Bleak Bliss: March 2021

Mayuko Hino - Performance At Club FUCK In L.A.

This purports to come in at half an hour in length but it isn't. It takes a while to start and initially the images are poor (it was filmed in a dark club after all). Move past that ... this is a Mayuko Hino artistic performance and the musical backdrop is provided by then-husband Hiroshi Hasegawa so in effect it's a mini C.C.C.C. gig. Not going to say anything else. If you are even mildly interested ... just watch.

VHS released on Endorphine Factory in 1993.

Just to keep the sentient butt plug up to speed ... it's not MP3.

Club FUCK Off

Francisco López - Untitled (Compilation Tracks)

Massive (though incomplete) four-disc collection of compilation tracks by Francisco Lopez. Some of these ended up on official albums, but in different versions. A fifth and sixth disc are in the works, but this ought to keep you busy for awhile. Careful with that volume, knob.

Yuragi - Yakusoku No Ji

This is short, sweet and wild. Quiet passages followed by traditional hardcore spacerock noiseprog?

The central core on this release are Hidenobu Kaneda and Morihide Sawada with various contributions from Ryuichi Nagakubo, Toshiaki Ishizuka, Fumio Kosakai and Hiroshi Hasegawa. From my distance, this was a banner that like-minded legends congregated around because they could. Just another day in Japan. Create. Dissolve. Create again. Apparently there are at least a couple of self-released tapes but I can't imagine they will turn up in my lifetime.

CD jointly released on Test and Creativeman Disc. in 1996. It's not MP3.

約束の地

Various - 沫 Foam

Ages ago, I posted a rip of the seminal double LP from 1981. If you can be bothered, I wrote some blah at the time. I also suggested that you might want to try this out ...

Double CD reissue courtesy of Super Fuji Discs in 2011. It's not MP3.

沫 Foam

Various - Evolve Or Die

Who knows where the hell the idea for this compilation of cover versions came from? You get some covers of great old Blues songs like Incense going all Portishead on Lowell Fulsom's classic "Tramp" and Masonna destroying Paul "Wine" Jones' "Rob And Steal" then apparently unconnected songs like OOIOO reworking Otis Redding's "Respect", Asteroid Desert Songs funking up Johnny Guitar Watson's "A Real Mother For Ya" and two radically different versions of "I Just Want To Make Love To You" by Guitar Wolf and the Keiichi Sokabe Blues Project ... and that's not the half of it.

CD released on P-Vine Non Stop in 1996. It's not MP3.

Evolve Or Die

Various - 双音迷宮 - Alchemy Mysterious Sound Collection

I've got itchy feet .... and Poland will still be there when I get back. This is a good way to bridge between destinations.

These are four outfits you've never heard of ... well not really. You have Mr. SO-&-SO who are Masahiko Ohno (Solmania etc) and Seiichi Yamamoto (Boredoms, Omoide Hatoba, Rovo, etc), AXA who are Aya Onishi (Sekiri and The Nihilist Spasm Band amongst others) and Akifumi Nakajima (Aube, obviously), Swastika who are Fumio Kosakai (Incapacitants, C.C.C.C. and a hell of a lot more) and Ryuichi Nagakubo (who was in C.C.C.C. and a whole host of Fumio side-projects) and Kishidashin who are Shiro Maki (who is actually Jojo Hiroshige) and Seishiro Kikui (who is really Koichi Nakaya, the main man in Nasca Car and a member of Grind Orchestra). Given all of the people involved ... it is briliiant but not at all what you might expect.

CD released on Alchemy Records in 2003.

