the twenty minutes of “silence” format before launching into one of their original songs with Byars’ sentence as chorus. Sammath performed Perfect is My Death Word at the De Appel Contemporary Art Centre in Amsterdam on February 16, 2007 for the opening of Smith’s exhibition The Ghost of James Lee Byars Calling.’

 

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Seldon Hunt Various (2014 – 2019)

 

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Mark Titchner N (I) B (2013)
‘Artist Mark Titchner’s N (I) B is a video portrait of Nicholas Bullen, a musician, sound artist and founding member of Grindcore band Napalm Death. Presented at the ‘Be True To Your Oblivion’ solo show at the New Art Gallery, Walsall, N (I) B is a silent large scale projection in which we are presented with a close up shot of Bullen’s mouth as he performs a work written by the artist.’

 

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Gast Bouschet & Nadine Hilbert
‘Over the past few years, Luxembourg duet Nadine Hilbert and Gast Bouschet have developed a multifaceted body of work at the crossroads of several media (video, photography, sound, etc.) and disciplines (visual arts, music, dance). In Metamorphic Earth, immense video projection and complex sound constructions plunge the spectator in a bewitching universe where he loses his physical marks and where fascination clashes with anxiety.’

Toward the Event Horizon (2011)

Tempestarii Video (2016)

Metamorphic Earth (2017)

 

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Analogue Black Terror (2019)
‘Between the late ’80s and 2000, a fringe of the extreme heavy metal youth culture decided to secede from the contemporary scenes to express their deep disgust and hostility towards organized religions, democracies, human rights, the modern world, and humankind in general. Driven by hatred, misanthropy, and Satanism, fueled by juvenile passion, and with very limited means, they produced myriads of homemade black metal recordings which left no room whatsoever for tolerance, mercy, or any kind of positive energy. Some were spoiled brats in search of a reason to rebel; some were convicted murderers, arsonists, grave desecrators, or rapist;, others were merely incredibly talented artists with a sincere will to put their work into the service of a greater evil.

‘Little consideration was given to sophisticated production, and given how much money was available in the scene, fancy options were not on the table anyway. Home-xeroxed duplicated tapes were spread hand-to-hand within local scenes, or worldwide, via snail mail, among a network of individuals all gathered around one idea: to remain an elite that stood alone against the modern world and prayed for its annihilation. A lot of them disappeared, a chosen few became legends… The author has an opinion of what happened to these bands since 2000, stating: “…before falling into disgrace to represent the embarrassing circus that black metal mostly stands for a quarter of century later.” Take that for what you will, there are definitely “cvlt” fans that want to return to the unrefined, raw sounds of the past, while others enjoy the progression. Either way, this book looks to be an incredible visual guide to history that is black metal.’

 

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Pavel Lyakhov
‘My favorite art subject: Sadness; latest autumn, winter, etc.; depressive music; ruins; abandoned places, etc. – such things inspire me to create my art. I get inspiration in my expeditions to Russian North, where I see snow-capped mountain sceneries. Survival in severe weather conditions gives me Inspiration for my art. My artwork is my world – it is frozen, cold world. And I feel comfortable in it.’ — PL

Живопись. Художник Павел Ляхов. Работа в мастерской

S.K.U.K.A Song2

🎨🎨🎨 Shadows of the Past. Vol-V. BlackMetal version

 

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Death Orgone Various (2017)

 

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Konrad Smolenski One Mind in a Million Heads (2015)
‘Konrad Smoleński describes his work as a mix of “spectacular pyrotechnic effects” and “minimal punk aesthetic.” Smoleński’s works frequently have an audio component, which might take the form of noise, music, or noise music. Speakers and microphones are also frequent motifs in his installations, appearing in overwhelming configurations and quantities, often alongside combustible materials and flames. The artist has an openly anarchic disposition, which manifests in the works as a sense of anxiety, disorientation, and awe.’

 

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Grace Ahlbom Various (2018)
‘I don’t really listen to black metal, but I don’t think that’s the point. It’s more just about the fan culture and the overall––the props, the makeup, the whole theatrical performance behind it is what I’m interested in.’

