abacus

Magnetic Lake – “Magnetic Lake” – [Post-Materialization Music]

abacus   3/8/2016   A Library, Cassette

hailing not from the Minnesota body of water, (though sounds may deceive?) but from the faraway land of Odessa, fitting in nicely with the Post-Materialist aesthetic; lopsided dream pop tweaked to just the right angle– confusion abounds (besides the track title) with each listen yielding a different decision: acid wash country or gothic psych-gaze? but there’s so much cohesion… sedated singing from Ilya picks up around the aforementioned track then drops off, lost in the instrumental Shazoo haze. B side starts off more purposeful perhaps the blunders back to its cross-eyed amble. so far outside it’s too normal, catchy tunes for sure, but cringing in delivery. pop in its natural habitat, not all glistened up for the cameras.

Unsustainable Social Condition W/ Ted Byrnes – “Unsustainable Social Condition W/ Ted Byrnes” – [Oxen]

abacus   3/7/2016   A Library, Cassette

harsh, jagged noisecore from Matt Purse aka USC and LAFMS veteran Ted Byrnes. tweaked and fractured violence into scatterbrained collapse, 10 long minutes of jarring massacre. unrestricted self-harm

Collagen – “Demo 2015” – [Slow Death Records]

abacus   3/7/2016   A Library, Cassette

sludgy, scrappy hardcore out of Victoria, B.C. junkyard anthems and punk house parables; tunes to throw tall cans to

Kosugi, Takehisa / Takashi Kazamaki – “Live At The Strange Fruit” – [Fool]

abacus   2/15/2016   12-inch, A Library

fluxus drifter from Group Ongaku / Taj Mahal Travellers teams with percussion clattermaster in this 1983 live recording; primitive improvisations of free-hillbilly ritual channeling ancient disarray and classical unraveling alike. audio oddities lost in their own expressive purge, simplistic meditations of avant-weirdness. strange fruits indeed

Ames Sanglantes – “Le Cri Du Pendu” – [Cipher Productions]

abacus   2/10/2016   A Library, CD

tortured manic death drones; shrieking tones and lurching industrial collapse; ominous guttural loops and feral monasticism; looming dread and wretched release; spiritual genocide

Black Spirituals – “Black Interiors” – [Ratskin Records]

abacus   2/10/2016   A Library, Cassette

Oakland duo collective rooted in the intersection of diversity and experimentalism: Zachary James Watkins cradles his guitar with an intense focus and yearning for tonality, no patience for weak timbre; Marshall Trammell embracing the drumset with comprehensive inclusion and a fluidity that thrives on constant derailment. an engagement with space, an ontology of sound, defining the effects of location / depth / placement / orientation on audio perception. recorded each solo, as opposed to previous works where interaction is key, the artists are allowed to examine their individual energies in isolation. don’t adjust your levels, the distant volumes are intentional in the exploration: meditations in resonance

Dragged Into Sunlight / Gnaw Their Tongues – “N.V.” – [Prosthetic Records]

abacus   2/1/2016   A Library, CD

cataclysmic collaboration between English extremists Dragged into Sunlight and Dutch defiler Mories de Jong. murderous sampling of serial killers and rapists set the mood throughout this unrelenting torment of black/grind clouded by De Jong’s visceral poison. the album tracks, allowing you to suffer thru the entire 32 minutes if you can stomach it. Negative Volume, as the album initials represent, is an homage to the unrivalled volume of 90s extreme music predecessors’ live performances: the wall-smashing, soul-crushing volume that we can only strive for. so turn it to 11 and blast your listeners to the hell they belong in.

Consumer Electronics – “Dollhouse Songs” – [Harbinger Sound]

abacus   2/1/2016   12-inch, A Library

political harsh punk/technoise from British warmongers Philip Best (former Whitehouse and it shows), wife Sarah Froehlich and electronics artisan Russell Haswell. as abrasive as previous works but with careful calculation in the attacks; paranoid pulsations host abusive tirades delivered with startling ferocity, scathing commentaries on the crumbling state of the nation in Tory England: austerity in the face of consumerism, bigotry in the face of diversity. an increasingly relevant figure with a long legacy in the noise industry, CE delivers classic industrial power electronics but with a crisp production focus that makes it all the more unsettling. we’re all guilty by complicity.

Sutcliffe Jugend – “Pigdaddy” – [Cold Spring Records]

abacus   1/30/2016   A Library, CD

disgusting fucked-up filth-bile from British aberrations Kevin Tomkins and Paul Taylor aka Sutcliffe Jugend. tone shredding feedback congestion with low end buzz and drill; warped electronics and twisted vocalizations, shrill pelting and purging of inner torment and revulsion. full of grimace and gag, this is one of the most disturbing power electronics has to offer. beyond perverse, this gives me a tummy ache

Placazoa Dicatorship – “Photograph of Prisoner” – [Subruckus Collective]

abacus   1/28/2016   A Library, Cassette

chaotic noise/jazz layering from local boy Kevin Murray; short attention span overload extreme with tape manipulation/sampling, found percussion skittering and vibraphone improv all stacked together for both sides of this cassingle on his homegrown label Subruckus. Work Life shows no balance with some metal track (ID anyone?) thrown over the top for extra confusion. sounds like someone listens to too much KFJC…

