Distortion
 

Ah yes, you're here. Welcome and come in. Please, sit down. Can I interest you in a smoke? Perhaps a drink? I knew you couldn't resist. Here you are. Now, make yourself comfortable, we have lots to discuss.
Allow me tell you all about myself. Let's just hope you are eager to know. I won't limit this to just music related entries, but I won't bore you either.
But alas, it is late. Entries pending.

Hey, I was just enjoying that drink! Yes, as it happens, since you're so concerned, I DO have a home to go to... mutter mutter putting coat on only here a few minutes mutter bloody licencing laws....

Watching this space...

Christ, computer woes. Here's hoping I get it going tomorrow. But for now, here's this:



Been listening to this on repeat the past few hours. Just goes to show you that despair isn't eliminated by sex. At least that's the message I get, who knows what songs are really about.

I'm starting this off with a simple album review.



While only existing quite briefly, Orchid are considered by many to be the quintessential screamo band. In their five years of existence, they have managed to put out 4 legendary albums, including this one here.
DT!RT! is more defined, both musically and lyrically, than its predecessor, Chaos Is Me. With references to Anna Karina, Friedrich Nietzsche, and more, we see some very well conceived lyrics. Upon first listen, one might assume Jayson Green is simply screaming about killing himself and others, but they would be quite mistaken.
Musically, this album’s zenith is Jeffrey Salane’s drumming, which combines Keith Moon-esque flailing with extremely melodic tendencies. The others do a extraordinary job supporting him, bringing a uniquely harmonious sound you wouldn’t expect to find in a genre with “violence” in its title. But of course, you can’t forget about the final track, “…And the Cat Turns to Smoke”. The entire band’s musical prowess comes together, with the help of a snippet of modern classical music; courtesy of a perfectly placed violin piece, for an epic finale.
Clocking in at a little over fifteen minutes, this album never ceases to blow my mind. Each track has its own blockbuster qualities, that should leave the listener craving for more. Take the first track, “Destination: Blood!” , for example. This song is only a minute long, but listening to it places me right in the middle of a bloodthirsty crusade, especially the second half, which has to be the audio personification of victory. “To Praise Prosthesis” is the aftermath of this crusade, where we loot our fallen enemies, and honor our fallen bretheren. “Lights Out” is another standout track, starting out calmly, with some clean singing. It is perhaps the heaviest song on the album, if we take into account the definition of the word. After a short burst of brutality, we have another marathon track, and my personal favorite in “I Am Nietzsche”. Another track with a slow guitar intro, before the rupturing of your mind begins. Tremolo picked riffs are very prominent in this song. Towards the end, you should feel inclined to scream the tracks title at the top your lungs. “Victory is Ours” brings that triumphant feeling back to you, along with the track after the next, “Black Hills”. I’m not sure how to explain it, but these songs are filled with memorable hooks that give me that feeling. Since I can’t, let the songs speak for themselves.


After “Snow Delay at the Frankfurt School”, we have this album’s larger than life ending track. Once again, an unhurried intro, but this time, it doesn’t just explode into the song. Instead, more instrumentation helps build this up to introduce which I believe is the best vocal performance here. Breaking down into a slow bass interlude is always fantastic. Is there any way it could get more epic? Yes, with the addition of violin. The final seconds are as climatic a finish as anyone could ask for.


I reccomend this to any hardcore/emo fans who haven't already heard it it, but I doubt there are any.

I haven't had any time to type any entries for this for a while, but I need to start making some time, seeing as I've turned my life around, and have so many more albums and artists to cover. Don't worry, they'll be better than my Orchid one, that was just a quick and basic album summary to get things started. I feel like you guys don't know me well enough, so I'll try to add more to this, and maybe let you into my distorted life.

Actually, I probably won't have internet foor a good 6-8 months, guess I spoke to soon.

Hey bro, that Orchid review blew, talk more about the music then your own opinion, don't you know how to review music? Oh no, that was me? Couldn't be, yeah, suckssssssssss.

I have regular internet access now, and I'm gonna start writing cool stuff in here, probably some non-cool stuff too. My life is still not on track, but its somewhat better. No more cursing the universe for bringing humans into existence, no more crying myself to sleep, no more mental breakdowns.

I'd like to start with a little segment I like to call --Spotlight On ______!--, where I write a short article or passage on figures (most of which will be musical) that I admire greatly/have inspired me/are genuinely awesome. First off is one of my personal heroes, never afraid to push the boundaries of music and just never giving a ****, Mike Patton.


Both of us are from Eureka, Ca, and my dad used to be roommates with Mike back when he was a long haired hooligan. My dad tells me Mike would drink glasses of vodka before noon, until the whole gallon was gone. Next thing you know, he's peeing out the window. I'd like to think he's more mature now, with a wife and such. If I had to take a guess, I'd say he, along with John Zorn (coming in a later article), have explored every genre of music imaginable. From the early thrash/death metal of The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny, to the Italian pop of Mondo Cane, to the Native-American chant rock of Anonymous to the spastic avant-vocals of Adult Themes for the Voice. These sounds just brew in his brain. I sometimes will play some of the weirder Patton stuff for my friends (some Disco Volante mostly) and they call it insane, or just a bunch of wacky noises. He's a genius to me, though, most definitely, and I'm sure many others as well. I call him a genius in the sense that he doesn't simply write a top 40 hit to make money. He basically does whatever he wants, and it entertains. A genius to me is somewhat that can do just that. If you can get up on stage, scream erratic incoherence for a bit, and get an applause, you're a genius.“I’M NOT A POET. I’M NOT UP ONSTAGE TO GET SOMETHING OFF MY CHEST. I’M MAKING MUSICAL STATEMENTS, OR, MOST OF THE TIME, MUSICAL QUESTIONS FOR PEOPLE TO FIGURE OUT, AND I’M NOT GOING TO GET IN THE WAY OF THAT.”. Feel how you want about his songs, but Patton is an incredible singer. He can do everything from death growls to opera croons, even in fluent Italian, if he feels the need. He's done soundtracks for the films Crank: High Voltage, The Place Beyond the Pines, A Perfect Place, as well as starring in the movie Firecracker, and has done numerous voice roles. He owns the record label, Ipecac, which produces all kinds of good bands. He's the real deal, and he never even practices singing.

I'm gonna wait to do another one of these until I can write better biographical pieces. Not to sound egotistic, but I am a good writer, but it comes in more personal forms.