 

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Aaron Metté On the Black Universe in the Human Foundations of Color (2017)
Text: François Laruelle

 

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Peter Beste True Norwegian Black Metal (2007)
‘In 2002, New York-based photographer Peter Beste packed up a bag of belongings and a camera and flew out to Norway with the idea of documenting the country’s most notorious export, Black Metal. Six years and seven trips later, his resulting film and book, True Norwegian Black Metal, hits the airwaves and shelves. While some of Beste’s photos take the classically ’grimm’ route, others gently pry behind the mask, capturing the likes of Gorgoroth, Carpathian Forest, and Darkthrone in more natural surroundings. Intimate, almost conspiratorial, they give the impression of being welcomed into a lair.’

Watch it here

Book version

 

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Grant Willing Svart Metall (2008 – 2011)
‘Grant Willing’s ongoing photographic series Svart Metall is a meditation on the ineffable qualities of an unsubtle musical subculture, Black Metal. Though its sonic qualities are challenging even for some metalheads, its Nordic atmospherics and paganistic themes are arguably evocative for a diverse range of artists. The photographs are allusive of the themes black metal culture treats, and presented in a surprisingly informal way—printed on bleached newsprint stock. On this ephemeral paper, the photographs retain a stately quality but gain a more disorienting sense.’

 

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Ben Lee Ritchie Handler & Mike Z Morrell Crystalnacht Watersports Grimoire (2016)

 

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Russell Nachman Various (2012 – 2917)
‘I like having big ideas and weird mysterious stuff in the universe. This is kind of a longing for that. Like maybe in a post-religious society after everything has collapsed, these drunken idiots just pick up all sorts of detritus from Western civilization and remake it in their own image. So I never think of this, even though theyʼre black metal guys with tattoos of upside-down crosses and all that, itʼs never anti-Christian for me. Itʼs kind of like a post-Christian homage.’ — RN

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I don’t really understand the panic. That said, I’m already beginning to understand stir craziness. I think if France keeps us cooped up for more than the indicated two weeks, and longer than that is essentially inevitable, people even here in reasonable France will start going totally nuts. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hey, glad you dug that track. Hm, I like your cure idea. Maybe strobe lights will become the new toilet paper. ** Thomas Moronic, Hey there, Thomas, old buddy. Oh, gosh, no brainer on the blurb. The novel is really exquisite and formally fascinating and hits a deep, strange emotional spot to boot. And Michael’s cover is incredible too. I’m hanging in there. It’s already getting old though, and it has barely begun. Word re: your prime minister. Jesus, the UK and US both stuck with idiotic narcissists at the same time. What were the odds? Do your best. ** Bill, No joke. Definitely wish I was in the middle of working on a novel, but that well seems dry at the moment. I did finally order a Switch which arrives tomorrow, so I’ll be more (less?) squared away after that. Hope the online imbibing confab was a hit. Oh, cool, about hanging out with Robert Henke and the class interview! It’s a sweet work, for sure. Everyone, If you watched and were into Robert Henke’s piece/video yesterday, he did an interview for Bill Hsu’s class, and I’ll bet you it’s super interesting, and you can experience it via the wonders of Vimeo and under the title ‘Using Assembly Language: an Artist/Engineer’s View’ right here. Thank a lot for that, Bill! ** Steve Erickson, Hi. Understood. I personally find the harshness/intensity cathartic and relaxing, but yeah. But I am listening to tons of GbV, which is my guaranteed pleasure food. Happy to answer your question privately, of course. I’m glad you’re feeling calmer, and the doctor news is obviously relieving. ** schlix, Hi, Uli! Are you guys forcibly hunkered down like we are? I’m with you on Japanese noise. I drifted far into it when I was assembling that gig. Really happy you found so much in the selection! No, I don’t think I know the Ernie and Bert version. I have this knee-jerk ‘avoid all Muppets-related everything’ impulse for some reason, which is strange because I’ve never watched The Muppets in my life. I’ll take a peek, ha ha. I hope everything’s great with you, and hang in there through this big mess. ** Jeff J, Hi, Jeff. Thanks! Yeah, the Hantarash is older. A number of things in there are. They were just ‘of late’ to me. Good question about The Boredoms. They played here in Paris a few years ago, but it was in ‘legacy act’ mode, just doing one of their classic older things, and I didn’t go for that reason. Eye’s great, yeah, and he’s doing stuff fairly regularly in this medium and that from what I’ve seen. Yes, I have a Harmony Korine Day coming up, uh, I think a week from this coming Saturday. Nothing that stood out that I can remember, just generally kind of fun or great little things. There are quite a few ‘Trash Humpers’-related shorts that I hadn’t known existed, for instance. Friday or Saturday sounds good. I’m around almost all the time whether I like it or not. Hit me with an email or something, and we’ll sort it. ** Right. You’ll have pleasure of one sort of another with the blog today if you’ll just allow yourself. So, … do? See you tomorrow.

