Bleak Bliss: January 2016

John Wiese & Lefthandeddecision - Dio Elk Valentine/Fresh Start

Excellent split 7" by two Los Angeles noise heroes, released by Troniks in 2001 in an edition of 300 copies.

John Wiese & Lefthandeddecision - Dio Elk Valentine/Fresh Start

Narbenerde / Lefthandeddecision ‎- Split

Stefan Widmann's Narbenerde slice lulls you into a false sense of security before Phil only goes and blows the bloody doors off. 7" from Troniks in 1999.

Farbenlehre / Mater Tenebrarum

Comforter vs. Lefthandeddecision - Split

You may be forgiven (but not by me) for thinking this was Barbra Streisand and Jesus performing a Titanic tribute. Fear not! It's Phil sharing a split CDr with Andrei Alexeev released on Spirals Of Involution (which is run by Andrei and Alexander Alexeev) in 2003.

...and my heart will go on and on...

LHD / Immaculate:Grotesque - Split

LHD were John Wiese and the left handed decision maker Phil Blankenship and here they share a vinyl LP with Jeff Plummer. It was jointly released on Phil's Troniks and Jeff's Truculent Recordings in 2004. It's great. Obviously.

LHD / Immaculate:Grotesque

Lefthandeddecision & Azoikum - Split

Split CDR released in 1999 on Live Bait Recording Foundation.

Lefthandeddecision & Azoikum - Split

Lefthandeddecision & IMPAXIS - Mock Motion (Edit)/Powertripping (1-4)

This split tape is the only recorded evidence of the existence of IMPAXIS, so I have no idea who they are/were. It was the 4th ever release on the Troniks label, 50 copies made in 1998.

Lefthandeddecision & IMPAXIS - Mock Motion (Edit)/Powertripping (1-4)

Lefthandeddecision & Nacht und Nebel - In Excess/Discharge

Early noise by Phil Blankenship/Lefthandeddecision, who later became The Cherry Point and ran the PACrec/Troniks label(s). This self-released cassette, split with Cory Burke/Nacht und Nebel, came out in 1998 in an edition of 51 copies.

Lefthandeddecision & Nacht und Nebel - In Excess/Discharge

Pineal Gland Zirbeldruese & Salt + Winterkälte - Global Pattern

Split 7" with the B Side taken by Eric de Vries and Udo Wiessmann's Winterkälte that is much less bouncy than their album releases.

Jointly released by Ant-Zen and Hands Productions in 1996 with a hundred of them given freely to people who attended one of their gigs in the same year.

Global Pattern

Salt & Pineal Gland Zirbeldruese / Mercantan & Q-Rare - At MST Concert 1

Here you get a different live collaboration on either side of the tape. From the dirty perverted technoise of Salt / PGZ to the disturbing end of days ceremonials of Mercantan & Q-Rare that leans towards martial ambient noise if such a thing exists outside of my own head.

C60 released on the otherwise unknown MST in 1996.

At MST Concert 1

Pineal Gland Zirbeldruese - Dawn ~ Rise ~ Death

There may be an argument that Pineal works better in shorter bursts than across a full length release but it's not a point I'd press home. There are elements of genius in here, just don't attempt to keep up with this unless you have full medical clearance. CD jointly released by Ant-Zen and Mental Ulcer Forges in 1996.

Dawn ~ Rise ~ Death

Pineal Gland Zirbeldruese - Symptomatic

Frenetic 7" released on Ant-Zen in 1994.

Symptomatic

Pineal Gland Zirbeldruese / Salt - Symptom 1 (Stuttgart)

I really wish I knew more about Pineal Gland Zirbeldruese but I don't. Genius noisecore that sits well next to the damn fine Salt.

Symptom 1 (Stuttgart)

Pineal Gland Zirbeldruese & Salt - Symptom 2 (Esterhofen)

As below, so above.

