Bleak Bliss

Various - God Bless America

I hadn't listened to this for a while but then Randy Greif left a comment on the post. He'd just wandered past and saw how much love there is for him and his his early work in particular. Nice to know that the sub-undergrounders can surprise the very people that we admire so much. The better news is that he is still producing great new music and that Tribe Tapes have reissued Golden Joy Club with two more early releases scheduled. He also has some of the mid-period CDs in his possession (Shadowbug 4 etc). Hopefully, Randy will add a mersh tab on the BC page for those ... but if there is something that you really need then you can get him on the BC.

There were quite a lot of prominent pops and clicks that I have removed and levelled up the volume so you may find that this one sounds much improved. Or not.

Originally posted on here in 2016 by Mrs Inside and it's still a triple LP released on RRRecords in 1985.

As she said at the time: "One of the all-time classic compilations of US underground industrial noise and home-taper weirdness, this triple LP boxset from came out in 1985 on RRRecords, with 100 copies wrapped in an American flag. It features tracks by Borbetomagus, Controlled Bleeding, Dimthings, Smersh, Tom Recchion (of LAFMS), Un-Film, Psyclones, Data-Bank-A, Maybe Mental,Sleep Chamber, Master/Slave Relationship, PGR, Architects Office, Smegma, Blackhouse, F/i, Randy Grief / Screaming Dukduks, Eugene Chadbourne, Walls of Genius and more."

God Bless RRRon

Demoon Skirt - Age Of First

In this house, it is always Olson O'Clock

A C54 released on American Tapes in 1997 in an edition of eight.

It's AM 41 btw ...

scrape, crackle and roil

Mutant Ape / December 23rd - Split

Primate in chief, George Proctor, joined by Todd Appleton who delivered some really good harsh pedal noise for 2-3 years during this time and released some quuality gear on his own Enmity Records.

3" CDr released on Turgid Animal in 2006.

the ape before the ape before

Vajra - Tsugaru

Staggeringly great psychedelic rock theatre ... but after all, it is Mikami Kan, Toshiaki Ishizuka and Keiji Haino. You may be worthy but I'm not ...

CD released on P.S.F. Records in 1995.

東日流

Various - All Kindsa Noise

An old old-school compilation tape of garage punk, grind thrash, noise and outré alt-rock (Baphomet Criers should have been huge, or at least marginally bigger than practically non-existant). Occasionally, a band will sound as though they were recorded in a bucket using a sock, but there is some really good stuff lurking within.

C90 released on Anti-Everything in 1998.

all kinds of everything reminds me of ... erm

*0 - 0.00

*0 or /0 as he will ... is the work of Nosei Sakata. I find him endlessly fascinating, sometimes theoretically empty and sometimes contact mic looped glitch festivals. And practically invisible on searches ... so, just in case you don't know:

"Asterisk-zero means "multiplied by zero (calculation)", so answers are zero in all cases. As a result *0 means "nothing". That is the main concept of *0's works, the Oriental thought about nothing, Japanese thought about "mu" (nothing in Japanese). Nothing ...nothing could create all things."

*0bviously.

CDr released on his own Mu Label in 1998.

zero sum gained

Aube - Singles 1995-1998

You have to love Akifumi Nakajima.

"All music has been composed, mixed, recorded and designed between the years 1995-1998. Remastered in 2003, at Studio MECCA Kyoto, Japan.

1.1 from Noise Tournament Vol. 5 with K2 (Kinky Music Institute) 7" [source: sound by K2]
1.2 from Split with L.Ø.S.D. (Staalplaat) CD3" [source: the lungs]
1.3 from Across The Water with Small Cruel Party (Ant-Zen) 12" [source: water]
1.4 from Daseinsspanne with Telepherique (Ant-Zen) 7" [source: heartbeat]
1.5 + 1.6 from Re-Chant / De-Coda (Drone Records) 7" [source: female voice]
1.7 from Daseinsspanne with Telepherique (Ant-Zen) 7" [source: air]
1.8 + 1.9 from Autodecision (Betley Welcomes Careful Drivers) 7" [source: executive decision maker]

2.1 + 2.2 from Sacrament (Meeuw Muzak) 7" [source: 7" EP Meeuw Muzak - Tabernakel]
2.3 from Split with Grunt (Freak Animal Records) 7" [source: 1 voltage controlled oscillator]
2.4 from Organized with RLW (Meeuw Muzak) 10" [source: organs by RLW]
2.5 previously unreleased [source: rain]
2.6 from Split with Noaidil (Freak Animal Records) 7" [source: female voice]
2.7 + 2.8 from Split with T.A.C.O. (Syntactic) 7" [source: track 'Sound' by Altai Chamber Orchestra]
2.9 from Split with Source Direkt (SD-Image) 7" [source: metal]
2.10 + 2.11 from Parametalizest (Clate Records) 7" [source: metal]"

Released as a double CDr on his own G.R.O.S.S. label in 2004 in an edition of one hundred and one.

and i will be alone again tonight my dear

Lord Puff - Milk?

