no interest reviews of the no audience underground

Mad Awkward ‘the arthur lingen experiments’ - CDR - superb packaging

/Capitalism deserves to be turned outside in. So Mad Awkward takes Heinz Ketchup cardboard printed on one side, recycles it, uses it as a sleeve and prints its own logo on the other side (I’m not sure you get what I mean, in case you don’t just buy the record and figure it out for yourself). And makes great music. Dub+saddesthiphop+darkD&B and samples from scifi movies. All that’s required for me to think a record is just fantastic: tracks like ‘drug terrorist’ or ‘the alchemist’ should be the ones in repeat mode on MTV instead of Fluff Paddy (not that it makes any difference for me given the fact I only watch MTV when I go to my wife’s mother’s which is once per year –and please don’t say it’s more than enough, my wife’s mother is a nice person). A bit too much of an easy listening CD on the last two tracks but hey, that makes 47 minutes of excellence even if you chop those off.
/www.madawkward.com

Margrave Ruediger 1^st album - thrombose - CDR - reddy pretty covery+envelope

/Margrave remixes Guitare Brothers and who does so cannot be entirely bad. This nice red sleeved record oscillates between noisy beat-type electronica and ambient, never quite choosing any side (which is something I like, being unable to choose also is part of my personality). Short & varied & ringmodulated, why haven’t you got it?

/http://thromboserecords.free.fr or snailto: Gorlier 6 rue Bertin, 51100 Reims – FRANCE

Please note: Thrombose Records is a French newcomer and this is their first release. They’re planning a compilation featuring Köhn, KIOL, Trombone and many other great artists –should be out shortly.

Margrave Ruediger vs. Trombone ‘das kleine chaos’-krayola-mp3s on a website but please don’t ask me to download yours!
/I read somewhere a review of Margrave+Trombone’s live split out on BurningEmptiness and it said this was the kind of music The Wire would give as a gift to its subscribers (in case you wonder, this was in Idwal Fisher a most fine and respectable fanzine apart from that). Although it was meant as a slag-off (and one might add “better slagged off in Idwal Fisher than praised in Goth Weekly”), I thought I’d be pleased we had such a magazine here in the country of Bécassine –but I guess the only kind we have gives away CDs of Kyo playing live and Wumpscut ‘unreleased tracks’ (as if anyone would care about his released material) you won’t even want the CD of to scare the magpies out of your cherry tree (as a matter of fact, corrupted copies of the Merzbox on CDR scare magpies away in mine). Margrave and Trombone do their own thing on this record as they ever did and always succeeded in doing as far as I’m concerned: it’s not too experimental, not too electronic, not too noisy, not too ambient, not too poppy, not to rhythmic nor clicky, but it’s never short of excellent. Instant download please.

/www.lecridelaharpe.com/krayola

Massimo - microwave - CDR - (only had a home-copied of this old record but still wanted to mention Massimo here)

/I saw this guy on stage a few years ago. It started with maybe 50 people in a dark room and ended with four of us about forty minutes later. Massimo live isn’t for the faint hearted and most of what I had heard till today wasn’t neither. Not because it’s that kind of you know, LOUD AND NOISY stuff, but because the frequencies he usually uses for his click’n’pulse’n’beep impossible rhythm-collage-vs.-drone laptop-driven nerdmusic are physically painful (too high-pitched then too low then both, I guess I’m a maniac to like this that much). And what’s more, he’s got a taste for very short records and very short tracks as his ‘minimo’ on Staalplaat so beautifully demonstrates –that particular record made me think you didn’t need to play any kind of overdistorted commercial techno to make grindcore-influenced electronics and it was rather pleasing. What about this one, then? It falls just into the fits-into-an-LP limit, a good thing; but most tracks are slightly too long, a bad thing. It’s sometimes dance music for androids that dream of electronic sheep, a good thing; but it indulges a little too much into painful illbient that sings the body electric, a bad thing. It keeps some strange sense of melody in the walls of static, a good thing; but it’s mastered at a too low volume and so looses part of the raw physical aggression in the process, a bad thing. Overall I get mixed feelings about this record, but since this is Massimo’s first release I know of I guess I was over-expecting it a little: I’m still glad I could get to listen to it and if you’ve never heard of the electronic side of Sicily you should try Massimo.

