Charlie Draheim - This Man, This Skull

The aliens are coming ...

3" CDr released on Chondritic Sound in 2007.

This Man, This Skull

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Charlie Draheim - Breaking Luck

As far as I'm concerned, Charlie is completely underrated. I might be in a room on my own but it won't be for the first time.

This is one of those lovely 3" CDrs released on Chondritic Sound. It's from 2005.

Breaking Luck

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va - The Arbitrary Nature of Meaning

I've always enjoyed this album. A disjointed compilation that, improbably, holds together in the end. Music by Illusion of Safety, Big City Orchestra, Smersh, Dead His Name is Alive, Princess Dragon-Mom, Paul Lemos & Joe Papa (of Controlled Bleeding), Con Demek, Simon Wickham-Smith & A Band, UMVUE, Lot 49, Randy Grief, Automaticity, and Basic Noise. You've heard of some of those names, others left hardly a mark. As a listen from start to finish, though, this 1994 CD from Isomorphic Records beats the odds and is quite entertaining.

va - The Arbitrary Nature of Meaning

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S.S. Electronics - Boot Wank (2003-2008)

Have no fear oh ye of rational thought, this is no atrocity glorifying bollocks! How can you possibly have any doubts with such titles as "This Is Nazi Brutality: Small Pricks" and "Hitler Took It Up The Ass AKA In Hitler To The Hilt". If you still have any reservations, this is Ella Einsmire, Geoff Markoff and Richard Ramirez driving another exploitation film inspired vehicle. Noise. Texas style!

Five tape set collecting out of print and unreleased material and released on Deadline Recordings in 2012.

Boot Wank

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va - Sky Flowers & Horse Eggs

Another favorite here at our house, where it's one of the most-played compilations we own. Released by Hypnagogia in 1992, it includes mysterious exhalations by John Watermann (both as himself and under his Spinal Machine alias), PFN, G*Park (one of his best tracks), Shabda (a group from India!), Blackhouse, SFO, Zoviet-France, Nocturnal Emissions, Etant Donnes and Randy Grief.

va - Sky Flowers & Horse Eggs

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Pain Killer - Guts Of A Virgin / Buried Secrets

These are the first two Pain Killer albums that were originally released in 1991 an 1992 respectively. The reactions were many and varied with the common theme being "What The Fuck?" or perhaps something more erudite. If you're here, I'm assuming that you are on the right side of the fence. I also sort of hope that you haven't heard it before so you can have that same initial response but in a good way. John Zorn, Bill Laswell and Mick Harris writing a new set of rules that only the foolhardy would attempt to follow ... because they did it perfectly the first time around.

Compilation CD released on Earache in 1998.

Guts Of A Virgin / Buried Secrets

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va - Dedication

Stellar compilation LP with The New Blockaders, Hanatarash, Entre Vifs, Freudwerk, Hijokaidan, Masonna, Solmania, AOR, and Incapacitants. Released in 1992 by Artware Productions in an edition of 300 copies with hand-painted covers.

va - Dedication

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va - World Record

This 1992 compilation CD on Jojo Hiroshige's seminal Alchemy label is the opposite of "lowercase". Sheer screeching glory by titans: Controlled Bleeding, Solmania, The Nihilist Spasm Band, Hijokaidan, Freudwerk (who didn't appear to record very much, but the track here is a scorcher that makes me long for more), Merzbow (a name I'm not familiar with), and one of the best bands on this or any other planet, Borbetomagus. Not a single track that doesn't level city blocks. Of the classic "harsh noise" compilations, "World Record" remains close to the top of the list.

va - World Record

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PainKiller - Rituals (Live In Japan)

John, Bill and Mick with Keiji Haino guesting on five of the tracks. As if it wouldn't be have been great enough already?

Recorded live at La Mama, Tokyo on September the 26, 1991.

CD released on Toy's Factory in 1993.

Rituals (Live In Japan)

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va - Meme

Another artifact for the brief craze for fetishistic near-silence, the Meme label produced albums of minimal music with entirely-white covers and tiny grey text hidden beneath the all-white disc. The label leapt out of the gate with some winning CDs by John Hudak, Kevin Drumm & Taku Sugimoto (whose work, of course, would become so minimal over subsequent years that his albums of almost-total-silence trod dangerously close to self-parody), Nerve Net Noise (about whose Meme album the Forced Exposure website once dared listeners: "Go on, test your will to live."), Richard Youngs, and Shifts. This compilation from 1997 was the label's debut release, and worked as a sort of Meme mission statement. It contains tracks by the wonderful Sukora, Ryoji Ikeda, Stillupstepya, CM von Hauswolff, Loren MazzaCane Connors, Marc Behrens, Jim O'Rourke, Ultrasound, Rehberg & Bauer, Tamaru (an underrated bassist whose albums of stately woofer-taxing fog are absolutely worth seeking out), *0, Climax Golden Twins and more.

va - Meme

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PainKiller - Talisman (Live In Nagoya)

John and Bill alongside the original third PainKiller: Mick Harris (ex-Napalm Death and subsequently Scorn) on drums and vocals. Stand by for dubbed-up JazzCore recorded live in Japan on November the 21st, 1994.

