Achromatic Cold - Transcendental Dispel of Spirit (2010)

| Ethereal | Noise Wall |

Imagine yourself in another dimension. In a place where nothing seems to make sense to the mind nor the thoughts, but in the deep your spirit feels light and comfortable. A place where no images make sense, where no colour is recognizable, where all memories gather in a single moment - where time doesn't seem to exist. Imagine yourself in the centre of it, in the living core. Imagine that core communicating with you - you don't seem to understand, but your soul can feel. You hear your heart beating, and that's the only thing that makes sense. Then you hear it, the translation of that dimension, the translation of the lost senses, a mantra of strange sounds. You try to reach one of them, but then it's gone. And all the others come, one stranger than the other and one more intense than the other. Soon, you can see yourself drowning into all those sounds like an vast and deep ocean. A living and pulsating ocean.

That was the little contemplation I thought about before this presentation, and that was exactly the feeling I wanted to transmit to the others. This live recording consists of one track - 20 huge minutes of the weirdest haino-ish guitar sounds I was able to produce - divided in six parts. Close you eyes, feel it physically and enjoy. I hope you can feel that too.

Catalog: VB-14 (Velvet Blue Records)
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Melt-Banana - Cell-Scape (2003)

| Noise Rock | Punk Rock | Experimental Rock |

Has Melt Banana gone electronica? Though this is likely the question fans will be asking themselves during the electronically-oriented, almost Curve-like opening refrains of Cell-Scape, the answer is an emphatic and enthusiastic "no" -- they are, in fact, more tightly focused in their remarkably controlled fury than ever. From the grinding opening of "Shield for Your Eyes, A Beast in the Well..." on, this is undoubtedly the Melt Banana that listeners have marveled at for nearly a decade. The only difference between their older material and Cell-Scape is that with their latest effort the band has mastered the art of slowly building the intensity of a song before unleashing a barely contained rage that has come to define their unmistakable sound. If fans question their motives in the opening moments of this release -- the joke is most certainly on them, for the middle section of Cell-Scape shows the band's songwriting skills maturing impressively without any sacrifice to intensity or speed. Any band that has been around as long as Melt Banana and possesses such a unique sound needs to mature in some manner lest they risk the boredom of repetition in the eyes of fans, and the manner in which chirping lead squeaker YaSuKo O. and company has couldn't be more satisfying. Their undeniably unique sound is now more relevant than ever, perhaps even more so, resulting in an increasingly infectious sonic assault that will please longtime fans and peak curiosity in the uninitiated.

Catalog: AZCD-0005 (A-Zap Records)
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Boredoms - Wow 2 (1993)

| Noise Rock | Experimental Rock | Punk Rock |

Released on Avant, run by Yamatsuka Eye's Naked City bandmate John Zorn, and recorded by him with help from Martin Bisi, Wow 2 surfaced around the same time that Pop Tatari made its initial Japanese bow on Warner Bros. Saying the first album is more experimental and uncommercial than the second is pushing it -- it's not like the Boredoms were going to release catchy pop ditties all of a sudden. Rather, Wow 2 is just another wiggy slice of what makes the Boredoms' sound such a great, unpredictable experience. If anything, this release is actually more straightforward than Pop Tatari. The overall sound of the album feels a bit hollow; there's a lot of echo at points, especially noticeable on the scraps of unaccompanied vocals. Still, it's presumably intentional, as is the feeling that everything was recorded in single takes without overdubbing. Eye is the predominant vocalist throughout, and compared to the near Bomb Squad levels of musical interplay on Soul Discharge, the songs here are blunter and much more direct, with crunching lead riffs quite obvious at points. Various flute and sax noises crop up in the usual tumult of sound; whether it's Zorn having fun is left unclear in the liner notes, but it's equally likely that the Boredoms simply tackle wind instruments the same way they do electric: with gusto. "Pop Can" deserves mention for its remarkably restrained feel, with an ominous call-and-response feel to it; even when things start freaking out a bit, the plodding drum/bass combination keeps grinding along while the guitar plays a few high notes rather than launching into more slabs of feedback. The spacy guitar on "Rydeen!!" also sounds great -- a nice indication of the semi-prog sense that creeps further into their music on later releases.