/microwave > contact Staalplaat (www.staalplaat.com)

Marco Farina & Kei Yokota ‘rottura’-Rarefazione Uterine-CDR-funny color artwork

/Same comments as EHI ‘heritage gallery’ apply, replace power electronics with Japanoise. Not bad. Too long, as usual. Good DIY artwork, really. And this Marco Farina guy does videos and a lot of collabs with a lot of people so please support him.

/Marco Farina CP137, 17047 Vado Ligure-ITALY or Kei Yokota 064-0807, Sapporo Minami 7, Nishi 12, 2-5-384 JAPAN

Midwich ‘natural wastage’ - evelyn - CDR in a white cardboard sleeve - b&w artwork

/There used to be this software called BrainWave Generator and it was supposed to ‘tune’ to your brainwaves and help you concentrate, relax, meditate or whatever stupid things your Mr Nice Guy attitude forces you to do (why don’t serious people program software to help you fart or get angry, start doing drugs or playing who wants to be a millionaire, become a football hooligan or a fan of JLo I wonder). It never did a thing to me except make me yawn. Now I lay in that oh-so-comfortable armchair my wife had for her birthday, close my eyes and let Mr Midwich make me travel with his 303. This record moved me, hypnotized me, shrugged me in its friendly tentacles and made me feel quiet, peaceful, at ease, happy; a lot for one record.

/www.evelynrecords.cjb.net or snailto: 1 bainton gardens, Bainton Nr Stamford, PE9 3AW, UK

Midwich ‘procedures’ - cpsip - CDR - beautiful sleeve

/It’s still a very long (over 35 min) Midwich track but this time it has been divided in convenient smaller pieces, maybe to emphasize the structure changes or to make it an easier listening. Or to ease the work of radio DJs. Or to please invaders from Mars. Or to borrow from them slowly moving sea monsters that crawl underneath a bit more time for the human race. See: we’re not that bad after all, even after Schultze turned all MIDI and Roland started making PCMsample - FMsynth - realistic - sounding workstations, there ARE people among us that still use the gear the best way one can use the gear: not at all the way it was designed to be used. Midwich and the ambient hypnomelodism, the MC-303 and its ‘I hear the resonant filter steps and I DON’T CARE’, my favourite armchair and the dog sleeping on my lap, sunshine and I’m not going to work today: life also has nice moments.

/www.cpsip.co.nz

Mike Khoury & Jason Shearer ‘the ghost of Joseph Campau’ – foreign lands-tape- b&g abstract cover artwork

/Improvised music made with violin and clarinet + Indian flute (and don’t expect any kind of processing to make it sound noisy or something, there isn’t). I don’t get to listen to this kind of music a lot so I lack references to describe it but was interested by its spontaneity . Recorded live in front of people (you mean PEOPLE come to HEAR these guys playing ? I knew Americans were crazy – the best ones are). Quite in the same vein, only a little noisier and jazzier if such word exist (Minisoft Orifice LiveSpellCheck® doesn’t seem to find them weird – I do), you got Naturaliste’s ‘au revoir’.

/2464 harney st.#14 Omaha NE 68131 USA or mailto: voostviszt_at_yahoo.com

/Just a word about Foreign Lands before I go on: this US label releases CDR (packed in very nice gatefold PVC envelopes with b&w paper covers) and tapes and seems to be focussing on ambient: droney ambient (Steven Curtin for instance makes Kraut-style-modular-synth ambient – a little too straight-by-the-book for me but not bad), instrumental ambient (SB uses multi-layered voices, reeds and guitars for a nice 40 minutes trip to nowhere), kinda experimental and noisy and field-recorded ambient (Subterranea and ZeroMoon’s Jeff Surak late project V.), all reminding me of Carbon Record’s most experimental stuff and all quite interesting.