So I'm spending this month, and perhaps the next, eight miles along the highway between Cannon Beach and Seaside in Oregon. I must say, it's beautiful, at least compared to living in Reno. I'm staying in a sort of cottage right on the highway, and my backyard is a deep, green forest, ripe with life. I've been here for only four days, but it's given me time to think about things. Back home, (well, it's not so much a home anymore, since I won't be returning to Reno to take up residence) I had so much stacked on my plate, yet at the same time, nothing at all. It was an abundance of general teenage angst that made everything seem like so much more than it was. During my last month there, I went through a mental breakdown, several episodes of severe hopelessness and anxiety, being without a place to go or sleep, (as a product of the move) and my outlook was all too bleak. I might (most likely) get into more of that later. I can relax here, calm down and take walks in the woods, along the river, or even at the beach. I can separate myself from life for a moment. A while ago I would worry that my own friends didn't appreciate me, which was a factor leading to the aforementioned mental breakdown, but I don't have to worry about anything here. And it feels good that I left on a positive note, with my friends throwing me a small soiree. That gave me a real nice feeling, being with all them before I left, and right after my troubles. I really didn't have anything to worry about at all, they were all working while I wasn't, it's understandable that they didn't have much free time. It's just my mind (I seriously think I have some kind of disorder, I don't know what though) that made me believe that no one was there, that there was no one to turn to. It's always been like that for me, for as long as I can remember I've had depression and anxiety problems. But like I said, here on the coast, I don't have to worry about anything like that. I've been passing the time exploring, picking wild raspberries and blackberries, (they grow like weeds) writing songs, reading, and basically relaxing. I don't think it's even reached ninety degrees since I got here, the day I took the greyhound I was in Redding, and it got up to 115. I think this should be good for my mental health, I'll keep you posted on life up here.

Anyway........
I can't get enough of this erratic, spacey, and downright crazy stuff.




Gigantic Brain has liquefied mine. I'd say the craziest cybergrind band there is, and don't get me wrong, I love Agoraphobic Nosebleed and Wadge to death, but this goes above and beyond. A wild mixture of grind, ambient, video game music, and spacey new age type stuff, it's sure to concuss.

If you appreciate psychedelia, then you should appreciate this group, and this entry.


Shpongle are great at seemingly recreating hallucinations. The sounds and melodies they incorporate into their music is very reminiscent of your audio experience while under the influence of psychedelics, at least I think so. The splashes, buzzes, and flanges, the pulsating bass lines, the extra-terrestrial beeps and whirs, I know I've been there. The echoes, the bizarre vocal calls, strange whistles and sparks.

"Shpongle", according to the duo, is an umbrella term. I take it to mean: "A strong blanket of transcending euphoria" or something or other. Being "shpongled" is being wrapped in that blanket. I'd like to share a trip report I wrote not too long ago, a day after a true shpongling. It's really the only word I can use to describe that night. I titled it "A Kaleidoscopic Haze of Pleasant Confusion"

