Gross Ex Machina - Ruiner

Bloodlet/Candiria/Starkweather/Botch/Today Is The Day/Nocturnus/Cave In style whatthefuckerry. Avant prog tech metal weirdness.

It's not an all out widdle fest though. Loads of sickening slow sludgey riffs in utterly fucked time signatures. Add Disembowelment to the list of bands for that bit actually.

Also makes me think of The Kevorkian Solution or Koreisch and the way they were off in their own little world of headfucking riffs.

The label blurb attempts to explain it:-

Lancaster Pennsylvanias GROSS EX MACHINA have meticulously crafted elements of grindcore, jazz, prog, post hardcore, and experimental electronic music to create a truly unique, avant-metal debut, RUINER.

This monster EP seamlessly transitions between a psychotic vortex of carnal aggression, beautifully layered guitar-scapes, sci-fi carnival music, and a deep lumbering wall of distortion. These elements alone have made way for G.E.M to blaze their own path through the mire of predictable metal and hardcore trends, while concurrently ruining preconceived notions of what “heavy” music is all about.

Not too far off the mark. The sci fi thing is definitely there. Occasional synth bits with spacey guitar fx etc. Oh, and occasional vocoder vocals.

Did i mention that it's really fucking good? Well, it is. Can't recommend it enough.

Vaura - The Missing (Profound Lore)

Black metal gone gothy/shoegaze-pop. Yeah, I know, I know but it does actually work. it's on Profound Lore so just trust.

It's got Toby Driver from Kayo Dot and Maudlin Of The Well so there's pedigree in this band. Before we go on a quick reminder of how astonishingly incredible Maudlin Of The Well were:-



Back to Vaura it's really hard to explain their sound. It's a bit of a slow burner. Thought it was alright on the first listen and maybe listened to again a week later but became one of those albums you're strangely drawn into playing until you suddenly realise it's incredible. Layers and depth reveal themselves. For example right this second I've noticed a bit of Cynic style vocoder space vocals in one of the songs (Putting Flesh To The Bone). At other points it's like 80s King Crimson covering Amorphis or My Bloody Valentine covering Rush. Other points it's a bit like that Beastmilk polished neo-goth thing but doing California by Mr Bungle. Strangely though it does all sound normal. They're not pretentiously trying to make really weird off beat sounds to be purposely obscure. It doesn't sound jarring in the slightest. In terms of black metally underground stuff it's really pop orientated. This lot could quite easily be hounded out of the hall by Manowar for being wimps and poseurs. Tedious people with BO will talk about Pitchfork and the brooklynisation of music nowadays.

I think I'm losing the thread of what I'm trying to say.

All these different sounds float about but it's a coherent voice. It's a bit like the way Take 5 by The Dave Brubeck Quartet is a totally whistleable pop tune but it's in 5/4 and the musicians are doing all kinds of acrobatics without you realising unless you really listen.

I've got a gut feeling that this album will slowly release even more secrets as time goes on and I think i'd put money on me declaring it a bona fide classic in ten years time

Nohome - s/t (Trost)

Caspar Brotzmann Massaker reborn!! It's Caspar Brotzmann and friends making a Massaker-esque racket in Berlin last year. If you loved the Caspar Brotzmann Massaker albums then you won't be disappointed. You've probably already got it or have at least pressed play before this paragraph has even ended.

For the uninitiated you're in for a treat. Well, as long as you like harsh experimental guitars blasting at full volume. Caspar Brotzmann is the son of notorious free jazz sax blaster Peter Brotzmann and the apple didn't fall very far from the tree.

Think 80s Sonic Youth at their wildest but more, well just more....

If stuff like The Dead C, Skullflower, Fushitsusha, Swans etc takes you're fancy then you have to check them out. He could teach black metal bands more than a thing or two about outright savage guitar playing.

He was incredible when he played Cafe Oto a while back. Fingers crossed he comes back soon.

The Fierce And The Dead - Spooky Action

80s King Crimson meets The Raincoats meets Sleepytime Gorilla Museum?

Vladislav Delay

Fact Mag have a rather good run down of the essential Vladislav Delay.. From that, I discovered that Vladislav Delay has a bandcamp page with loads of his albums and EPs on.

Vladislav Delay is pretty much essential if you're into electronic music and the more experimental end of techno. it's all ridiculously well produced and thought out.

Worth tracking down the issue of The Wire with a massive interview with him. Just look at these pictures of his studio!

Kevin Drumm and Lasse Marhaug - bandcamps for noise legends

Just found out that Kevin Drumm and Lasse Marhaug have started their own bandcamp pages to slowly put their back catalogue stuff on. They've both been doing noise and experimental stuff for years and have some level of quality control so it's worth checking their stuff out:-

Kevin Drumm bandcamp

Lasse Marhaug bandcamp

Hopefully it might inspire other decent noise artists/labels to put up good quality back catalogue stuff.

