Bleak Bliss: February 2020

Rats With Wings - Untitled

Rats With Wings are pigeons, right? CDR released by Gold Soundz in 2002.

Rats With Wings - Untitled

Sten Ove Toft, Utarm, Jon Eriksen - Penumbra Booming

Three-way split of Norwegian noise, with two tracks by Eriksen and one each by Utarm and Toft. Released by Roggbif in 2006.

Sten Ove Toft, Utarm, Jon Eriksen - Penumbra Booming

Sten Ove Toft & Maskinanlegg - We're Having Apartheid Tonight

One artist in each channel, hence the (poor taste) title. Norwegian noise from 2007, released as a CDR by Toft's NOISE2 label (a sub-label of Roggbif, if that means anything to you).

Sten Ove Toft & Maskinanlegg - We're Having Apartheid Tonight

Collections of Colonies of Bees - Stuck

2003 album by a Wisconsin group formed by members of post-rock band Pele, including drummer Jon Mueller (founder of the Crouton label and collaborator with people like Raymond Dijkstra, Z'ev, Asmus Tietchens, Duane Pitre, Jeph Jerman), Chris Rosenau (of ambient band Telecognac) and Jon Minor (of synth-pop band Warm Ghost). A hard band to describe, so you may as well just listen for yourself.

Collections of Colonies of Bees - Stuck

Workbench - Pipes

Not sure if my memory holds up but released at the same time but separately with the only differentiation in cover being the respective title written on the back.

C18 released on Heavy Tapes in 2007.

Pipes

Workbench - Frequencies

C20 released on Heavy Tapes in 2007.

Frequencies

A Vibrant Struggle - Whispering Bones

Bjerga/Iverson + Staplerfahrer = A Vibrant Struggle. Released by Small Doses as a CDR in an edition of just 83 copies in 2008.

A Vibrant Struggle - Whispering Bones

Fetish - Untitled

Obnoxious saxophone reed-biting screech from a trio led by David Gross, who also honked in EED. Mike Bullock and Tatsuya Nakatani play bass and drums, respectively. One long and very strange track that sounds as if each member was in a separate room, unable to hear the other two. Then a shorter track of quiet breath and spit. Imagine a more punk, self-defeating version of classic post-AMM improv in the Erstwhile or Grob vein. Released as a CD in 1999 by Tautology.

Fetish - Untitled

Workbench - Live From The American Snake Machine

21 minutes of fluttering hypnosis for the hard of hearing.

CDr released on Chocolate Monk in 2005

Live From The American Snake Machine

Workbench & Yeh - Untitled

Mike Bernstein of Double Leopards and Religious Knives with C. Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core. That'll do nicely.

C16 released on Heavy Tapes in 2004.

Workbench & Yeh

EED - Morphic Resonance

Scratchy and tumbling free-improv by a sax/drums/tuba trio whose 1999 disc was the sole mark they made upon this planet before succumbing to whatever "morphic resonance" is supposed to be.

EED - Morphic Resonance

va - The Noise Is All In Your Head

Is it, though? Gold Soundz strikes again with a wonderful comp from 2003, this time featuring an international all-star cast. Tracks from Continental Fruit, Oren Ambarchi, Noxagt, Lasse Marhaug, Thurston Moore, Volcano the Bear, Rats With Wings, Neil Campbell and more. The Greatest Band Name Award goes to Neil Mackay, former bassist in Loop and The Hair & Skin Trading Company, whose solo blurp is credited to If You Meet Your Anti-Self Don't Shake Hands. It's actually good advice!

va - The Noise Is All In Your Head

Double Leopards - Double Leopards

A trio of Chris Gray, Jon Chapman and Marcia Bassett with less forest dwelling fever tones and more elevated future drones.

CDr released on Polyamory in 2002.

Double Leopards

Double Leopards - Soulless Dust, Speed And Strength

Five long-form tracks of glorious pagan psychosis.

Self-released CDr from 2002.

Soulless Dust, Speed And Strength

Double Leopards - Urban Concussion

A request came in for this one ... yasswaddah posted this flac rip on his great blog dedicated to the label. The link is gone so here it is again just in case you weren't looking the first time around.

LP released on the excellent Qbico in 2004.

