Crystal Castles – ST (2008)
This is a great bitcore album, it sounds just like the music that I longed for throughout my long dark twenties back in the twentieth century. But alas, the NintenGod didn’t deem it suitable to release this beautiful album until I was almost 38 years old.
Thanks to the great tv-series Skins, I got a minor musical orgasm when they played Alice Practice – the second track from this album, on the show.
The songs are cyber/urban and somewhat Japanese in their own way. The vocals are glitchy and cut up, often beyond comprehension and the minimal lyrics deal with darkness, drugs and nightmares.
It’s a great ride. Go give it a try.
Bonus information: One of the ambitions of the band, was to open for Melt-Banana.
And now this post turns dark. I hadn’t really read much about the band before, but I did some research yesterday… and I guess I could be the last person who likes music to discover that Ethan Kath – the producer of the band has been really badly controlling and abusing the singer Alice Glass, who only was 15 years old when they met. He was 26 (sic).
And this leaves me with a feeling of extreme ambivalence. The dilemma of whether I can enjoy the art of a abuser and his victim? The music is fantastic. So is this music of Burzum, Michael Jackson and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers. And these days of streaming leaves a small amount of my money in the pockets of people whom I’d never give as much as the time of day due to them being fucking scum. Back in the olden days you bought the record/cd/tape and then your paying the artist was done. And yes I know that this also has several morally questionable aspects. I don’t know what to conclude from this. The fact is that this record is fantastic but made by a predator and his very much underage victim. I’m not going to put any link up for this, but instead link to Alice Glass’ latest release the single Remains.
Awfully quiet
I have been busy for a while getting my life back on track after a massive shitpile of personal stuff.
But I have decided to give the blog a bit of attention.
So today I will give you a list of the artists I have listened to the most in the past year:
- Kiss
- Napalm Death
- Ghost
- Black Sabbath
- Judas Priest
- Iron Maiden
- Venom
- Morta Skuld
- Mercyful Fate
- Destruction
As you can see I have been comfort listening.
All the bands are long time heroes of mine apart from Morta Skuld.
Look out for me outside the comfort zone in the near future.
Agoraphobic Nosebleed/Kill The Client – Agoraphobic Nosebleed/Kill The Client (7″ split, 2007)
SIDE A: AGORAPHOBIC NOSEBLEED
ASSAULT RIFLE: This is my favourite ANb track ever!!! Annihilate fucking everyone!! Annihilate everything! The toms in the intro drumroll… All about this track rules fucking hard! 10/10.
MOCK EXECUTION: Again a quick and dirty ditty from Hull and Co. Not an outstanding song, but wild and crazy vocals keep it interesting.
ANTI-CHRISTIAN: Love this song forever! Double bass drums and groovy shit all over makes this a total winner. And with a song title that is emotional comfort food for a christianity hating pig as me, it doesn’t get any better….
SIDE B: KILL THE CLIENT
SPARTACUS: “Things will continue to get worse…” Massive and noisy and tight as my ass used to be! All is descriptive of KTC on this split. Spartacus is a great song. Love the vox and the blasts!
99% TURNOVER RATE: Another steady banger. The muffled mix/production rules. Groovy bridge too.
RETALIATE: Retaliate takes off where 99% Turnover Rate left, almost as a second part of the same song – dunno if it’s intentional, but op i røven med det. Det virker!!
Energumeno/Hades Mining Co. _ Freshly Dead (7″ split, 2017)
Energumeno/Hades Mining Co. – Freshly Dead (7″ 2017)
https://www.discogs.com/Energumeno-Hades-Mining-Co–Freshly-Dead-/release/10044038
Side A: Energumeno – Rememorando Mierdas Del Pasado.
Energumeno is a band where two of my oldest friends in the wonderful world of noise play, Javi and Manolo are the guys who run R.O.N.F. Records which was the first label to release Kusari Gama Kill many years ago. Still if they weren’t my friends, I’d love their side of the split. Tight noisy noisecore as I like it!