双音迷宮

va - Hear Japanese See Japanese Say Japanese

Compilation CD of (like it says on the cover) "japanese youth and obscure noise/power-electronics/industrial/avant-garde" music, released by Dotsmark in 2007. Includes tracks by Amnesia-Channel, Bloody Letter, Groyxo, Variations of Sex, others you've never heard of. Plus, a video!

va - Hear Japanese See Japanese Say Japanese

Various - PRES Revisited (Józef Patkowski In Memoriam)

Yeah, I have a glitchy mojo. Living in a Covid world is arse. Getting Covid and having to deal with the long-form is arse. Losing family to Covid is arse. And still having to go to work is arse. And, a couple of my feline tribe left the building recently. That was proper arse with a capital ARSE. So yeah, boo fucking hoo. So that's why it's been quieter than normal around here. Not losing interest in the blog, just the will to live. They are different things and sarcasm doesn't translate written down which is a pisser because if it did I'd be award winning and rich! Then I could safely lose interest whilst paying someone else to do this bit ...

I have a few more examples of Polish sophistication before I ruin the atmosphere with a lovely long run of noise. So. without further ado: one disc with original compositions from (respectively) Eugeniusz Rudnik, Krzysztof Penderecki, Bohdan Mazurek and Bogusław Schaeffer. The second disc features interpretations of these works by combinations of Phil Durrant, Mikołaj Pałosz, Eddie Prévost, Maciej Śledziecki and John Tilbury. Not bad eh?

Double CD released on Bôłt in 2010. It's not MP3.

In Memoriam

Bohman Brothers & Richard Thomas - The New York Special

Tour-only CDR (not on Discogs!) by the trio that would later be called Secluded Bronte. Adam Bohman, as you all know, was a member of criminally under-rated group Morphogenesis. Adam and his brother Jonathan perform and record as (duh) the Bohman Brothers. This CDR was sold at North American performances in the 00's. I don't have a cover scan, but it's just generic black text on white paper with no other art or information.

Bohman Brothers & Richard Thomas - The New York Special

Za Siódmą Górą - Clean & Unclean

Polish industrial band covers a tune by Neil Megson's pop combo on one side, recorded live in 1991. Released as a 12" on Obuh Records the same year, then a little later as a cassingle.

Za Siodma Gora - Clean & Unclean

Various - Blanc et Rouge

Recently, you've met a few of the people on this compilation. Two very notable exceptions are Elżbieta Sikora and Krzysztof Knittel. Given the right head space, this is wonderfully engaging.

Triple CD from Bôłt in 2012. It's not MP3.

Blanc et Rouge

Eugeniusz Rudnik - Studio Eksperymentalne Polskiego Radia

These are compositions ranging from 1965 to 2002. You already have a feel for where you are going and it really doesn't disappoint.

A great four CD set courtesy of Polskie Radio in 2009. It's not MP3.

you better listen to the voice of reason

The Android Sisters - The Best of the Android Sisters

"Relationships? Who's got the time anymore? This is the future. Who needs an old-fashioned analog lover when you can have digital? X - 1" Ah yes, here's a deeply silly and yet perversely endearing album of what people in 1984 thought the future would sound like. Android Sisters were characters in an American cyberpunk radio drama from 1982 called Ruby: The Adventures of a Galactic Gumshoe. The "sisters" released an LP in 1984 which was reissued on CD with bonus tracks in 2004. This is the CD version. It's got a Philip K. Dick/Liquid Sky vibe, and is definitely of its era.

The Android Sisters - The Best of the Android Sisters

Detachment & McMarian - Cienie

Split cassette of Polish industrial obscurities from 1988, released on the A.R.S label. I don't think McMarian's side was included on the Impulsy Stetoskopyu 3xCD set, but I could be wrong.

Detachment & McMarian - Cienie

Eugeniusz Rudnik - Miniatury

This is three discs of exhilararting and disorientating composition by this master whose first name was well chosen. The fourth is a compilation of left-field explorers taking his work as a launching point ... Pleq, Rongwrong, Dariusz Przybylski, Wojciech Jachna, Michał Jacaszek and 35 others.

It is difficult to describe how great this collection is. Maybe if you were to take away all of the harsher noise that we have posted but put the rest of the blog in a blender ... it could well sound like this. As a warning and recommendation, if you have a history of mental instability then this will push you over the edge. If you don't have a history of mental instability, you will soon.

