Today's Experimental/Avant-garde/Noise Playlist

NURSE WITH WOUND "CHROMANATRON" 2013


If you scour the internet, as I have, for a review of this particular NWW offering you just get an explanation from the label about NWW using recordings from SAND albums and little or no explanation of what that means.

I want to rectify this. Please keep in mind describing a NWW record can be a difficult proposition, as much of what I'm hearing is not always easy to know what is making that sound.

CHROMANATRON starts out very strong with apparent lifted guitar picking from whatever SAND recording they pillaged and is quickly interrupted by heavy Nurse style slabs of deep rumbling noise and what sounds like distorted guitar noise delayed filtered and panned around, churping and hissing and generally barking off in the reverb.
Suddenly a musical passage starts up with melodica (?) hand precussion panning back and forth and a thin bass line picked rhythmically almost reggae like keeping things going.

Then again, sudden harsh slabs of distorted noise come at you from various points of the sound field, these have an organic Moog feel to them only very menacing, farting and grumbling like a audio cauldron.
This pans through the sound stage at varying degrees of intensity until it fades into sheets of noise moving off into the distance like electric winds.

A brief unintelligible female voice then gives way to strummed guitar, light hand precussion and distant violin with piano tinkering.
Again this has the feel of lifted elements from SAND.
Wah wah guitar strum makes an appearance which ushers in stately french horn.
None of the elements crowd the others and it all settles into a calm interlude when off in the distance comes some serious Krautrock motorik drumming backed by steady bass.

Three guitars take over the focus and an inspiring Krautrock guitar free-for-all insues, left/right panning, reverb trail offs, distortion soaked solos all converge into the most cohesive psyched out rock song ever comitted to a NWW record!

This is the most cohesive "rock" song ever perpetrated by NWW. It really sounds like a lost krautrock classic, what they call "a hallucination on the music of SAND".
It's truly a jaw dropping end to a perfect NWW first side.

Side two starts out with distant panning noise similar to an electronic sitar sound, but not. Crackling shards of noise break through at various intensity and a male voice gives instruction, again unintelligible.

Wind chimey sounds combine with more distant muffled unknown noise panned at different angles in the stereo field. It's all very quiet and hidden.
Various sounds are introduced like Leslie sounding keyboards and sheets of reverbed guitar tones delayed and distorted that come at you slow and out from the ether.
This reminds of NWW's "Space" LP.
Distant muffled singing comes in with more distorted violin sounds panned.

This is all very subdued and relaxing until a huge loud distorted mechanical noise begins an audio assult on the level of the most intense MERZBOW noise, that makes you feel very uncomfortable and just about the time you're reaching for the volume knob it stops as suddenly as it started.

The mellow relaxing tones of noise have been there all along, under the horrible noise that invaded it. This carries you off into the ether, once again and side two is over.

Side one gets the nod but side two is growing on me. An excellent album all the way through and recommended to any kraut/Nurse fan out there. You know who you are.

 

KLAUS SCHULZE "IRRLICHT" 1972


Truly enjoying this electronic classic!
Very Tangerine Dream like.

Klaus Schulze actually mixed Sand's first record "Golem".
This has a great ping-pong effect going through much of the first side, real headphone material.
The long sliding synth noises and panned rhythmic sounds puts this in the same realm as the above reviewed piece.
Kraut heaven.

 

noisefreq, valliant CHROMANATRON play by play sound review there. Whew! And beautiful turntable too.
I'll have to bring out Irrlicht I haven't heard in awhile, the symphony rehearsal recorded bits as background with his synthscapes over the top is a great listen for sure.

 

Two new purchases of albums released earlier this year, from the dancy/poppy end of the experimental spectrum.

Creep Show - Mr. Dynamite

Quartet of John Grant (American singer/songwriter and synth guy currently living in Iceland) and the three guys from Wrangler (Stephen Mallinder, Phil Winter and Benge). All analog synths and most of the vocals are treated. As a fan of Mr. Grant and Cabaret Voltaire, this is right in my wheelhouse.




Meat Beat Manifesto - Impossible Star

First new MBM album since 2010. I like this better than the dubstep-influenced sound of the last two, right about on par with 2005's At the Center, a favorite of mine.

 

DAVID BORDEN "ANATIDAE" 1985


His second solo record after the demise of Mother Mallard.

Has a lot in common with Terry Riley and Steve Reich.
Multiple synths and or pianos being played simultaneously with guitar added by David Torn and drums added by David Van Tieghem.

This makes for a nice hole filler as I have his first and third albums.

 

MORTON SUBOTNICK "SIDEWINDER" 1971


This one's a lot of fun!

Various Buchla sounds flying around the room, this sounds freakin' awesome in surround sound!
Maybe a bit subdued when compared to his first three records, but I think the better for it. Doesn't sound completely out of place with Chromanatron.

Another hole filler for me. I did good this week.

 

MATMOS "THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS" 2013


MATMOS have such a varied discography. Every album is a new direction.
This album is no different and was supposedly inspired by parapsychological experiments conducted over four years by the band members.

It starts off with what sounds like Laurie Anderson fronting Bill Laswell's 90s era Material.
Song two is more like the softer side of Einsturzende Neubauten.
Song three is a mish mash of klangs, water splashes, distant sirens all to a Brazilian beat.
And so it goes...

 

CARTER TUTTI VOID "TRANSVERSE" 2012

 

Merzbow - Merzbuddha (2005)

 

Low - Double Negative (2018)

The new Low album is surprisingly noisy, in a good way.

 

Cindytalk - A Life is Everywhere (2013)

 

The Caretaker
Everywhere At The End Of Time - Stage 5

with more wonderful artwork from Ivan Seal on this gatefold double album

 

New purchase: Coil + Zos Kia + Marc Almond - How to Destroy Angels

New release on Cold Spring of the first live performance of the piece.
Marc Almond performs a spoken word slag-off of a former lover (NSFW) over a backing track much different than the later studio recording.

 

Love me some NWW. Sounds interesting and I'm definitely going to find this album. Thanks!

 

Finished:



GJ

 

You can't go wrong with Archie Shepp.

 

It was a challenging listen on the way into work!

GJ

 

I don't know what you do for work but I find it very disorienting when I submerge myself in free jazz or noise of some kind and then go immediately into a very normal scene where I must interact with other humans.
Think...when The Blues Brothers go from the 20 minute police car chase to calmly riding in the elevator while the National Guard is converging on the building outside.

I'm just thinking, if they only knew where my head just was...
People who know me have just come to except it.

 

Dig.

I drive into chaos daily. I'm thinking I might need some Avant Garde injections more often. Sort of an "inoculation."

GJ

 

Now Playing: Pharaoh Sanders, "Deaf-Dumb-Blind"



GJ