Catalog: Avan 026 (Avant)
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Boredoms - Pop Tatari (1992)

| Noise Rock | Experimental Rock | Punk Rock |

Appearing in America after an initial Japanese release, and with a revamped track listing and song titles to boot ("Bocabola" is called that here only because somebody somewhere was worried about what a certain soft drink company might think of the original title), Pop Tatari definitely holds the crown as being one of the strangest things to surface under a major label's auspices. Starting off with "Noise Ramones," which consists solely of various high-pitched tones like those of the Emergency Broadcast System, Tatari contains some nearly conventional bits. Yet even the semi-lounge smoothness of "Nice B-O-R-E Guy Boyoyo Touch" collapses just enough, while elsewhere the screaming lunacy of fullthrottle Boremania rampages unchecked. Songs shudder to stops, launch into roaring mania and deathstomp rattle, and crunch more quickly and unexpectedly than those of just about anybody else -- no real change there, then! Add dashes of heavy funk mania ("Bo Go" would do early Funkadelic proud) along with whatever logic operates inside the band members' skulls, and the result is more cockeyed genius. Yamatsuka Eye rants above the whole mess like a man possessed, trading off with other band members in ways that practically redefine call and response. Singling out all the highlights would take forever, but "Bore Now Bore" feels like a mid-'60s frug played by berserk aliens, with some random electronics to boot, while a cover of the old Peggy Lee standard "Fever," retitled "Heeba," keeps the central riff but abandons just about everything else; the lyrics sound like they're slurred through cotton and various thrashy instrumental breaks. Concluding with the multigenre purée of "Cory & the Mandara Suicide Pyramid Action or Gas Satori," Tatari kicks out the jams eight different ways at once.

Catalog: 9 45416-2 (Reprise Records)
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Ruins - Mandala 2000: Live at the Kichijoji Mandala II (2000)

| Progressive Rock | Experimental Rock | Avant-Garde |
| Free-Prog | Noise Rock |

Without a doubt, Tatsuya Yoshida is one of the most important drummers on the Japanese scene in the final decades of the 20th to the 21st century, having spearheaded at least a half dozen of that country's most important groups. Perhaps best-known among these would be the Ruins; an ironic band name coming from a land in which most aspects of antiquity have been preserved rather than destroyed. This group's unique basic instrumentation of drums and bass was no less than a palace revolt against the established role of the rhythm section. As if setting the basement servant headquarters aflame and then tromping upstairs to take control of the house proper, the two musicians let their amazingly intricate rhythmic patterns become the music -- not that "rhythmic patterns" is much of a description of what most of it sounds like, kind of like calling the Thames River "water." Although he has said his main influence was European progressive rock drummer Christian Vander, Tatsuya was still usually heard in the traditional drummer's ensemble role. Having long since stepped beyond that, he has had an interesting development creating his own solo music; becoming a one-man band in the process and using elements of everything from sheer noise to disco and pop.

The Ruins are known for their energetic live performances, but they truly surpassed themselves on Mandala 2000: Live at Kichijoji Mandala II. Recorded on May 12, 2000, this CD contains 23 tracks performed with merely an occasional half-second break here and there. Drummer Yoshida Tatsuya and bassist Sasaki Hisashi storm through a cross-section of compositions spanning 15 years of existence, five improvisations, and the two famous light-speed medleys "Classical Music Medley" and "Hardrock Medley" -- the group's answer to John Oswald's Plunderphonics. Electric violinist Katsui Yuji joined the duo for the last portion of the show. Throughout the years, the Ruins have covered every possible ground between symphonic progressive rock, avant punk, and free rock. By 2000, they had achieved a level of fusion between those styles and an almost inhuman technique. An unstoppable locomotive, Mandala 2000 features many highlights: the complex "Vrresto," "Bupphairodazz," "Znohjmo," the medleys, the spacy "Impro 4." The incomparable musicianship and stunning performance found on Mandala 2000 makes this a definitely must-have for Ruins fans and a convincing place to start for newcomers. This CD ranks very high in their discography.

