Oblivians -- SYMPATHY SESSIONS [Sympathy for the Record Industry]

Let's see... the cover features a really slutty-looking babe with BIG breasts... inner photo of the band has them lounging about in dresses... the artwork is mostly clip 'n paste montages from porn magazines... titles come in the form of goodies like "i'm not a sicko there's a plate in my head," "five hour man," and "kick your ass"... why, i do believe we have a GARAGE BAND here. Not just a garage band, but a sincerely WHITE-TRASH garage band. Sexist, obnoxious, poorly-recorded, sometimes poorly played, it's all just a big mess....

Naturally, it is godlike. (Did i mention that the nasty thing on the cover is wearing black vinyl microshorts?) This is garage the way garage is MEANT to be played -- loud, sloppy, meandering, stupid, crazed, the work of drunks with guitars and a four-track that only intermittently works. In other words, it is LOTS OF FUN. They also never wear out their welcome -- there are 18 tracks in not much more than half an hour (possibly because they had to take so many piss breaks after consuming those massive kegs o' beer, hmmmm).

Many things to like here, such as the bass that sounds like a sax on "Happy Blues," the crapped-out fuzztone guitar of "Never Enough" (an ode to dirty magazines) and a great many other tunes, the ramshackle let's-all- attack-our-instrments-haphazardly approach taken on "Five Hour Man" and "Shut My Mouth," and the ham-fisted lead wrangling on "Clones" (not a cover of the Alice Cooper classic, by the way). DEAD ANGEL's favorite, though, is the sneering, pickle-in-yer-ass tight "Memphis Creep," which rocks like a pee dog and sounds like they might have actually been SOBER when it was recorded, what a scary thought! Throughout the disc, they sing/shout like they are possessed by the God of Mad Dog 20/20, always a good thing if you can pull it off (and they can, believe me)....

This is actually a CD-only release, somewhat unusual for SFTRI, but for a good reason: it is the combination of two previous vinyl releases (OBLIVIANS and SIX OF THE BEST), here together in one convenient place so you don't have to worry about spilling your beer getting up to flip the record over. Just for that garage authenticity, it sounds every bit as gloriously shitty as i'm sure the vinyl sounded... hell, it was probably MASTERED from the vinyl. It's definitely not "art," but you'll have an easier time fucking to it than to anything by Gastr del Sol....

The Oblivion Ensemble -- NIGHTMARE: SINISTROTORSE [Complacency]

More unconventional weirdness from Complaceny. This is billed as an "electro-acoustic opera" and incorporates elements of gothic, avant-garde, progressive, and God only knows what else to form a surprisingly cohesive sound. The opera details the "story" of four nebulous characters (Mind, Eye, Voice, and Apparition) interacting against a well-orchestrated and constantly evolving series of seamless musical movements. The orchestration is led by a couple of NYC composers, John Bergstrom and Brannon Hungness, who provide the vocals for Eye and Voice, respectively (Rebecca Karpoff and Renee Favond appear as Mind and Apparition). Hungness is also currently a member of Glenn Branca's ensemble, which mind explain the fondess for the huge guitars that surge in and out of the mix on a regular basis.

Beyond that, i'm not sure how you'd even begin to describe this without actually hearing it. It IS, however, the kind of work that's meant to be heard as a whole; taking bits and pieces out of it and listening to them out of context simply won't work. (It would be hard to do anyway, since the music all runs together throughout the length of the CD.) The feel of it all is cinematic enough to suggest that it probably works even better as accompaniment to a real stage opera, although it works well enough on its own. The music itself is well thought-out and impressive in its dynamics, and certainly eerie enough, even if the "concept" remains a bit mystifying without close study of the "libretto" provided (and even then it's fairly opaque). Interesting, to say the least....

Disturbed experiments in sound collage, ranging from symphonic keyboards to inexplicable crunching noises to tapes being fast-forwarded at warp speed then hurled off a cliff. The songs (pieces? movements? what do you call these things, anyway?) are short, violent bursts of sound with titles like "train pulling into an abandoned station at 12:32 in the morning" and (my favorite) "the alleged vibration of a hen," and it frequently takes longer to read 'n grok the titles than it does for the actual track to play (probably intentional). There's nothing here even remotely resembling an actual song, but that's okay -- there are some seriously boss tones 'n noises scattered all over the place, and it's all chaotic and disparate enough that you have absolutely no idea what's coming next. Occasionally they lapse into ambient keyboard drones supplanted by perverse noises, just to give your helpless ears a rest, but that doesn't last -- eventually their sickness overtakes them and they are forced, once again, to bombard you with harsh, squealing sonic filth. Favorite part of the album: toward the end, when they have four or five nearly identical tracks of harsh, grunting noise back to back, followed by what sounds like a giant eating steel cornflakes. This is a seriously apocalyptic mess o' noise at times, often sounding like they recorded the whole thing in sink disposal while it was running at full blast. Note that the track listings and the actual number of tracks present have absolutely no relation....

I've never heard of these guys before (and what's with the sudden influx of bands with names beginning with O, anyway? First OSCID, now this... what's up with that?), but seeing as how they're apparently from England, that might explain it. The label calls them "minimalist dark hop" and i suppose that's as good a hat to hang on their collective hook as any, but the real secret weapon lurking in the background here is... yes... Mick Harris. (You knew he'd turn up in something like this sooner or later -- it's a known fact that Mick cannot stop recording, he gets up to take a piss in the middle of the night and turns on the tape machine and later throws a beat on top of it, the fun never ends for the Tornado....) It seems that Mick sent these jolly fellows a CD-R containing sixteen minutes worth o' patented Harris beats, loops, and other shit; OCOSI, in turn, used about a minute's worth to create seemingly endless loops o' minimalist hop fury. The end result is something akin to a mid-period Scorn disc skipping. That sounds like an insult, sure, but it's not -- the effect is actually more interesting than that, because what they've done is this: for each song, they've taken that CD-R sample, looped it, pushed it upfront, then buried lots of swirling, evolving sounds behind it. So while the forefront of the songs remains aggressively static, much like a lockgroove, the background is what makes things really interesting. Kind of a radical idea, combining hip-hop lockgrooves with the moody bleatings of isolationist ambience. While most hip-hop albums, regardless of the flavor, are concerned mainly with the beat, this album is concerned just as much with the space of sound around the beat. Intriguing... most intriguing.

The first two tracks, "Opener" and "Yous" are essentially bedrock explorations of this concept -- just the beat, ma'am, with the swirly shit happening in the background -- and exist, i suspect, just to stake out their territory, sort of like stating the theme in the introduction of that long-lost graduate master's thesis on the implications of air and sound in the field of trip-hop or some such thing like that. With the third track, "Comascene," they start drifting from that bedrock sound a bit; the static beat remains upfront, but they start screwing with the EQ in addition to making all the weird sounds behind the beat, and in "Bwoing," they begin adding spaces between the loops; then in "Suck Radius" they start juxtaposing bass loops with the beat loops and building on the beat loops as well while the swirly stuff floats by in the background like blood running downstream. On "Crane," they begin with the shuddering bass loop and gradually fade in the beat loop, then fade it back out, sucking it in and out of the mix. For most of "Vor-Tec" they dispense with the beat entirely, playing ambient loops against bass loops, until the beat loop finally comes crashing in, augmented by weird trilling noises and other sonic effluvia pooting away in the background. At last, "Out" brings on a heavy beat loop that cuts out at unexpected moments only to return again, riding herd over more ambient riverbed sound washes, falling away occasionally to accent how the ambient sound is shifting and growing in volume.

