The Haters / blackhumour C30
Special Interests Magazine: General Sound Discussion
Andrew McIntosh
“15 Minute Glitch” is hissy, trebly and grimey in sound as feedback, voices, electronic sounds and who knows what else are looped and layered upon each other. As usual with much Haters work, the extent of the spiral’s time and the intricacy of the layers make each sound collide and compliment each other, giving the whole a feeling of both constant change and unchanging wholeness. The result is a pleasing mess of sounds under layers of hiss, discernible but unrecognisable.
By contrast, blackhumour takes a single sample, a brief sigh of a woman’s voice, and extends it into a piece of pure minimalism, very reminiscent of Reich’s early tape work. The sample is looped and layered at varying speeds and structure is basic, the stereo panning or giving and taking of a layer in a different tone or tempo made sparingly and carefully. The sparcity of the minimalist concept is offset by the changes and subtle structuring – this piece is best heard with headphones.
Chefkirk: Burl!!!! CDr
VITAL WEEKLY
number 669
week 11 2009
Roger H Smith on no-input mixer + sampler- 12 tracks of experimental noise and now only two left so get in your order now!- staccato hiss and feedback sounds, clicks et al. obviously modulated which is the problem here, well the problem is letting the modernist grand narrative in by the backdoor – “experimental” noise – like military intelligence, an oxymoron of huge proportions through which pin prink a thousand dead philosophers appear and not so much walk as talk again the dead weight of history the modernity of technics and experiment, the curse of all zombies is to feed of the living, you see a zombie is an oxymoron also as is the idea of killing one by a bullet in the head.. “Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-twentieth century, particularly in North America, and whose most famous and influential exponent was John Cage (Grant 2003, 174). More loosely, the term is used to describe music within specific genres that pushes against their boundaries or definitions, or else whose approach is a hybrid of disparate styles, or incorporates unorthodox, new, distinctly unique ingredients” – and that is not noise is it playmates? Or is a no input mixer pushing against any boundaries- there are non – once again everybody say ‘Il n’y a pas de hors-texte’ – and again ‘Il n’y a pas de hors-texte’. (jliat)
Audiocum: Do Not Send Bullets By Mail 3″CDr
Stock Footage Zine, Issue 2 2009
This is a total noise symphony. Only we don’t know how many movements there are. And where they start and end for that matter.
Okay, the pro-noise YouTube ranters may not strictly agree with the “symphony” idea, but the track on this CD has a level of progression and variation that would definitely render some crazy graphic score. Alright, I’ll stop the classical bullshit.
“Do Not Send Bullets By Mail” is a 16-and-half-minute long track on a beautifully-designed MCD, that actually comes with a real bullet shell through the post. And you get the feel that French guy Audiocum is really quite a serious man.
It kicks straight in with low-end distortion and immediately grabs hold of you. And wonderfully, unlike many an epic noise song, the track progresses and progresses throughout, throwing in brand new sounds, highly varied textures and a wide range of dynamics and extremity.
The thing I like about this track is that it’s quite blatantly harsh as fuck, but seriously mixes it up. The track can rumble for a while, then throw out some piercing, evil fucking sounds all of a sudden, and then random, spasmodic blurts of noise interrupting gaps of silence. And all these kind of “sections” fit well with each other, and are well-placed and well-timed. Things seem to last as long as they need to; there’s no really strong sense of the track either dragging on or being too frenetic. There’s a good sense of control, which gives off a professional impression about Audiocum, like he knows what he’s doing.
This is why “symphony” springs to mind. The track is always moving, but in a logical, controlled way. There’s far more ups and downs, changes of pace and feel and such like than most. And the sixteen minutes that it lasts give that grandiose level that symphonies have.
Admittedly, it may become slightly dismissible or stagnant at times, but I put this mainly down to the length of the track myself. And even with the long running time, Audiocum uses it wisely and gives plenty of necessary variation.
Strongly-composed, capturing noise. I like it, I really do. And I feel a bit of a tit comparing it to a symphony when the back of the CD proudly states “Music is shit, Audiocum is Satan.”
8.3/10
Old QCS Review from losingtoday.com (Please note this is from a time when I used Myspace)
07-06-2009
Singled Out
Missive 210
http://www.myspace.com/quaggacurioussoundsandoddities – mentioned this imprint loosely in passing just a second ago when we happened across Norwich noise niks Zebra Mu on the Love Torture my space player. Anyway both Zebra Mu and Quagga Curious Sounds are headed up by Michael Ridge.
Okay any questions?
Well to date there have been some dozen or so releases – most appear long since sold out (in fact about 90% of the catalogue all told) and much to the furious sounds of gnashing teeth appear to have passed us by. Don’t fret though because releases by Audiocum and Carl Kruger are still available (just) both looking handsomely packaged with the former coming replete with a brass bullet shell which for those of you – like me – into your inserts and weird packages is surely a thing of desire. We here are thinking loads of head drilling ear gear here for all you admirers of all things Kylie Minoise, At War with False Noise, Kovorox, Tayside Mental Health and the such like. Five tracks loom large on the player of death opening with an excerpt from what we assume will be a forthcoming Splinter Vs Stalin split, alas no information on this lot though safe to say they make the kind of sound that would peel paint from walls and no doubt bend metal, an unrelenting no prisoners taken slab of squalling white noise sand storm that frankly sounds like its going to implode and disintegrate on itself any second soon as it pushes through the frequency tolerances. Described by Mr Ridge as ’harsh as fuck noise’ Audiocum do indeed push the ante with their acid bath aural atrocity, brutal and blistered this wilfully aggressive attack upon the senses and lobes is as ferocious as they come all served up as searing splinters of pummelling skree storms which despite their initial acute abruptness sound quite lulling and mesmeric once that is your head has retuned itself to the seizure stricken melee entailing within. Mind you nothing quite prepares you for the all out blitzkrieg of the sonic warring undertaken by Carl Kruger, culled from his ultra limited ‘the state is violence’ set which is apparently based on the book ‘Anarchism is American‘ – Kruger hits you square in the face with his attrition based aural contortions, a menacing spectacle of grating mayhem and butchered ad hoc time signatures jettisoned at speed and revealing itself all at once as a cacophonous carnage of circuit bending cruelty to which admirers of Hijokaidan will do well to seek at your earliest inconvenience. Sadly Chefkirk refused to play ball as did the Dead Wood track but then I guess you get the general idea of what’s afoot here.