A four disc set released on Requiem Records and Narodowe Centrum Kultury in 2015. It's not MP3.

let's do the mind-warp again

Various - Pole Reports From Space

Since it's founding in 1957, The Polish Radio Experimental Studio unsurprisingly initially took inspiration for their sound designs from the post-war expansion of technology, space exploration and the popular media tropes of interplanetary travel, robotics and alien life (the threatening variety obviously). It's also a lot better than I'm making it sound. On here you get different generations of Eastern European sound sculptors: Krzysztof Penderecki, Zdeněk Liška (from former Czechoslovakia), Arturas Bumšteinas (Lithuania), Eduard Artemjew (Russia) who is better known for soundtracking the Soviet-era films of Andrei Tarkovsky, Marcin Cichy, Eugeniusz Rudnik and Sultan Hagavik.

A double CD released on Bôłt in 2014. It's not MP3.

in poland ... nobody can hear you whinge

McMarian - Wyjechał (Give Noise A Chance)

Triple-CD retrospective of mid-1980s industrial duo McMarian, recorded between 1986 and 1989. I don't think these recordings were widely released when the band was active. Discogs only lists this collection and a split cassette with Detachment. The set was part of Impulsy Stetoskopu's "Archive of Polish Industrial Music" series, which also unearthed noise by Wahehe (who was sometimes involved with McMarian), Soma-Structure, Szelest Spadających Papierków and more.

Various - Ata Tak The Collection Box 5 - The Single Collection

Well it looks like Mrs Inside has gone full-on GOP and betrayed her principles and acquiesced to the demands of the reactionary mob that has so clearly defiled our sacred chamber. Unfortunately, under Chapter 8, paragraph 8.3(1) of the contract we signed with www.youmakeafortunefromrunningablogsogorimme.com I am forced under the aegis of corporate responsibility to collaborate with Mrs Inside's cowardice under extreme pressure. And so ... IN A FINAL STAND AGAINST TYRANNY, I GIVE YOU ...

It's a CD that did come in a box with three seven inch singles that have mostly been replicated prior to this. I don't have rips of the vinyl that came with the CD. I could try to blag it and post the three and hope for the best. However, now we're under the harsh spotlight of the masses I dare not mis-step.

So. Suezan Studio. 2014. Not. MP3.

And now we are off to invade Poland which will accommodate all of our die-hard communist and fascist readership. Don't say we don't care about all of you!

and now you face the iron curtain

Rongwrong - The Story of Alfons Czahor

OKAY FINE. Look, I hear you! Alright? I hear all of your plaintive cries... so many voices, all at once shouting, pleading with us by email and marching with placards in front of our downtown corporate office: WHAT ABOUT POLISH MUSIC??

Well, all of us here at Bleak Bliss Ltd LLC are nothing if not responsive to the needs of our (variously) loyal readers. And so.... you asked for it, you got it. Buckle up, 'cuz here comes a boatload of POLISH MUSIC. Opulent bouquets and gifts that represent your thanks can be mailed to the address of our administrative headquarters, located in the heart of your favorite metropolitan center. "The Story of Alfons Czahor" is a 1996 CD reissue of a 1994 cassette by the Polish trio Rongwrong, who are sort of industrial dramatic ambient. It's not a life-changer, but it is Polish, which is what you wanted so very very much. And rest assured: more Polish noise is on the way. Your gratitude is acknowledged and accepted. You may now disperse peacefully back to your homes, knowing that today you've made a real difference.

Rongwrong - The Story of Alfons Czahor

Various - Ata Tak: The Collection Box 4 - Ripening

"You fucking elitist cunt. I know you're using mega just to fucking spite me."