School had been out for a week now, summer was in full swing. I had purchased my ticket to see Starf*cker, (indie pop/electronic group) and my friends would get their's at the door. The mention of LSD had only been made to me that very day. Our fat friend, to whom we convinced the show was sold out so he wouldn't go, (it was a terrible move, but for the best, he would have hated it anyway) said that our friend N was interested in getting some. Apparently the acid connection that was iffy weeks before, had now turned legitimate. I was excited from that moment on. After breaking the false news, we left to my friend E's house. Trying to eliminate some confusion here, it was now myself, E, N, and another friend, A, at E's house. A had been conversing with the acid connect, and we came to the conclusion that we would buy twelve hits. Fast forwarding through the waiting period, we get the acid, and A trades a chocolate bar containing an eighth of mushrooms for two more hits. In total, we have fourteen, and we were off to meet A's girlfriend and her friends at the show.
It was hipster mania in there. I remember saying to my friends "there is an immeasurable amount of non-prescription glasses in here." The first act, one man, drunk as the dickens, playing under the moniker 'Feelings.' It was horrid. The "music" was uninspired and dull, and otherwise very rudimentary, like some if little kid found a mixing board in the basement and started fiddling around with it. And his vocals were even worse, cracky moans and mumbling, I was not enjoying myself. The second act, Wampire, was somewhat better. A full band, actual songs, but still blew. It was worth the wait, because Starf*cker was fantastic. Great sound, good visuals, crowd surfing horses and astronauts, and balloons falling from above. They put on a great show.
We returned to E's house at around midnight, and after some gathering of things and ourselves, we took the acid. I think everyone else took two to start with, someone might have even only taken one, but went right ahead and did all three of mine to the dome. It was bitter and numbing. Hopefully, we were in for a wild ride. We stayed inside while the tabs dissolved. I was drinking a cherry coke, I couldn't feel a thing on the spot of my tongue where the acid lie, so the fluid was weird. We also wanted to decide on a movie to watch beforehand, and get it all queued up, because I'm sure we would be too confused to later. We shuffled through the movie selection, and The Animal with Rob Schneider was jokingly brought up. A hadn't seen it, and we've all seen all these other movies dozens of times, so as dumb as it is, that's what we decided on. It had been about twenty minutes or so since we did the acid, and already I feel that shiver, that slight tingle, that lightness. At this point, we went outside to smoke a bowl on the porch.
Sitting outside, I could tell I just did acid. The plants were so bright and prominent. I was shivering erratically, but I don't think anyone noticed. After a bit, we moved into the garage, and continued the bowl. All the seats were taken, I leaned up against the truck. We started talking about how we felt, everyone had started their come up, we all had that same tingle. They began talking about visuals, and I guess no one had any yet. I took the most, though, and was experiencing some very minor hallucinations. I was spacing in and out of the conversation, looking at different surfaces. The markings on a wood cabinet separated themselves from each other. The floor began to spiral, but stopped quickly. Parts of it seemed closer to me than others, like it was warped. A had noticed my confusion. The longer I looked at his face, the tighter his skin grew. He had a very skeletal look about him. I was always the quiet one, and I was even more quiet now. We sat around in the garage for a while, shooting the sh*t and whatnot. According to them, my pupils were extremely large, while everyone else's weren't. I guess I was high.
We finished the bowl, and went back inside. We stopped in the kitchen to wash the X's off of our hands from the show, plus my hands were genuinely dirty. We noticed a carpenter ant crawling along the edge of the counter. It first struck me as bizarre, all these legs and segments, but I shook that feeling away. As we made our way to the living room, N had stopped, and started making slow body motions, he was doing tai-chi, I guess. He was embracing the acid, which we all felt strongly now. We made ourselves comfortable and turned on the movie, and I'll tell ya, it was weird. Never had a movie seemed so strange, and all the dumb jokes combined with the LSD made it uncomfortably hilarious. The characters looked as if they were made of clay. The first person cut scenes of him prowling around at night were almost jarring, we were all astounded after each one. At one point towards the end of the movie, there was a shadow of window blinds cast on the TV screen. Each segment of the screen grew away from each other and melded back. E's dachshund crawled into someone's lap, and we shared a gaze that seemed to last forever. The dog's face implanted itself in the center of my vision, while everything surrounding spiraled into a fractal mess. I almost believe we shared thoughts at that moment, he was a being on a higher level than me, guiding me through this haze. In reality, that moment only lasted like two seconds, but it was significant. The movie was over. E and N wanted to go smoke another bowl, but A and myself stayed inside. We turned off the lamp and sat in silence. I reached the peak of an intense acid trip.
I sat there on the couch, looking around. Everything breathed, nothing was still. Things would blow up like a balloon, and then pop. There was an endless loop of shadows gliding across the floor. I would close my eyes for a minute, and a neon outline of the furniture would remain. But the lines would melt into a puddle, and begin to boil. I opened my eyes with a loud pop, and confetti sprinkled downward from my sight. It was like on of those fireworks, 'BANG! shshshshshshshshshshshs". A turned his head to me and said: "Are you enjoying this as much as I am?". I simply looked at him and nodded. I had to go to the bathroom, I drank like three cherry cokes. Walking was definitely peculiar. My body felt so light. The hallway before the bathroom stretched further and further. I heard the raucous laughter of E and N through the door to the garage. Bathrooms have always been hard to navigate for me while on psychedelics. This was no different. I stood in front of the toilet, and watched it hover around, it would contort itself so much, that urination had become a difficult task. I literally couldn't do it, as I didn't want to, you know, get it everywhere. In hindsight, it would've been easier to just go outside. On my way out, I stopped and looked in the mirror. My entire iris was black, and this frightened me a tad, the look on my face. I walked back to the living room, the hallway that had stretched out before, now shrunk on my way back. I went to lie down on the couch, and zone out some more. It was still silent. A had asked me if I was having crazy auditory hallucinations. I said "like what?". I don't know why. But I was. Mainly that popping and crackling. If I closed my eyes, there would be a loud whir. I was looking upward now. A hallucination of a colorful compass-like object etched circles out of the ceiling. Each one would then descend to me, and evaporate. Occasionally, one of the circles would drift away, leaving an empty space where it used to be. I sat up, watching the ceiling the whole time as it shifted. All the circles were gone, and for a moment, there was nothing, not even myself. This split second dragged for a bit, this was the best example of time dilation from that night. I was thinking, "What's happened? Everything has ceased." It wasn't even just black, but a truly empty void, inhabited only by my ego, which had momentarily separated itself from my body. Surreal thoughts and phrases bolted through the emptiness. I heard loud thunder, and odd skittering. Random, miscellaneous words strung together to form sentences, looking back, they were nonsense, but I understood them at the time. The edge of the void began wrinkling inward, and another circle appeared in the center, the ceiling shone through. And just like that, the void had been wiped away. It was like a play, I had reached the end of an act, and some strange, omnipresent deity closed the curtain, and opened it once again. I was back on the couch, and for a second, I wasn't even hallucinating, everything was normal. For a moment I was thinking how weird my body felt, and how weird the body is. I am just a conscious, trapped inside a shell, all these thoughts and ideas compressed inside. While in that void, my conscious was free, and everything in my mind escaped, and began roaming free.
A had gotten up, blanket wrapped around him, "I'm going upstairs," he said. I guess he was ready to crash. He asked to me to hand him the vial on the table next to me, and I did, I was functioning easily. It was xanax for when we wanted to go to sleep. I was alone now. I decide to try to use the bathroom again. This time it wasn't as hard, and I finally relieved myself. I looked in the mirror again, still black. My skin had turned a weird orange color. The reflection of the wall behind me was a blur, and every feature on my body morphed slowly. The whites of my eyes had disappeared, and it was just two black dots, darting around my face. I walked back through this accordion of a hallway, and turned to the living room. It was completely different. Everything was growing all over everything else. It all amplified itself greatly, everything was a hundred times brighter, and I could see every color and every shade imaginable throughout the room. I was awestruck. The floor spun rapidly as I walked across it. I turned my attention to E's shoes, a pair of black and white Converse high tops. They lifted off the ground, just barely, about a centimeter, and began rotating. One went clockwise, the other counter-clockwise. I was fascinated, and continued watching. They landed, and then began vibrating. You know those wind up shoe toys that walk around? Well, they had wound themselves up. The right shoe would take a step, and the left would wait until it was down, and take it's own step. They walked all across the floor, leaving a sparkling black and white checkerboard trail behind them. Even when I turned my head, they would make their way into my peripheral and across the floor again. I looked up, and they continued walking, across the center of my vision, up walls, on the ceiling. I was dumbfounded. They walked with me into the kitchen, by that time, the entire living room floor was a glowing checkerboard. I was in the kitchen, and once they stepped onto the white kitchen floor, they disappeared. I looked back, and they were sitting there on the floor, which had returned to normal.
I went into the garage to join E and N, but N was just on his way back inside. E and I then shared a bowl. Every time I reached for it, my arms would move in slow motion, and even slower when I went to light it. After it was done, we went back inside, I was in front. Walking back to the living room I saw N sitting on the couch, staring at me. I couldn't see his face, but my mind improvised, painting one on, with a wide smile. I said, "What's up?" He just laughed and hopped up and toward me. When E came in, he asked where A had gone. I said he went upstairs. After a moment of frustration on his part, we all decided to migrate. I grabbed a glass from the cupboard to get some water from the fridge. I pushed the button in on the dispenser, and a red liquid filled my glass. An intense red. Bubbles rose from the water like it was carbonated. We went upstairs. The stairway seemed so high from the bottom. When we opened the door to E's room, it was pitch black. I shuffled in slowly as my vision was overtaken by kaleidoscope. E turned on the light, and the shards all fell away. A was lying in the bed. Someone had asked if he was having a bad trip, he said no and he was just tired. I think his trip was over by the time we got there, if not soon after. We all got situated, E in his chair, N sat at the end of the bed, and I sat up against the wall on the right side of the bed. The Simpsons had been turned on. While the opening sequence ran, I looked at my hands, I would wave them back and forth. The tracers were so prominent, that an image would still be in the place where I began to move it. I believe N had taken a fourth hit of acid by now, and he looked considerably high and confused. He was waving his hands around too.
I was still peaking, I could tell. The show had no meaning to me. I understood the words being said, and recognized them as language, but they didn't process in my mind. They were speaking English, but that lost all it's meaning to me. I wasn't even thinking in English, thoughts formed as vivid images in my mind's eye. Everything happening on the show was so miscellaneous, it was just a huge jumble of oddness, yet we were all cracking up. E would laugh hysterically and turn to us and say "I didn't understand any of that." If I focused on a single character, everything around their face would mold together, and they would be a head, floating in a sea of psychedelia. I would also notice characters aging, right before my eyes. Hair would grow long and gray, wrinkles would form around their face, until they died. I would see the skin rot off, until they were nothing but a skeleton. I was seeing characters getting hurt on TV, and it started occurring to me that I didn't understand basic concepts of life anymore, such as pain. I didn't understand feelings and physical sensations, emotions, language, etc. I would even pinch myself, I couldn't feel anything. Everything I knew about life had gone. I almost felt like I wasn't supposed to be alive. I felt that if I died that instant, nothing would change. The world would continue, and I would stay in this state. Like there was no border between life and death. I wasn't worried at all, just a little shocked that I had reached ego-death. This lasted for a while. I was already dead. If my heart stopped, I would remain in that bed, in the same state of confusion and state of mind, and nothing would change at all. Once I had reached that stage, that feeling would remain for the rest of the night. That feeling of acceptance.
I was coming down now. I had no idea what time it was, but we ended up watching four-ish episodes of the Simpsons. N was still very high. Earlier he had smacked the bed, A jerked up and asked "what was that?' N said he didn't know, or something, I'm not entirely sure how he replied. A said he was almost finally asleep before that, and he hadn't gotten any sleep the rest of the night. Language made more sense now, I could piece words together and understand what they meant. An odd hallucination, I remember, occurred while the show was on. I was looking straight ahead, towards the TV, and had my legs outstretched in front of me. The only way I could describe it was as a cliff side drive-in. With the bed as the cliff, and the TV Suspended out over the edge of the cliff. There was more to it than that, but you know, sometimes you just can't explain it. It's all personal, only you understand what you're trying to say. Sometimes it's like "Whoa, that plant is growing up the wall," and everyone will say yeah man. Sometimes you try to put it into words but you can't, and what does come out is jumbled and confusing.
I don't remember much of what else happened while the sun was down, but it soon rose, much to all of our surprise. We tried to smoke another bowl in the room, but that confusion kept setting in. Someone would hold it forever, stuff like that. If I recall correctly, we didn't finish it for at least two hours. That morning was riddled with bewilderment. A and E had been trying to go to sleep earlier, so they did a lot of xanax, but it only got them high. We were trudging around the room, throwing ourselves all over the furniture. N was still pretty on acid, but I think he started coming down. I was almost all the way down, there were still mild tracers and confusion, of course. We would start looking for things, but forget what and continue looking. "I have no idea what I'm looking for." We discussed taking a morning walk, and smoking the bowl outside, (which was still going around, apparently) but we never made it. It was around eight o'clock, and we were still shuffling around, falling everywhere on purpose. Nobody had any idea about anything. We were fried. A bottle of Gatorade suddenly came into existence, I don't know where it came from, and someone took a drink and remarked that it was the greatest thing he had ever drank. We all took long, very long, satisfying gulps, and whole-heartedly agreed. I myself was parched, and this Gatorade quenched like no other.
We wandered around some more, then E's dad went off to work. We took that as the queue to go downstairs and outside. Most of the confusion was gone. We sat outside, which was incredibly bright and vibrant. Everything was calm. We smoked about 600 bowls and reminisced about the night. It was rejuvenating, to say the least. I felt like I had just been born. I was shpongled out of my mind.