Color me impressed... this is a pretty bizarre way to demonstrate the tangets of minimalism, but it works, which is a sure sign of genius. Fair warning, though... approach with caution if you have a low tolerance for repetition, mon. When i say the beats often seem endless, i'm not kidding. (What's tantalizing, even more, is the possibility of further tinkering -- they only used one of the sixteen minutes on that CD-R, remember, so theoretically they could be working on even more of these twisted sonic experiments even now. One can only hope.)

TMU: I think what we have here -- and bear in mind, the cassette's insert is largely in Japanese and incredibly inscrutable, even by their standards -- is a split cassette with OCM on one side and Youmaakago on the other. That is the sum total of my knowledge on this situation. With this in mind, let's drop science with them, shall we? Here's OCM....

TTBMD: Hard to describe. Lo-fi snap, crackle, pop and ethereal sounds, raw sounds.... Very interesting.

TMU: Like an accidental field recording, perhaps on malfunctioning equipment, of the comings and goings of various interstellar aircraft. While music from the cocktail lounge leaks into the mike and PA announcements occasionally overwhelm everything. This is the real "industrial music" right here, boyee -- the sounds of work rendered into noise.

TTBMD: I agree. I feel like I'm in an airport, but it's really a dream. And there's bubbles around me, and I'm confused about which flight to get on, and when I try to get help, everybody blows me off. So what the hell do I do? Because they speak Japanese. I don't know what the hell they're saying.

TMU: It's times like this that you really need someone like Miki Sawaguchi around to comfort you with her great bosom. Plus she knows Japanese and probably understands what the hell is going on here. Do you suppose that unannounced field recordings of the workings of a government office or union assembly line, marketed as noise, might sound exotic to other countries? I lie awake at night thinking about these things, you know.

TTBMD: Miki Sawaguchi would be the ultimate tour guide. This is a good fucking tape. It's got a lot happening. A lot of ins and outs, you know?

TMU: I really think this is exotica as interpreted by a noise band.

TTBMD: Yes, yes.

TMU: We must remember this, o my brother -- this must be among the music we stockpile for the day, not soon in coming but soon enough, that we will have to repel the monstrous advances of the Evil Penguin as it attempts to take over the earth. Unless he pays us enough in gold bars to escape to Switzerland first, in which case he can have the goddamn waste dump if he wants it.

TTBMD: The guy was playing guitar just a minute ago -- and now he's got all these scary sounds going on... this material should be properly released by a label or something.

TMU: Yes, i agree, but what can be done? We are goddamn fucking poor and no one listens to our wisdom, o my brother. If they did, we would be millionaires already and living in giant houses built back when Mies Van der Rohe was a real man, surrounded by groupies with huge fucking tits and a permanent case of laryngitis. But is this true, o my brother? IT IS NOT! NO, it is not, and you know why? Because we are the sworn ememies of the Evil Penguin. He's fucking with us, but we are strong... we care not... we're saving up all our strength to come stick our collective foot up his ass and he knows it. We will prevail, like the northern sons! HAIL! FUCK THE EVIL PENGUIN!

TTBMD: Once again you've lost me. These guys really know how to use their equipment. They never stay in one place, it's always growing and changing.

TMU: Yes, they achieve a nice flow. They have a good mojo going on here. It's not quite funk of the mothership, but it's got a lineage somewhere from the ocean of drone, and that's good enough. Okay, for comparison now, let's check out the other side and see what Youmaakago sound like. (they both listen for a while) They remind me of Onna-Kodomo, which is kind of interesting. Minimalism and vast canyons of reverb and delay are a good combination.

TTBMD: It's like ritual music, isn't it?A warrior, preparing for battle. Leaving his homeland. His future uncertain. Eh? Eh?

TMU: I'll buy that. I was going to suggest the grim soundtrack to the scene of the natives cleaning up after the great burning of the wicker man, but i can go with that.

TTBMD: It's also like the moment... like the freedom that suicide gives you, like the decision has been made....

TMU: The relaxing joy of the inevitable, the point where there can be no turning back. The stone has been lifted, for better or for worse.

TTBMD: Like you're in the bathtub, man, slowly sinking into the water, going under... knowing you're never going to return to the reality you've always known.

TMU: This is what we'll play when we've slain the Evil Penguin and are butchering his ravaged corpse for our feeding frenzy. Mein gott in der himmel, this sudden and radical jump in volume is a bit excessive....

TTBMD: Yeah, they laid it on a little thick. I can deal with where they're coming from.

TMU: Is someone screaming periodically or is that just my constant paranoia voicing itself through these alien chord progressions? 

TTBMD: I think this is regression. They're going back into the black hole from which they came, man. A rebirth. A painful, hideous rebirth.

TMU: This is sound of celestial cell death, one fading star at a time.

TTBMD: Infinite pain.... embracing the pain.

TMU: Joined in fucking darkness is what this band is. Motherfucking avant black metal. The long pauses between songs are kind of annoying, though. (song plays, finally) Look! See how you shake when i hit you with my cattle prod of destiny!

TTBMD: Reminds me of some Haters-type stuff. Harsh, noise for the sake of noise. No shape, no form....

TMU: There's tons o' form here, man. He's just wiggling notes at an obscene volume, but there's a pattern to it somewhere... kind of... okay, this bit at the end is pretty goddamn devolved.

TTBMD: Just run-of-the-mill noise here. Still good, but....

TMU: Not powerful enough to jolt the Evil Penguin, true. Just normal mortals. Perhaps he'll start to seriously hang fire here in a minute, i know he's got it in him if he just starts to swing....

TTBMD: A nice effort by Youmaakago.

TMU: Yes, these are fine sounds, although the editing between tracks could use some work. Worth investigating if you can find this truly obscure item.

This intriguing project is spearheaded by one E. G. Lewis, whom you might know more familiarly as Graham Lewis, one of the instigators of the art-punk weirdos Wire. Apparently he now hangs out in Sweden a lot and does this kind of stuff for fun -- "this stuff" being live, semi-ambient noise compositions, some of which are anchored by a most minimal beat and some of which aren't. The results are kind of interesting -- if you removed the beat (minimal as it is) from the 17:00 "Detect," you could mistake this for an Organum track. The only things happening are the plodding, unchanging beat and a background of rumbling electronics; at regular intervals another layer of electronics fades up and back out, providing a counterpoint beat of sorts. As the song progresses, other things -- tinky-tink sounds, changes in tone, drones, and flanged-out swirls of echo -- insinuate themselves at the edges. Marvelous stuff. The rest of the disc is not quite so brilliant as this opening track, but still worth hearing. The basic blueprint remains the same on the twelve other tracks: layers of looped electronics, minimal beats, and effects create a fog-like swirl of immensely slowed-down electro-techno stripped down to its most basic elements. On songs like "Root Shop" and "Ticks," each centered around a looped phrase, they veer in the direction of The Hafler Trio; in moments like the thudding "Fyra," they swing closer to the evil of Nurse With Wound. Most of the time, though, they sound like a peculiar cross between Organum and Main flirting with the tools of techno. "Dearth of the Cold" actually sounds like straight-ahead techno, although its tones are a bit... ah... off. Strange and eerie stuff, especially on "Lax," with its motorized pulses that speed up and slow down while loops chant mystically and scratching noises grow in tormented fashion. Fans of mutant electronica will find it intriguing, assuming anybody can find it -- Origin is apparently based in Sweden only (i got my copy from a friend who lives there, nyah nyah), although with Lewis being involved, i can't imagine that it won't be available in the US at some point. If it does become available in your neck of the woods, it's worth seeking out for a listen.