Symptom 2 (Esterhofen)

Pineal Gland Zirbeldruese & Salt - Symptom 3 (Aachen)

7" that comes with an Ant-Zen catalogue number but the majority were given away at the referenced gigs during the latter end of 1995.

Symptom 3 (Aachen)

Salt - Re-Active

Excellent technoise punishment from Stefan Alt on this 7" released on his own Ant-Zen in 1994.

Re-Active

MSBR & Salt - Audio and Visual Collaboration Unit

Only 46 copies of this 7" single were available. MSBR is joined by Ant-Zen's Stephen Alt, aka Salt.

MSBR & Salt - Audio and Visual Collaboration Unit

Telepherique - Sound Object

The core of Telepherique were Danijela Jochim, Klaus Jochim and Rene Jochim and they made a lot of great music between the late '80s and the mid '00s. This is a C46 stuffed full of brooding synth-tech and barmy hyperactive knob-twiddling released on Ant-Zen in 1993.

Sound Object

Telepherique & MSBR ‎– Amalgam

A gloriously bonkers sculpture package for a hyper-limited lathe-cut split single released on MSBR Records in an edition of 55 copies back in 1993. You'd have to wreck the package to get the record out.

Telepherique & MSBR ‎– Amalgam

MSBR & Daniel Menche - Multi Layering Termination

Lathe-cut split 7" issued by MSBR Records in 1994, in a deluxe edition of 100 copies.

MSBR & Daniel Menche - Multi Layering Termination

MSBR & Taint - Scopotophilia

Lathe-cut split 7" by Japanese noise monster MSBR (the late Koji Tano) and Texas scumbag Taint (aka Keith Brewer/Mania), released in an edition of just 66 copies on MSBR Records back in 1993.

MSBR & Taint - Scopotophilia

va - Death of Vinyl - International Compilation of New Media Artists

At our house, we love compilations. My husband and I both used to buy compilations when we were young, then seek out albums by all the bands on them that we liked. Many comps are simply collections of unrelated tracks, but the best hold together as albums and get listened to over and over again. One of my favorite compilation albums (and now one of Mr. Inside's favorites, too), is this CD from Toronto's Death of Vinyl Entertainment (or DOVe) label in 1991. I think I bought it for the Zoviet-France track, but quickly found myself loving the whole damn thing. The selection leans toward "plunderphonics", with excellent music by John Oswald (an excerpt from his "Plunderphonics" CD), turntablist pioneers Steinski & Mass Media, Sucking Chest Wound, Dante, Producers For "Bob" (actually David Newfield of Broken Social Scene), and Iowa's The Tape-Beatles. There's also mysterious ritual/ambient/industrial darkness by Luciano Dari, Zone, Vasilisk, Alfred 23 Harth, Zoviet-France, Roughage, Digital Poodle, and Hesskhe Yadalanah. The best track, though, is an implacably sweet cover of "I Can't Get Used to Losing You" by David Scurr of the under-rated band Kaiser Neitzsche. Someone somewhere ought to make that band's tapes available again.

va - Death of Vinyl - International Compilation of New Media Artists

Various - Impossibles! / 80's Japanese Punk & New Wave

Earlier I said that there were two Aunt Sally compilation appearances. The unofficial release was the first and this is the other one. This CD was released on Tokuma Japan Communications in 2002 and quite frankly proves that the Japanese do post-punk better than anybody else. Everything on here is essential and frequently years ahead of its time. Enough words. Download. Listen. Agree.

Impossibles!

Various - Vanity / Finest Selection 1978-81

Let's face it, nobody ever accused us of not being ultra-nerd completists and lived to tell the tale! This is an "unofficial" vinyl compilation of Vanity Records tracks that you will have heard before but what the hell!

