Moss Harvest ‎– Constructs Of Loss And Longing (Cassette, C26, Summer Isle 2014)

A new and mysterious project has risen from the depths of the earth. And it is called Moss Harvest. This seems to be the first solo release of this dark ambient project, out and for sale on Summer Isle. There is also a split release with DownFuckingHill, released on Aught Void.

The first of the two tracks is called “Abhor”. And it consists out of stark, convincing & thick layers of darkened ambient. The mood is utterly depressed and conceives hopelessness, but it’s brought with lots of vigor and flair. It’s much like standing on a mountain top, overlooking the scenery with awe, and having the feeling of just being a dot in this thrasher of a world and universe. The dark ambient than transits into what seems to be processed field recordings, sounding like a raw drone or living organism, slowly moving and crawling towards the end.

The second and last track, “Triage”, also starts with overwhelming and strong ambient. This time it sounds more like a humming drone but it has that chilling ambient density. It also doesn’t sound that bleak as “Abhor”, but rather indifferent, like nature. Just like in the previous track it also merges into new processed fieldings, this time sounding more low and machine-like. Than a new ambient layer comes in at a calm pase and in a more silent approach, still going togheter with the field recordings.

This is a great solo debut from a promising project, made with the elements and force of nature. The only dissapointing aspect about this release is that it all was over pretty quick, but that seems to be the case with all good records. Be fast if you want to buy a physical copy, for it only has an amount of 26. And I almost forgot to mention that there is also a zine included.

Listen/buy:
Bandcamp

Winters In Osaka ‎– Constant Fear (Cassette, C88, Fusty Cunt 2011)

For those who don’t know, Winters in Osaka is a now defunct project and was a gathering of several musicians, with Jim Haras from Deterge and also the owner of Fusty Cunt, and Adam Jennings from Urine Cop, among many others. “Constant Fear”, the full length album I’m about to review, is a compilation cassette with five tracks from four different CDr releases.

“Shiva Gives Me A Hand Whenever I Need One” is the first track. It begins with a large crowd of people talking/making conversations, rather distorted. A faint drone or scape comes trough the mob and gets more broken and noisier each second. All kinds of noisy effects come in as well, swirling around the voices of the busy and talkative people. The sound is gritty and sharp, slicing and cutting the protagonists in this harsh play. After a while the people dissolve and disappear into the dark and chaotic noise, to come back again in a different form. It’s hard to explain, so you got to find out for yourself. This is also where a new part starts within the same track. That is a part of noisy synth layers and processed field recordings.

It’s hard to know where the second and third track, “Satyr's Birth” and “In The Form Of A Siren And Foetus” ends and begin, so I won’t bother to find out. It starts out with soothing tape gristle and very minimal sounds, that goes into nice, low rumbling noise after two minutes or so, and continues for the rest of the whole track. Almost wall-like.

The fourth track, “The Portraits Begin To Mourn”, is a twenty minute, dark noise, drone nightmare and collection of many different sounds, like delayed voices, delayed guitars, .. It’s like being in a moist cave with very less light, in hope of finding an exit. Murky, primitive rhythms come in and the sound is getting more tense and scarier after a while. The hope of finding that exit is long gone.

“Norilsk City”, the last track, begins with calm, noise electronics, almost drone-like. They soon get distorted and are joined by repetitive, dark tunes and other, minimal noise clutter. After a while the dark tunes stop and the electronics continue. They get louder and more powerful in sound and turn into solid drones.

Except for the first track, the other four are very repetitive and meditative. Although there is much more underneath the surface after listening to it a second time. A very convincing and dark release.

Maybe it’s still available, I don’t know. But you can email Jim to find out:
jimharas [at] yahoo [dot] com

Weak Sisters – Subterfuge (Cassette, Basement Tapes 2006)

Weak Sisters is a kind of mysterious project. Not much is out there of info, as there is many of the new artists today. Bobby Worth seems to be the founder of this project and this is his first release, dating from 2006. The tracks on this record are all rather short; seven tracks, going from 00:27 to 04:53 as being the longest. But they are all very good.

Tape-manipulation and lo-fi noise mingles with voice samples and deranged synthesizer sounds. Weird loops are crashing into low ranged noise and decaying field recordings are giving up their last breath. Everything is broken here. Broken and covered with huge layers of dust. These sloped structures show no empathy or feelings at all. It’s just straight forward rubble and chaos.

Although with seven separated tracks and all different titles, this release should be seen as one continuous massacre of sound. The overall sound feels environmental, old and has a vintage esthetics to it, much similar to the works of K.P.. A short but strong release.