A short one (about 20 minutes) from this legend, who took a long hiatus after being one of the old guard '80s noise musicians. It's a real beaut, still nothing of the caliber of his track on the JOURNEY INTO PAIN 4 x C-60 comp, but magnificent nonetheless. A very rhythmic work that resembles very layered and complex (often almost music rhythmic -- gasp!) Power Electronics, with what sounds like maybe actual instruments supplying some of the sources. The textures seem fresh, or at least fresher, than much of the competition. SIde two's rhythms become so fast and spastic that the slow swagger PE sound of side one is transformed into a much more conventional noise approach, even if the sounds are roughly the same. Subtle, dynamic, and just the right length for listening it to five or six times in a row (it could have stood to be at least 46 minutes maybe, with Odal, I'll take what I can get!). Edition of not that many from Joel at Spite, so get to it quick-fast. [cms]

Of Cabbages and Kings -- s/t [Purge / Sound League]

This is one more obscure and idiosyncrastic groups around -- pretty odd, when you consider that the drummer (Ted Parsons) used to be in Swans and now thumps for Prong, and Algis Kizys continues to play for Swans; you'd think that with pedigrees like that, more people would know about OCAK. Then again, it's not like they work at keeping a high profile -- in eight years they've released maybe two singles and three albums, which doesn't exactly make them prolific (and the first single was apparently only pressed to be played on the jukebox at their favorite club hangout, making it, ah, REALLY hard to find).

Which is too bad, because judging by this EP, OCAK is a pretty interesting unit. In addition to the aforementioned sourpusses, Carolyn Master (whoever she is) tosses in lots o' scary guitar. (She and Kizys are actually the core of the band; Parsons left for Prong after the second record, and various other members of Swans, Glenn Branca's orchestra, and Live Skull have floated in and out of the band over the years.) This is closer to Swans than Prong, for lack of any better comparison, although it's mercifully not mired in the mud like so many of the Swans records (I mean, slow is one thing, but paleolithic crawl is another), and Master is a much more hyperactive guitarist than any of those to pass through Swans.

"The Veil Turns" revolves around tornado drumming and a fast, mantra-like guitar figure while Kizys rants about... uhhhh... the sea? Fishes? Winter? My, you'd never guess it from the song itself... he sounds more like he's screaming about being castrated. That joker.... "Jack" is more like it, sounding utterly possessed and with lyrics to match, apparently about John Wayne Gacy, certainly about cutting people into tiny pieces. "I" is another slice of bleakness, this time with bone-rattling drum pounding, jagged bass chords, and ugly shards of hateful, hateful guitar battling against the vocal duet of Master and Kizys. The final cut, "Bud," is actually Baudelaire's "Possessed" mired in a sonic nightmare of brutal sludge-drumming and squealing guitar... great Halloween music, play this for your neighbors and watch them pee on the sidewalk....

The only bad thing about this EP is that there's not enough of it. But good luck finding it; I spent something like four years looking for the damn thing and just happened to stumble across it at the record convention through sheer dumb luck. And now I have to find the OTHER two albums.... They also get bonus morbid points for the totally tasteless cover of a dead dog rotting in a field. Talk about your serious death fixation....

Of Cabbages and Kings -- BASIC PAIN, BASIC PLEASURE [XXX Records]

More primal sludge from Algis Kizys (Swans) and Carolyn Master, along with a couple of other unknowns to round out the punishment. Ted Parsons (Swans, Prong) is replaced here by Richard J. Hutchins on drums, and while he does a fine job, he's a lot more straightforward than Parsons, not quite so prone to veering off in unexpected directions, which makes this album the closest thing to a "normal" rock album the group's ever done, as far as i know. "The Reign" gets things off to a good start with a chugging bassline before whirling- dervish guitar and flat-footed drums come in while Kizys wails (apparently about God squashing the earth like a bug). It's monstrous and pounding, and the rest of the album -- while good -- never quite lives up to it. The lyrics are as morbid and over-the-top as you'd expect from the leader of the Swans' slow grinding doom. "Land of the '57 Chevy," with lyrics and vocals by Master, is a lot more interesting, even semi-funky (well, relatively speaking -- "funky" like Swans might get funky, which is to say, not that much).

"Crawl" offers more pounding menace and screeching guitar noises, even REALLY FAST guitar riffing -- will wonders never cease! -- while "Crawl Again" takes the same basic idea and slows it down to a, uh, crawl. (Yes, that was bad, i know, i couldn't help myself.) The disc ends with the savage mutilation of the traditional tune "John Barleycorn Must Die," complete with Swans-style vocal rumbling and more wind-shear riffing. The overall effect is somewhere between a faster Swans and a more muscular version of the early, doom-obsessed Cure, which is ok by me. I wonder if they're ever going to make any more albums, though? One can only guess....

Of Skin and Saliva -- SAHUL [Cop Intl.]

This is the first thing coming out of the "industrial" camp in a long time (and NOT on Cold Meat Industries) that I can actually get behind in a big way. The big reason, i think, is that because whereas most industrial bands persist in looking to the future (where everything apparently looks like BLADE RUNNER at four a.m. and really stinks and everybody speaks in cryptic soundbites in reference to their favorite hip cult movies), OSAS tends to look backward -- their music, while undeniably machine-driven, is so firmly rooted in tribal and classical origins that it comes across less as an artificial sample-happy clockwork nightmare than as what might happen if an ancient African tribe of war drummers materialized in the middle of cosmopolitan New York and set up camp in the middle of a synth factory. This... is a good thing. (It also helps that they can actually sing, and therefore can dispense with the tired vocoder foolishness that every industrial band since Skinny Puppy has totally driven deep, deep into the dead, cold ground.)

What this attitude has wrought, then, is this wee EP of four songs and approximately twenty minutes, which isn't nearly enough but will have to do until the full album comes out in the fall. From the opening moans and cries of "Sahul," which quickly shifts into a lurching, twisting bed of percussive spikes buried in a wall of ambient synths and punctuated by impressive Teutonic chanting, it quickly becomes obvious that the band's main forte lies in composition -- not only do many disparate elments manage to work as a seamless whole, but something unexpected happens at every turn (brief drum breaks, one-bar guitar figures) without ever disrupting the total flow of the song. "The Wicker Man" and "Yggrdrasil" -- the former about obeisance to the Sun God, the other a Norse reference to the Tree of Life -- confirm that the first song wasn't a fluke, moving with flawless command through different rhythms, tempos, and textures like a river of notes. "Cleansing the Spine" is the closest they ever come to "traditional" industrial-dance sound, and even then they're off on a peculiar tangent uniquely their own. While it does shift into moments of aggression from time to time, it never quite lapses into the blatant metalisms of many of the newer industrial bands; OSAS apparently believe that if you want to listen to heavy metal, you should go listen to heavy metal. Come to this particular funeral pyre and you'd best be ready for something else entirely....

One of the most interesting things about OSAS is that they sound awfully Teutonic for a band of decidedly American origins (they're from CINCINATTI for God's sake, what are they doing sounding like Laibach possessed by the ghosts of African bushmen with well-thumbed classical record collections?). This means they don't scream and rant, in other words -- but merely have a lot of gravity in the vocals and sound like they consider you to be a puny bug not even worth squashing beneath their boots 'cause they just spent many hours applying that shoeshine and don't want to mess up their shoes over something so insignificant as YOU. This too... is a good thing. Oh, and they also have really good taste in what they appropriate from the many genres they plunder, which automatically puts them miles ahead of nearly everybody in the genre right now.

And the album graphics are really happening, too....