Tl:dr got real high on acid, didn't know what the f*ck.

I did one one Mike Patton, it's only natural to do John Zorn. Another prolific musician not afraid to push the boundaries of music. His discography is quite extensive, as I'm sure you know already, he's credited on over 400 albums as a performer or producer, and he's still going.
He was introduced to a whole mess of different music as a kid, his parents and brother all listened to an assortment of genres. The avant-garde part came after buying a Mauricio Kagel record at fifteen, pretty sweet kid. As a teenager he taught himself a lot about classical music by transcribing scores. He started playing the saxophone at sixteen and incorporated all the music he was listening to and all things he had learned into his first recordings from 1973. He dropped out of college and moved to Manahatten and established himself as a part of the downtown music scene through concerts at his apartment.

Punk-jazz-grind band Naked City was formed in 1988, and played "soundtrack themes, bluesy hard bop, speedy hardcore rock, squealing free jazz and metallic funk". They were extremeley diverse, obviously, with tons of blasting hardcore tracks, free-jazz, and performances of many classic compositions.

Painkiller was formed in 1991, with Mick Harris of Napalm Death fame on drums. Albums like Execution Ground started to incorporate long, dub-ambient tracks.

With Mike Patton, Hemophiliac was released in 2002. A double album of all around oddness and avant-noise.

In 2006 he joined forces with Patton again, this time with Trevor Dunn and Joey Baron, creating the Moonchild Trio, who would go on to release a number of recordings.

Those are his main groups, but that's only about half of his works, if that. And let's not forget the hundreds of klezmer styled jazz compositions from the Masada songbooks.
One of my favorite Zorn related........things, is the improvisational music "game", Cobra. Many talented musicians have joined in on the fun, Mike Patton, Marc Ribot, Fred Frith, among others. Someone holds up a card, people play, stuff and crap. I dunno, check it out



I haven't listened to every single album yet, but some of my favorites are Elegy, The Big Gundown, The Gift, Cartoon S/M, Naked City's Radio, and so many other good ones. If you've never delved into the Zorn world (:O), I would honestly suggest listening to Naked City. Their albums draw on all kinds of different subjects, and you could get a good Zorn experience from it. If you don't like noisey, squealy, and weird jazz, then listen to The Gift, it's pretty laid back surf-persian funky stuff.

John Zorn and Mike Patton are two of my musical heroes not only for all their kick-ass music, but also the fact that they're just doing whatever the f*ck they want. Some people are in it for the money, some people want to pour their brains out through music and have a good time.