Ministry Of Defiance-‘Listening to learn’-Post Office Records-CDR-nice homemade package in coloured cardboard

/Mr Hanford & friends share our love for deep ambience, minimal soundscapes and tortured vocal samples. Clicks (analogue ones, so cracks is a better word), low frequencies are here, too and the release is slightly under our usual 30 minutes limit. Track 5 features a simple rhythm passed through a filter: maybe more of these would’ve been welcomed. A bit like trying to review your own brother. Of course I like the record. I like it very much. Why are you asking?

/Glannant, High Street-LLANDUDOCH-WALES-SA433EJ or mailto: davidhandford67_at_yahoo.co.uk

Ministry Of Defiance ‘chapel couture’ - post office - CDR - great cardboard sleeve & stamped artwork

/It’s been a little while since I hadn’t heard of Post Office records and their so beautiful layouts. Ministry OD (hahaha, no one would like to listen to Ministry for long enough to get an OD of it) gives you Mr Handford’s great cocktail of power electronic beats, Schultze - like extra - filtered analoguish drones (DIY instruments, if nothing’s changed) and sampled vocals.

/www.postofficerecords.com

ML-Loca-12” EP-minimal artwork

/Am I impressed by this? Yes I am. And I'm not that type that's easily impressed (probably because I’m now old and senile enough to be proud to say so). Quite strange to hear something so ‘digital’ sounding so GREAT on vinyl, this is one technical performance I admire. This is techno for sure, but Black Lung is as well, isn't it, and that's quite a compliment, isn’t it. SUPERCHARGED with ultra-low frequencies while remaining wonderfully clear (another performance I again admire). Great use of digital degraders and this sort of 'chopped' sound you get abusing samples through tempo converters. This record is truly fantastic: makes Techno Animal sound like a newborn playing with a demo version of Rave Ejay. Loca’s policy of using open-source music (EFF Open Audio license, similar to the LINUX GPL we also use) is the best one to use, pure and simple. I really feel so lucky when I have this sort of record coming from this sort of label in the mailbox. Support Loca.

/PO BOX 233 BRIGHTON BN2 3WX – UK or mailto:david_at_locarecords.com or http://www.locarecords.com/

Mlada Fronta ‘dioxydes’-parametric-DVD, real nice metal box

/We humans are like two glued mirror-image halves. Duality is our gift, duality is our curse. Your left brain likes Klaus Schultze and Pansonic, your right likes Vangelis and Plastikman–if there’s any bridge between the two, it’s going to have a tough time deciding whether it likes any kind of electronic music or not. Your left hand prefers the flexibility and cheapness of music software while your right hand likes the comfort and the look‘n’feel of hardware –and the bridge has trouble playing with all the gear both brains bought over the years. Your left eye likes minimal experimental cinema and thinks Eraserhead is Lynch’s best as Epidemic is Trier’s, while your right’s a fan of Alien3 (director’s cut only, please) and prefers modern Hollywood remakes of science fiction classics over the originals (but has seen them, mind you) –and the stereoscopic vision of the bridge is somewhat blurred and unsteady. The left ventricle of your heart only beats to the harsh overdriven and twisted rhythms of System Corrupt while the right steps on the dancefloor (a mighty messy vision, that is) hearing Sonar –and the bridge just stays there wondering what it should do. Your left ear loves the ear-shattering lofi guitar tones of Maeror Tri and Skullflower while your right’s enchanted by the deep humming drones of Midwich and the palpable beauty of Tujiko Nuriko’s minimal textures–and the bridge learned to like most of both. Confronted with Dioxydes, a quite unique video album remindful of what my left and right parts both hate most and like most, my own bridge really can’t decide if it likes this super-pro-yet-underground-labelled release so I think it’ll just leave it to you. But one thing’s for sure: like it or not, that’s a piece worth having.