No Longer Available on label

Ryan Gregory Tallman - Muscle Memories (File/download, Selfreleased 2014)

This full length release is by the experimental artist Ryan Gregory Tallman, residing in Fresno, California, which is primary focused on the sound manipulation of acoustic spaces. I will be reviewing one of his new works called "Muscle Memories".

The first track, “A Wince”, provides us crunchy layers of rhythmic noise, sharp piercing tones, atmospheric effects and sinister static, all well placed and composed. “TwoTwo” is a mixture of wind-like gristle noise, harsh mid tones, controlled but loud feedback and wobbling drones. While the third track, “Of New Film Criticism”, brings agitated power electronics, drone-noise, crushed vocal-like beats and harsh static. “Your Throat”, the fourth track, begins with a repetitive, heavily effected & constantly shifting beat. It is followed by dissonant & reverbed tones and weird sounds that you might also hear inside of a spaceship. Everything is moving here, moving & pulsating. The bitcrushed tones that follow, give the track a nasty & unheimlich feel. Very nice.

“Scrod Reign”, begins with a looped voice sample and goes over into harsh noise layers with faint tones trying to break through the thick noise. Hardly changing in sound and structure, this track makes me think a bit of the ambient noise wall genre. “Rune Sot”, the sixth track, is good combination of noise salvo’s, distorted rhythms, dislocated machine sounds and other shrieking oddities. “Miscellany” is the shortest track and brings razor sharp static and short, interrupted ambient intervals. The last track, “Tendons”, is a heavy drone, monotonous monster with noise drenched electronics, not changing one bit.

With influences of power electronics, noise rhythms, HNW, ANW and even resemblances with Pan Sonic, Muscle Memories is a succeeded experiment of different genres that I really enjoyed.

Buy/download/listen:
Bandcamp

Immaculate:Grostesque – Lifetime (Cassette, C20, Truculent Recordings 2006)

This project is from Jeff Plummer, who also plays or played in Shallow Waters. Both projects seem to be on a hold though, or defunct. And for this release you had to be very quick. Only twelve copy’s were made. He also runned Truculent Recordings (also seems to be on a hold), the label on which this release came out.

Side A (Untitled) begins with calm & sensitive drone electronics, sounding a bit like a campfire that slowly starts to ignite. They get more fiercely and start to erupt into a more aggressive sound, of heavy, high ranged, frantic noise and hiss. Scattering bursts and chunks of harsh noise follows, and than ends abruptly.

Side B (Untitled) starts with sharp feedback hiss. The sound is full and room filling. This is followed by more distorted machine-like electronics, which sound a bit like deluded and manic Morse-codes, drenched in a good, crunched layer of harsh noise. Some nice, subtle blasts of noise awaits the listener at the end of this track.

It seems to be that there are several parts or tracks within these two tracks, which make a very good and solid whole. The artwork represents the sound: cold and sterile. This is for those who like their noise to be old school and dusty.

No longer available on label

Interview with Vulgar Disease

Vulgar Disease is the power electronics and harsh noise project from Mario Umberto Quiroga, who lives and works in Guanajuato, Mexico. Here he talks about how he started making noise, his numerous side-projects, influences and much more.


JM: First of all, What does your project Vulgar Disease stand for and what do you want to say with this project, and what are the themes of your albums?

VD: “REAL MUSIC, FOR REAL PEOPLE THAT MAKE REAL SHIT HAPPEN”.
Jared Russell [ex- Headless Rapist]

Vulgar Disease is a very personal project that contains a great deal of introspection; it is a portrayal of my entire personal debauchery, focusing on a general sense of delirium/”fantasies” However, I do not wish to make general statements about the recurring themes in VD or to declare that it deals with topics that are morally unacceptable or politically incorrect, or even to directly categorize it as something to be filed under the taboo/forbidden/censored/deviant section. For VD, all of this is a day-to-day, exciting flirtation, an ebb and flow of intrinsically normal parameters.
 “THE JOY OF BEING VULGAR”


JM: When did you start making music/sounds, and was it always one particular genre you were involved in?

VD: I started in the year 2000. My mother gave me an electric guitar on the condition that I performed my military service duties. That lovely guitar still exist  but i never made my word regarding to military issues. I have been involved in several genres, as well as in several bands, playing guitar, voice, bass, pre-Hispanic instruments, keyboards, and synthesizers. But my search for something beyond conventional melody/harmony hugely increased in 2002; this was the year in which I started flirting with noise/ambient textures. Working along only with an effects processor.
I landed some gigs in universities, sometimes I played at friends’ parties (houses, garages or backyards), not much really came out of it. When my father died in 2004, I decided to take shelter in music even more, and I moved to Puebla that same year to receive “music education”—which I would leave after 3 years. It was in that city where I decided to stop using my birth name and instead replaced it with a project moniker, and VULGAR DISEASE officially started in July 29th of 2009. As a listener, I have not been able since my childhood to spend a day without music; it was and still is an addiction. I have a somewhat eclectic taste, I can spend all day listening to pop music, and then move to power electronics, or some grunge, blues, slowcore, shoegaze, industrial, metal, all the different “–waves”, or something from the neo-indie scene, etc. 


