Bleak Bliss

Kites ‎- Hallucination Guillotine // Final Worship

Christopher Forgues in fine form on this CD / LP released on Load Records in 2007.

Hallucination Guillotine // Final Worship

Kites - Deny 1

C40 released on IDES Recordings in 2007.

Deny 1

Kites ‎- Vol. 11: Drogue Chute

C20 released on his own Unskilled Labor in 2007. The "Volume series" had at least 12 releases ... we only have 3, 4, 8 and 11 ... any help in getting closer from you lovely people?

Vol. 11: Drogue Chute

Altered States - Altered States

Altered States were Uchihashi Kazuhisa (of Ground Zero amongst others) on guitar, Mitsuru Nasuno (of Ground Zero, Korekyojinn, Sanhedrin and played in Fushitsusha and Seijaku) on bass and Yasuhiro Yoshigaki (yep, Ground Zero and any number of Otomo Otomo Yoshihide projects) on drums.

This was their first release and came out on Zenbei in 1992. This is the initial glimpse of what may be the most appropriately named band ever.

Altered States

Altered States featuring Otomo Yoshihide ‎- Lithuania And Estonia Live

With Otomo Yoshihide on Guitar and Turntables (and in a live context) Altered States turn into a different beast altogether.

Released on Trigram in 1994.

Lithuania And Estonia Live

Altered States - Mosaic

CD released on God Mountain in 1995.

This is a more conventionally structured release until you get to the final track: Suite "Circle". From that point my friend, all bets are off! Half an hour of absolutely epic (structured) chaos that will unhinge you and make you play it on rotation!

Mosaic

Altered States - 4

CD released on Zenbei in 1995. It's a 3 track affair with two sprawling 20+ minute juggernauts either side of a six minute work of art that comes across like a punch-drunk South Park theme song from another dimension!

4

John Olson & Witcyst - Foes Like Gentle Talk

An ugly beauty from the very early days of American Tapes, when Wolf Eyes was still years away and the compulsively prolific teenage John Olson was already taxing the motors of his Tascam, issuing a staggering number of small-run cassettes from suburban Ferndale (Tonight!) Michigan. This was pre-No Fun, pre-Hospital, pre-eBay, pre- that fleeting moment when noise was cool.

"Foes Like Gentle Talk" came out in a numbered edition of 30 copies on Am Tapes' Grave Prog imprint on 17 August 1999. It's a postal collaboration of fuzzy drone, backwards tape scramble, and woozy "free-improv"-lineage clarinet squawk perpetrated by Olson and his Southern Hemisphere equal, New Zealand's mighty (and, for reasons I cannot fathom, relatively unsung) Witcyst, whose own endless discography of defiantly homemade spliced-tape trash is as impressive as it is obscure (but you may as well start here). It seems likely that Witcyst's prodigious output influenced a young Olson from the other side of the planet, hence the evident empathy between the two on this tape. "Foes" contains no-fidelty, couldn't-be-arsed open-reel fuckery pressed right up against extended passages of delicate improvisation and single-minded static hush. It's a solid album of purposeful nonsense, as deep and evocative as it is gloriously unpolished.

As with all early Olson transmissions, "Foes" came out to zero fanfare and was probably mostly mailed out for free to friends and fanatics within the worldwide network of tape-traders and weirdos. Clearly, though, it deserves a wider audience. Soak it in, sports fans.

John Olson & Witcyst - Foes Like Gentle Talk

Ruins + Kazuhisa Uchihashi - Ruins + Kazuhisa Uchihashi

Around the time of this release Ruins were Yoshida Tatsuya on drums and vocals alongside Sasaki Hisashi on bass. I'm assuming that this is also the case here. They are joined by Uchihashi Kazuhisa (former member of such bands as Ground Zero and Altered States) on guitar to create some great imploding angular chaos. A jazzed up Truman's Water falling down a flight of stairs.

Released on F.M.N Sound Factory in 2002.

Ruins + Kazuhisa Uchihashi

Dislocation - Instill / On The Move

C42 released on G.R.O.S.S. in 1992.

The audience doesn't even have the chance to get in the way. Make a jazz noise here ...

Instill / On The Move

Shida ‎- File 1: Mr. Chinhatto & Dedomen

This is one of the early tapes released on Akifumi Nakajima's seminal G.R.O.S.S. label. It's a C42 from 1993.

Shida at this point is Toyohiro Okazaki (who was also a member of Dislocation, Minotaure and Sandmachine). This is a strange peek into the Japanese noise underground of the early '90s. At first this confused me ... it's a low level recording with a lot of chatter. It is at about 10 minutes of Side 1 when somebody coughs straight into the recording device that gives it away. To my Occidental perspective, this is a live recording of a moment that would have otherwise been lost had it not been for Aube's documentary dedication. Once you figure it out and move past, the talk just becomes part of the event.

File 1: Mr. Chinhatto & Dedomen

Hado-Ho, Tamaru, Kazunao Nagata‎ - Feedbackpsychedelica

Essentially this is a Dub Sonic release featuring collaborations with Shuichi Tamaru and Kazunao Nagata respectively. Judging by the title, you would expect walls of screaming guitars but that is far from what you get here.

The first track is Hado-Ho (aka Takehito Nakazato aka Dub Sonic) using a mixing desk to create long pitch-shifting drones. The second track with Shuichi Tamaru adds more layers of depth to create an (almost) intergalactic dark ambient feel akin to Sleep Research Facility. The third track with Kazunao Nagata creates a dystopian future that slips through your fingers.

When all is said and done, this is magnificent!

Released on Far East Experimental Sounds in 1999.

Feedbackpsychedelica

Dub Sonic Roots Meets Nerve Net Noise - Live at Uplink Factory November 3, 1996

This is a truly great piece of work that just evolves in front of you. NNN live with upright bass, keyboards, tenor sax and an off-kilter tribal rhythm section supplied by Dub Sonic Roots (Takehito Nakazato, Masaaki Kikuchi, Masahiko Okura and Tomohide Midori).

The final half hour long piece even riffs on Sun Ra's "Space Is The Place". There are places that get a really psychedelic groove going and turn into a jazz infused Sunburned Hand Of The Man mutation. This CD should be played on repeat!

Again released on Zero Gravity in 1997.

Live at Uplink Factory November 3, 1996

Nerve Net Noise - This Island Earth

This is probably one of Hiroshi Kumakiri and Tsuyoshi Nakamaru's more accessible works. Although all things are relative of course. Amongst the repetitive glitch, there are long passages of droning noise. The final track "Gagaku" is a shimmering warped masterpiece.

Released on the great Zero Gravity in 1997.

This Island Earth

Nerve Net Noise - Chamber Music For Factory

Imagine that you're sitting in a room that's relatively quiet, apart from two things: a fax machine that gets an incoming fax once in a while and a synthesizer in the corner that someone left on, then walked away. That's this CD. I cannot think of any explanation for it, or purpose for it to exist, and yet here it is. No chamber music and no factory. Released on Pearl Records in 1998. Good luck out there.

Chamber Music For Factory