Vanity / Finest Selection 1978-81

Anode/Cathode - Punkanachrock

I have no idea who Anode/Cathode is/are. "They" appear on the Vanity Records compilation but as far as I am aware were never released on the label. In fact, they appear to have released almost nothing. If that's true then it's a crying shame because this 20 minute 7" (honestly, 20 minutes on a seven inch!) released on the great Pinakotheca in 1981 has me gagging for more. Bontempi backing tracks, synth blurp and a pre-Buttholian acid fried vibe. There is nothing not to adore about this ...

Punkanachrock

Various - Music

If you keep track in the comments, you'll know that the good Mrs had the Vanity Records back catalogue scheduled. In a wonderful example of feeble minds thinking alike, the delicious Jonny Zchivago set off doing the same thing. We've joined in with a bit of thunder sharing and between us we've pretty much resurrected every meaningful Vanity Records release. So hurrah for us all or booo! depending on what mood you're in.

This is the double LP compilation that was the tenth and eleventh release on that great label from way back in 1981.

Music

Tuulen Laulu - Da Geht Die Sonne Auf

Another very early artifact of non/anti-music by genuine weirdoes Kommissar Detlev Hjuler and Jan "No" Iwers, released as a cassette in a numbered edition of 27 copies by Hjuler's Der Schöne-Hjuler-Memorial-Fund label in 1988.

Tuulen Laulu - Da Geht Die Sonne Auf

Tuulen Laulu - Soße

A 2xLP of sparse thumping, wheezing, and dropping things onto the floor by the German duo of Kommissar Hjuler and Jan Iwers, released in an edition of 99 copies on the artists' own labels: Der Schöne-Hjuler-Memorial-Fund and No Rekords, respectively.

Tuulen Laulu - Soße

Aunt Sally - Live 1978-1979

This CD was released by P-Vine Records in 2001. As far as I am aware, other than a couple of compilation appearances, this is the only other documentation of Aunt Sally.

Live 1978-1979

Aunt Sally - Aunt Sally

Originally, this was the third release on Vanity Records in 1979. It's a stunning collection of twisted post-punk with Phew (Hiromi Moritani) on vocals, Yoshio Nakaoka and Takashi Maruyama on bass and drums (who were in a band called Commune who I would love to hear but have never managed to), Bikke (Yasuko Mori) on guitar and keyboardist Mayu, who gives Yvonne Pawlett a run for her money. He or she seems to be the only member of the group who doesn't appear anywhere else.

This is the CD re-release on Undo Records from 2002 that adds another three murky and magnificent live recordings from a gig at Shinsaibashi Bahama, Osaka on March the 18th 1979.

Aunt Sally

Agata Morio - Norimono Zukan

In the late 1970's, Agata Morio was a folk and pop singer/songwriter of some notoriety. By 1980, though, he felt the same call of the new wave that many others did and so Vanity Records stepped in to publish this LP. Much like Neil Young's "Trans", "Norimono Zukan" doesn't sit so comfortably within the genre it's trying on, but that awkwardness is what I like about it.

Agata Morio - Norimono Zukan

BGM - Background Music

Much of the Vanity Records discography has already been posted by the right honorable Die or DIY, so I'm going to proceed directly to a special request. This was BGM's sole album, released as an LP in 1980. Despite it's title, this is not exactly music to play in the background, but it is somewhat less alienating than Tolerance or RNA Organism. Machine rhythms and voices are obscured by brackish pools of nasty synth gloop. The singer, Takayuki Shiraishi, would go on to record no wave blurt in the early 1980's with Maximum Lunatic Desire, then make lots of undistinguished techno-pop from the 1990s until today. The rest of the band, though, seemed to think that one record was enough. And really, they were right.

BGM - Background Music

David Robert Hayward Stenton Jones

I only ever knew him as David Bowie.