Recorded in the summer of 1999, the seven exercises in live improvisation here form the second album from this quartet. Balanced somewhere in the zone between chamber music and free jazz, in the tradition of AMM and Ligeti, with a vast sense of space and a deliberate (creeping up on glacial) approach to tempo, the speed of their improv and the choice of instruments (clarinets, guitars, trumpets, bass, and piano) make for some serious moments of pure drone as well, especially in "Trace." Pat O'Keefe gets manic on clarinet in "Boundaries," and eventually Scott Walton ups the ante on bass, which makes for an interesting (and thick) slab of peculiar throb. Most of the time, however, their approach is quieter, slower, and more reflective -- on "Graft" the space between instruments, the paucity of their simple patterns and melodic lines, makes the sound spacious and ghostlike, at least until they heat it up with frenzied clarinet soloing and rumbling kettle drums. Grating, scraping sounds dominate "Measure," which makes the low-key and melodic "Time, Not Tide" that follows sound gentle by comparison. Delicate and plaintive soloing from the horns combine with bass drone to form tidal drifts of sound, like the soundtrack to a sunset on the coast. This is assured, evocative ensemble music performed live with considerable skill and attention to performance. As with other Circumvention releases to date, this is worth looking into if you're interested in the more melodic and less strident wing of current free jazz.

Enigmatic fragments of recycling sound adrift in a telegraphic sea of noise... that's what comes to mind when Old Bombs (Dino, Vanessa, and Carlos, whoever they might be) work their noisy mojo on "Old Bombs 3," the first of two long cuts on this disc. Using a variety of efx devices, radio (or scanner), and what sounds like a lot of damaged keyboards (among other things), they create thick drifts of noise that come and go as people pound on things, set off strange loops of sound, fiddle with pedals to change the sound texture, and so on. There are distinct movements, where they'll fixate on the permutations of a given collection of sounds before moving on, and the entire piece flows easily without interruption. Smooth, like carefully chosen spices for the king's meal. The second track, by Wolf Eyes (Aaron Dilloway, Nathan Young, and John Olsen), is helpfully entitled "WCBN 2/8/2001" and is obviously a live recording at the radio station. Their masterplan follows the one laid down by Old Bombs, but their noises are darker, louder, denser. They also get a bit of the tribal drum thing going at times, which adds to the sinister otherworldliness. The natives in the jungle grow restless! Another fine collection of devolved sounds and cryptic strategems from your pals at Public Eyesore. It'll go down best with white wine and cheese.

Jeff Olson -- KNICK KNACKS AND PADDY WHACKS [Spilling Audio]

More oddness from Spilling Audio, only this rocks a bit harder than most of the SA releases, particularly on "Germ Boy," with its fuzzbass and solid drumming, and "Look Ma No Sticks," where kettle drums boom away as cowbells and other exotic instruments waffle away over the beat. Like most Spilling Audio tapes, there are plenty of unusual instrume

nts on this one. In other places the going is a bit weirder, particularly on the quasi-jazzy "Little Green Fireball" (there sure seems to be a lot of semi-jazzy stuff in this issue!), and bleating synth abounds all over the place, which i suppose could be annoying to some people. "Dark Flame" rumbles through the low end and tweets and chirps at the high endon one end and tweets on the other, while "The Devil in My Wallet" grinds away with fuzzy guitars again. "Mirror Ambulance" mixes steady drumming, synth pulses, and siren wails to create a propulsive and catchy tune, while "Old Tom Pull" sounds more like an old-time marching tune complete with odd synthesized tuba.... As always with the Spilling Audio series, the main force at work here is the percussion, but the additional instrumentation is pretty sharp and just eccentric enough to be interesting without wandering into the territory of the unlistenable avant-garde.

Onna-Kodomo -- SYUUKA [Charnel Music]

Yow! This is like... like transmissions from a dead world. Fresh from the latest LAND OF THE RISING NOISE compilation (the second volume), where their "Aoi Hata" was one of the highlights, Onna-Kodomo presents this eerie collection of droning, post-ambient psychedelic minimalism. Armed with two bass guitars, a guitar, an electric violin, and the loneliest voice in the world, what seeps out is the sound of a beautiful nightmare... or perhaps a nightmarish form of beauty. It's kind of hard to tell.

On the first song, "Echo," the bass drones come in waves and the violin saws away in extreme slow motion while Yuko Hasegawa wails high above the ether in a voice that's either tremendously erotic or incredibly scary, depending on whether you ate Ecstasy or acid before listening. (I'm not hep to either, so it just sounds beautifully ethereal to moi.) And by the time the second song arrives ("When She Ascend for Steps"), it becomes obvious that they are emboldened by the virtues of slowness -- this band makes Low look like speed metal, at least in terms of tempo. This... is a good thing. (Really, it is. Trust me.)

"Driftin'" incorporates the sound of guitar hum and occasional noises (but in the background, in unobtrusive fashion) to add a bit of texture to the general floatiness, while "Phantom Pain" picks up the pace a bit (sort of) by working from an actual chord progression of sorts amid the sliding notes, percussive tapping, and ghostly vox. And there's a pretty serious VU influence happening in "Black Forest - I can't sleep," where the droning violin soars up to meet Hasegawa's vocal line before sawing back down again to meet the equally droning guitar hum. Or perhaps it's a Tony Conrad influence; it's certainly minimalist enough for that.

An actual real live chord progression turns up in "Stray Sheep," over which the violin plays in short bursts and... ah... not much else happens, except possibly for the purposes of texture. At this point, it also becomes obvious that Angelo Badalamenti (he of the creepy TWIN PEAKS music, and orchestrator of Julee Cruse's not-dissimilar sound) is also quite likely an influence. It's interesting to imagine that, especially in light of the fact that unlike Badalamenti, they don't believe in keyboards and drums.

The last song -- literally; it's called "Syuuka (The Last Song)" -- fades in on a drone that turns into another slow-motion bassline over which Hasegawa moans, sounding like an angel hidden in the clouds. At that point it would be easy for detractors to point out how similar all the material is, but that works to their advantage -- all seven songs essentially become the submerged parts of a larger whole that takes up the entire album. I will admit that this might be best enjoyed as background music, but that hardly detracts from its brilliance. Their sound is amazing, one that encompasses darkwave, goth, noise (to a degree), psychedelia, and ambient all at the same time. Highly recommended for your next astral journey, chemically-induced or otherwise....

This is some seriously mysterious mojo, man. Never heard of the band before, which is hardly surprising, since they're apparently from Poland, and I have only Smolken from Dead Raven Choir to thank for the chance to grok it at all. Their sound is somewhere in the neighborhood of that smoky country death blues that the Black Heart Procession called their stomping grounds early on, just a few fields down from Current 93 and all the World Serpent bands. They're not too far removed from the Dead Raven Choir in terms of intent, in fact. But then their sound is so lush and ambient, so slow and droning, it calls to mind bands like Maeror Tri, Troum, Flying Saucer Attack, Godspeed You Black Emperor... all those droning soundtrack bands. The cd itself comes with four stiff inserts, all from a sinister medieval painting, with lyrics, notes, etc. on the back, completing a graceful and eerie experience with the appropriate graphics. I greatly approve. This is a brilliant cd, far too complicated and otherworldly to bother with yapping about "why" it is a dark work of genius -- just trust me, it is and you want to hear it. Uh, somehow. (No, you can't borrow my copy, I'm listening to it, grrrr....)

Live and limited to 50 copies, boyee, so if you're down on the One Inch tip you'd best be hustlin' to scoop this up. We're talking diabolical psych-fu, slow and purposeful hypnodrone that will swallow you whole and print a whole row of blotter squares across the back of your skull. This and the disc in the following review are the first two shots to the dome of a live series of limited cd-rs on the band's own label; this particular one is from a show at the Goat Song Theater in Wroctaw last November, and it's a good one, not to mention well-recorded. The band is one of Poland's obscure treasures, and one of the finest psych bands ever -- and this definitely shows them at their best, with lots of hypnotic drones anchored by steady and uncomplicated beats, bell-like tones, and mysterious threads of sound winding through the drone. There are seven tracks (of which the first and last are almost endless, a good thing, trust me) that will greatly please any fan of Troum, Acid Mothers Temple, Trance, or Spear. Good, good stuff. Mmmmm mmmm good.