You know, I wasn't too excited when I first arrived at my would-be Summer home. The house is very small, I don't even know if where I'm sleeping qualifies as a bedroom. I wasn't upset about there being no TV, because we had movies galore, but the television itself wasn't all that great. The screen on my Inspiron mini is larger than the one on the TV, but no disc drive. During the first few days, I couldn't get my laptop to play music through the stereo, and I've heard all the CDs we had so many times already. Eventually I figured it out, I just had to plug one of those input chords with the red, yellow, and white, you know, into the back and plug red and white both into my laptop, that made me a little happier. I was also happy when our neighbor let me use his wifi, he's a nice guy. I'm not dependent on these things, not at all, but you can only take so many walks in the woods. And I can't drive, so I can't just go on into town. The other day I bought a few books, 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami and The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays by Albert Camus. The house I'm in was already jam-packed with books, but they weren't my thing. They were the kind of books you find at the front of a supermarket. Countless novels by James Patterson, Clive Cussler, and Dean Koontz. Anyway, I was a little more optimistic about things with these additions, that was the first week.
Another thing to keep me busy was working with my grandpa as a painter. I was getting paid ten dollars/hour, higher than minimum wage, at least in Nevada. I put in forty hours on one house, we had to do the whole thing. I got paid after two days, a hundred dollars. We started another job, painting a deck, after we finished the first house. In total, I've got about eighty hours in two weeks working part-time, I haven't got the rest of my pay yet. This was my first job, and I found it rewarding and almost fun. The best part was getting finished, and taking a step back to see what you've done, I felt like I did a good job.
It wasn't too long, and all the negative thoughts I had about staying here were gone. I started to feel right at home, working, going to local shows in Cannon Beach, walking on the beach, and hanging around. I got to know everyone who worked in town, and many other people since it's such a small area. I ate my weight in freshly picked raspberries everyday, and stuffed myself with a glut of other fruits. My grandparents are great cooks, so dinner was always wonderful. When I first got here, my grandpa could see that I wasn't extremely happy, he told me "You just gotta learn to relax", and so I did.
I do however genuinely miss all my friends from Reno, and every day I wonder what kind of shenanigans they're getting into. But if I learned anything from Playtime Posse, it's that a lot of things change, but the game stays the same, nawmean? I know exactly what he means. Besides, it shouldn't be much longer before I'm on the move again, I'd say another two weeks at most and I'll be gone. I'm not moving back to Reno, though, I gotta adjust to another new area and start another new life, even go to a new school. I'll be moving to South Lake Tahoe, and I'll be staying there. It's what? A thirty minute drive to Reno from there? There's even a bus that could take me, I'll be seeing the old gang again pretty soon. We've got a special kind of bond, my friends and I. I know that's how everyone feels about their friends, but each relationship is personal. We have a tight group, about eightish people, and it doesn't grow apart, at least not yet. Though I honestly don't think it ever will. Sometimes people come and go, but at the core it's always the same. But yeah, it's gonna be all systems go when I'm back down there, I just feel it.
I was thinking during school that this was finally gonna be an awesome summer, we had so many plans to do this and that, but of course, something like this happens. But it's been a good time for me to take it easy, take a break from doing crazy things and life in general. It's too bad that it's almost gone. I need to enroll in a new school before the year starts, but I have no idea when that is, it's usually late August. So my Summer away is slowly coming to a close, but I desperately needed it, stay tuned and I'll explain why!

I'm almost positive everyone here listens to music, lol, and maybe some of you have had truly remarkable experiences while doing so. I've had a few, myself. I'm starting a short list now.......of my


This is number ten, so it's not all that flashy or epic, just a really awesome discovery. I don't know why I remember the first time I listened to this album in full, but it was neat. Before that, I had only heard the song "Washer", which I enjoyed, (now it's one of my all time favorite songs) but I had seen their name mentioned a lot. Forerunners to the whole post-rock thing and stuff like that. Back then I was getting into post-rock, like GY!BE and Explosions in the Sky, all the main groups, so maybe I'd like Slint, seeing as they also combined noise rock and post-punk. I downloaded Spiderland one day, but didn't listen to it right away. It was kind of a 'just to have' thing at that point. But after a while, I got around to it, it was a boring and quiet afternoon and I had no plans. I was just sitting there. I went to put on some music, but didn't know what I wanted to listen to. Something not too hard, but not too soft either. I decided on the Slint album after a minute. The beginning riff of "Breadcrumb Trail" started, and I thought it was real cool. But I was moreso enticed when the guitars got louder, and the vocals went from low talking to a louder singing delivery. After that was "Nosferatu Man", and I enjoyed the guitars again. The riff at around 2:50 onward was hypnotizing. After these two songs I was hooked. "Don, Aman" is a quiet one, and I thought it was going to be that the whole time, but I was surprised by the second guitar somewhere around the 4:00 mark. After that is "Washer", my favorite track. I didn't hear anything for 20 seconds, but then the melodies started. Another riff I really liked. It was the only track where singing was done over a quiet part, instead of talking. I love the lyrics to this one. But of course the best part is that loud, squealing guitar solo, makes me just wanna go on some kind of rampage. "For Dinner" is a good atmospheric instrumental, and I thought it was at a good place on the album. "Good Morning, Captain" was full of little melodies I liked, and the end of it is one of my favorite parts of the album.

This is one of my favorite albums now, which is why this made my list.

These bottom three spots all belong to first time listens of the entire album. This one came more recently, as after hearing so many good things about Ufomammut, I wanted to give them a hear. I only had their first album, Godlike Snake, before I quit internet for the day. I have to go next door to my grandparents back porch if I want to get online. I didn't listen to the entire album, but I did play a few select songs, which I liked. It was some pretty good stoner metal, with a lot more added psychedelia. The next day, I got their next three albums. Afterwards, I was alone in the house, and I was trying to figure out which album to play. I put on Snailking.This one was heavier, and had cleaner recording and even more mind juggling psychedelic effects. The stereo my neighbor had let us borrowed kicked all kinds of ass, and I had this album turned up all the way. The house was shaking, at least it felt that way. Monstrously awesome riffs and sounds poured out of the speakers. My neighbors three houses, and a couple tool sheds and a garden down could probably hear it. Listening to heavy as f*ck, psychedelic as sh*t stoner metal made me long for a bowl, or three, you know. But it still blew me away. "God" is my favorite track on the album, and when it came on, I was basically mid sh*tting my pants. And then there's the epic, brain melting last track, long droning interludes included. I'm glad I listened to this, because it may very well be my new favorite stoner album. Move over Holy Mountain and Come My Fanatics.

I recommend this to any fans of psychedelic, metal, and generally heavy music, you should be thoroughly blown away after a listen to this.