Urban Concussion

va - Hi Fi Allergi

2003 compilation CDR from Sindre Bjerga's Gold Soundz label, featuring Norwegian noise artists such as Waffelpung, Fredrik Ness Sevendal, Uranus Rash and other strange obscurities.

va - Hi Fi Allergi

va - Klang Spectrum 2 (A Compilation of Underground Music from Madison)

Comp CDR of noise/folk/improv weirdos from the greater Davenport/Second Family Band orbit in Madison, Wisconsin. Includes such anti-luminaries as Garage Indians, Drunjus, Bruce Carkiss, Craig Microcassette System, Metrocide, The Mumber Toes, Right Arm Severed, db Pedersen and others you probably haven't heard of. Released as a CDR by 23 Productions, the label run by Clay Ruby, who was in Davenport (and several other of these bands) before re-christening himself as Burial Hex.

va - Klang Spectrum 2 (A Compilation of Underground Music from Madison)

va - Vhutemas Archetypi

Mute's 1991 CD reissue of an industrial compilation originally published in 1986 as an LP on Lustmord's Side Effects label. This is such a great album. Music from Laibach, Hunting Lodge, Gerechtigkeits Liga (a group I'd love to hear more of!), SPK and Lustmord, with incomprehensible liner notes by Graeme Revell.

va - Vhutemas Archetypi

Wolf Eyes & Double Leopards - Breeding Turbines Vol One

They keep switching position ... I can't keep up.

C20 released on American Tapes in 2004 ... it's AM 373 btw.

Breeding Turbines Vol One

Double Leopards & Wolf Eyes - Breeding Turbines Two

An exemplary combination released as a CDr on the worshipful American Tapes label in 2005.

It's AM 407 btw.

Breeding Turbines Two

va - The Tyranny Of The Beat (Original Soundtracks From The Grey Area)

A compilation from 1991 intended to preview Mute's Grey Area sub-label, announcing their plans to make classic industrial and post-punk sides available again. This was very exciting when it came out. Before this, the original albums were very hard to come by. The disc included music from Throbbing Gristle, Non, Swell Maps, Monte Cazazza, Chris Carter, The Boys Next Door, Can, SPK, Dome, Wire, Die Krupps, Einstuerzende Neubauten, DAF and more. It's still a hell of a collection.

va - The Tyranny Of The Beat (Original Soundtracks From The Grey Area)

Wolf Eyes & Double Leopards - 1

It's Wolf Eyes and Double Leopards.

C20 released on Heavy Tapes in 2004 in an edition of 30.

Two

Wolf Eyes & Double Leopards - 2

It's Wolf Eyes and Double Leopards.

C20 released on Heavy Tapes in 2004 in an edition of 30.

Two

Hive Mind & Mammal - Our War

Hypnotic tribal drone and pulse in this collaboration between Greh and Gary Beauvais.

C30 released on Gary's Animal Disguise in 2006.

Our War

va - 2:3 -- Oswald Wiener Zum 65. Geburtstag

Strange compilation from 2000, featuring writers, sound and visual artists. Tracks by Mouse On Mars, Thomas Brinkmann, Wolfgang Muller (from Die Todliche Doris), Marcus Schmickler, Valie Export, Nihilist Spasm Band, Gerhard Ruhm and more.

va - 2:3 -- Oswald Wiener Zum 65. Geburtstag

va - Good Music

Four-way split of Norwegian noise on a CD released in 2000 by Lasse Marhaug's Jazzassin label and Tore Boe's KomKol Autoprod. One quarter apiece by Jazzkammer (Marhaug's duo with John Hegre), Arm, KA (an outgrowth of Tore Boe's Origami Replika) and Clop Neplat.

va - Good Music

va - Cottage Industrial Vol 3

Mid-00's international noise/weirdo compilation from the Humbug label, with tracks by Idea Fire Company, Pho, Ryfylke, Orange Manifold, Wooden Wand, OvO, Raionbaishi, Moth (aka Jon Dale), Excepter, Lunt, WaWa, Violets Rock n' Roll, Sinistri (previously known as Starfuckers), Maskinanlegg and Anders Hana.

va - Cottage Industrial Vol 3

Kjetil D Brandsdal - Freedom Waaaoh Waaoh

You might know Kjetil D Brandsdal as a member of Fibo-Trespo, or with noise rock bands Ultralyd, Noxagt, No Balls, University Punx and so on. This disc compiles some early tracks from his first two self-published LPs. It was released by the great Corpus Hermeticum in 1999.

Kjetil D Brandsdal - Freedom Waaaoh Waaoh

Hive Mind & Religious Knives - Untitled

Collaborations can be pleasantly dark.

3" CDr released on Chondritic Sound in 2005.

Hive Knives

KA - Water Mertz

An album from 2004 by a trio offshoot of Origami Replika, released as an edition-of-75 CDR by Cipher Productions.

KA - Water Mertz

Hive Mind & Religious Knives - Untitled

There's an old piano and it's playing hot.

CDr released on Chondritic Sound in 2005.

Hive Knive

Hive Mind - Sand Beasts

Internal music designed to make you think ... possibly about what is creeping up behind (or inside) you.

CD jointly released on Chondritic Sound, PACrec and Troniks.

