BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER/PIG HEART TRANSPLANT - Split 7" (Epicene)
Seattles BSBC is Wm. Rage and Stan Reed, two dudes who run two killer labels (ENTERRUPTION and PSYCHFORM respectively). On their side they lay down the heaviness with whining feedback, buried guitar, crumbling distortion, and Godzilla vocals. Seriously, they're either using audio from a Godzilla movie as a sound source or someone is doing a damn good impersonation of the Japanese beast. Shit, wait a minute! I think I might have just listened to it at the wrong speed! OK, it doesn't say whether to play it at 33.3 rpm or 45 rpm but I like it more after listening to it at 45 rpm. The guitar is a little less buried and the vocals are tad more 'human' sounding . This is a doomy slab of dare I say, 'Power Violence' influenced noise. It reminds me of Bastard Noise but with more of an emphasis on layering. On the flip side is PIG HEART TRANSPLANT. PHT is the brainchild of Jon Kortland, who is most well known as being one half of Seattle's superhuman grindcore duo, IRON LUNG (one of my absolute favorite bands). Kortland collaborates with a rotating cast of characters from the hardcore/grindcore/noise worlds to make PHT a constantly changing 'band'. I've only heard one thing from PHT in the past and I loved it. This is no different. There's a definite SWANS influence here. It starts with a bassy drone and heavily delayed drums then gives way to a short chaotic noise burst only to return to the droning, this time made even more powerful by the addition of pissed as fuck vocals. It slowly builds more and more until finally it just stops. Both sides of this record are near perfect displays of hardcore influenced vocal driven noise/industrial. One of the best 7 inches I've heard in recent months. http://epicenesound.com
WETHER/TEETH COLLECTION - Split 7" (Epicene/No Horse Shit)
Here are two artists I've heard of but don't know much about. WETHER kicks it off on the A side with "Anything Worthless", 5 minutes of heavily echoed airplane sounds. I like the short breaks given in between the fighter jet's swooshing distortion. The tonality and buried vocals that creep in about halfway through the piece are surprisingly pleasant and welcomed. I like the idea of combining melody with noise and WETHER's Mike Haley does a great job at this. He seems to have quite a few releases out and after hearing his side of this 7" I definitely want to hear more. On the B side is Ohio's TEETH COLLECTION, the solo project of Epicene label dude, M. Reis. I've seen the name TEETH COLLECTION a lot he has a ton of releases out but I've never actually heard any of them. Here he lays down an incredibly mellow 6 minutes of deep, cavernous electronics and delayed field recordings. I thouroghly enjoyed his side of the record and found it to be very mood altering but one side of a 7" is not enough time to develop a piece of music as meditative as this. I want to hear what M. Reis can do on one side of an LP or on 80 minutes of a CD. http://epicenesound.com
VESTIGIAL LIMB/FLETCHER PRATT - Split 7" (Epicene)
I've never heard either of these artists before and this is the first leap into the vinyl world for both of them. Kentucky's VESTIGIAL LIMB fucks it up old school with an opressive wall of sound augmented by spastic screeching electronics via envelope filter. There isn't much to say about VESTIGIAL LIMB. This shit is awesome. The breaks are few and the noise is harsh with a capital 'H'. Purely pummeling. Fletcher Pratt goes the complete opposite route. His side of the record is a strange stereophonic tape collage adventure. The one-sheet that came with the record says he's like John Weise with a razor blade, tape, and a slightly longer attention span and I couldn't agree more. There are plenty of snippets of wierd sounds broken up by snippets of even wierder sounds and plundered recordings from who the fuck knows what. I love the pairing of these two artists. Highly recommended. http://epicenesound.com
-FRED