 

とらチャンネル
Concrete Mascara
Judgitzu
Torturing Nurse
OOIOO
Harsh Noise Movement
Zu
Hanatarash
hissquiet
Odour Trail
Salac
KK NULL
Robert Henke
Scatmother
Abed Abed
Infernal Legions Of Mordor
Mrs. Dink

 

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【MMD】ハードフレンズ 【けものフレンズ】
‘我慢できませんでした、ごめんなさい。’ — sm2168098

 

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Concrete Mascara ‎Futile Pattern
‘Perennial Disappointment is rife with urgency and tension, where caustic, distortion filled frequencies meet slashing, blown out noise, hyper-rhythmic pulsations, and venomous, dueling vocals. Collectively, it’s a perfectly engineered and concise declaration of arrival that should be a revelation for those that consider the genre to be one dimensional and stagnant.’ — bc

 

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Judgitzu Umeme
‘Judgitzu, the production alias of Julien Hairon, channels the singeli sound pioneered by the Nyege Nyege crew into his own singular take on speedcore. ‘Umeme’ is a 180bpm slice of brain-melting bass and ear-shredding synthesis. Described by Boomkat as a “punk ethnomusicologist”, Hairon runs the Les Cartes Postales Sonores and petPets labels, and has spent the last six years recording traditional music in Asia, Oceania and Africa. He has been a resident in Tanzania since 2017.’ — Fact Magazine

 

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Torturing Nurse live at LUFF
‘Torturing Nurse formally began as the duo of Junky and guitarist Misuzu Tornado banging their way around Junkyard’s former practice room on April 25, 2004. 15+ years later, it’s fair to say that Torturing Nurse is both China’s most extreme act — past shows have entailed S&M, bondage, raw pork, duct tape, and forcible dragging by the hair — and also its most prolific. Discogs places Torturing Nurse’s recorded output at 244 releases, but Junky balks at that: he maintains his own list of releases, which at this writing sits at 404.’ — RADII

 

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OOIOO SOL
‘Founded by Kyoko and YoshimiO (also a co-founding member of Boredoms) in 1995, the group has explored different instrumental and anti-formal arrangements throughout the years. On Nijimusi, they chose to prioritize a conventional rock set up of two guitars, bass and drums, which, when mixed with some brash and repetitive vocals, results in some delightfully bizarre, punk-inflected jams.’ — Fact Magazine

 

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HARSH NOISE MOVEMENT Kill The Government
‘Unless you are a fan of noise/power electronics and have been living under a rock, you are well aware of Harsh Noise Movement; the artist and label. Harsh Noise Movement is one of the most prolific acts and labels in the genre today.’ — Noise Beneath the Snow

 

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Zu Obsidian
‘For over fifteen years, ZU’s modus operandi of straddling and abusing musical genres has resulted in over fifteen unique album releases across labels such as Ipecac, Atavistic, Headz (jp). John Zorn describes their sound as “a powerful and expressive music that totally blows away what most bands do these days”.’ — Zuband

 

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Hanatarsh bulldozer gig
‘Hanatarashi (ハナタラシ), meaning “sniveler” or “snot-nosed” in Japanese, was a noise band created by later Boredoms frontman Yamantaka Eye and featured Zeni Geva guitarist Mitsuru Tabata. The outfit was formed in Osaka, Japan in 1984 after Eye and Tabata met as stage hands at an Einstürzende Neubauten show. One of the band’s most infamous shows included Eye destroying part of a venue with a backhoe bulldozer by driving it through the back wall and onto the stage.’ — Wiki

 

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hissquiet the sun aint gunna shine anymore
‘Hissquiet uses glistening tones and dark ambience to blur the lines between comfort and chaos. Working from a home studio in the mountains of New Hampshire as a one person project, Hissquiet is constantly perfecting a style that can be akin to early ambient Aphex Twin, Tim Hecker, or Godspeed You!’ — stf

 