/www.parametric.info

Monster DVD-xerxes-CDR-superb glove packaging

/A record isn’t the sum of the people participating. Tabata, when he isn’t sludgecoring the whole world with Zeni Geva, makes quite good ambient. KK NULL when he isn’t sludgecoring the whole world with Zeni Geva, makes power+beat industrial. Yoshida, who I don’t think has ever sludgecored the world with Government Alpha, makes NOISE. So you’d expect this to be rhythmic industrial noise with melody and ambience plus some heavy rock’n’roll, which it in fact is. But if saying this is a good way to pigeonhole the record (in quite a wide category), it isn’t an accurate way to describe it. There, you’ll find powerful beats, guitar, distortion, disassembled-reassembled hardcore tracks, Celtic violin, and jazz trumpet. And from track 6 on, it’s all improkrautelectrospacedub sounding like a Ramleh / Terminal Cheesecake collaborative session recorded live and that’s something I like so much I could forget I didn’t listen to such material in a too long while (Opaque or Suggestion Records reading?).

/mailto: xerxes_at_eb.mbn.or.jp

Morbide eenheid ‘op enn booreiland twee jaar gedelen’-autoprod-CD-jewel boxes suck but no one seems to get it

/That record, as most surprisingly good ones, came unexpected from the post. Surprising it is, and good it also is: sounds like Blind Idiot God with a jazzcore feel and strange Theremins and synths and horns on top. Reminds of This Heat too so I guess one could have worst references. Plus: the record is only 20 minutes long which I hope means these guys have a sense for brevity (the politeness of genius, remember?). A little to ‘polished’ around the edges so there’s almost no edges left is the only complaint one might have but I’m not the one to complain about good music.

/www.morbideeenheid.com

Mourmansk 150 ‘Civil Disobedience’ – Autoproduction – CDR – Nice homemade package

/I remember those vinyl packages CRASS used to make out of cheap recycled paper. I loved them. I loved the music, too, and even without the haircut (you know, the ones used for Christian Dior’s ads this year) I felt pretty close to the independent spirit they had. M150 package and concept for this release reminded me of CRASS. ‘Civil Disobedience’ consists of sounds recorded during the riots in Genoa (02001), sleeve seems to have been cut from a tabloid, even the font used looks like CRASS’. Whether the riots meant anything or not, whether this is or not music are too complicated matters for me, but I like this disc, I really do.

/NZP (homemade label, releasing split material with Government Alpha and the like, and French pure noise projects): 154 rue Gambetta-59970 FRESNES-France

Muckrackers ‘laut’ - lfa - VCD+3”CDR - nice wannabe DVD packaging
/If originality, like my friend K9 said to me a fortnight ago, is a bourgeois myth, then Muckrackers isn’t a bourgeois band ?. Let’s get serious, now. What’s being serious, ask you? According to Fencing Flatworm’s wonderful demo policy, being serious about what you do is having patience, passion, discipline, and faith in your vision. Are Muckrackers serious about what they do? Do they have patience? They’ve been sending me stuff for over three years now without getting a single review. Do they have passion? During those three years, they released two full length albums, a remix album, some 3”, joined compilations, and played live so much they forgot how many times they did. Do they have faith in their vision? In fact, they’ve got so much of that they finally got me liking this, even if the whole style they indulge in isn’t my cup of tea. Without discipline, how could they possibly achieve it all? So they’re serious about what they do and I can tell you they don’t take themselves seriously if you see what I mean and this is good. What is this, then? This is a Super Video CD with not just a regular non - PC video, but also a 3” CDR including alternate versions of ‘Laut’, dedicated to the French steel workers who saw their factories close one after the other and couldn’t stand it. So they went on strike, and fought, and fought, and fought again. And the factories all closed in the end. To me, this is what Muckracker’s beatbox - driven dancefloor metal is all about: the fight itself is the important thing, doesn’t matter who wins…

/www.muckrackers.fr.st

Mucus / Agathocles split-autoprod-7”-bw artwork

/You all know about how great Agathocles are and this is their 123375341348435th very good EP and they still aren’t on a major and never lost their rage (please note this is one of the meanest sounding records they ever made –even sludgecory here and there, really good). This time they managed to split it with Mucus, a French-speaking hardo’grindo’stupido’weirdo act from the French-speaking part of Belgium (AG being from the Dutch speaking one, follow me?) who cover Unholy grave and who does so can’t be bad. Great value-for-money.