Catalog: TZ 7234 (Tzadik)
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Boredoms - Soul Discharge '99 (1994)

| Noise Rock | Experimental Rock | Punk Rock |

Completely insane. That's how the early Boredoms sound. Led by the maniac vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Yamatsuka Eye, also known for his works with Hanatarash, the band provides a violent stop-start, jump-cut punk/noise/kitsch collage sound powered by a thousand crazy vocals, a mix of psychedelic and tribal drumming, completely frenzied guitar and an as frenetic use of electronic devices. The run-quick rhythms are everywhere around and at the same time going nowhere, all bouncing at every corner and crashing on each other. The songs actually have remarkable riffs, but they're so frantically played and mixed together that it becomes a soup of beats and hysterical shredding. And that works perfectly fine with Boredoms. Highlights go for the "We Will Rock You" version of Bubblebop Shot, the senseless 52 Boredom (club mix), and the violent Sun, Gun, Run and Pow Wow Now.
By the way, that's the cover of the original Soul Discharge - not the '99 reissue with bonus tracks -, which I find a lot more interesting than the reissue's one.

Catalog: EN-002 (EarthNoise)
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Boredoms - Chocolate Synthesizer (1994)

| Noise Rock | Experimental Rock | Punk Rock |

Of all the artists in Japan's thriving noise-music community, the Boredoms undoubtedly had the most fun. Although their maniacally extreme cacophony was by no means accessible listening, it was underpinned by a gleeful sense of humor that helped them find a limited (but still surprisingly wide) audience among alternative rockers. A typical Boredoms track might feature massively distorted guitars, squealing synths, any number of odd found-object noisemakers, or studio-manipulation effects; conventional song structures are thrown out the window in favor of abrupt, whiplash-inducing changes of direction. With Sonic Youth and Nirvana counting themselves among the Boredoms' fans, the group actually signed major-label deals during the early '90s, both in Japan and the U.S., and played the Lollapalooza main stage. Although the Boredoms' American deal eventually fell through, they continued to record steadily in Japan, progressing into a sort of trance-inducing, psychedelia-tinged experimental rock indebted to the '70s Krautrock movement.

It can still be said that they're the Boredoms, but it can also be said that they're not simply content to totally repeat themselves, established as the band's general formula is. The crowned princes and princesses of "wackoaggro," here the Boredoms start to let more of their prog-rock fascination creep in, often doing so to brilliant effect. "Acid Police," not merely a great opener but also one of the group's best songs, period, offers an a cappella call and response between Eye and his main vocal cohort, which eventually turns into a pounding, roiling epic stomp, drawing as much from Kraut-rock trance as metal, and fading out on an even more aggressive drumming note. The title track, is simply dreamy -- a brief but serene number working in odd synth sounds and various percussion noises. Other ghosts of early Faust and both Amon Düül collectives show up more than once (perhaps most hilariously on "B for Boredoms," which starts as a heavily distorted "Gimme a B!" call-and-response chant before turning into a mini-Metallica epic as voiced by helium-loaded chipmunks). As a result, even the more typically Boredoms numbers sound just a bit more weirdly intricate. Arguably things are a little tighter and more focused all around (even the trumpet playing sounds almost smooth at times), and those who appreciated the go-everywhere-at-once feeling of many previous releases might find the relative straightforwardness in songs like "Mama Brain" (at least up until the end) a bit disappointing. The soundscrapes of "Action Synthesizer Hero," though, which feature singing counterbalanced against pure white noise before launching into another series of instantaneous time signature switches and loudness followed by quiet, make it clear that the Boredoms merely know how to work ever more ways than before.

Catalog: 9 45814-2 (Reprise Records)
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Burzum - Belus (2010)

| Atmospheric Black Metal | Black Metal |

Burzum is the one-man project of Varg Vikernes (born Christian Vikernes, aka Count Grishnackh), perhaps the most notorious figure in Norwegian black metal. Although Burzum has an unpredictably experimental bent -- encompassing black metal, industrial, electronic, and dark ambient music -- Vikernes will forever be associated with his conviction for the 1993 murder of former Mayhem bandmate Euronymous. It wasn't the first time Vikernes had run afoul of the law; he had been a suspect in arsons directed at historic Norwegian churches in Bergen, a perception not helped by his use of a post-fire photograph of the Fantoft Kirke church on the cover of Burzum's 1993 Aske EP. Burzum played a vital role, along with other Norwegian black metal bands such as Mayhem, Darkthrone, Emperor and Immortal, in the development of black metal as a musical genre and ideology.