That is an entertaning observation recently left as a comment for the first Box. Anonymous obviously. Dessicated spunk bubbles are always anonymous ... why is that? Hang on ... maybe it's an uber-intellectual way to make me always use mega? Oh, the psychic and existential confusion that such a comment generates! What am I to do? How will I sleep safely at night knowing that somebody is unhappy? Yeah, I'll stay with sarcasm. Mrs Inside can speak for herself but we have always worked on utilitarian principles here. Art on the least intrusive filehosts ... and you get it for (erm) free unless you cost the time spent for clicking a button. Don't get me wrong, I genuinely don't care if some tosspot out there in the world is mildly inconvenienced. However, it does make me happy to publically acknowledge the creative genius of the person who spent their own time sending us that piece of wisdom. Bravo!

Back in the "real" world ... you get two albums by Der Plan (who I increasingly love), two by Pyrolator (that are naturally very good) and one by Thirteen. They are apparently Lost Gringos but I can't get past the first two tracks. In my opinion it is fucking awful and explains why der Hoffmeister thought it was OK to wear a suit covered in fairy lights rather than allow us to remember him as posterity intended: filmed in ultra slow motion to avoid his belly and tits jiggling about too much whilst we waited for the improbably proportioned ladies to appear.

In all of the excitement, nearly forgot to say that it's a five disc set from Suezan Studio in 2013. Looks as though they halved the edition to 300 by this point ... a taste not acquired by their customers perhaps. It's not MP3.

you probably think this post is about you

Various - Ata Tak: The Collection - Box 3 Pop / Lovely

This collection is utterly fucked up to the point where it drives you to get an appointment with the doctor / psychiatrist / psychotherpist / home delivery servive of fine wines and drugs of your choice. That undoubtably reassures you that I care about your mental stability and serves as a legally binding disclaimer. ish.

Die Doraus und Die Marinas is largely attributable to Andreas Dorau. He appears have had an approach to sourcing his songs and publicity shoots that hasn't worn so well. It's weird enough without that knowledge and now you can add some sinister. Ja Ja Ja's only album is a kind of Altered Images / Bow Wow Wow hybrid with added P16.D4. Lost Gringos are always reliable and their only LP is a stabilising point that kind of passes by due to the oddness of the bread in this particular sandwich. Die Zimmermänner turn out to be a far too energetic Haircut 100 doubling up as a really fucking annoying flower seller when you are trying to relax by the pool. Finally, in a sentiment never concieved before, Picky Picnic save the day. Apparently, this is Kaoru Todoroki, Makoto Ori, Yuji Asuka who have been touted as the Japanese version of The Residents by people who have never heard The Residents ... maybe nicking the bassline for Wham!'s I'm Your Man and Airport guitar licks was ironic back then.

... and just when you think it's all over, you get a "bonus" 3" CD of live Die Doraus und Die Marinas just in case your inner child-catcher has lost it's mojo.

Let's face it, you deserve to listen to this on repeat you disreputable bastards. You would only complain if this was the missing volume.

Suezan Studio. 2011. Endure in non-MP3. You're welcome!

ugly pop killed

va - Bottom Of The World (A Compilation Of New New Zealand Music)

Four-way split 7" of New Zealand noise, released by Fisheye and Fourth Dimension in 1998. Tracks by RST, Omit, Sandoz Lab Techniciand and Surface of the Earth.

va - Bottom Of The World (A Compilation Of New New Zealand Music)

Mo*Te & Macronympha - Dub Of Macronympha 1999

The title isn't quite accurate. You won't mistake this for Augustus Pablo, or even Jah Excretion. Collaborative album released as a CDR by Bizarre Audio Arts.

Mo*Te & Macronympha - Dub Of Macronympha 1999

Mo*Te & Macronympha - Despair

Split CDR from 2018, released by the Ecuadorian label Bizarre Audio Arts. On this album, Macronympha was Joe Roemer with John Grimaldi (Hand and Knee) and Leonardo Sabato (aka Armenia, guy who runs Bizarre Audio Arts).

Mo*Te & Macronympha - Despair

Dour - The Serpent's Tail

2007 CDR by Dour (who also records as Exhumed Corpse), released by With Intent in an edition of 100 copies and given away free with orders from Hanson Records and Chondritic Sound.

Dour - The Serpent's Tail

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