/Asberg 8, 2400 Mol, BELGIUM – mincemania@hotmail.com

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Mad Awkward ‘the arthur lingen experiments’ - CDR - superb packaging /Capitalism deserves to be turned outside in. So Mad Awkward takes Heinz Ketchup cardboard printed on one side, recycles it, uses it as a sleeve and prints its own logo on the other side (I’m not sure you get what I mean, in case you don’t just buy the record and figure it out for yourself). And makes great music. Dub+saddesthiphop+darkD&B and samples from scifi movies. All that’s required for me to think a record is just fantastic: tracks like ‘drug terrorist’ or ‘the alchemist’ should be the ones in repeat mode on MTV instead of Fluff Paddy (not that it makes any difference for me given the fact I only watch MTV when I go to my wife’s mother’s which is once per year –and please don’t say it’s more than enough, my wife’s mother is a nice person). A bit too much of an easy listening CD on the last two tracks but hey, that makes 47 minutes of excellence even if you chop those off. /www.madawkward.com Margrave Ruediger 1^st album - thrombose - CDR - reddy pretty covery+envelope /Margrave remixes Guitare Brothers and who does so cannot be entirely bad. This nice red sleeved record oscillates between noisy beat-type electronica and ambient, never quite choosing any side (which is something I like, being unable to choose also is part of my personality). Short & varied & ringmodulated, why haven’t you got it? /http://thromboserecords.free.fr or snailto: Gorlier 6 rue Bertin, 51100 Reims – FRANCE Please note: Thrombose Records is a French newcomer and this is their first release. They’re planning a compilation featuring Köhn, KIOL, Trombone and many other great artists –should be out shortly. Margrave Ruediger vs. Trombone ‘das kleine chaos’-krayola-mp3s on a website but please don’t ask me to download yours! /I read somewhere a review of Margrave+Trombone’s live split out on BurningEmptiness and it said this was the kind of music The Wire would give as a gift to its subscribers (in case you wonder, this was in Idwal Fisher a most fine and respectable fanzine apart from that). Although it was meant as a slag-off (and one might add “better slagged off in Idwal Fisher than praised in Goth Weekly”), I thought I’d be pleased we had such a magazine here in the country of Bécassine –but I guess the only kind we have gives away CDs of Kyo playing live and Wumpscut ‘unreleased tracks’ (as if anyone would care about his released material) you won’t even want the CD of to scare the magpies out of your cherry tree (as a matter of fact, corrupted copies of the Merzbox on CDR scare magpies away in mine). Margrave and Trombone do their own thing on this record as they ever did and always succeeded in doing as far as I’m concerned: it’s not too experimental, not too electronic, not too noisy, not too ambient, not too poppy, not to rhythmic nor clicky, but it’s never short of excellent. Instant download please. /www.lecridelaharpe.com/krayola Massimo - microwave - CDR - (only had a home-copied of this old record but still wanted to mention Massimo here) /I saw this guy on stage a few years ago. It started with maybe 50 people in a dark room and ended with four of us about forty minutes later. Massimo live isn’t for the faint hearted and most of what I had heard till today wasn’t neither. Not because it’s that kind of you know, LOUD AND NOISY stuff, but because the frequencies he usually uses for his click’n’pulse’n’beep impossible rhythm-collage-vs.-drone laptop-driven nerdmusic are physically painful (too high-pitched then too low then both, I guess I’m a maniac to like this that much). And what’s more, he’s got a taste for very short records and very short tracks as his ‘minimo’ on Staalplaat so beautifully demonstrates –that particular record made me think you didn’t need to play any kind of overdistorted commercial techno to make grindcore-influenced electronics and it was rather pleasing. What about this one, then? It falls just into the fits-into-an-LP limit, a good thing; but most tracks are slightly too long, a bad thing. It’s sometimes dance music for androids that dream of electronic sheep, a good thing; but it indulges a little too much into painful illbient that sings the body electric, a bad thing. It keeps some strange sense of melody in the walls of static, a good