JM: How are your tracks created and how is your working method?

VD: PLUG & PLAY CABRÓN!!!

There are no methods or structures; it’s a spontaneous form -ad-libbed, all recorded in one take with no post-production. It’s something very instinctive, just get into the brawl, vato–, I’ve always relied on instinct in that way. Brings me to head a quote by the good old dog Steve Bagman to specify my response: “Shit is played live, in one take, by one man”.


JM: Aside from Vulgar Disease, are there any other projects or bands you are/were involved with?

VD: I am currently active in several projects: AJOLOTE (formerly Vertex Germ), with EDWIN ARCE, is one of them. We decided to change the name of the project after using it for 4 years. The decision was mostly based on the huge ancestral connotation of this amphibian (MEXICAN SALAMANDER), which is now in risk of extinction, and also (why hide it) because of 
its impressively psychedelic morphology.

AJOLOTE is perhaps the most “relaxed” of my projects, possibly because of the focus on hallucinogenic plants, which has led us to create albums in relation with magical mushrooms and peyote (available in RUIDO HORRIBLE as Vertex Germ), as well as a small tribute to this mythical fish (available in INFRA EDICIONES, our formal debut as AJOLOTE).

DOPAMINE LARVAE is a project that has evolved in a blacker, colder way. At first, most of the content was strongly related to Satanism and synthetic drugs. In time, I moved on to topics like genetics and medical experiments. Perhaps some of my childhood mental whirlwinds are reflected in DL (possibly in the somewhat fantastic tone and a certain degree of “utopia”, which I believe can actually take place). I recently finished a work that finally explains quite well what DOPAMINE LARVAE has been so far, and possibly what this project will deal with for some more time. This release, called “SONIC COMPENDIUM”, is a collection of 3 works, 3 installations and 1 bridge (#1. FULL TRILOGY a. ENDANGERED SPECIES b. NOT A HIDDEN PLACE c. SONIC PRAYERS FOR THE END OF YOUR EXISTENCE #2. SWEET VICES (BRIDGE) #3. UOMO NUOVO #4. PAREIDOLIC NATION).

Right  now, I am working in a new concept, similar to “SONIC COMPENDIUM”. The first part is now available in free download format from TORN FLESH RECORDS: TRANSMITTERS I “SPIRAL STANCE”.

P13/PRISIONERO13 is the most militaristic of my projects; originally VULGAR DISEASE handled most of this topic, but I felt the need to create an exclusive project bound to the topics of political violence and its nature. With a heavy dose of nationalism, narrating & protesting what happens in this spiral of violence that has been swiftly unleashed in my country. But it must be said that this is nothing new, it has been going on for centuries…

“Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” 
Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás

The name PRISIONERO13 is taken from a Fernando de Fuentes Carrau film from 1933, which mainly deals with the corruption of the military elite and its conduct codes. As a project, P13 is the voice of just another citizen that joins the revolt against the role of the army in the infamous and failed war on drugs. 

¡NO PASARÁN! 

I am currently in the process of creating a project using field recordings in a more industrial (strict/pure) way, the details are not still fully realized. There are currently two P13 albums about to be released: PATRIOTA SUPREMO (L.WHITE RECORDS) SEMBRANDO TERRORISMO (OBRERO, formerly CRIMES AGAINST SKIN)

XIUHCOATL, where I play along with Edwin Arce, Alejandra Fuentes, Héctor Sánchez, Juan Manuel Castillo, Israel Xchell, means FIRE SERPENT in the ancient Náhuatl language. "Xiuhcoatl" was formed in 2008, and it was started with the purpose of fusing organic, experimental and pre-Hispanic American sounds, along with research on different ethnic groups in order to revalue folkloric traditions and languages/dialects. Therefore, by experimenting and using contemporary techniques, Xiuhcoatl was born in order to achieve our own original and histrionic sound. In order to reinforce the performance aspect, we utilize real-time projection of visuals, as well as pre-Hispanic masks and instruments. XIUHCOATL is recording new pieces and also presenting live performances in several parts of the country. Xiuhcoatl as band is generally associated with the folk/ethno genres, and to describe its sound I leave you the link of some home-made demos… 

DOOMBOX, with SASCHA ALEXANDER PLEIN, also has a huge “political” content, more focused on “global” situations. Sometimes the degree of “sarcasm” (produced by videos) is so terribly much that it can be taken as a joke…

”A BRUTAL JOKE, JUST LIKE LIFE ITSELF…”


JM: Are there other artists that you feel related to, or which inspire you as an artist?