Forgive me for interrupting my list, but I'd like to post these couple passages that I wrote back in Reno, before I left. It was mid-late June when I wrote them.


We weren't even living in our new house for four months when I came home late one day to my dad sitting alone in the living room. "You'd better start packing your sh*t," he said, "we've got till the end of this week." Things haven't worked out in a while.

Lately life has been so stressful. I can't recall the last time I was truly happy or at ease. I've wanted to find solace in companionship, but my brain is forcing me to think that my friends don't want me around. I don't know how they feel about me sometimes. I've always felt removed from the group. I'd still like one more chance to hang out before I leave. After my overwhelming surge of emotion and loss of control last Saturday, (it may very well have been a mental breakdown) I've grown more and more depressed. I'm not looking forward to moving to a new town at all. My whole life is here.

I feel like I'm losing it. I can't sleep to well, my mood is shifting rapidly. Each day has been interweaved with moments of extreme depression, severe anxiety, and violent anger. I have no one to turn to. I'd wish to go back in time, but I'd always know that this is the future.

I was hoping for a better summer. WHY THE F*CK DOES SHI*T HAVE TO SUCK. maybe moving will be good, no one will know me in a new town.

I NEED DRUGS AND ALCOHOL F*CK DAMN IT F*CK.

People care more than I think...........why is my brain a piece of sh*t? why won't you let me be happy? Deep down somewhere I know that my friends care about me, but stupid things make you push those thoughts away.

I told a friend I would be leaving, and he said they all were gonna throw me a party

I knew my friends cared. I should try to understand that they all have jobs now, and I don't. But our little get together was fun. I was considerably more drunk the next morning though, after making like ten delicious vodka cranberries. I got a ride to my old house but my dad was at a storage unit. I misunderstood him on the phone since I was so drunk. We had to free buffet coupons, so we ate like kings that night, we probably wouldn't have much for a while afterwards.

I'm living in a garage, f*ck yeah! I haven't taken a shower in a week and a half, and I just can't get enough stale bread. THINGS ARE SOOOO GREAT. At least I'm leaving soon.

I'm leaving tomorrow, so today I went up to my friends' neighborhood for one last day. I took a shower first, because I desperately needed one. We just sat around talking that afternoon, I left before it got dark.


That's about as good a summary as the last two-ish weeks in Reno as any, but it was the week before where emotions really started to run high.

Top Ten Music Listening Experiences

8.

diSEMBOWELMENT - Transcendence into the Peripheral

Back in my metalhead days I would play a lot of death metal on internet radio stations. I never paid much attention to the artists, though, unless they REALLY stood out. Autopsy was my favorite death metal band, so I would just let an Autopsy station play for a while. All kinds of sick death and death/doom came up, one song that played on more than one occasion was "The Tree of Life and Death" by Disembowelment. It slayed, so I took note. I found out they only released one album in 1993. Instead of downloading it, I went to my local record store and ordered the CD, it was rather expensive, but I needed, seeing as how many people love this album. When it came in, I went home to blast it. Boy, I'll tell ya, this is one of the best metal albums I've ever heard.

I recommend this if you haven't heard it already, and you're one of those metal guys.

Top Ten Music Listening Experiences

7.

Planning for Burial - Leaving

First and foremost, I love this album, I've listened to it countless times. "Verse/Chorus/Verse" is probably the most hauntingly beautiful song I've ever heard.
This experience came during those last weeks in Reno. I was having a sleepless night again, it was three a.m, and I had been lying there awake for four hours. Music usually helps when I can't sleep, because if I'm not tired, I'll get bored and impatient, and start jerking around and stuff. With music, I can lie still and listen to it. And I can fall asleep to almost anything, from Biosphere to Agoraphobic Nosebleed. I put on my headphones, and put this album on. I was calm, for some reason, especially after the guitar got louder on the first track. It felt like everything had slowed down. I lied on my back, just listening, not thinking about anything. The album went by quickly, it seemed, I stayed awake the whole time. My goal was to go to sleep, but I felt better anyway. I did however, fall asleep minutes after it had ended, and slept great. It was fantastic, in complete silence and darkness, hearing nothing but this album.

If you like any slow music at all, you'll dig this. I don't know what to call it, post-drone doomgaze?

Never start a list you didn't want to finish, folks.


6. Death - Sounds of Perseverance: Picked this CD up in a record store in Sacramento, and listened to it fully during the car ride home. Everyone was silent the whole time. It was pretty epic.

5. Sublime - "Boss DJ": I mentioned this in the music in dreams thread. In hypnagogia, my brain played this song, seemingly on a loop, and the visuals danced with the song. When I focused on one specific image, the song became heavily distorted, but was still mesmerizing, almost ethereal.

4. Smashing Pumpkins: I stayed home sick a couple days one week, and one of those days, I played SP albums Gish through Adore. I had earlier drank a whole bottle of mucinex because my sinuses were as clogged as anything could ever be, I had no recreational interest in this action. If you read my drug journal, I'll go more in depth at some point, but until then, Mucinex and similar products contain DXM, a decongestant which in large doses acts as a hallucinogen/dissociative. It's effects are generally unpleasant, but that blended in with the sickness. I lied still for seven hours listening to the albums, just tripping out.

3. Boards of Canada - "Chromakey Dreamcoat": I listened to this the very first time I did DMT. Within seconds I was inside the song, hearing it clearly everywhere. The trip itself wasn't very visual, but everything was crisp and beautiful. There was a nostalgic feeling throughout.

2. Gas - Pop: Another one listened to in hypnagogia, except I actually had it playing this time. I was in this sleep limbo for the entire duration of the album, surrounded by green meadows and falling leaves.

1. Pygmy Lush - "A Good Day to Hide": Another DMT song, but this trip was much more powerful and immersive. I do have a trip report on this one, so that should be posted in Entering Infinity. I feel almost some connection to this song now, whenever I hear it, it just makes me feel incredibly content, time almost slows.





BUT MOTHER**** THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL IS TOMORROW AND I'M NOT GONNA BE THERE WTF ASSSSSSSSSSS.

Gigantic Brain is wow

I stepped off the bus to see my father, it's been a few months, and even longer for my mom. They share a long hug. The air is hazy from a huge fire that had happened earlier. He tells us his opinions on the new town, how great it is, how nice the people are compared to Reno. We're getting ready to take a city bus to our room. My dad tells us it's not big and it's not great, but it's all there is. Though before we left, my mom told me he had a surefire house to live in. I guess I wasn't upset because I've come to expect things like this in a family built on lies. At the bus station were two young girls, presumably my age,if not younger, dressed in skimpy outfits, smoking cigarettes, blaring some sh*tty rap music on a phone, and yelling obnoxiously. An old man stumbled by and fell down on the grass. Didn't seem much different to me.