When I was an extremely dislocated 14 year old, I bought the Diamond Dogs LP. Suddenly the world made more sense and I had an ally. I spent a lot of my teenage years homeless. When I was 15, I was squatting a flat in a deck access block. Turned out I was next door to an old hippy dealer who would give me free weed. I spent a remarkable summer stoned out of my mind with Dogs, Hunky Dory, Pinups, Aladdin Sane, Station To Station and Low on permanent rotation. In those days, it appeared that "the normals" couldn't wait to fight with me. Aggravation was around every corner. I'd sing "Oh! You Pretty Things" at them before the inevitable happened. It didn't appear to improve their mood but it cheered me right up! He was a lightening rod for the freaks and made our world a brighter place. I very literally can't imagine who I would be if it wasn't for him.

At six this morning, I was almost asleep when the radio told me that he had died. It was like a bomb went off inside my head. I didn't know that he had cancer. Apparently, Tony Visconti has indicated that they knew that the outcome would be terminal. So, what does David do? He goes into the studio to create his final album (and effectively his epitaph). It was released on his 69th birthday last Friday. Today he is gone.

This ain't Rock 'n' Roll ... this is genocide!

Tolerance - Divin

Released to an uncaring world in 1981 (probably 20+ years too soon), "Divin" was the second and final LP by the Japanese duo Tolerance, a band with a particular dislike of the suffix "-ity". Believe it or not, this record is even more essential and bizarre than the slab of baffling awesome that came before it. If words like "minimal", "outsider", or "post punk" press any of your brain's happy buttons, you'd do better to listen to this than to read whatever insufficient adjectives I can come up.

Tolerance - Divin

Tolerance - Anonym

Our fellow blogger Die or DIY is posting a run of releases from the fantastic (and remarkably prescient) Vanity Records label, so what the hell... I'm going to join in the fun. In case you haven't discovered them yet, Vanity Records only existed for a few years (from 1979 until 1981). During their truncated tenure, they put out some LPs, a handful of flexi-discs, and finally some spectacular cassettes of Japanese proto-techno/industrial/"minimal synth" madness by artists who, for the most part, never made any other records. One of the finest gems from their gem-heavy catalog were the two LPs by Tolerance. "Anonym", from 1979, is a classic LP by a band that only released two albums and a flexi, all on Vanity Records, then promptly decided that they had better things to do. I can't tell you anything more about them because (like most of the artists Vanity would briefly shine a light on) aside from these three releases, they left virtually no trace. Did the band members form other bands afterwards? Who knows? (It should go without saying that if you know, please feel free to educate us in the comments)

This album shares some superficial qualities with contemporaries TG and Nocturnal Emissions (stark production, low-fidelity murk, machine rhythms) but also somehow evoke the late-night hush of Young Marble Giants on heavy xanax. If you aren't sure what to make of this one, then you are comfortably in the majority. Oh, but just you wait... because the record they made a year later is even better and further out then this one. Fans of the Zero Gravity and Sonic Plate/Far East Experimental Sounds labels take note!

Tolerance - Anonym

Conrad Schnitzler / Jörg Thomasius / Lars Stroschen ‎– Tonart Zwei

Here's Jörg Thomasius collaborating with Conrad Schnitzler and Lars Stroschen. This is one of those high fidelity close-in improvised recordings with concrete objects that gives a real sense of the space they were playing in. The players even joke to one another in German a few times as they are going along.

A CD released on Tonart in 1993.

Getting Crunchy In Here

Jörg Thomasius ‎– Marmor

If you are in need of a Conrad Schnitzler fix, better head over to the Who?! blog before the links all turn to dust (see the side bar). In the meantime I thought I'd share a bit from one of Schnitzler's more obscure '90s collaborators: Jörg Thomasius. On this album we get a pleasant mix of industrial clanging, metallic timbres, and the occasional jarring voice.

A CD released on Raum 312 in 1996.

Marmor

S.B.O.T.H.I. - Brakes 'N' Mistakes

You all know where you are by now ... C46 released without the aid of a label in 1985.

Brakes 'N' Mistakes

S.B.O.T.H.I. - And

Broken reversed organ and silence as a strategy to set you up for noise heaven.

