Wednesday, December 26, 2007

THREE FROM INDUSTRIAL CULTURE RECORDS


PRAEW JIK - "Wu Wei" 3" CD-R (Industrial Culture)

This blog/zine was started because of my love for DIY harsh noise. PRAEW JIK is the embodiment of DIY harsh noise and this little 3" is about as "pure" as it gets. "Wu Wei" is a 21 minute barrage of pure sound. Barely audible traces of synth and screamed vocals are buried in what sounds like ultra distorted field recordings of waterfalls and then mastered at a ridiculously loud level. The one-sheet that came with this CD mentions the "Japtronic Stalwarts" as an influence. I'd say that's a great place to start seeing as how classic japanese harsh noise seems to be the ONLY influence. It's like channeling the combined spirit of classic Merzbow and Masonna through the body of a white dude from Florida. "Wu Wei" definitely isn't breaking any new ground but it doesn't need to. It's a fun way to unwind after work and piss off the neighbors. http://freewebs.com/praewjik & http://industrialculture.org


THE SLEEP SESSIONS - "Heatwaves & Snowdrifts" 3" CD-R (Industrial Culture)

Kielce, Poland noise newcomer, Dawid Kowalski checks in with 17 minutes of psychedelic noisy goodness under the moniker, THE SLEEP SESSIONS. There are two tracks on this CD not surprisingly named "Heatwaves" and "Snowdrifts". "Heatwaves" starts things off in midrange harsh mode. Lots of slowly evolving textures and thought out knob tweaking. The sound is constantly changing but never far enough in a new direction for my tastes. It gets a little tiresome at times. Good but not great. The second track, "Snowdrifts" sounds almost exactly like the first track. I had to check to make sure there wasn't a mistake in the track sequencing. I like that both these tracks sound like they were recorded live with no overdubs or editing but I would have like to see what else Dawid is capable of doing texturally. http://myspace.com/thesleepsessions & http://industrialculture.org


NO JOHN - "Parasite" 3" CD-R (Industrial Culture)

Experiencing to the music of NO JOHN feels like listening in on a study into the properties of sound. Usually when listening to noise, I can picture some chubby unbathed scalawag punching distortion pedals and sticking contact mics in his mouth. When I try and visualize NO JOHN, all I see a scientist wearing a lab-coat, tweaking a knob then taking notes, tweaking another knob then taking more notes. There are no "jamz" to be found here. NO JOHN's is a very "academic" kind of noise focusing more on subtlety than brute force. After the short 'wall noise' snippet at the beginning of "Fig. 1", the saturation disappears only to return a few times during the CD's 15 minutes of crackles, warbles, and synth buzz. Very original and highly recommended. http://nojohn.org & http://industrialculture.org

P.S. The chubby, unbathed scalawag I was referring to is me.

-FRED

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for the review!

...stay tuned, soon you should get my two new releases ;)