thing; but it’s mastered at a too low volume and so looses part of the raw physical aggression in the process, a bad thing. Overall I get mixed feelings about this record, but since this is Massimo’s first release I know of I guess I was over-expecting it a little: I’m still glad I could get to listen to it and if you’ve never heard of the electronic side of Sicily you should try Massimo. /microwave > contact Staalplaat (www.staalplaat.com) Marco Farina & Kei Yokota ‘rottura’-Rarefazione Uterine-CDR-funny color artwork /Same comments as EHI ‘heritage gallery’ apply, replace power electronics with Japanoise. Not bad. Too long, as usual. Good DIY artwork, really. And this Marco Farina guy does videos and a lot of collabs with a lot of people so please support him. /Marco Farina CP137, 17047 Vado Ligure-ITALY or Kei Yokota 064-0807, Sapporo Minami 7, Nishi 12, 2-5-384 JAPAN Midwich ‘natural wastage’ - evelyn - CDR in a white cardboard sleeve - b&w artwork /There used to be this software called BrainWave Generator and it was supposed to ‘tune’ to your brainwaves and help you concentrate, relax, meditate or whatever stupid things your Mr Nice Guy attitude forces you to do (why don’t serious people program software to help you fart or get angry, start doing drugs or playing who wants to be a millionaire, become a football hooligan or a fan of JLo I wonder). It never did a thing to me except make me yawn. Now I lay in that oh-so-comfortable armchair my wife had for her birthday, close my eyes and let Mr Midwich make me travel with his 303. This record moved me, hypnotized me, shrugged me in its friendly tentacles and made me feel quiet, peaceful, at ease, happy; a lot for one record. /www.evelynrecords.cjb.net or snailto: 1 bainton gardens, Bainton Nr Stamford, PE9 3AW, UK Midwich ‘procedures’ - cpsip - CDR - beautiful sleeve /It’s still a very long (over 35 min) Midwich track but this time it has been divided in convenient smaller pieces, maybe to emphasize the structure changes or to make it an easier listening. Or to ease the work of radio DJs. Or to please invaders from Mars. Or to borrow from them slowly moving sea monsters that crawl underneath a bit more time for the human race. See: we’re not that bad after all, even after Schultze turned all MIDI and Roland started making PCMsample - FMsynth - realistic - sounding workstations, there ARE people among us that still use the gear the best way one can use the gear: not at all the way it was designed to be used. Midwich and the ambient hypnomelodism, the MC-303 and its ‘I hear the resonant filter steps and I DON’T CARE’, my favourite armchair and the dog sleeping on my lap, sunshine and I’m not going to work today: life also has nice moments. /www.cpsip.co.nz Mike Khoury & Jason Shearer ‘the ghost of Joseph Campau’ – foreign lands-tape- b&g abstract cover artwork /Improvised music made with violin and clarinet + Indian flute (and don’t expect any kind of processing to make it sound noisy or something, there isn’t). I don’t get to listen to this kind of music a lot so I lack references to describe it but was interested by its spontaneity . Recorded live in front of people (you mean PEOPLE come to HEAR these guys playing ? I knew Americans were crazy – the best ones are). Quite in the same vein, only a little noisier and jazzier if such word exist (Minisoft Orifice LiveSpellCheck® doesn’t seem to find them weird – I do), you got Naturaliste’s ‘au revoir’. /2464 harney st.#14 Omaha NE 68131 USA or mailto: voostviszt_at_yahoo.com /Just a word about Foreign Lands before I go on: this US label releases CDR (packed in very nice gatefold PVC envelopes with b&w paper covers) and tapes and seems to be focussing on ambient: droney ambient (Steven Curtin for instance makes Kraut-style-modular-synth ambient – a little too straight-by-the-book for me but not bad), instrumental ambient (SB uses multi-layered voices, reeds and guitars for a nice 40 minutes trip to nowhere), kinda experimental and noisy and field-recorded ambient (Subterranea and ZeroMoon’s Jeff Surak late project V.), all reminding me of Carbon Record’s most experimental stuff and all quite interesting. Ministry Of Defiance-‘Listening to learn’-Post Office Records-CDR-nice homemade package in coloured cardboard /Mr Hanford & friends share our love for deep ambience, minimal soundscapes and tortured vocal samples. Clicks (analogue ones, so