Side B: Hades Mining Co. – Mass Dysentery Insurgency / Anarchy In Your Anal Hole + Sting Like A Butterfly, Fly Like A Bee.
HMC plays a more sloppy noisecore than Energumeno, but not less enjoyable. Loads of references here (or so I think) to all sorts of music. Style wise we’re more in Seven Minutes of Nausea-country. Good fun!
All in all a great 7″ that’s worth buying.
Mike Oldfield – Discovery (1984)
https://www.discogs.com/Mike-Oldfield-Discovery/release/96973
Mike Oldfield – Discovery (1984)
This was as far as I recall one of the first records by Mike Oldfield I heard, the first song I listened to by him was Moonlight Shadow. And thus Crisis would be the first lp by him I laid ears on.
Discovery (or as a local DJ used to pronounce it: Disco Very (sic)), is not my favourite lp by Oldfield, but not the worst either. Personally I guess my eternal # 1 is Ommadawn. What I think about the songs here are as follows:
SIDE A:
To France: Obviously an attempt to make Moonlight Shadow 2, and not a bad attempt either. I love the way the lyrics weave around the melody, and Maggie Reilly’s voice is sweet as ever. The guitar solos (both acoustic and electric) also works well for me.
Poison Arrows: This has been ruined for me by the Zombies re-make made a few years back. Still an ok song, I imagine it’s a return to the mood Oldfield had when he made Shadow on the Wall. There is some of the same gloomy-ness. The delay/phaser effect on the drums are supercool. Even the faux werewolf howl in the end comes out not too tacky.
Crystal Gazing: Here we are in Family Man territory, again a return to earlier moods and recipies from Gordon Mikefield. This is not the most exciting song. A bit gumpetung, and too repetitive without being hypnotizing (and me likes monotony when done properly).
Tricks of the Light: Is a song I don’t really like.
Discovery: Again a bit of a Shadow on the Wall feel here. I remember liking this song a lot back when the lp came out, but I was a sucker for powerballads then. Not as much now
SIDE B:
Talk About Your Life: I love this song, easily the best song on the record, the vocals are majestic and all comes together in a higher synthesis. It still speaks to me as powerfully as it did in 1984.
Saved by a Bell: A bit of a Disney-banger here. A universe-themed grandiose epic 70’s style rock-ballad. That works!! Much better than the title track. Love it!
The Lake: The final song and the only instrumental on the lp. Starts off with faux pan flutes in delay loop. Urgh, It sucks. Sorry to say, but if I was randomly shuffling through this lp I would never listen to the entire song. And then the progressive stuff comes in. Not good, I really don’t like this. Gumpetungt and uninspired. Western guitar??
My final verdict is that this isn’t Oldfield’s finest hour, but still an ok record to put on once in a while.
Sodom – Demonized (2017)
I ❤️ Sodom! And the Witching Metal demo from 1982 is an old favorite of mine. I was very happy, when I got the news that Floga Records was about to release an lp with the Witching Metal demo and also the Victims Of Death demo from 1984.
This is a great release, and a must have for the connoisseur of early thrash. Enough said, go get it!!
Autopsy – Mental Funeral
I quite vividly remember when this lp was released. I already knew Autopsy’s first lp Severed Survival, and liked it. So it was with great enthusiasm I put this lp on my record player. I think it was my friend Morten Lose who bought it and brought it to my tiny flat in Hundegade in Ribe. So there we were, in a house built in 1588, listening to what seemed like a brand new form of death metal. I wasn’t prepared for a sound so filthy and uncompromising. The song Dead is still among my eternal favorites. The song structures are strange and twisted compared to the death metal that preceded it. This is for me still the ultimate soundtrack for a trip to the deepest pits of Hell. Dirty!! DIRTY!!!!
I have lost count of (never had it, really) how many times I’ve listened to this. But it wasn’t until 2003 I got around to buy it, so I could lay my dubbed cassette to rest. At that point I bought it on cd, but hooray! Today I finally got it on lp. And it’s an absolute pleasure to listen to.