Belus is the returning of Burzum to the Black Metal, after two Dark-Ambient albums and a 11-years hiatus. Musically, the album continues from where Filosofem, his last black metal album, left off. It's a mix of straight black and awesome atmospheric black metal, and still that's what I've found mostly disappointing in it. I expected some cool dark-ambient stuff like on Det Som Engang Var, but apart from the short intro, there isn't a single climatic song in it. In spite of that, Belus is mostly a pleasing album for Burzum's standards. The album production is much cleaner (still pretty harsh, though) and the songs display the musical maturation of Varg. That's exactly the word, Belus sounds mature. The guitar is musically more consistent and complex - when comparing to Varg's earlier stuff -, the drumming is more powerful, but still straightforward and rhythmically simple as always, and the bass lines are a lot more elaborated (specially on Morgenrøde, that bass is killer!). Overall, the album is full of great tracks (highlights for Glemselens Elv, Belus' Død, Morgenrøde and Keliohesten) and is really excellent, but the lack of Dark-Ambient still makes me feel like there's a piece missing in here. Also, I've read some comments about Belus sounding like a standard Black Metal album, but for me, it sounds pretty unique as the rest of Burzum's discography. It has, yes, a kind of regular BM album structure, but it still has that special "Varg's touch" in each song of it.

Catalog: BYE001CD (Byelobog)
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Up-Tight - Early Years (2007)

| Noise Rock | Psychedelic Rock |

Early Years is the re-issue of Up-Tight's first self-titled album plus two tracks - one live and another from the studio. This album is pretty more noisy and lo-fi than Up-Tights later releases, what is kind of obvious. And I must admit, they're lots more awesome in here than in Lucrezia. Early Years has a dark and feedback-full atmosphere and the songs are painful and full of feeling.

The album opens with Melt Rain, a feedback-based track that starts with a amp drone and goes through some guitar shrieking. L'Stranger is one of my favourites from here: The howling vocals are cold and reverbful, and when the second guitar kicks in it's just the most awesome moment in the whole album. I'm Just A Dreamer is a kind of sad-ballad, with slower-tempo, melodic guitars and a more visible, but not less haunting, vocal. The bass is specially great on that one. Never Come Morning kicks in contrasting with the noisy-barrage of the previous song's ending: A slow droning bass feedback and a distant and dry drum-hitting soils the way for another melancholic guitar+weeping cold vocals passage. This one is even slower and would be an awesome "too-high-to-fall-asleep" midnight soundtrack. Although it gets kind of aggressive at some points (specially the ending), it's a pretty gentle and soft song. Non-Title is the big highlight in here - i mean, HUGE. Dark, Heavy, Evil, Aggressive - Nightmarish. This song is just perfect. From the Stoner beginning 'til the Psychedelic-giant-jam ending, Non-Title just gets more and more perfect. The structure has predominant heavy bass lines, with one guitar doing a dark and low-pitched rhythmic session and other following with high-pitched screams and awesome solos. The vocals are even more haunting, distorted and reverbful - what just adds more darkness. Too bad the percussion is buried under all this dense wall of noise and awesomeness... Still, the drummer achieves to be awesome behind everyone. This song is an awesome band reaching their awesome peak. Fucking awesome. King of Ice, Live, is another aggressive song. The drumming is pretty more visible and strong, perhaps because it's live, what makes this just more sick. The guitar is powerful as always, but the bass presence is much more grabbing and even buries the guitar at some points. Shining The Red Light is the bonus studio track, recorded during the debut album sessions. It's another soft song, with crystal-y guitars, cymbal-y drumming and high-pitched bass lines. The vocals are lot cleaner than in the rest of the album, but that just adds more feeling to the song. Occasional noisy riffs and shrieking-psych jams completes the track and ends this completely great album.