cracks is a better word), low frequencies are here, too and the release is slightly under our usual 30 minutes limit. Track 5 features a simple rhythm passed through a filter: maybe more of these would’ve been welcomed. A bit like trying to review your own brother. Of course I like the record. I like it very much. Why are you asking? /Glannant, High Street-LLANDUDOCH-WALES-SA433EJ or mailto: davidhandford67_at_yahoo.co.uk Ministry Of Defiance ‘chapel couture’ - post office - CDR - great cardboard sleeve & stamped artwork /It’s been a little while since I hadn’t heard of Post Office records and their so beautiful layouts. Ministry OD (hahaha, no one would like to listen to Ministry for long enough to get an OD of it) gives you Mr Handford’s great cocktail of power electronic beats, Schultze - like extra - filtered analoguish drones (DIY instruments, if nothing’s changed) and sampled vocals. /www.postofficerecords.com ML-Loca-12” EP-minimal artwork /Am I impressed by this? Yes I am. And I'm not that type that's easily impressed (probably because I’m now old and senile enough to be proud to say so). Quite strange to hear something so ‘digital’ sounding so GREAT on vinyl, this is one technical performance I admire. This is techno for sure, but Black Lung is as well, isn't it, and that's quite a compliment, isn’t it. SUPERCHARGED with ultra-low frequencies while remaining wonderfully clear (another performance I again admire). Great use of digital degraders and this sort of 'chopped' sound you get abusing samples through tempo converters. This record is truly fantastic: makes Techno Animal sound like a newborn playing with a demo version of Rave Ejay. Loca’s policy of using open-source music (EFF Open Audio license, similar to the LINUX GPL we also use) is the best one to use, pure and simple. I really feel so lucky when I have this sort of record coming from this sort of label in the mailbox. Support Loca. /PO BOX 233 BRIGHTON BN2 3WX – UK or mailto:david_at_locarecords.com or http://www.locarecords.com/ Mlada Fronta ‘dioxydes’-parametric-DVD, real nice metal box /We humans are like two glued mirror-image halves. Duality is our gift, duality is our curse. Your left brain likes Klaus Schultze and Pansonic, your right likes Vangelis and Plastikman–if there’s any bridge between the two, it’s going to have a tough time deciding whether it likes any kind of electronic music or not. Your left hand prefers the flexibility and cheapness of music software while your right hand likes the comfort and the look‘n’feel of hardware –and the bridge has trouble playing with all the gear both brains bought over the years. Your left eye likes minimal experimental cinema and thinks Eraserhead is Lynch’s best as Epidemic is Trier’s, while your right’s a fan of Alien3 (director’s cut only, please) and prefers modern Hollywood remakes of science fiction classics over the originals (but has seen them, mind you) –and the stereoscopic vision of the bridge is somewhat blurred and unsteady. The left ventricle of your heart only beats to the harsh overdriven and twisted rhythms of System Corrupt while the right steps on the dancefloor (a mighty messy vision, that is) hearing Sonar –and the bridge just stays there wondering what it should do. Your left ear loves the ear-shattering lofi guitar tones of Maeror Tri and Skullflower while your right’s enchanted by the deep humming drones of Midwich and the palpable beauty of Tujiko Nuriko’s minimal textures–and the bridge learned to like most of both. Confronted with Dioxydes, a quite unique video album remindful of what my left and right parts both hate most and like most, my own bridge really can’t decide if it likes this super-pro-yet-underground-labelled release so I think it’ll just leave it to you. But one thing’s for sure: like it or not, that’s a piece worth having. /www.parametric.info Monster DVD-xerxes-CDR-superb glove packaging /A record isn’t the sum of the people participating. Tabata, when he isn’t sludgecoring the whole world with Zeni Geva, makes quite good ambient. KK NULL when he isn’t sludgecoring the whole world with Zeni Geva, makes power+beat industrial. Yoshida, who I don’t think has ever sludgecored the world with Government Alpha, makes NOISE. So you’d expect this to be rhythmic industrial noise with melody and ambience plus some heavy rock’n’roll, which it in fact is. But if saying this is a