More of the same, only limited to sixty this time and recorded at the Philosophical Eatery in Warsaw in January of this year. This time there are eight tracks and they don't bother with titles; what you get is drone and lots of it, along with unpredictable behavior and the power of repetition as filtered through psych-laden efx pedals. Make no mistake, this is hallucinatory-sounding stuff, the music of spaceships from distant galaxies; it's also frequently repetitive and lulling. Strange, beautiful noises reverberating endlessly in mantras without end. More greatness from a band more people should know about.

This was sent to me because the band is looking for someone to put out the album, but since Monotremata has gone to the Big Sleep, it won't be moi... but it probably should be somebody, because it's a lovely slice of psychedelic drone. At times they remind me of a less-histronic My Bloody Valentine or Worms with a jazzier drummer; in other places they sound like keyboard-driven prog rock with nods to noise and improv in the background. Often hypnotic and bass-heavy, with guitars that often wallow in tremelo madness but just as often wind into cascading sheets of harmony and melody, the five long tracks here would surely be embraced by any sane psych-enthusiast. This is an excellent album, with some ominous, warbling drones amid the amped-up guitar thunder, and plenty of soothing ambient drone as well. We approve, and if you know of anybody who might be interested in releasing such a swell disc, you should email the band (see EPHEMERA for contact details) or something and let them know.

Yoko Ono -- ONOBOX [Rykodisc]

Yes, i know it's been out for a billion years or so, but i just got it, so all right already, eh? And the masses should know about it, for it's a pretty impressive collection. People who insist on viewing Yoko as nothing more than a self-indulgent "Beatle wife" should listen to this six-CD set carefully and critically, for it's a solid body of work. Aside from the deluxe presentation (exceptional graphics and outer packaging, a lavish CD booklet, excellent remastering on the discs, blah blah blah), the real treasure here is the gathering of a lot of really interesting, sometimes even challenging, material that is otherwise pretty much unavailable now (unless you're hep to rooting out the original albums in second-hand stores). The set serves as a chronological document of Yoko's musical history, and deserves more attention than it has received so far. Really, Yoko deserves more respect than she's gotten in some quarters, and this is certainly a serious project that ought to silence her detractors (although it probably won't).

The discs each cover distinct periods of Yoko's career. The first disc, LONDON JAM, consists of early material from 1968 to 1971, recorded in London and at the beginning of Yoko and Lennon's move to New York. This is the material that earned Yoko her reputation as a freaked-out wail machine; most of it is a mix of severely twisted avant-garde hocus-pocus and quasi- psychadelic freeform jazz. Twisted jams like "Why" and "Why Not," in which Lennon plays apocalyptic art-damaged guitar beside equally devolved swami moves from Eric Clapton, are pretty impressive, as are the the disturbing overt sexuality of "Open Your Box" and the desperate yelping of "Don't Worry, Kyoko" (the original version, not the apparently traumatic and endless version of later albums), one of my favorite tracks from this disc. Listening to the selections on this disc make it pretty clear why Ornette Coleman was interested in working with her; this is seriously out-there free-jazz that moves in all the right places.

What's peculiar, though, is that this is the ONLY period most people associate with Yoko -- as subsequent discs in this collection prove, she quickly moved into considerably more poplike structures, into stuff that is actually fairly accessible, but you'd never know it from the ignorant spoo mouthed by her detractors. The second disc, NEW YORK ROCK, contains a lot of genuinely pretty (yet often bleak) pop songs that have been surprisingly influential to a later generation of musicians -- from "Death of Samantha" (which spawned the name of a band) to the sound of almost everything else here, you can hear strains of this in a lot of current music. A lot of this may sound familiar to the new listener simply because people have been cribbing from it for a good while. And it's interesting to see that with titles like "What A Bastard The World Is" and "I Felt Like Smashing My Face In A Clear Glass Window" that Yoko effectively effectively predates the bitterness and self-loathing that was later to characterize much of the punk and postpunk music. (The former song, incidentally, is not only brilliant, but one of the best from her ouvre.) More than anything else, this is a sharp collection of pop songs with odd but imaginative instrumentation (particularly from Lennon, whose guitar pops up everywhere, sounding nothing like his work in the Beatles).

One of the most surprising things about this box set is how fresh and current a lot of this material sounds -- no small feat for music that, on the early discs, was recorded well over twenty years ago. Some of the strongest material from the set is squirreled away on the third disc, RUN, RUN, RUN: the chugging, eerie "Coffin Car," with its wailing guitars and chilling lyrics ("half the world is dead anyway / half the world is asleep"); the airy bleakness of the light jazz of "Run, Run, Run" (with more bleak lyrics; nobody ever accused Yoko of being unnaturally jolly); the proto-feminism and rage of "Angry Young Woman".... This is all first- rate stuff. The real surprise, though, is "Woman Power" -- with its heavily gated drums, odd noises, and thundering metallic riffing, it sounds like Nine Inch Nails from a time when Trent probably still thought a gate was something you use to keep castles closed. Not only does it sound totally current, it also sounds better than most of what's out there right now, plus it's monolithically heavy -- like, how the FUCK did they get a bass to sound that good back in the early seventies? Jeez, mon....

The fourth disc, KISS, KISS, KISS, opens with what is possibly her best-known song -- "Walking On Thin Ice," a scary death-dance drone with guitars that churn over a heavy beat while Lennon churns out some wild tremelo guitar. The chorus, which Yoko chanting "ice, ice, ice" obsessively in a high-pitched wail until the words become something more than words, is one of the creepiest things you'd ever want to hear (in fact, the master tapes to this song were in Lennon's hands as they returned from the session when he was shot). The rest of the material on this disc is from the DOUBLE FANTASY and MILK AND HONEY period, in which the material is largely dance- oriented. Several of the better songs here have been the subject of notable covers, such as "Yes, I'm Your Angel" and "Every Man Has A Woman Who Loves Him." Among the more notable songs on this disc are the jumpy "Kiss, Kiss, Kiss" and the hard-rocking "Give Me Something," but as with the previous discs, the quality is pretty uniform....

There are two more discs in the set -- NO, NO, NO (consisting of material recorded after Lennon's death) and A STORY (an already existing but never-released album from 1974 that was subsequently remixed entirely for this disc plus seven other unreleased songs) -- but i'm not going to get into those those, seeing as how i've already expended a ridiculous number of words on this review already, heh. Suffice to say that they fit in well with the rest of the set and are worth hearing. Taking all six discs together, there are 105 songs on the set -- a sizeable body of work, well worth delving into, especially given its remarkable consistency of quality. In other words, coolness....

Everything this band does should probably come with a warning and a set of earplugs. Their mojo revolves largely around the deep and mystical realization that everything -- yes, everything -- sounds better distorted, and that distorted sounds are better when they're really loud. Not everything they do is piercingly loud, but the quiet parts are there just to lull you into submission before they stick a screwdriver in your ear without warning just to see what you'll say. The band is two guitarists (Lea Cummings and Murray Johnston), two jokers from Scotland with a slew of releases on various labels here and there, mining the sonic wasteland between free improv and pure blinding noise. (In case you were wondering, now would probably be a good time to point out that this is not the metal-core Opaque from the U.S. I can only imagine the befuddlement of those showing up at the wrong gigs.) When they're not shrieking and howling and trying to sand your face off (did I mention they're capable of being REALLY LOUD?), they get off on hypnotic sound-efx mantras and floating guitar drone, calling up flashbacks to Maeror Tri's early period in particular. At times their experimental approach to sound puts them in similar territory to some of the improv artists on Public Eyesore, Accretions, and Beta-Lactam Ring, but often they veer wildly into power-electronics territory (minus the irritating sloganeering and questionable politics). As with most improv artists, half of their sensibility is derived from the song titles, and in this respect they do not disappoint. Titles like "Milano Eyeshields" and "Edgar Blows Up" are merely cryptic references and / or in-jokes, while titles like "My hosts must have wondered why they'd asked for an expert and been sent this hooligan instead" and "He should change his name to fucking Santa Claus" indicate the presence of a certain (black) sense of humor, something often missing in these affairs. Regardless of the titles, though, this is serious stuff, filled with intriguing noises, machine rhythms, and pure derangement. It even comes in a nifty (and limited) digipak. Bonus points for (if the inner photo is any indication) owning waaaaaaay too many efx pedals for a rational human being.