After the bus ride, my dad led us a few feet to our motel room. Number eight at the Sky Lake Lodge. He unlocked the door and we went in and set down our bags. The first thing I noticed was a makeshift bed on the ground. A stack of couch cusions wrapped in a bed sheet with a pillow and blanket. A short, wood cabinet was beside it. It took some getting used to, but now I accept it for what it is. Less than one hundred square feet, terrible water pressure (It takes me twenty minutes to rinse my hair), dirty clothes strewn everywhere, and what have you.

I had a meeting with a counselor regarding my enrollment in South Tahoe High School on September eleventh. We talked about the classes I'd need to take in order to graduate, and what would otherwise be best for me. I started right after that meeting, second period business and finance, a class I have now come to abhor.

School was going fine, I suppose. Every day I think about my friends back home, my cat, my belongings, which really only consists of a guitar and some vinyls. I don't know how long I'd been staying here, a week, maybe? My parents were arguing, and my mom was threatening to leave (again). She seemed so sure of herself, she was making phonecalls and everything. My dad said he was going to stop paying rent on the room if she left, and she wasn't going to take me. So if that's how it was going to be, what was I to do? I packed up what I had, which filled my backpack, and stuffed what little clothes I had into a dufflebag. I wrote "RENO" in sharpie on a notepad and started walking East along the highway. No one stopped me.

This endeavor proved entirely unsuccessful, especially considering it was getting late. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had expected not to be picked up. After about an hour, I stopped at a gas station and held my sign up. An old man walking past noticed it and talked to me. He told no one could see it here, and that I'd have better luck at the liquor store a block away. I thanked him and walked to it. When I got there, I noticed much less traffic and it was significantlly less bright. I don't know what he was talking about. I was only there for about ten minutes, then continued. After another hour I stopped and sat outside a weekly motel. It was completely dark now, and I was just resting. A woman who worked at the motel came out and asked if I was hungry, I said yes, and she handed me a salad kit. I hadn't eaten that day, and I devoured it quickly. Now just walking, until I felt it necessary to give up for the night. I occasionally stopped at a fast food restaurant for a glass of water. I walked for about five hours total, I passed Stateline and made my way into Nevada. After a bit further, I came to what appeared to be the end of the urban area. Ahead was complete darkness, no sidewalk or lights. And it was late, so no traffic. I tried my hand at the sidewalk's end, holding out my sign under a streetlight whenever I saw a car coming. No hope. So I sat down, and checked to see if there was any wifi I could exploit (I had my laptop). No use. I was sitting in a grassy area, pretty much unseen to passers by. I was going to sleep here. But I saw the headlights of an oncoming vehicle, and got up once more with my sign. The car was slowing down, and as it passed I saw the word POLICE printed across the side. Great. He got out, did his little "interrogation" thing. This was actually a nice cop. I explained what had been going on, and initially he was trying to figure out a way to get me to Reno. I had no money, so the shuttle was out of the question, and it was too late to call any friends to pick me up. He called another cop, and they tried to figure this out. The other cop was very nice as well, both were quite considerate of me and my situation. We couldn't figure out a way to get me home, so the final decision was to take me back to my motel. They asked if they could search my bags, I said "Go for it", but they never did.

It was about a thirty minute drive back. He dropped me off and wanted to talk to my parents, but they were asleep. He left, and my parents and I discussed the situation the next day. I just wanted to sleep.

It's weird, things continued on somewhat smoothly after that. I mean, no one was employed and food was scarce, but I can't really remember a time when it wasn't like that. I hadn't made any true friends at my new school yet, there's a couple people I talk to occasionally, but that's it. I mostly spend my lunches by myself, doing whatever. I don't really care about making a ton of friends here, to be honest. I've made it to Reno a few weekends, and seen old friends. At least my parents have started to look for jobs, as have I. But up until just this week, we've had absolutely no luck.

I'm going to try my best to address another sh*tty night, but I don't remember all too much of it. It was late, my dad was sitting up drunk listening to our radio. My mom was doing some beading on the corner of their bed. My dad had been mumbling gibberish to himself for about an hour, and when he decided to use real words, his statements were completely nonsensical. It was about midnight, and I had school the next day. All lights were on and he had the music as loud as it would go. I was considerably tired. My dad said something along the lines of "...they can sit there and suck their own dicks and maybe they'll realize how bad it feels to know someone so much better than them." I don't know, I can't quote anything correctly he said that night, but I've never heard anyone talk about how much better they are than everyone else lol. Whatever he said was in obvious reference to me, even though he acted like it wasn't. I acknowledged it, I said something like "Yeah man, that's the way it is." He blew his lid from that point. Once again, I can't remember any statements 100%, but I remember the highlights of that night. There was me, throwing a full glass of water against the wall and shattering it, him, taking our garbage bag full of cans and tossing it across the room, littering the floor with them. Me, ripping a lamp unplugged and smashing it against the floor, and then doing the same with our radio.

Eh, I can't really just document the whole thing. I would have killed my dad that night if that was at all possible. After our little disagreement, I passed out for a few minutes from the subsequent adrenaline rush. I woke up and the lights were off, my mom was sobbing outside, and I don't know where my dad went. I cried the hardest I've ever cried that night as I tried to go to sleep. I've cried almost every day since that night as well, but I always hid it.

TBC

Here's to a graceful return. Now, this isn't really much of a review, I'm just talking about this album. I still need to work on my reviewing. I can promise this won't be my only RP post, I plan on doing a Spotlight On!!!! Nick Blinko.

Rudimentary Peni – Cacaphony (1987)

This is as much an experimental album as it is punk, the Gothic, black and white musings of a troubled artist. RP have veered away slightly from their punk rock politics to a deranged testament to H.P. Lovecraft, the macabre, and the downright crazy, but all the while just as radical. This is a challenging album. It takes you through many different tunnels and chasms that frankly never end. It's riddled throughout with crazed ramblings and groaning, Lovecraft quotation, and otherwise peculiar commentary, yet an underlying theme or message proves to be a difficult thing to locate.

Their previous full length, Death Church, was a classic punk effort, one of my personal favorites. Political and spectacular punk rock, yet, it strayed from the punk formula constantly. Cacaphony leaves it almost entirely, sure you can tell this is a punk band/album at it's very core, but you can't overlook the experimentation and oddities scattered throughout it.