Catalog: archive40 (aRCHIVE)
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Achromatic Cold - Lungless (2010)

| Harsh Noise | Noise Metal |

Earbleed - That's what this album always gives me. Lungless is the second full-length album by the brazillian musician Achromatic Cold (with 29min), and while his first (Despair) was mostly a dark-ambient/drone-noise conceptual album, this one is basically a noise album. A harsh noise album, and a VERY harsh one. With tracks of high-pitched ear-piercing electronic noise, textured-distortion, Noise Metal and even a Black-Metal-influenced song, Lungless is one of those "badass fullblack-cover" albuns that people usually avoid on record's galleries - and with a good reason. But if you're willing to taste a little bit of destruction and aural pain, well, this is exactly what you are looking for.

The best on here are: A Life Full Of Joyful Smiles, The Empty And Sky-Tall Building, Sacrilege - three rageful rampages of noise metal - and Lungless - one of those high-pitched "ARGH, MY EAR" tracks. The rest of the album goes pretty "fine" (I mean, disturbing!), until the final track, Requiem. That one is the real highlight on here: the perfect mix of Black Metal and Harsh Noise, the flawless blending of abrasive melody and dark atmosphere. Overall, the distortion level is over the limit and the whole album is scarcely bearable. But if you really like to get your tympanums fucked, well, you gotta love this. Literally Breathtaking.

Catalog: VB-12 (Velvet Blue Records)
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Majutsu No Niwa ( 魔術の庭 ) - Frontera (2009)

| Psychedelic Rock | Noise Rock |

Majutsu No Niwa is a Psychedelic Rock band lead by Rinji Fukuoka after the disbanding of Overhang Party on 2008. Frontera is their first proper studio-recording, and displays the enhancement of the band's sound from the later Overhang Party's releases: Deeper song structure over the feedback-full rampage, but still strong on the road of the psychedelia. The bass lines are hypnotic and groovy and the guitar is full of reverb, fuzz and wah-wah, always striking with long and trippy solos. The drumming is kind of light and rely mostly on the cymbal use, but provides the perfect rhythmic session. Also, Rinji's jazzy voice is damn cool! Frontera is the perfect example of the "new wave" of japanese psych rock, and it won't disappoint any fan of the old Overhang Party nor of the japanese traditional psychedelic "wave".

The songs in here are quietly intriguing: The album opens and closes with the trippy psych-feedback (Afunruparo, La Vena), goes through some hard-rocking (Turn To Flames, Magikal Garden), some melodic-psychedelic (Thousands of Days, Thousands of Nights, Night Cruise) and even some ballads-like (Journey to the End of the Night, Beyond The Steel Rails) moments. Overall, it's pretty diverse and, at the same time, solid. Great album.

Catalog: TRCD-005 (There, Musik Atlach)
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Luc Ferrari - Presque Rien (1995)

| Avant-Garde | Musique Concrète | Ambient |
| Experimental Electronic |

20th century French composer Luc Ferrari has been a major contributor to musique concrete for several decades. In the late 1950s, he began collaborating with the "Groupe de Musique Concrete" (a relationship which lasted until 1966) and helped Pierre Schaeffer found the "Groupe de Recherches Musicales," a group and studio dedicated to the electronic medium where Iannis Xenakis and Karlheinz Stockhausen could also be found. A wonderful sampling of Luc Ferrari's work, Presque Rien also may serve as a smooth introduction to the world of musique concrète. His "Music Promenade," which opens the album, is a combination of ambient sounds (including marching bands and laughing girls) augmented by electronically processed sounds and snatches of other prerecorded music. It's actually illustrative of some of the pitfalls that can occur when a collage of this type is overly forced and the result is somewhat awkward. This is decidedly not the case with "Presque Rien No. 1." While the title translates to "almost nothing," the reality of the piece is far different. Rather, the piece is nothing less than a rich, sonic recreation of an early morning in a Yugoslavian seaside village. Though one knows he must have engaged in substantial manipulation, Ferrari's touch is virtually invisible. Instead one is transported to a beach where bird cries, outboard motors, children singing, and, more than anything, cicadas chirping surround the listener, offering a startlingly immediate sensation of "being there." More, of being in a heightened state of awareness. "Presque Rien No. 2" is a more private, though no less beguiling affair, as the composer talks softly to himself while walking through a very sonically active field. As in the first piece, there are again purely musical adornments, but here they meld beautifully with the natural sounds.

Catalog: 245172 MU 750 (Musidisc)
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