This is kind of interesting -- I'm not sure where Opeth are from (somewhere overseas), but they fuse classic death metal with folk and classical elements. While they are fully capable of bone-crushing, apocalyptic fury, they are equally capable of pastoral folk grooves, and often mix the two to interesting effect. The result is really well-executed progressive metal. I like the fact that they are not afraid to employ a grand piano (and actually know how to play it). I'm guessing they have ties to black metal bands, but unlike many of them, they generally prefer tempos that are not the product of men who consume too much caffeine. My favorite track is "Dirge for November," which begins as pure classical guitar and halfway through mutates into a blinding whiteout of guitars and drums in "GO!" mode. Another favorite, and similar in style, would be "Patterns in the Ivy" (where they even make brief nods to jazz in the piano playing). I have to say, in spite of their technical excellence at the metalish parts, I'd really like to hear a completely acoustic album from them. The tinkly pretty parts are actually my favorite parts of the album. One of the better examples of the light/heavy motif. I like the fact that they are capable of pacing themselves (which means they don't exhaust me the way Emperor does).

Like whoa man, on THE BIG BLACK Orange Goblin are pissed. I mean kick-your-ass-real-good pissed, not kicking-back-at-the-pub-with-a-Guinness pissed. This is a good thing. Their previous records, while generally quite good, gave the impression that something was missing. Upon listening to THE BIG BLACK, the thing that was lacking from their other releases becomes obvious: there was no grit.

THE BIG BLACK makes up for this in a big way. Everything is in your face. The guitars are fuzz machines, the drums are nice and punchy, the bass rumbles, and frontman Ben Ward gets in touch with his inner Lemmy. Along with the newfound grittiness, the tempos have picked up in a big way. It seems they've dropped the mid-tempo plodding for a shambling punk rock kinda thing.

They have also tightened up their songwriting. While they do go off on a few tangents (i.e. the white-boy blues intro on "Stinkin' o' Gin") there is very little fat on these songs. Some people will probably think the inclusion of a Misfits cover ("We Bite") is a bit ridiculous, "See we're REAL PUNK, punk!" but they do a pretty good job with it and it definitely suits the vibe of the disc.

The 'Goblins should pat themselves (and producer Scott Reeder) on the back. By their fourth album most bands are on cruise control. Orange Goblin have managed to avoid that trap and turn out one bad-assed record. [n/a]

This is the last record from a great band. It has some great thrashing, screaming, grinding songs. On this one they slow things down... just for a second or two. It even has some metal in it! This band will be greatly missed and if you never saw them live, you missed out. [TTBMD]

Organum -- DESOLA 3" [Robot Records]

It's difficult to describe just what Organum is. In essence, it frames what i consider to be the evolution of musique concrete today. Organum accomplishes its distinct sound by blending layers of seemingly incongruent drone sounds into a rich, hypnotic pattern of drones. The first track on this single is a tranquil wash of drones, focusing on the tension between the higher pitched wooden flute playing and low-range rumbling drones. The second track is a bit more cacaphonic, punctuated by the duelling sounds of dissonant bowed metal squealing and scraping metal drones with very distant flute sounds. This track ends abruptly just as the sounds are starting to really take root, a trick that is all too familiar for avid Organum listeners. The final track focuses on layering multiple flute playing sounds and low-range drones. This single draws on the core genius elements that defines Organum's sound and reasserts its uniquely beautiful nature and quality. [yol]

Organum -- VOLUME ONE [Robot Records]

Goddamn, it's about time... Robot finally talked David Jackman into letting them start releasing all of the old and obscure (not to mention out-of-print) Organum material, and this is the first chunk of it. Of course, they weren't able to talk him into doing any actual art for the album, so the whole thing is just black, black, black -- how boring (shades o' Spinal Tap, mon). And it's kind of annoying that the titles are present only on the disc itself. But hell, it's Orgranum! Old, rare Organum! How pissy can one get, eh? (Said tracks, by the way, come from the albums TOWER OF SILENCE,, IN EXTREMIS, and the RASA split with Nurse With Wound.)

So now the problem comes of actually describing it all... easier said than done. If you've heard Organum before, then you probably have a good idea of what's on here. If you haven't, then it's best described as forbidding dronescapes of electronic sound filled with strange noises in the background and odd samples. While this is hardly a revolutionary idea these days, it's worth pointing out that Organum was one of the first artists working in this vein, and remains by far one of the best and most consistent. I have yet to hear a bad Organum album, and this early material does not break that streak. I especially like "Voice of the Angel," where a shuddering drone rises and falls like waves in the ocean while bright sparkling noises occasionally bob to the surface before receding into the background again. Some of the samples sound like children shouting on a playground, although it's hard to tell if that's actually right or a trick of the imagination. "Rasa" is also a most ominous piece of work, full of sinister whispering, creeping drones, and moaning sounds from an instrument of an unspecified nature."In Extremis Pt. 1" is harsher and more rhythmic, at least until the rhythm is buried beneath the drone and hiss; chittering eggbeater sounds fade in and out throughout the track as well. The last track is more of the same only more intimidating, with abrupt crashing sounds buried in the wall of sonic degradation. If you want to hear where most (if not all) of the current ambient drone pliers stole all their boss moves, then you definitely must acquire this disc.

And you'd best hurry, if that's the case -- this is apparently limited to a run of 500 copies, and given how difficult it was to convince Jackman to even let it be in the first place, chances pretty good that there won't be another run. Once this is gone, that's it -- unless you feel like forking out massive amounts o' $$$ for the original albums (i think TOWER OF SILENCE is currently fetching up to $75 or more), assuming you can even find the damn things. An interesting tidbit for those of you who keep up with these things: One of the albums was truncated by one song to appear here (i think it's IN EXTREMIS; the missing track is "Valley of the Worms"). Why? Who the hell knows? You'd have to ask Jackman on that one....

The unearthing of rare and limited Organum spoo continues.This disc consists of three long tracks: "Valley of Worms," from IN EXTREMIS (the rest of which can be found on VOLUME ONE); "Horii," the a-side of HORII; and a track that may be previously unreleased, "Chreisteweitundverweiltefureinigezeitintring." At least, i couldn't find it referenced anywhere in two different, fairly complete Organum discographies.... This disc is the latest installment in a continuing effort on Robot's part to reissue all of the early LP material in digital format, for the benefit of those who missed out the first time around. (Note, though, that the reissues are coming out in runs of 500, which means they will probably go out of print quickly... so don't fart around, okay? If you want it, you better go get it while it's there to get.) With the release of this disc, all of the material from TOWER OF SILENCE and IN EXTREMIS, plus the Organum sides of HORII and A MISSING SENSE/RASA is now available on CD, along with the later CD releases; the only LPs missing now on disc are VACANT LIGHTS, IKON, WRACK, and SPHYX. Got all that?

Now, i have only one complaint (well, i lied, i have two): one, it's godamnned annoying that there is absolutely no liner note info -- i had to look up discographies on the web to find out all this shit -- and two, what is it with the non-artwork? It's the same complaint i make with every Organum/Jackman release lately and i guess it's not making a dent... ah well....