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Odour Trail Untitled A
‘from “Feminist Performance Artist Challenges The Phallic Mythology Of Male Creativity, 1993”.’ — PI

 

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Salac Euphoria
‘Members of Bristol collective Avon Terror Corps, Salac are a Gaelic industrial duo hailing from separate cold corners of the world. Intersecting pagan ritualism with industrial choral alchemy, together they sculpt séances of sacred sound; igniting fires through walls of noise, voice, disjointed rhythm structures and intense ceremonial performance. One for the midnight edge-lords, Salac is a terrifying trip through abandoned wells, ritual dreampop, so-dank-it’s-almost-slo-grime industrial heaviness and the wild plants of Hy Brasil.’ — Avon Terror Corps

 

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KK NULL live at KGRn, Tokyo
‘KAZUYUKI KISHINO was born in Tokyo, Japan. Composer, guitarist, singer, mastermind of ZENI GEVA. One of the top names in Japanese noise music and in a larger context, one of the great cult artists in experimental music since the early 80’s. After playing the guitar as his main instrument for nearly thirty years, KK NULL has gradually moved towards a more electronic approach. Since the late 90’s he has concentrated his efforts on his solo & collaborative recordings, exploring the outer territories of electronica, creating intense clashing wave of noise, structured electro-acoustic ambience, broken down rhythmics, scattered pitch sculptures, droning isolationist material which could be described “cosmic noise maximal/minimalism”.’ — OW

 

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Robert Henke CBM 8032
‘At this week’s CTM Festival in Berlin, Robert Henke presented the German premiere of his new A/V show, CBM 8032. In the show, Henke uses five primitive CBM 8032 computers from 1980 to create an audiovisual show from microchips 100,000 times less powerful than the one you’d find in a modern washing machine.’ — Fact Magazine

 

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Scatmother Piquerism
‘The sounds of Scatmother might cut your eardrum like a scalpel, with its insanely sharp tuned Power Electronics, heavier than a gut-punch. Raise the volume high while listening in order to enjoy the torture to its fullest!’ — Cold Spring

 

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Abed Abed Yung Guns
‘Bangor, Maine’s ABED ABED’s tracks are minimalists at heart, working with only a few cheap boxes, but maximalist in enormous output! Their style hovers between Actress before he became all shiny AI and artsy and early Bunker recordings. Heavy, but subtle and with a distinct underground flavor. His sound is also melancholic in tone and melody. As if it longs for days long past or for a future different than one could ever imagine. Optimal experimental techno with some house overtones and a distorted slo-mo edge…’ — New York Haunted

 

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Infernal Legions of Mordor Incel Exterminator
‘Infernal Legions Of Mordor is what happens when one person somehow winds up living in the middle of nowhere Texas, listening to garbage from all across the spectrum of metal/punk/noise, watching shitty movies and tv shows, being a memelord, actually caring about things that matter in the sociopolitical realm, and for whatever godforsaken reason decides to throw all of these things together into one manic sonic assault of ultrashit noisecore, presented in the most displeasurable way. And obviously, this is a good thing.’ — Fucked By Noise

 

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Mrs Dink Big Finish
‘Somewhere out there, an engineer is creating a preset. He/she wants to do good. Make a sound that’s cool and recognizable and actually sounds like an accordion. Create a rhythm that actually sounds like salsa, or a marching band. But we, the users of the instruments, dispise his/her work. Using presets is the lowest of the low, something you just can’t ever do. Tweak the preset. Don’t ever use the preset. This is a special release for all of you. We wanted to share with you some of our fav presets and create tracks with them in which they are still recognizable. This is not some ironic hipster joke, this is us paying tribute to the men and women that created banks upon banks of presets for the gear we like to use. We hear ya, and even though we don’t use the presets, we appreciate the thoughts of adding them to the instruments! We are forever IN DEBT TO THE PRESET!’ — New York Haunted