Sand Beasts

... and in a display of loveliness, in the first few editions, Greh also included this 3" CDr.

Ports Of Entry

Astro - Fracture Composition

Three live tracks that were then taken back into the studio and remixed. The third is "Japanese Royal Blue Part 3" which is both sides of the Turgid LP turning into a different beast altogether right in front of your ears.

CD released on Rape Art Productions in 2009.

Fracture Composition

Hive Mind / Damion Romero - Return To Steam

You already know that Hive Mind is the work of Greh Holger (who also recorded as Black Sand Desert amongst other pseudonyms) so I won't bother telling you that. On this, both get two sides each to provide some quality tones, drones and layered filth.

A double C30 set released on Greh's always excellent Chondritic Sound in 2009 in an edition of 50.

Return To Steam

Astro - Japanese Royal Blue

Two live tracks recorded in Tokyo and Stockholm respectively in 2007 and 2008.

LP released on the great Turgid Animal in 2010.

Japanese Royal Blue

Astromero - Live In San Francisco

Hiroshi Hasegawa with Damion Romero on one live recording (guess where) and one studio recording. I've seen the legs of the former but not the latter so I'm not sure if this constitutes a theme.

LP released on No Fun Productions in 2009.

Live In San Francisco

Damion Romero & David Scott Stone - John Wiese's Legs

Now that I've thought about it, you only see John stood behind a table full of electronics. He must have something to hide.

3" CDr released on P-Tapes in 2005.

The Truth Will Set Him Free

Damion Romero - Twins

A very satisfying exploration of machine hum, tones and drones.

Double LP from P-Tapes and (appropriately) Tone Filth in 2007.

Twins

Damion Romero - Missing Link

More insistent drone by the very excellent Mr. Romero.

C30 released on Hanson Records in 2007.

Missing Link

Speculum Fight / Lab Rat - Split

Apparently, Lab Rat is the work of Patrick Barber (who amongst other things was in the great Blowhole). The construction of his side of the tape is credited to bicycle, effects and tape ... it's brilliant and genuinely sinister. Unfortunately, this is the only Rat that I have to offer ...

C52 released on Anomalous Records in 1994.

Speculum Fight / Lab Rat

Speculum Fight - Lost Live 2

Two more disoriented live performances from 1996. If you are following the narrative you will rightly be shouting into the face of strangers "where's the Lost 2 CDr then you bastard?". I consider that to be a perfectly appropriate approach to people you have never met before. If one of them coughs it up then slide it this way!

C30 released on Hanson Records in 2007.

Lost Live 2

Gang Of Three

Yesterday, I woke up to find out that, as a consequence of an apparently random sequence of events, Andy Gill had died. Andy was the guitarist with the Gang Of Four ... one of the very few truly influential bands spawned by the UK post-punk revelation. Given that their initial heyday was forty years ago there may be some whippersnappers out there who have no idea that they existed. The first album is one of the most urgently important releases to have climbed out of my godforsaken xenophobic set of islands.

This is the Infinite Zero remastered CD edition that was re-released in 1995 and includes the original LP from 1979 and the full self-titled 12" from 1980. It's essential.

Dirt Behind The Daydream

This is the Strange Fruit CD from 1990 that brings together the three Peel Sessions recorded between 1979 and 1981. It's essential.

Dressed For The H-Bomb

va - Fit For Kings (A Compilation Of Peripheral New Zealand Music Series II)

This 2000 CD, released by Crawlspace Records, collects tracks originally released on the label's series of lathe-cut 8" records. Personally, as proud completist collector scum, I would have preferred to hear entire 8" records rather than just a track from each, but this is better than nothing. Noise from RST, Sandoz Lab Technicians (plus solo tracks from each member), Pahjib, Crude, Empirical, Wayne Gordon, Pit Viper, Lapdog and Duncan Bruce.

va - Fit For Kings (A Compilation Of Peripheral New Zealand Music Series II)

Speculum Spyked - Speculum Spyked

It's Damion Romero and John Olson on a single-sided LP released on American Tapes in 2006. Necessary by definition.

It's AM502 btw ...

Speculum Spyked

va - Fit For Kings (A Compilation Of Peripheral New Zealand Music)

Necessary compilation CD of New Zealand noise and out-rock by such underground heroes as Crude, Children's Television Workshop, Witcyst, Aesthetics, Parmentier, Casagante Apparatus, Pointsman and White Saucer. Released by Drunken Fish in 1998.

va - Fit For Kings (A Compilation Of Peripheral New Zealand Music)

Speculum Fight - Lost Live

This takes the Lost idea and transplants it into three live venues with very different results.

CDr released on P-Tapes in 2002.

Lost Live

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