So anyway, what you get with the purchase of this otherwise fine disc is a trilogy of long, vaguely ambient noise soundscapes. Lots of droning, wavelike hiss with various layers of noise and found sounds and other ephemera rising and falling in the mix. This is oceanic-style Organum, not particularly harsh as on some later material; you could actually lie back and drift off to sleep with this on low volume. The mystery track with the long and obtuse name is almost religious-sounding, kind of an interesting move... it sounds like a processed church organ with lots of swirly ambient windshriek in the background. Be forewarned: there's very little in the way of structure or movement in these pieces. They simply start, trundle along for a while, then stop. But the tones are most soothing, mon... ambient Organum is a good thing....

Talk about cryptic, even for David Jackman this is getting on up there: Three tracks, no titles, no CD art, the insert is just the same damn picture (a tree-lined junkyard) repeated four times... if it weren't for Jackman's previous efforts totally lacking in art, i'd think this was enigmatic -- as it is, i'm inclined to think more along the lines of laziness. Well, whatever, mon.... So i guess there's nothing to talk about but the sound, eh? Well, it sounds... uh... well, sort of... um... uh... goddamn it, it's an Organum record. You already know how this sounds. More of Jackman's patented drones within drones, wailing away like a lapping sea o' fuzziness. Probably the best comparison is to Jackman's "solo" disc SOL MARA, although this is not a solo effort (he's aided and abetted here by the likes of Mat Fox, Robert Hampson, Emma O'Bong, and Michael Prime). As with earlier efforts in this vein, the drones basically gon on and on for a long time with minute shifts occurring throughout the work (although the second track does have some mildly thunderous crashing moments), and the tracks are waaaaaaaay long, mon... be prepared to wallow in all that is dronelike. The upshot of all this is that if you're already hep to Organum, you'll probably want this and are already prepared for it; if not, well, there are better places to start, where the works are a bit more bit-sized and not quite so relentlessly minimal....

More ambience than you know what to do with, buddy. This is the CD reissue of a couple of lost items originally released on vinyl -- STJERNEVANDRING and the double-album EESTILILLED SILMAD SUDA, now squeezed onto two compact discs and accompanied by a cryptic booklet full of otherworldly psychedelic paintings. The first disc (and first album) is two long tracks of ominous drone -- the first, "Stjernevandring," is primarily a bed of flanged-out, shuddering hum overlaid with crashing waves of sound and unidentifiable flotsam rising to the surface from time to time, primal and seemingly endless, like Organum on "stun" -- more like found sound of the ocean and tectonic plates moving than anything apparently assembled by humans. (The liner notes mentions "environmental sounds recorded in Hokksund," if that helps.) The second track, "Manedans," is more ethereal and brings to mind Troum, although i don't think guitars are involved here. It would interesting to know the method of sound production, actually, now that i think of it. The sound is atmospheric and unearthly, leavened by twinkling sounds and brief spurts of noise buried in the background.. There's nothing concrete to grab onto, nothing identifiable making the sounds, and all you can do is float along the waves of sound and see where you wash ashore.

The second disc is taken from a double-LP (four tracks) recorded at the same time and released separately. Here the sound sources and locations include "VSB, the mine at Nesodden, Tallin, Tartu and inbetween." Yes, that explains everything! Uh huh.... At any rate, the modus operandi isn't all that different from the first disc: waves of sound and swirly noises do battle with the sound of entropy in action, especially on "Rannak Tahtede Vahel." The sound is deeper and a bit more mechanical (at least in its motion) on "Tahevalgus," sounding like what you might hear from a boat crossing the ocean in the middle of the night as whales pass by. "Punane Kuu" works with similar motifs (and a circular, tinny sub-rhythm), but fades in and isn't quite as fearsome. The final track, "Vennad Valgusis," is built on a rhythmic percussion of some kind around which drones and mystic sounds swirl. This is sleepytime music, to be sure. The true spirit of ambient music.

I could tell you more about the man behind Origami Galaktika (and its parent organization, Origami Republika), but the mystery is so much more interesting, don't you think? If you're absolutely dying to know more, you can visit their site -- just be aware that perhaps some mysteries were not meant to be revealed....

Jim O'Rourke -- HAPPY DAYS [Revenant]

A new solo outing for O'Rourke. The disc contains only one 47:33-long track, starting off quietly and very minimally with a single acoustic guitar. O'Rourke plays only two notes on the guitar. As this continues, repeated, over the next four minutes, a sense of monotony dissipates. Like smoke, wafting carefree, all that was gives way to the profound sense of being utterly transfixed by the sounds heard. Gradually, the addition of multiple (processed) hurdy-gurdy's and other guitar layers spread out and canvas the landscape. By the time I was ten minutes into listening, I was completely hooked on the combination of repetition and drone. It's almost impossible to believe that one can be hypnotized and yet engaged at the same time. [yol]

Orphan Moon -- HAVE A LITTLE FAITH [Brainforest]

Interesting... This band incorporates elements of country (the REAL thing dammit, not that cheesy black-hat crap currently radiating from Nashville), ethereal goth, Appalachian music, and traditional rock to create something lush and orchestral that's difficult to categorize. Which probably means they're doomed in a musical climate that currently prefers cookie-cutter emulations of bands that can be easily pigeonholed for MTV-ready reference, but that shouldn't stop you from checking it out. So many cool things happening here... the Smoky Mountain violin break in the middle of "I Will Love You," the shimmering neo-psychadelic intro of "Love Song" that continues as irradiated guitars in the backround, the almost-but-not-quite- traditional country sound of "Turn the Tide," the stately piano and violin accompaniment of "Underneath the Orphan Moon," the slow and ominous bass pulse and skittering violins in "Have a Little Faith"... and the gorgeous vox everywhere, kind of reminiscent of the singer from October Project.

The only "bad" thing about this album, actually, is that while it all works together in a lush and orchestrated way, its individual elements will make it difficult to get appropriate airplay anywhere (it's too weird for country, has too many country elements for the goths, etc., etc.) -- but that's everyone else's problem, not Orphan Moon's.

Fans of long departed psych-metal band Fear of God (the metal one fronted by Dawn Crosby, not the hardcore one from Italy or Denmark or somplace on the other side of the ocean) should sit up and pay attention here. The copious press notes make singer / head brain-drain Otep Shamaya out to be a nu-metal female answer to Andrew Vachss -- the music is all about abuse and violence, some of it autobiographical, and Shamaya is apparently involved with a number of domestic and sexual abuse charities -- but in a lot of places the effect is less like nu-metal than a revamped and more current version of Dawn Crosby's old band. In other places there's definitely way too much nu-metal, but they have interesting tribal rhythms happening here and there, and when they really get worked up they are undeniably heavy. They do a really good (early) Godflesh impersonation on "Tortured," and on the more dirgelike pieces like "Emtee" they sound remarkably like the Jarboe songs from late-period Swans; a lot of the time, though, they sound a bit too nu-metal for their own good. There's no question that they know what they're doing, though -- the drummer in particular has a serious case of the badasses -- and having Terry Date (producer for the good albums by Prong, White Zombie, etc.) in charge of the recording means it sounds pretty sharp. I think I would have liked this album a lot better ten years ago, though, before the whole nu-metal thing started playing itself out.

Elsie and Jack, one of the most adventurous experimental labels around today, produces releases under a two-tier system: the main releases (so far by the likes of Aube, Subarachnoid Space and Walking Timebombs, Tabata, Shifts, etc.) are packed in stunning jewel cases that look like they cost a fortune to make with some of the most amazing graphics in the music industry, bar none; then the second tier, releases that are packaged in cardboard digipaks with minimal ornamentation (but still every bit as well-designed as the more elaborate releases). These are the mar/ino recordings, designed to "spread the word" at a reasonable price. Don't be fooled by the simple packaging, however; these are excellent recordings, and while the digipaks may be minimalistic, they include sumptuous liner notes in mylar sheets... very nice....