The lp: https://www.discogs.com/Autopsy-Mental-Funeral/release/9845487
The cd: https://www.discogs.com/Autopsy-Mental-Funeral/release/739946
Sedem Minút Strachu – General Fucking (2017)
This is a record you want, if you are at all into noisy stuff. Sedem Minút Strachu – or Seven Minutes of Fear – is the shit for me these days.
This 12″ will no doubt be a classic of the genre.
Listen here: https://sedemminutstrachu.bandcamp.com/album/general-fucking-12lp
And buy it here: http://www.atwarwithfalsenoise.com
https://www.discogs.com/Sedem-Minút-Strachu-General-Fucking/release/9679652
What I enjoyed in 2016
I have made a spotify playlist of the stuff I’ve listened to the most during the last year. Enjoy: https://open.spotify.com/user/113192134/playlist/09JjIEXbZP9b9C9TvSx4pi
If you aren’t a spotify user, here is the list:
- Napalm Death: Prison Without Walls
- Sissy Spacek: Flipside Drifter
- Noisear: Breaking Bad At The Mulberry
- Wormrot: Exit Fear
- Nails: Made To Make You Fail
- Mortician:: Brutalized
- General Surgery: Viva! Blunt Force Trauma
- ACXDC: Milk Was A Bad Choice
- Regurgitate: Upheaval Of Human Entrails
- Insect Warfare: Mind Ripper
- Wadge: Programmed Deviation
- Extreme Noise Terror: Conned Through Life
- Cloud Rat: Rusting Belt
- Messiah: Future Aggressor
- Slayer: The Final Command
- Carcass: Fermenting Innards
- Mulatu Astatke: Shagu
- Cows: Contamination
- Amon Amarth: One Against All
- Avulsed: Restitire (Baron Rojo)
- Abbath: Ashes Of The Damned
- Mercyful Fate: Welcome Princes Of Hell
- Destruction: Bestial Invasion
- Bathory: For All Those Who Died
- Tribulation: The Motherhood Of God
- Lana Del Rey: Honeymoon
- Sodom: My Atonement
- Anaal Nathrakh: Powerslave (Iron Maiden)
- Agoraphobic Nosebleed: Not A Daughter
- Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard: Y Proffwyd Dwyll
Have fun!
Wadge – The End of Ethnology (cd 2016)
My relationship with Wadge goes back about 10-12 years, I was (and am) very much into drum-machine-driven grindcore, and as you might be aware, Wadge is exactly that.
At one point, I contacted Wadge via their MySpace, and was very excited to actually get an answer from Paul Wadge. We agreed to make a split between Wadge and my band Kusari Gama Kill, and Jay Randall of Agoraphobic Nosebleed fame agreed to release it on a new label he was planning, namely Grindcore Karaoke. The split was never made, but Paul and I kept in touch. He is a very nice man, and I still hope to shake hands with him one day.
Wadge has had a Tiki-theme going on for quite some time now, and it has been good fun, and great grind. But on this new album called The End of Ethnology, and is 100% Tiki-Free. As the liner notes go:
“This album is for those who value the ability to freely speak your mind over the modern worry of tiptoeing through the misguided muck of feelings. The anti-fascists have become the fascists. Modern day witch hunters trampling through life with stakes in their eyes. Redefining language and soothsaying thought. No one is immune from their delusional social arson, but only you can decide whether or not you burn. Stop, drop and roll, motherfuckers.
This album is for our comrades around the world. Oceans and miles separate us, but the affinity for this wretched filth keeps us close.”
Important words.
Musically this is Wadge in top-shape. The songs are lean and hungry snippets of grind. I love the production too, the best sounding Wadge record I know of.
I urge you to acquire this slap of plastic before it is sold out. Mortville has released it, and you can get it at the link below.
All there’s left to say, is: Take it sleazy, all the breast.
https://mortvillenoise.bandcamp.com/album/the-end-of-ethnology
Now Playing Records 