Milk, huh, yeah. What is it good for? Absolutely warped ideas turned into beats. Say it again, y'all!

The same person as Killer Bong. This is a CD released on his own Black Smoker Records in 2003.

tremulous delerium

Hijokaidan - Legendary Live Collection Of Hijokaidan Vol. 4

This is such a lovely thing and the fact it's "only" hits 18 minutes only emphasises how good this is. Is Junko appearing reticent even a thing? You decide.

DVDr released on Alchemy Music Store in 2008.

1992.9.19 At Shinjuku ANTIKNOCK, Tokyo

Killer Bong - Hamburger Dub

Everybody needs more Killer Bong in their life!

"Killer Bong is a Tokyo native rapper, music producer and performing artist. A mysterious figure who never reveals his face or personal details, but widely known within the underground music scene across the country as the founder of a legendary, now inactive, hip hop group Think Tank, as well as Black Smoker Records, a record label he started around the beginning of his career.

The label has been introducing some of the most unconventional and groundbreaking music (mostly from Japan) through a constant output of over 250 titles to date. His performance incorporates an MPC, a microphone and a Kaoss Pad, and is mostly improvisational if not entirely. He has learned to master these basic tools and the use of his voice over his long, persistent career, and developed to apply it to vastly different styles. He actively collaborates with all kinds of performing artists including jazz improvisers and noise artists."

... and it's always good to know that the balaclava lives on outside the Blockader / Nihilist Assault Group universe:

C92 released in Japan on Black Smoker Records in 2003.

Dubburger

Aube - Tapes 1992-1997

Akifumi Nakajima needs no introduction here.

We lost him way too soon in 2013 but what a legacy he left! This is a spectacular 20 CDr collection of his earlier tape releases courtesy of his own G.R.O.S.S. label. There was an initial edition of 50 in 2003 and anoother 50 in 2004.

... and with some further ado:

01 - 1: Herz Aus G.R.O.S.S. [Water] (Statutory Tape, 1994)
01 - 2-3: Drip [Water] (G.R.O.S.S., 1992)
02 - 1-3: Submerged Tension [Water] (Steeple & Globe, 1993)
03 - 1-2: Flash-Point [Glow Lamp] (G.R.O.S.S., 1993)
04 - 1-2: Frequency For Collapse [Field Recordings In The Building] (G.R.O.S.S., 1994)
05 - 1-3: Emotional Oscillation [1 V.C.O] (Old Europa Cafe, 1994)
06 - 1: G-Radiation [Glow Lamp] (Fever Pitch, 1994) (split with Smell & Quim)
06 - 2: Can-Zone [Can] (Soya Sause Bolognese, 1994) (split with Sudden Infant)
07 - 1-5: Huile Sur L'eau [Water] (G.R.O.S.S., 1995)
08 - 1-3: Liquid Passion [Water] (SFCR, 1995)
09 - 1-3: Squash [Can] (Chocolate Monk, 1995)
10 - 1-5: Voltanic Valley [1 V.C.O.] (Perverse Serie, 1995)
11 - 1-2: Reflux [1 V.C.O] (Bawler, 1995)
11 - 3-5: Floating Memory [1 V.C.O.] (Napalmed, 1996) (split with Napalmed)
12 - 1-2: Metalustration [1 V.C.O.] (BloodLust!, 1995)
13 - 1-3: Stratodive [1 V.C.O.] (Bandaged Hand Produce, 1996) 13 - 4: Somnambulism [1 Monophonic Analogue Synthesizer Roland SH-2] (Kadef, 1996)
14 - 1-2: Artifact [Brain Waves-Electroencephalogram] (Bawler, 1996)
15 - 1-4: Grind Carve [1 V.C.O.] (Slaughter, 1996)
16 - 1-4: Feed The Fishes [Water] (Betley Welcomes Careful Drivers, 1996)
17 - 1-3: Plagent Recoil [Metal] (Less Than Zero, 1996)
18 - 1-2: Moment In Fragrance [1 Monophonic Analogue Synthesizer Roland SH-2] (Cling Film, 1996)
19 - 1: Syntactic Live Series Vol. 2 [1 V.C.O.] (Syntactic, 1997) (split with Scanner)
20 - 1-4: Ruminant [1 V.C.O.] (Sound Probe, 1997)

Only 100 copies of this majesty? Enough to make you want to start a blog ... erm ... this is a fitting way to mark 14 years since I first posted here.

A

U

B

E

As always on the big gear, protect the bandwidth on the primary host by going here first:

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Architects Office - Caswallon The Headhunter

Architects Office were a shifting musical collective from Boulder, Colorado. They were formed in 1983 and are best known for working with filmmaker Stan Brakhage. This is an oddly compelling ancient narative embedded in a half-remembered fever dream.

From Welsh mythology: "Caswallon’s cousin, Bendigeid Vran, the giant who would soon lie dying from a poison dart in the foot after having conquered and killed everyone in Eire except five pregnant women in a cave, was to say to his men: “Take my head and carry it with you whereevr you go and for eighty seven years my head will be uncorrupted. And all that time the head will be as pleasant a companion as when it was on my body. And when the eighty seven years are over, bury it at the White Mount in London, facing Gaul and for as long as it is buried there, there will be no invasion in all of the island of the mighty"."