LP released on Selektion in 1987.

And

S.B.O.T.H.I. - 1/2

Pronounced "One Two" rather than "Half" as if you care. C20 released on Ache in 1990.

1/2

S.B.O.T.H.I. - Last

Achim's final solo outing as Swimming Behavior Of The Human Infant and he goes out in style, using both channels to great effect (as long as you consider turning your head inside out to be a great effect).

LP released on Selektion in 1991.

Last

Onde - Purple

Third and (so far) final album by former Noise-Maker's Fifes members Onde, released in a run of 500 copies on black or (what else?) purple vinyl in 2009.

Onde - Purple

Onde - Ihs

Second release by the Belgian trio, released as a CDR in a tiny edition of just 50 copies on the band's own Ondemusic label.

Onde - Ihs

Onde - One

After the dissolution of the Belgian audio-visual/electro-acoustic band Noise-Maker's Fifes, three of the members came together to form Onde and to start the excellent record label Metaphon. Greg Jacobs, Marc Wroblewski, and Timo van Lujik (who is also active as Af Ursin, and a member of In Camera with Christoph Heemann, Asra with Raymond Dijkstra, and Elodie with Andrew Chalk among other groups/pairings) made one album per year for three years, starting with this very enjoyable LP from 2007. It came out on the band's Ondemusic label in an edition of 400 copies.

Onde - One

Varg - Star Alliance

Varg is the work of Jonas Rönnberg. The reference points are Posh (obviously), the Blackest Ever Black aesthetic, the Krokodilo tapes that I posted a while ago, laid-back Richie Hawtin and (surprisingly) early Brian Eno. Trust me, you need to listen to this ...

There is literally nothing not to love about Posh Isolation.

However, there is a lot to hate about people. This was released on the 2nd of October last year and surprise surprise there are people trying to sell this on Discogs for as much as £130. Naturally, the copies are all "unplayed" or "extra copies". The idea that people hoover up limited releases as "an investment opportunity" and rob people of the chance to buy them from the label makes me vomit.

Attaching a monetary value to this tape set is an arbitrary task ... it's magnificent and priceless!

Star

Alliance

Merzbow / S.B.O.T.H.I. - Collaborative

I love 7" vinyl as well, especially the ones that come as a bonus alongside early editions of 12" vinyl releases. In the grand tradition of mail-art, Achim Wollscheid and Masami Akita sent each other their own source material which was then remodelled. This also comes with scans of the 12 page booklet which makes for very interesting reading ...

Released on Extreme in 1988.

Collaborative

RLW - Eyes

I have a soft spot for 7" singles. Five minutes or so on each side, just long enough to make a succinct statement, then it's done. Singles are an economical way to present abstract sound such as the stubbornly non-referential and implacably lovely noise crafted by Ralf L. Wehowsky. This perfect little package from 1996 was released by Povertech Industries, a label run by a criminally under-rated American artist called Joe Colley/Crawl Unit.

RLW - Eyes

SBOTHI - Oroko Do

Very early, self-released one-sided cassette by Swimming Behavior of the Human Infant.

SBOTHI - Oroko Do

Sparks - Kimono My House

The constant and consistent genius behind Sparks are Ron and Russell Mael. When I was a kid, they would turn up on Top Of The Pops and they would thrill me and freak me out in equal measure. Whilst Russell was busy being a falsetto glam god up front, Ron was always in the background, behind the keyboard (with a rather strict rendition of an unpopular and rather intransigent German fellow's moustache) staring straight down the camera at my impressionable young face. Very weird and magnificent all at the same time. I went out and bought this album immediately. Given that the battle lines were drawn very strictly in those distant days, it remained a secret treasure.

I've decided that 2016 is going to be a magnificent year and to celebrate that unfounded optimism ... Badgerstump is out of the closet. Hurrah!

Kimono My House

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