The Tunnel - s/t

because you need a Venezualan duo that sound like Torche/Harvey Milk gone operatic but with organ & salsa beats in your life

worth watching this video until at least the 5:30 mark where it all goes wild Van Halen shredding and then he starts to dance.



This may well be my new favourite band. I'd try to explain this in more depth but I think I need to go and have a lie down for a while.

Svart Crown - Profane

Sick, weird technical death metal stuff from France. Starkweather were posting about a new song by Ulcerate this morning. They basically said FFO Gorguts, Pyrrhon, Portal and Svart Crown. Love the other bands already so thought I'd check Svart Crown out. Holy shit! Add something like Deathspell Omega to that list of bands and you're about there. Quality.

Meridian Brothers - Desesperanza (Soundway)

One of those bands that's impossible to describe. Think a mix of The Residents, Ethiopiques compilations, 60s surf instrumentals, old 60s electronics and Latin American psych stuff like Os Mutantes and that Tropicalia compilation Soul Jazz put out.

This Colombian band are dead tuneful but in a really bizarre way. Highly recommended though.





Oh, and they've also done one of the strangest covers of Purple Haze I've heard



Boomkat is the place for FLAC of this

Richard Pinhas - Desolation Row

Two awesome things to note. Firstly, there's a new Richard Pinhas album and it's sounding pretty damn good. Secondly, Cuneiform Records have put tons of their back catalogue up on bandcamp.

If you're unaware of who Richard Pinhas is then you need to get your lugholes around Stand By by Heldon. Wild 70s French prog rock band. King Crimson and Magma type freakouts. Essential stuff.



Richard Pinhas's solo stuff is a bit Fripp & Eno but minus any kind of 'ambient' Eno influence. He did a collaboration record with Merzbow for fucks sake.

Anyway, if you love genuinely innovative and unique guitar stuff then you need to at least check out some of his stuff.

Dripping Ancience - s/t (Ocrilim)

Another great release by Mick Barr of Orthrelm/Krallice.

This time he's playing an Azeri Tar and has an improv percussionist backing him up.

Closest comparison i can think of is Flower Corsano Duo



Definitely like to hear more of this side project.

Kirin J Callinan - W II W/Thighs 7"

An Australian guy that's come up with some creepy Foetus style music. Jittery drums overlayed with goth-tinged weirdness. Bizarre industrial pop.

And that's just the first song. The flipside is minimal guitar stuff with drawling vocals. Think Tom Waits or Scott Walker.

Really struggling to describe this accurately. Which is a good thing.

This guy is a total freak off in his own little sound world.

Bologna Violenta - The Sound Of compilation series (Grindcore Karaoke)

What does a band sound like when their entire discography is played at the same time? A glorious, hideous mess. That's what.

Surprisingly, it also makes for quite interesting listening. Actually listened to quite a few of these so far. Honestly, I thought I'd listen to about a minute of one of them, have a laugh, and then just forget about it. Not the case though.

Should mention Grindcore Karaoke have put up a whole series of these albums. 40 artistst get the Bologna Violenta treatment in total. Everything from Abba to Pantera.

The Charles Bronson track above is a good place to start as it's a mere one and a half minutes long. Gives you an idea of how it all works and how you you can hear sounds fade in and out. Also, shows how the sound changes dramatically towards the end as less songs are playing.

It sounds like 7 Minutes Of Nausea or something like that. Or a bit like the Anal Cunt 7" with 5643 songs on it. AC basically recorded short songs layered on top of each other. Total mess.

The Abba track sounds good as well. You can occasionally pick up bits of melodies from the gloop. Not a million miles away from the racket V/VM used to make.

It makes you feel a bit like Johnny 5 from Short Circuit when you're listening to it. Absolute headfuck.

Simon Aulman - Doctored Placebo

Welcome to my newest planet of grotesque elephantine distortion and tender licking exquisiteness. Yes I like this one quite a lot - but the newest one is always overrated. It starts the way I'd love everything to start and belly and end - with something blunderingly simple and repetitive. Unfortunately it sounds more repetitive than it really is. It sounds like some lazy five second loop going on till OAPdom. But it's actually quite complicated and if you listen hard you can hear how it moves from being jumpy and off-kilter to being smoother and better-flowing. But no one will listen hard - or soft - or at all. And that's how it should be. I'm bored of it already. The moment the final track is starting to upload I want to get on to the next thing. The second track is actually even lazier than the first one. How I love lazy music. It's the kind of slightly odd music that your mum loves - because it's so insta-sexily hip-in/out rhythmic - but every muso will despise it because it's just a lazy echo-y thing. The title of the second track is inspired by the title of that absolutely fantastic old documentary about Chet Baker - "Let's Get Lost" - which I watched this morning before it got light, before the boot-sale. If Let's Get Lost is still on youtube then it's well worth a pot - and probably a more delightful experience than hearing this album. A lot of work went into the third and fourth tracks. When I say "a lot of work" I mean about an hour each. Which for someone as impatient as myself is a long time in front of the computer. I totally love them. But it's the same love you have for your own farts and your own children and poetry and dreams - no one else is intrigued. But anyone who makes it to the centre of the tracks will maybe like the lusher slower keys, losing the war against the terrible distortion. And maybe not. The long final track is probably fairly boring to anyone else, but I like it and I can assure you it's not repetitive at all - every moment is unique. This is my favourite album so far. Everything was made in LMMS - which I've now been using for about a month. I haven't learnt anything more since about the second day. Malcolm Gladwell says that in another ten thousand hours I should be a genius at it. The prang is that it's getting harder - the more I know the harder it is to keep it simple and naive and I'm losing the freedom of being able to think Oh Bugger It and then just echo everything so that boring random bangs become simple minimal swaying procreative pleasures. I spent more time doing the cover than I did doing the first and second and final tracks and look how crappy-naff-sicky that photo turned out, which is a good lesson to anyone else who is patiently polishing their turd.