Then King Arthur dug it up and we ended up invading everywhere else, and prostrating ourselves before a monarchy and Tory shite like Boris Fucking Johnson and the spoilt Victorian wraith, Jacob Rees Mogg. Rule Britannia.

An LP released on Silent in 1986. You still get some surface noise on this but I have spent an inordinate amount of time removing pops and scractches so it can be heard in the best condition that I can muster.

apostrophe or lack thereof

Sleep Column - Rust

Sometimes, Harsh Noise Wall can be an essential trance / transcendental mental purgative. Today, this is mine. Ivan Sandakov making the interior lanscape a more welcoming environment.

A lossless four CDr / four hour set released in 2014 in an edition of twenty courtesy of Vomit Bucket Productions.

turns out rust does sleep sometimes

mega option for bandwidth purposes

Bastard - No Hope In Here

As the 2023 turd burger underwent the peristaltic purge of the colon of destiny only to be met by the clipping sphincter of fate to face the toilet bowl of truth ... we enjoy the first days of the new dawn before we prepare for the inevitable eleven and a half months of existential dread ... Hurrah! Happy New Year!

A rare CD compilation of the vinyl tracks from these late 80s / early 90s Japanese hardcore heroes. Released on their own Bastard Records at some point in time.

abandon bob. it's weird being a bob, but ill get used to it. i'll have to!

tac - Next

A comment hit out of the blue but at an opportune time. If you missed this majestic collection first time around, you are forgiven.

Maybe you haven't heard of tac, the name used by Tom A. Cox of Tennessee for his music since 1984. If you haven't, then let's change that. Cox self-released cassettes (and then CDRs) in very small editions, adorned with clearly labor-intensive silkscreen art and sculptural materials. His music was forbiddingly alien in nature and opaque in substance. Some of it is a tactile noise rush of mysterious origin, harsh and difficult and uncompromising. Later on, tac reversed gears and created albums of nearly-inaudible scrapes and bodiless whoosh.

This massive retrospective box of six 100-minute cassettes collects material from the first ten years of tac's work. Some of it is previously released (not that very many people heard it the first time round), and much of it is not. Collaborations with like-minded artists Small Cruel Party and factor X take up one cassette. If you're a fan of Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock, G*Park, Hands To, Yeast Culture or John Hudak, these six-hundred minutes of fascinating audio ought to keep you enthralled for a long while.

Released in 1997 by Suitcase with a baroque package as demanding as the sound within: painted tapes, silk-screen mesh box, silk-screened booklet.

merry

christmas

Akira Ishikawa & Count Buffalos - Electrum

Time to channel your inner groove monkey. If you think that is a euphamism, well take a long hard look at yourself! Oops, channelling my inner Dr Z ... nevermind, we could be here all day. Stone cold Japanese jazz legends that nail down the musical / social transition of the time... exquisite psychedelic jazz rock expansion for blown minds. Less pretentiously expressed: it's fucking great and you might want to have a listen.

Originally an Lp released in 1970, this is the CD reissue on Think! Records from 2006.

y'all been way hep!

Lidless Eye - Blue Perfume

This is the work of Knox Mitchell. For fifteen or more years, a stalwart of the American school of build your own electronics at home and then fuck about with it.

A self-released C68 from 2013. It came in an edition of five so you might have missed it.

Blue Perfume

Kommissar Hjuler und Mama Baer & Ninni Morgia And Silvia Kastel - Two Couples

A person could make a fool of themselves trying to describe the machinations of der Kommissar und Mama, so I'll leave that one to you. Ninni and Silvia are people that I have been meaning to post for such a long time. They create beautiful work, especially as Control Unit (not that one).

An LP released on Silvia's Ultramarine in 2011.

a squared circle

The G.I. & The Spykes - Ambushed By Magnetic Tape Haterz

It's that man Olson from a long time back. Erm ... just fucking hell yes. That'll be the description done then.

A C52 relaesed on American Tapes in 1999. It's Am75 btw.

taperz gonna tape

Jojo Hiroshige - Kimi Ga Shinette Ieba Shinu Kara

It's Jojo with his guitar and amps ... more than plenty

CD released on his Alchemy Records in 1997.

you were perverted too

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THE FUTURE?

We still don't know...we're making this shit up as we go along!

As always, dripfeed us a few requests, we still have changeable minds!

All requests are welcome, no matter what genre!

PRACTICALITIES!

We have had to change file hosts many times since we started in 2009.

Most of the older links are undoubtedly dead. If we were to try to keep every link going there would literally be no time for new posts.

Given that we have an untold number of things that we think need to be heard, it's not possible to do both.

Some things may be re-upped but (as always) we are unlikely to pay any attention to "anonymous" requests.

Entertaining (rather than desperate) requests may stand a chance but don't bet on it!

Get Engaged!