This is the second disc in "the complication series" (the first was a sampler of bonus tracks from previous and future E+J artists), and features the low-key hallucinatory jazz-psych ditherings of Outerdrive, a group about which i know almost nothing, except that it's centered around bassist Scott Hill (although i see that Geoff Walker of Gravitar is involved -- credited with "fire, air, water," whatever that means -- so they hang out with the right people, obviously), but they are quite good. A lot of this disc suggests what Gravitar might be like without the noise overkill; there are heavy elements of free jazz, particularly in the percussion stylings, and guitarist Jason Vernier is fond of the repetitive wah-riffing commonly found in Gravitar songs. (Geoff Walker contributes "vox" and odd efx throughout the album.) But Outerdrive, while ever bit as bent on exploring the reaches of mind-expanding sound, are nowhere near as crazed and heavy as Gravitar; rather, they take more of a "cool jazz" approach and mix a much heavier dose of straight psychedelia into their sound. "no2" features some of the Gravitarish frippertronic guitar noodlings, yes, but it's also built on a percussion bed of steel drums and enveloped in ambient bass. The rhythm section holds a steady pulse as the warbling guitar winds in and out, occasionally joined by a high-pitched, skittering guitar that hovers above the fray. They pick up the pace on "side show," with complex drum and bass rhythms punctuated by more psychedelic guitar and saxaphone (?), blowing almost in a bop style frenzy, building to moments where a breakdown seems imminent... but the breakdown does not come. Instead, the song drops into a lower gear as stylish guitar flourishes take the center stage. Gradually the speed and intensity build back up again before slowing down again, finally ending with fuzzed-out bass bleats. The sound that slowly fades in at the beginning of "spreadable jellies" is the sound of an interstellar overdrive in full flower; under the guidance of a steady beat, trippy looped guitars bob and weave as odd-sounding instruments fade in and out of the mix; the song eventually fades out much the way it faded in, with strange sounds dwindling into the ether. One of the later songs, "mexicali floaties," opens with bizarre noises (courtesy of Mr. Walker) and a repetitive guitar figure; the song quickly settles into slow-blues mode, albeit the kind of blues one might play after eating mushrooms in a faraway galaxy. The final song, "tomorrow," is one of the few times the bass takes a noticeably prominent spot in the mix; over a fuzzy, endless bass riff and drum brushes, Scott Hill intones... uh, something. I don't know what it is (other than mostly drones and wails), but it's most lulling.

One of the more interesting aspects of Outerdrive's game plan is their tendency toward understatement. They play with verve, yes, and they aren't afraid to break out the efx pedals, but they never overdo it in the fashion of piling everything on until it becomes a sonic omlette. The album as a whole is much cleaner-sounding and far more restrained than your average experimental psych album of late. A perfect companion for an evening of stylish relaxation.

Outhouse -- PROCESS OF ELIMINATION [dist. by Unit Circle]

I have a problem with John Coltrane. While i'm absolutely convinced his work was brilliant, and certainly remain impressed with his superior tone and all that, the truth is that on his more advanced workouts, i have absolutely no idea what the hell he's getting at. I sit there listening to "Ascension" and "Om" going, "Damn, i KNOW this has to be brilliant, i KNOW it means something, but... uh... i don't have a clue as to what that is. Not even remotely." It's... annoying.

And yet i keep going back to listen, hoping that someday -- some fine sunny day -- that everything will come together at once and i'll suddenly grok the gesalt and scream, "OF COURSE! That was it ALL ALONG!"

I get the same feeling while listening to this disc. One of the reviews provided in the promo thingy sez they are apparently influenced by Ornette Coleman's harmolodics, his school of thought that essentially tells players to do their thing all at the same time with only minimal regard for the restrictions of meter, tempo, and whatnot. (It's something like that, anyway. Don't look at me, dammit, i don't understand jazz! I play fuzzed- out minor chords, i don't know about these diminished augmented fragmented double-stop inverted ninth chords! Aaaaaah! DON'T SHOOT ME, I'M ONLY THE PIANO PLAYER AND A BAD ONE AT THAT!) So the minute they mention Coleman, i KNOW i'm in trouble, because i listened to a Coleman disc once and was like "What the hell is this? I'm confused and i want my mommy now."

So anyway, these guys play a deranged mix of funk and jazz and they have a tendency all play different things at once. Busy, complicated things. The results are often... uh, messy. (Although "The Spider Song" is actually pretty straightforward and quite nifty.) When they all make at least a token attempt at playing the same song, as on "Package Check," the results sound something like a jazzier Funkadelic minus all the ridiculous crap about flying saucers and penisauruses; but when they all chart their own wildly divergent paths through the same song, as on "Introduction" and parts of "Theme," they get really hard to follow. I'd like to note, though, that the sound of their instruments (from a timbral perspective) is stellar from the word go, especially on "Say Nope to Dope," where the bassist and guitarist get a just-barely-distorted-but-amazingly-distinct sound that i'd really sort of like to rip off for my own band, although it'll probably never happen 'cause i'm not that smart.

The hyperkinetic, Coltranish sax bleating on "Marble Engraving," however, is most stylish and the rest of the band swings behind it in pretty solid fashion. So this is cool enough, yah... and while it's not necessarily my favorite thing, seeing as how i like my rhythms solid like a metronome carved from stone, it ought to hold plenty o' appeal for Coleman fans and other devotees of borderless free jazz.

OVMN -- OPTIMUM VOLUME MAXIMUM NOISE [MSNP]

Think of this as a companion piece to Macronympha's PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA -- only without the concept vision -- and you have the basic idea. This is a solo turn from Joseph Roemer of Macronympha, combining and remixing the most punishing sounds from Thirdorgan material into the low- end damage of Macronympha's material to form the audio equivalent of a whirling bed of fire-kissed knives. This actually came out earlier this year, but the similarities between the two projects are unmistakable. Of the two, this may be the more punishing one, since the mix here emphasizes the high frequency wail over the subsonic crunch, a mix that's essentially reversed on the PITTSBURGH album. The stuttering, screaming shards of sound buried in a nonstop howl of aggression here only confirm that the noise sweepstakes are heating up considerably on this side of the Atlantic. If i remember correctly, the other half of Macronympha -- Rodger Stella -- is ass-deep in his own solo project; if this is any indication, it should be a terrorfest in its own right once it eventually emerges. Regardless, this is a fine document of cut-up electronic power filth. Bonus points for the cool packaging: The 60-minute cassette comes enclosed in a plastic snapbox with a wraparound color cover of a surreal landscape littered with nude bodies and includes a foldout insert (black and white) of interesting collage art.

OVMN -- THROBBING PULSE [SE Production]

OVMN stands for "Optimum Volume Maximum Noise," and while this is not quite the living hell that earlier OVMN material has been, it is hardly quiet, either. There are four pieces on the first side, which are marginally more "restrained" (but only in the sense that being killed with a gun might be more "tasteful" than being killed with a bucksaw) than the last cassette. In other words, there are actually brief seconds of white space before the sonic ugliness cuts everything up again, as on "Fossilized," which also includes some nice metallic percussion amdist the electrosqueaks and windy roaring noises. (At least i THINK it's "Fossilized"....)

The second side... is NOT restrained. It is loud, noisy, cut-up shriek filth, particularly on "Noise Good Fuck." Screeching, oversaturated blasts of sound jump back and forth across the speakers in the usual mode... most cruel. "Backward Thunderhead Power Surge" finishes off the cassette, although frankly, i can't tell where the break is -- it all roars past my ears like a bullet train being eaten by angry hornets....

Given that this is supposedly the "quieter" side of Macronympha's Joe Roemer, it makes one wonder how devilishly over-the-top the next Macronympha offering will be. Something to anticipate, perhaps....