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, There is some kind of Terry Southern documentary film or TV thing in the works, so maybe it was for that? I fully agree about ‘The Loved One’. It’s very strange here for sure. I haven’t been outside yet but I have to go somewhere today, so I’ll find out if or how often one gets asked for that printed document one needs to have with one. I got your email, thank you! And I look forward to watching the video today in fact. ** Sypha, The film version is very, very of its time. I like that period of wild, psychedelic-ish, silly films, but, yeah, it’s an amusing, uneven time capsule mostly, I think. You’re lucky your store is still operating at all. I hope that continues to be the case and that you don’t end up in a dead zone like Paris is. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh! Yes, it’s a very non-Parisian Paris at the moment. Paris without strolling and cafes and so on. Very, very odd. Not uninteresting in concept but due to get annoying very soon. Good question about the printer-less people. I don’t know. I believe it’s possible to fill out the form on your phone and show it on the screen as a pdf. I think so. I’m still pretty zen about the situation here. People seem pretty chill at least so far, but who knows after a week or more of this. No one really believes this will be over in the prescribed two weeks. I seem to be totally healthy thus far, as are all of my friends, last I heard. You do what it takes to stay 100%, sir. ** Bill, Hi, Bill. Like I told Tosh, I’m not sure what the people without printers do other than show a pdf of the filled out form on their phones. I’m venturing out today for the first time, so I’ll see what’s what. I know the police are intervening when they see people who aren’t keeping the 6 ft. distance regulation. Or they are on the news. I think I saw your email/post in my cyber-mailbox. Exciting! Thank you! I’ll set it up and write back to you! Thank you so much! ** wolf, Pretty real indeed, wolfie. Me too about feeling fortunate that France has a country that has a decisive-seeming leader who does what a leader is supposed to do right now, as much as I generally dislike and distrust Macron a lot. But, lord, compared to your fool over there and the US’s evil moron, wow. It’s hard to imagine that you guys won’t be in pretty much our situation pretty soon. The quarantining thing does seem to be to go-to approach everywhere at some point. Dude, people are getting so fucked by this economically. It’s unbelievable. As long as just under 50% of the US continues to support Trump, and I don’t see that shifting dramatically, no, universal healthcare is an increasingly popular pipe dream that has no real future no matter who gets elected. Despite what the hard core fans of a certain candidate fantasise, you can’t have a real revolution within the system in place there. There’s a lot of Walter Mitty syndrome going on over there these days, I think. Anyway, blah blah … Hang in there big time, buddy. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. That novel is a charmer. I think you’ll think so. If we can do it over here, and we are successfully doing it at least 24 hours into it, you can. Stay as safe as need be. ** Jeff J, Hi, Jeff! Good to see you! Mm, ‘TMC’ isn’t a bad place to start, novel-wise. I remember being very entertained by ‘Blue Movie’, and maybe more so, but I haven’t read it in ages. It’s a weird combination of crazy and peaceful here. You can well imagine. I’m not sure why the US is being so incremental and pussy-footing — well, actually, of course I know why — but it’s hard for me to imagine you guys won’t get locked down. Maybe I’m wrong. Or maybe it’ll just be major cities? It just seems like the only good/bad solution unless a vaccine or cure appears suddenly. France is starting to test a possible cure drug today. Yeah, ‘India Song’ is wonderful. Mm, well, cinemas have been shut here for a bit. Before that I saw a not-good French documentary about ‘Second Life’ and, as I think I may have said, Margaret Honda’s ‘Color Correction’, which was an intense experience. Mostly I’ve been watching films re: future blog posts I’ve been making, so I’ve seen a couple of Marie Losier films, some Vivienne Dick films, rewatched a couple of old Richard Kern films, some early Harmony Korine shorts I’d never seen, … I … didn’t do a post on the Buzzati book unless I’m blanking, but it’s an excellent idea. Obviously I hope your allergies leave you the fuck alone, and take care, and I’m still up for a Skype if/when you want. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. Man, try not to panic. That is not going to help, right? Well, if you were in your situation here, you would not have any problem at all going to that clinic. There’s no ‘exemption’ thing here. No need for it. You can do what you want as long as your going out has a specific purpose and you have the form stating where you’re going. You can’t wander aimlessly about or go hang out with your friends if there’s no other purpose to the gathering. You can take walks, but only in your own neighbourhood. There’s no restriction on traveling within France. It’s not martial law or anything. It’s not like being imprisoned. I can’t imagine that whatever comes down in NYC is going to be more strict than what we have here. Try to stay as calm and practical as you can, man. ** Okay. I made you a new gig of new things I’ve been into to entertain you during your increased home time, so I hope you’ll give the thing a listen and maybe find things that your ears and moods and tastes agree with. See you tomorrow.