good way to pigeonhole the record (in quite a wide category), it isn’t an accurate way to describe it. There, you’ll find powerful beats, guitar, distortion, disassembled-reassembled hardcore tracks, Celtic violin, and jazz trumpet. And from track 6 on, it’s all improkrautelectrospacedub sounding like a Ramleh / Terminal Cheesecake collaborative session recorded live and that’s something I like so much I could forget I didn’t listen to such material in a too long while (Opaque or Suggestion Records reading?). /mailto: xerxes_at_eb.mbn.or.jp Morbide eenheid ‘op enn booreiland twee jaar gedelen’-autoprod-CD-jewel boxes suck but no one seems to get it /That record, as most surprisingly good ones, came unexpected from the post. Surprising it is, and good it also is: sounds like Blind Idiot God with a jazzcore feel and strange Theremins and synths and horns on top. Reminds of This Heat too so I guess one could have worst references. Plus: the record is only 20 minutes long which I hope means these guys have a sense for brevity (the politeness of genius, remember?). A little to ‘polished’ around the edges so there’s almost no edges left is the only complaint one might have but I’m not the one to complain about good music. /www.morbideeenheid.com Mourmansk 150 ‘Civil Disobedience’ – Autoproduction – CDR – Nice homemade package /I remember those vinyl packages CRASS used to make out of cheap recycled paper. I loved them. I loved the music, too, and even without the haircut (you know, the ones used for Christian Dior’s ads this year) I felt pretty close to the independent spirit they had. M150 package and concept for this release reminded me of CRASS. ‘Civil Disobedience’ consists of sounds recorded during the riots in Genoa (02001), sleeve seems to have been cut from a tabloid, even the font used looks like CRASS’. Whether the riots meant anything or not, whether this is or not music are too complicated matters for me, but I like this disc, I really do. /NZP (homemade label, releasing split material with Government Alpha and the like, and French pure noise projects): 154 rue Gambetta-59970 FRESNES-France Muckrackers ‘laut’ - lfa - VCD+3”CDR - nice wannabe DVD packaging /If originality, like my friend K9 said to me a fortnight ago, is a bourgeois myth, then Muckrackers isn’t a bourgeois band ?. Let’s get serious, now. What’s being serious, ask you? According to Fencing Flatworm’s wonderful demo policy, being serious about what you do is having patience, passion, discipline, and faith in your vision. Are Muckrackers serious about what they do? Do they have patience? They’ve been sending me stuff for over three years now without getting a single review. Do they have passion? During those three years, they released two full length albums, a remix album, some 3”, joined compilations, and played live so much they forgot how many times they did. Do they have faith in their vision? In fact, they’ve got so much of that they finally got me liking this, even if the whole style they indulge in isn’t my cup of tea. Without discipline, how could they possibly achieve it all? So they’re serious about what they do and I can tell you they don’t take themselves seriously if you see what I mean and this is good. What is this, then? This is a Super Video CD with not just a regular non - PC video, but also a 3” CDR including alternate versions of ‘Laut’, dedicated to the French steel workers who saw their factories close one after the other and couldn’t stand it. So they went on strike, and fought, and fought, and fought again. And the factories all closed in the end. To me, this is what Muckracker’s beatbox - driven dancefloor metal is all about: the fight itself is the important thing, doesn’t matter who wins… /www.muckrackers.fr.st Mucus / Agathocles split-autoprod-7”-bw artwork /You all know about how great Agathocles are and this is their 123375341348435th very good EP and they still aren’t on a major and never lost their rage (please note this is one of the meanest sounding records they ever made –even sludgecory here and there, really good). This time they managed to split it with Mucus, a French-speaking hardo’grindo’stupido’weirdo act from the French-speaking part of Belgium (AG being from the Dutch speaking one, follow me?) who cover Unholy grave and who does so can’t be bad. Great value-for-money. /Asberg 8, 2400 Mol, BELGIUM – mincemania@hotmail.com