Nocturnal Blood – “Abnormalities Prevail” – [Hell’s Headbangers]

abacus   1/26/2016   A Library, CD

bestial spewing of black bile and blood from The Ghastly Apparition unleashed from his usual Nuclear Desecration to wallow in a most feral fervor of ritualistic depravity. death enticing ravaging defilement with doom damaged billowing of ashen smoke and debris, raging with equal ferocity across all instrumentation, this one man demon will cultivate a most gratifying of evil inspirations. gnash and fume till you bleed.

ilitch – “periodikmindtrouble” – [Superior Viaduct]

abacus   1/25/2016   12-inch, A Library

4-track collage kosmische from Parisian tripper Thierry Muller, originally released in 1978 on Oxygene Records and included on the legendary NWW list. shimmering guitar loops, cosmic synthscapes, these kraut journeys explore both ambient and abrasive sonorities. the title track a sidelong of organ freekout minimalism, while the A-side’s Sequences are more angsty guitar driven tension building; the Derriere track stands out, delving deeper into acoustic expressiveness. first time reissue of the influential debut LP that set the stage for a gorgeous yet unsettling body of work.

Hafler Trio, The – “Fuck” – [Touch]

abacus   1/25/2016   A Library, CD

part two of trilogy precluded by Masturbatorium and followed by the never released I Love You, live recorded sexual energies in tantric resuscitation and paranormal pulsations; strict concentration of inherent self-contradiction emanating resonant frequencies of fatigue in delectation. ecstatic haze of swaying dissolution into dissociated dreams of faded trajectories, lost and broken. a ritual of eroded desire and self-absolution. a sonic mapping of the male orgasmic process.

G*Park – “Gour” – [Tochnit Aleph]

abacus   1/25/2016   12-inch, A Library

newest work by Swiss musique-concrete composer and plankton fisherman Marc Zeier. an elusive founding member of the Schimpfluch-gruppe, he employs a similar found-sound-psychosis technique of composition but with his own distinctive, more minimal approach, blurring lines between natural/synthetic, real/imagined, internal/external sounds. hyperconscious dissociations lost in the cryptic micro-acoustics of day to day, these pieces can be layered for unsettling additions or played alone for the most mundane of paranoias; recorded at 45rpm, or play at 33 for ultimate audio erosion. impositions to violate your consensual reality

Shit Metaphor – “Theme For a No Tmrw / No Tmrw Never Came” – [Great Plains Records]

abacus   1/13/2016   A Library, Cassette

ragtag soliloquies from east bay duo, indie punkers down and out with a vengeance; angst and alienation laden catchy tunes with impressive execution, fluid fingerwork and endearing vocals. the listening flows best all the way thru on tape, with the instrumental mock ending hidden between. it’s that frustrating time where nothing goes right and everything is slow and difficult and you don’t seem to go anywhere but you keep trudging along. can’t let the pressure keep you down in the pit as you climb out of your valley of shit.

Zylo, Arvo – “Sequencer Works, Vol. 2” – [Forever Escaping Boredom]

abacus   1/13/2016   A Library, Cassette

recorded between 2000-03 with Yamaha Rm1x sequencer in a closet or crawlspace. industrial cartoon mutations of layered loops and tethered chaos; much of the sequences took up the entire memory, full of arcade boss-level malfunctions, metal slug invaders. among Arvo Zylo’s most musical work, not harsh noise in itself but not easy listening either. compiled from dozens of hours of archives of limited and unreleased material. 9 fucks given

Enemie – “040615 & 042115” – [Uncle Daddy]

abacus   12/9/2015   A Library, Cassette

dubwise grime from mysterious electronic beatsmaker out of USA (i want to say it’s east bay but no way to verify). live recorded for grit production but slick beats nonetheless (in aesthetic, not quality). perfect for late night chinatown wandering, flashing lights abound; freeway traffic maneuvers and dizzy all-night haze. simmer and shake

Pekak! Indonesian Noise 1995-2015 [coll] – [End of The Alphabet Records]

abacus   12/9/2015   A Library, Cassette

musician/promoter Indra Menus spent 5 years compiling this glimpse into the Indonesian underground, documenting a history of noise from a scattering of diverse cultures comprising the archipelago. a vast variety of sounds, from standard HNW (1,2,5), to industrial noise (3), noise rock (4), noise drone (6,18), noisecore (9,12), noise glitch (13,15), and all sorts of unclassifiable variants of the noise genre; some of the tracks (8,10) definitely reveal their cultural influence more prominently and stand out as distinctly unique examples of sonic rarity. unheard sounds from a country notorious for its lack of documentation, this is a historical gem of musical documentation.

Cirrhus – “Cirrhus” – [CW PRODUCTIONS]

abacus   12/7/2015   12-inch, A Library

debut full length from Oregon forest dwelling black metallers. hyper-conscious cosmic trippers bringing visceral melodics to thaw the ice cold guitar swells, galloping drums carrying the waves of psychedelic dynamics. distant torture shrieked and bellowed, ensnaring the listener in the allure of tranquility through pain. meditative anguish.

Grin and Bear It – “Demo II” – [Allergic to Fun]

abacus   11/25/2015   7-inch, A Library

manic grind assaults from these arbiters of misfortune out of Cleveland. confrontational and degrading just the way you like it, Completely Disgusted goes all dirgey and shit. Wil Killingsworth recorded it so you know it’s good. fuck it no one cares anyways