CD released on Tzadik in 2002.

Talisman (Live In Nagoya)

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va - Lowercase

Hyper-minimal hush, released in the throes of earnest Bernhard-Gunter-worship circa Y2K, when it seemed somehow revolutionary to make really quiet and fragile-sounding electro-acoustic music. Thankfully, "lowercase" as a name for a genre has gone the way of "hypnogogic pop", "New Weird America", "glitch", and "skiffle". There were some people whose music existed before the term was coined and got shoehorned into it, other artists who adopted a "lowercase" style in order to fit into the (nigh-inaudible) crowd, others who popped up when the trend began and either vanished when it ended or just became so EXTREMELY quiet that they hardly even left a trace on Discogs.

This double-disc set does a pretty nice job of collecting a representative sampling of artists from around the world. Alas, it wasn't not so diverse since all participants are male. One truly bizarre aspect of the album was that it included a second set of two CDs in every box, with an instruction to give those away to a friend and thus immediately making whoever spent money on this (i.e.: me) feel pretty dumb. Wait, I paid for this, but someone else could have given it to me for nothing? Why?? That carried the stench of evangelism; if you were excited by teeny sine tones then it was your duty to convert another listener. No thank you. Most of the music still stands up, though, and since it's long sold out and I'm putting it up on a blog in 2018, then you can think of this as the extra set of CDs that I'm giving away to not just one friend, but everybody.

Tracks by Roel Meelkop, Artificial Memory Trace, Richard Chartier, Bernhard Gunter, Jeph Jerman, Steve Roden/In Be Tween Noise, *0, Taylor Deupree, Oren Ambarchi, Lieutenant Caramel, Michael Northam, Kid 606, Pimmon, Ecclesiastical Scaffolding, Jos Smolders, and many others.

disc 1
disc 2

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PainKiller - 50¹²

As part of the series of John's 50th birthday celebrations, this is the 12th and features John Zorn on sax, Bill Laswell on bass, Mike Patton on vocal excretion and the brilliant Hamid Drake on drums. Recorded live at Tonic in New York on September the 6th, 2003.

CD released on Tzadik in 2005.

50¹²

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va - Liminality

Compilation CD released by the dearly missed Digital Narcis Ltd label in 1997. Rather excellent selection of deep-listening brain-fog by such international heroes as RLW (Germany) , Eric La Casa (France), Koji Marutani (Japan), Ora (UK), Nick Peck (US) and PFN (Germany).

va - Liminality

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PainKiller - The Prophecy

John Zorn on alto sax, Bill Laswell on bass and Tatsuya Yoshida on drums. A mighty triumvirate recorded live in Warsaw and Berlin in 2004 and 2005.

CD released on Tzadik in 2013.

The Prophecy

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Borbetomagus & Hijokaidan - Both Noises End Burning

I've been at this blogging lark for over eight years and I haven't posted this before? Yeah, I'm a dick!

Recorded live at the 23rd Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville on May the 21st, 2006.

CD released on Les Disques Victo (with a reciprocal Japanese release on Alchemy records) in 2007

Both Noises End Burning

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va - Soundtrack For The End Of The World

Noisy nihilism released by Self Abuse Records in 1994. You know what you're getting here: Native X (who has a surprising membership that you can look up yourself and not post about in the comments), Taint, Con-Dom, Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock, Macronympha, The Haters, Aube, S*Core, Skin Crime, Violent Onsen Geisha, Thomas Dimuzio, and Diesel Guitars. I feel fine.

va - Soundtrack For The End Of The World

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Borbetomagus - Live In Tokyo

Messrs Dietrich, Sauter and Miller recorded live at the La Mama in Tokyo on the 16th of June, 1996. The band, the venue and the label is one of those perfect fit moments.

CD released on Alchemy Records in 1997.

Live In Tokyo

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va - Music Should Hurt

Noise comp from 1996, issued by Self Abuse Records as a CD. Lovely tunes by both deep-underground scumbags and seasoned professionals: Bacillus, Killer Bug, Merzbow, K2, Daniel Menche, Smell & Quim, Hyper Ventilation (aka Loop Circuit, an Aube side-project), Iugula-Thor, Macro Beaulieau (obviously, it's Macronympha running molecules through a shredder while Emil Beaulieau whines about how it isn't really all that painful), OVMN, Thirdorgan, and chief Self Abuser Hanged Mans Orgasm (on vacation from his regular duties playing fiddle and washboard with The Skin Crime Good Time Band).

va - Music Should Hurt

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Borbetomagus - Live At In-Roads

Is Borbetomagus the greatest band to ever stride the Earth, trampling the unworthy underfoot? Don't bother your pretty little heads ... the answer is YES!

Don Dietrich and Jim Sauter on sax attack, Donald Miller on guitar with Brian Doherty providing the live electronics.

Originally a cassette release from 1983 before being reissued on P.S.F. Records ten years later.

Live At In-Roads

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