Saturday, November 29, 2008
Side A of this tape is pretty kick ass but Side B is kind of crappy.. it loses focus is a mediocre jam but at least the sound quality is good… but it has moments where it becomes coherent and less about noodle fights and meandering knob tweaking. Tape is pretty short which is fine cause it short of runs out of juice pretty fast on side B.
Packaging 7 - BW inkjet Jcard on regular white paper.
Composition 8 - good, nice flow between tracks and has some consistency
Fidelity 8 - pretty good
Harshness 8 - it gnaws at your face and ears
Bro-factor 9 - balls out, i’d see them play live
Saturday, November 29, 2008
So far side A has mostly been low end rumble. Not really what I was expecting but it’s pretty good. Okay well now I’m on side 2 and not much has changed.. we are still pretty much on the same rumble.. I find this odd cause I can hear some other shit going on but it’s totally being obscured by the rumble.. I dunno if this is intentional then I’m kind of dissappointed.
Packaging 7 - BW xerox’d Jcard on regular paper. Can’t decide if it bothers me that the moon image is pixellated. Is that intentional? White Cassette with pro printing.
Composition 5 - not really
Fidelity 7 - pretty good and a live recording as well
Harshness 6 - mostly low end obliteration
Bro-factor 3 - tape does not live up to reputation
Friday, November 28, 2008
If you know anything about MISC then you can probably guess what this tape is like. Just imagine an endless spew of google searches as audio splooge. This is tape funny at times, garish and stupid at others. Then it kicks you in the nuts with a harsh noise blasts. Lots of samples, recordings of children stapling themselves and parents being total assholes and mechanical horror drones.
Packaging 5 - spray painted cassette in folded laser print in what appears to be a small halloween candy bag but a reasonable DIY effort none the less.. at least the tape has a title written on it.
Composition 9 - pretty good flow considering the diversity of sounds
Fidelity 7 - pretty good considering
Harshness 5 - harsh at times but all over the place stylisticly.. it’s fucking MISC, that’s how it should be
Bro-factor 666 - bro inferno
Filed in 2008, ACT, Anonymous, Art Schnurple, Artist, Cementimental, Christian von Sponheim, Concrete Violin, Ctephin, Doornen, Drone, E.E, Emil Beaulieau, Extreme Noise, Fast Cuts, Harsh Noise, JM, Kanin Krusete, Laser Noise, Lolita Vibrator Torture, Misc, Noise, NxFxTxEx, POST, Phog Masheeen, Power Electronics, RVA, Rhythmic, Roil Noise Rubbish, Rubbish, Tape, The Duckman, Thousand-Faced Moon, Various, Weird Noise, Wild Animalz, Xdugef
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Friday, November 28, 2008
This tape is much different than the one I previously reviewed.. it’s much more of the wall noise, drone , harsh noise variety. Side A is mostly comprised of a high pitched shrill that has moments of drop out.. almost like tape is getting stuck briefly. Then the low freqs kick in. Things get a bit more chaotic after that. The next track (Time Made to be Wasted?) is much more about krunch which ends abruptly. The last track is much quieter than the previous tracks which is kind of annoying.
Sibe B reminds me more of the material on the “one way door” which is more cutup and fast edits and lots of different sounds. I’d say I prefer this side of the tape!
Packaging 7 - fairly standard DIY effort with BW xerox’d Jcard. Cassette has paper labels on it and rubber stamps to identity cassette (bonus points!). I can barely make out the photo on the front.. looks like some sort of bondage type image. A closeup of some body parts with maybe a torn fishnet?
Composition 6 - there appears to be some thought on some of the tracks
Fidelity 7 - not too much of an issue, track levels not matched well
Harshness 8 - pretty harsh, lots of high frequencies but they didn’t forget the lows either.
Bro-factor 5 - it’s cool but I liked one way door better.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Nice, I haven’t heard anything quite like this in awhile. This tape reminds me a lot of early industrial with the use of primitive sounds and pointed samples. This isn’t the meandering, meaningless and muted voice that has been associated with contemporary noise. This is truly raw and hardcore but unfortunately pretty lo-fi at times but the overall content makes up for it.
Packaging 8 - tape comes in a white plastic tape box with slip jacket and a color copied cover insert. Included is a xerox art booklet. Cassette is unlabeled which is the sort of thing I can rant about but it’s is slightly spray painted with some metallic flake.
Composition 8 - it builds
Fidelity 7 - not great but good enough
Harshness 7 - reality is harsh
Bro-factor 8 - this tape lives up to the reputation
Friday, November 28, 2008
I have to admit half the reason I bought this release was because of the packaging and what I have heard about Bizarre Uproar. I’m not at all familiar with Gelsomina. The first three sides sound like a live show even though one of them is a mail collab between the two groups. In either case the result is mud that is pretty dull but there is some occasional screaming which comes as a relief.
The most interesting side is side four which is Gelsomina.. it’s completely different than the other sides .. which makes me wonder what happened to the collab cause it sounds nothing like this at all… which is too bad. There is broad range of sounds and textures.. maybe too many at times.. it does seem like just a bunch of shit going on and the fiedilty is poor which is too bad. At any rate the hyperbole on the release was it was sick filth and the liek and this track combined with the packaging makes more sense.