Music From Saharan Cellphones Vol 2

Contemporary pop music from the Sahara desert, where songs are stored on cellphones. Collected in Northern Mali in 2010 (since taken over by extremists who've banned music on cellphones) the second volume expands into new sonic territory - from dreamy Niger guitar ballads, Bamako club juke, to hi energy Moroccan child Raï - with a focus on the Autotuned DIY creations circulating the desert.

Only half way through listening to this second instalment of Music From Saharan Cellphones but it's standing up well with the awesome first volume.

Basically, it covers the mutant sounds of the Saharan desert. A scene where music gets passed around via mobile phones. Completely the antithesis of "authentic" Womad style world music. Recognisably African in sound but filtered through autotune and hip hop and rock but in completely and utterly unique ways.

Impossible to describe really. It's totally sui generis.

Blackest Ever Black

BLACKEST EVER BLACK have a bandcamp page now - http://blackesteverblack.bandcamp.com/

Home of some of the best electronic sounds going at the moment: Raime, Regis, Cut Hands, Dalhous, Vatican Shadow, Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement, Prurient. Harsh & bleak techno/industrial sounds.

They've only got two albums up there at the moment but hopefully they'll put the back catalogue on. There's a Prurient piece and also this from Alexander Lewis:-

Spectral Park - s/t

http://boomkat.com/downloads/641169-spectral-park-spectral-park

This is like some kind of hyperactive crystal-meth version of chopped & screwed but done with 60s psych instead of hip hop. It's almost like a bunch of 7"s have been smashed up and randomly glued back together.

It's all really tuneful though. The organ and voice keep the melodies going while chaotic collage of sound swirls around.

The organ is a definite highlight. Can't beat a good organ tone.

Maybe a bit like MGMT done as old school cut and paste collages with glue and old newspaper magazines. it's really well done though.

Guess it'd be a good one to place next to that Retromania book. All the themes and sounds are kind of retro but they're all formed into a different style.

The song in the first youtube video has been on repeat on my commute. Really interesting way the melodies, harmonies and backing music fit together.

They've also got an 'official' video. First song on the album. Which is also good.

Vakunoht - Gagarin's Start

"The missing link between XTC, Nomeansno, The Cardiacs and Motorhead?" according to a friend. I reckon something like Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum or maybe APATT doing a metal band.

Occasionally I hear glimpses of things like Tarot Woman by Rainbow but mixed in with Devo.

What about if the folk in Circle/Pharaoh Overlord tried their hand at a pop rock band?

Apparently they've got a new album coming which is going to be even wilder than this one. Can't wait.

Holly Herndon - Movement

One of my favourite albums of 2012. Holly Herndon seems to be among the very small handful of musicians really doing something genuinely new and unique with experimental electronic music.

I mean there's occasional 4/4 beats lurking about and odd bits of squelchy 303-style basslines. However, when I say odd I also mean bizarre.

The third 'song' Breathe is really unsettling. Starts off with lots of odd sounding breaths treated loads and layered. Just sounds completely alien. The kind of thing that could really give you nightmares. Some of them end up almost as the gurgles of someone dying. Not the kind of thing you'd have on your headphones walking home at night down a dark alley.

However, if you happen to be in charge of soundtracking a horror film I've got exactly what you need right here.

There's treated male voice on a later song combined with treated female voice. That one sounds a bit more fun though. Almost like they were sat around making the noises of speeding racing cars at a baby. Total doppler effect stuff going on. Some strange harmonies as well.

It's one of those albums you could probably write a whole essay about if you were that way inclined. I'm happy enough to just say it's brilliant and enjoy listening to it a bunch more.

Ocrilim - Rememinent Observance

Yesterday, Ocrilim released this album dedicated to 12/12/12.

It sounds like Ocrilim. Yet more idiosyncratic solo guitar stuff. Maybe a bit rougher round the edges as it sounds more like a home studio recording but that's no bad thing.

Personally I can't get enough Mick Barr stuff so was happy to shell out some cash on it.

Update: forgot to mention Yucuod. As Kevin pointed out in the comments, it sounds like some kind of weird Japanese acoustic folk guitar music. Something a bit different.