VD: I do not see myself as being related/involved with the other artists that converge in this scene. 
I can say though that I have met great people, my “hermanos del ruido”, people that I have collaborated with or that I have had deep conversations with about noise or art. I mention most of these people in my blog. RESPECT! In terms of inspiration, it’s a very subjective issue. My mind is full of shit, to the degree that a simple conversation or a hard-hitting quote can detonate an entire album. I prefer to feel a personal experience, although I obviously never cease to become moved by other disciplines apart from music. For instance, the SERIAL album, released on 412 Recordings (which was the first physical release)aside from the personal issues, is also greatly based on the film DEAD MAN’S SHOES from SHANE MEADOWS, and it also portrays some of the life of the Mexican serial killer GREGORIO “EL GOYO” CÁRDENAS / “THE TACUBA STRANGLER”. For me the most important thing is not the “subject” of the inspiration per se, but how linked I am to that “subject”, in a personal/delirium-based level.


JM: Any other influences beside music (books, art...)?

VD: Personally, I am much more moved by artists that do not belong to the religion of sound.
Mostly my influences come through films and books, but also through the ancestral sculpture and architecture (MAYAN, AZTEC, BALINESE, EGYPTIAN, etc.), as well as some contemporary styles. Zoophilia/bestiality, sports (common or extreme), serial killers, body modification, natural disasters combined with sexual acts, among others, are key influences as well. “SIN CORRUPCIÓN NO HAY INSPIRACIÓN” / “NO CORRUPTION NO INSPIRATION”


JM: Can you tell me a bit about the equipment you like to use with Vulgar Disease?

VD: I try to keep it simple: My sound movements are destroyed digitally (laptop) o analogically, or a combination of both. I do not reject any “technique”. Everything is done live and in real time. I do not sit down in a chair to “retouch” or perform post-production work. I use second-hand keyboards, a small amplifier, a midi controller, microphones, hammers, oil drums and plastic bins, drills, pieces of metal I find in industrial landfills and a nice pair of balls.


JM: What can you tell me about the artwork you used for your releases (any personal favorites)?

VD: Honestly, all of the artwork from the VD releases is my favorite. I could personally choose the GANGLAND artwork, a photography that my friend Christina Viet took in the Czech Republic. The artwork for ODIO, CAOS Y DESTRUCCIÓN, handmade by Nicola Vinciguerra, it`s a killer. Likewise, the artwork for the ALARMA! album, a collage of the crime tabloid magazine in question, on MURDERABILIA RECORDS. Finally, another good artwork was used in the SERIAL album (412 Recs), the shovel that GREGORIO CÁRDENAS used to bury his victims, a picture taken from an exhibition dedicated to him.I am anxiously waiting for MANUEL PEREIRA’s (NARCOLEPSIA RECS) new artwork for the TESTOSTERONA album; Also the artwork for MÁS CONTAGIOSO QUE EL PECADO, which was carried out by a French brutist (FRANCOISE DUVIVIER/FULBERT DUPONT aka The Damaged Corpse Corporation)… It has several cover/cards shaped like post cards.


JM: You have made quite some releases already, how much time do you spend on making sounds or being an artist and is it your life or just a small part of it?

VD: I see it as my whole life. I dedicate a great amount of time to sound (from production to the ideas that detonate in my head). I have had some personal situations in the past 2 years that have affected my production, and especially my live performance work has greatly diminished as compared to when I originally started. But this has not stopped me. This year marked the fifth anniversary of VD, which pushes me forward to keep harvesting vulgarity for 5 more years. ¡HASTA LA MUERTE CABRONES!


JM: What are the future plans of Vulgar Disease and is there any goal you would like to achieve with this project?

VD: My album “TESTOSTERONA” will be released soon on NARCOLEPSIA. “MÁS CONTAGIOSO QUE EL PECADO” will be released in 2015 on LENGUA DE LAVA.
“GENDERCIDE”, a split album I am working on with EGOGOD, will be self-released. We have invested our time in order to collaborate as a unit in the disc production (artwork design, t-shirts, booklet). This project will be released in 2015. There are also several splits in the works. Some Live dates to perform on my country are on the target. I have also been thinking about playing outside of Mexico, and to play with some noise brothers , preferably the ones i have already collaborated 
with, playing in the moon, in the sun, in a cage full of hungry lions… So many goals to achieve yet…


JM: Any last words?

VD: Thanks to Jan Meiner at conflict & Gerardo Alejos at Lengua de Lava [translation].

“TODAY I’M DIRTY, BUT TOMORROW I’LL JUST BE DIRT“ 
 Carl Panzram