Overall I’m not impressed by this release, Unless you’re a big fan of either of this acts I wouldn’t bother with it. It does not seem to be the best efforts of either artist.
Packaging 9 - The packaging is done well even if somewhat of a cliche with the medical imagery
Composition 5 - everything is kind of jammy.. I didn’t really sense any progression and the first three tape side sound very similar
Fidelity 6 - pretty muddy but side 4 has more dynamics and textures than the others
Harshness 7 - it’s all pretty gravelly .. more like sludge
Bro-factor 0 - I don’t really think this release lives up to their reputations
Filed in 2008, Anonymous, Bizarre Uproar, Extreme Noise, Filth And Violence, Gelsomina, Harsh Noise, Noise, Power Electronics, Tape, Untergeschoss
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Wednesday, November 26, 2008
The material on this tape is from 2005.. I dunno what that means except maybe there’s a reason why it wasn’t released sooner. All jabs aside the material is experimental and seems to represent some sketches and experiments. The bleeps and bloops contained herein are rhythmic in nature. There’s a picture of a sampling drum workstation on the cover that appears to be under utilized. There’s a few jams on side A that get into an interesting groove but there is also a lot of sophomoric effect send feedback noodling. Side B is the same it has maybe one cohesive jam that gets into a groove and everything else is total noodle. EJECT!
Packaging 5 - color copy glued to poly case - sickeningly smells of laundry detergent? This smell is really getting to me. I may have to throw the tape away or hide it somewhere… I have feeling that this smell is not going to go away anytime soon.
Composition 2 - kind of all over the place but there is some continuity
Fidelity 8 - decent
Harshness 3 - it’s mostly not distorted
Bro-factor 8 - aj’s a great guy
Filed in 2005, 2008, Alpha JTango, Anonymous, Green Records and Tapes, Harsh Noise, Misc, Noise, Rhythmic, Tape, Weird Noise
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Tuesday, November 11, 2008
I thought this tape would be better. I expect alot from people using guitar in noise recordings and for the most part my expectations were not met. However about halfway into Side A the guys do get into an interesting swarm of locusts type groove that is pretty cool but the recording is pretty bad and the sounds are dull and all the lowend is muffled. Maybe it’s a swarm of locus in a large heavy sack. There’s a long pause and then the next track kicks in and is a total tape fuckery fest which is a welcomed relief from the dullness of the first tract but this is short lived.
Side B starts out promising… but after the initial loudness gives way to quieter parts the lack of fidelity kills it for me. Overall it just sounds like people just fucking around. I was glad when the tape ended. Maybe if I were abusing more drugs while listening.. apparently smoking pot isn’t enough.
Packaging 6 - color copy Jcard, imagery is abstract and ambigious much like the recording
Composition 5 - meandering and aimless
Fidelity 5 - pretty flat and dull
Harshness 7 - in not a good way
Bro-factor 2 - on their own these individuals have reached broish heights but this isn’t one of them
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
I’ve been looking forward to hearing some earlier material from Toxic Loincloth and this tape does not disappoint. It’s like ever awkward moment from your childhood and avante gard sound experiments chopped up and fast forwarded through a Cuisinart. Anyway that should tell you that there is alot of tape manipulations and editting or vocalizations and various sounds of junk being through about and groped. DUH! do I really need to spell it out? Reminds me of Evil Moisture or Crank Sturgeon. Really the only bad thing is that it could be longer.
Packaging 7 - BW laser print on white cardstock Jcard with an illustration of space alien pufferfish in their natural environemnt which seems more or less appropriate for the sounds. The drawing is a little adolescent but so is the recording… not that it’s a bad thing.. I mean it could be bad but in this case it’s not. The tape does at least have a spraypaint stencil in red on the front to identify that it’s TL (Toxic Loincloth).
Composition 8 - Side A is more plaful but then Side B gets pretty aggressive.. a nice contrast
Fidelity 8 - could be better, tape volume is low so there’s alot of hiss and the sounds are dynamic so it really ruins it but there are some loud sections.
Harshness 7 - yes because it can be pretty grating to listen to shit fastforwarded.. take it like a man
Bro-factor 9 - dude is totally cool and underrated
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
I get hung up on titles.. Eleven fingers.. I keep thinking of this image ..I think it was from a Bunuel film of a hand grabbing a breast.. what if it had eleven fingers? This is a pretty crunchy tape.. but it has some structure to it.. it goes somewhere.. there’s a part near the beginning of side B that sounds tape getting scrubbed.. I like that alot.
Packaging 9 - nicely done DIY two color silkscreen on craft paper, picture of guy with glasses, is he the man with eleven fingers.. who knows? The cassette is also clearly labeled with a rubber stamp.. hooray!!!!
Composition 8 - pretty darn good!
Fidelity 8 - good enough.. focus not interrupted but tape hiss
Harshness 7 - mostly guttural.. not some much on the high freqs which is fine by me
Bro-factor 7 - I’d see this guy play live