Lovecraft baby....
Lovecraftian themes and characters are a focal point, with Cthulu even taking form here. “Crazed Couplet” features the lyrics “That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die” delivered through distortion. “Imps of the Perverse” is a criticism to Lovecraft from the point of view of another. While these themes are incredibly prevalent, this a musical equivalent of madness. Looping conversational delusions layered over one another, to such a point where the listener can only observe gibberish (and much of it in fact is). Incredibly bizarre interludes of hissing and teeth chattering and the like. At it's simplest, I'd call this a conglomeration of punk/post-punk and experimental rock, with a hefty old English influence, even sing along pub song stylings. Their guitar tone is much lighter than previous efforts, and the bass is incredible as usual. Grant Matthews is one of punk's best bassists, and RP recordings always show it off.

3 highlights for me, "Dream City" "Gentlemen Prefer Blood" and "Musick in Diabola" among others of course.

There once stood a great hill,
At which time would stand still,
And then a man with a clap of his hand,
Moved time forward at will

You guys know John Zorn? I've got a bunch of his albums on my computer, apparently not all of them, like 200ish. Anyway, I'm about to listen to and talk about all of them. So get ready for that. Everything from Naked City, Painkiller, Masada, all his filmworks, a great deal of solo albums, a plethora of stuff crediting him as composer, basically everything he's a part of that I have. All these Masada books...






I mean, I'm gonna try...

First Recordings: 1973

Throwing it back to 1973, here is (as the title suggests) John Zorn's first recordings. He says this is the craziest stuff he’s ever done, and while I have no room to agree as I've not listened to every single bit of his work, I can agree that this is on the weirder side. It’s all weird isn't it though? This is an abrasive and somewhat hard to digest collection at just under 80 minutes, but remains fascinating for any fan of Zorn or experimental music alike. Just think about this, these are the very first recordings of what would become a renowned musical genius, one of the most prolific artists of our time.

The first work here, “Mikhail Zoetrope”, a three part bedroom experiment of sonic madness, is particularly what he referred to as his craziest stuff. His trademark saxaphone expertise is shown throughout, along with improvisation from a lot of found instrumentation (pots and pans, other kitchenware, a vacuum cleaner, his television, anything he had at his disposal), and there’s a good amount of nonsensical vocals from the young man. In the end, it’s a lot of beating on random objects, squealing, raspberries, television on loud volume, and radical sax noodling. Avant-garde to the max.

I really enjoyed “Conquest of Mexico”. Apparently this was what was left of a soundtrack he would be putting together during his last year in college. This recording is a kind of electronic/psychedelic experiment, much more my speed than “Mikhail Zoetrope”. Zorn’s approach on this piece is akin to what he’d do on The Big Gundown. My favorite part of this album for sure.

“Wind Ko/La” is a basic string improv. Hammering out notes on what appears to be either a guitar or bass. “Automata of Al-Jazari” features a bunch of film quotes and samples with little, bizarre interludes in between. “Variations on A Theme by Albert Ayler” is another highlight. More sax shredding, distorted with all sorts of effects, fuzz, reverb, delay, the works. He really puts every effect he possibly can to work on this one. Obviously a tribute to jazz musician Albert Ayler.

“Sounds for people that are fed up with music”

It’s not his best work, really nowhere near it, but what do you expect? This is an interesting listen any way you look at it, and can give us a slight glimpse of what he’d be doing later on. I doubt I’ll ever listen to “Mikhail Zoetrope” in full again, but “Variations on A Theme” and “Conquest of Mexico” will surely receive more listening. It’s no wonder this kid’s parents thought he was crazy.

Another early work, ten years after the first recordings. I don’t know how chronological this endeavor will prove to be… that doesn’t make sense, chronological is an absolute isn’t it? I’ve already dropped the ball! I will be diving into his early Parachute game pieces in due time, I just really didn’t feel like listening to those today.

This is an improvisation double album featuring four sides, five trios, and four different styles all around, and is another weird one. Members of no wave phenomena DNA are featured throughout, so that’s going on.

Side 1: John Zorn - Saxaphone/Christian Marclay - Samples, Turntable/Peter Blegvad - Vocals.

Tracks one through eight utilize this lineup, and a bizarre, jazzy style of noise. Samples play a big role here, much like a lot of First Recordings. With the vocals in the mix, this is very reminiscent of bands like DNA, but with turntables doing what the other instruments would be doing, making a whole lot more unique sounds and noises. A brash cacophony is created by Marclay, and the mayhem is the focus of this side of the album. Zorn’s brass work is present at times, but not a central point of the music, a good example being “Juan Talks it Out of His System”. The vocals are not up front either. They’re delivered in a spoken word style, often drenched with echos and other effects. I find it to be an enjoyable movement.

Side 2: John Zorn - Saxaphone/Arto Lindsay - Guitar, vocals/Anton Fier - Percussion.

And I thought side 1 had a DNA-esque style. This lineup makes that comparison much more obvious. But of course, Arto Lindsay of none other than DNA fame is bringing his guitar improv prowess along. Here we lose the outrageous noise brought to us with the turntables and replace it with traditional instrumentation (guitar and drums). The band is acting and improvising as a whole, with no focus on any particular area. All performers are firing on all cylinders, making such a wonderful mess of randomness. The vocals are used more as an instrument, one with the music, than the first side. Odd, abrupt shouts for the most part. Imagine a jazzier DNA, with their no-wave sound increased to higher extremes. Anton Fier (of the Lounge Lizards and the Feelies) is replaced by Mark E. Miller for another set of the same style. Very enjoyable.

Side 3: John Zorn - Saxaphone/Ikue Mori - Drums, electronics/Wayne Horvitz - Organ.

Zorn now is joined by DNA drummer Ikue Mori, we’ll see more of her later in the journal as well, and Wayne Horvitz. This side is the strangest of the album hands down. Whereas the rest off it is DNAish free improv/no wave, this is a new kind of animal. Largely due to Mori’s electronics. This side is less frantic and abrupt, and features a psychedelic array of sounds that just seem out of place in reality. The drumming is very loose, and Zorn’s sax is at constant work. But once again, electronics give this side a more strange feel. All together though, it is very enjoyable, again. My favorite side of the four.

Side 4: John Zorn - Saxaphone/Whiz Kid - Turntables/Mark E. Miller - Drums.

Miller returns to the drumset for the final side, but the music is here is different than his previous set, not drastically though. Now with Whiz Kid delivering some radical turntablism, giving an almost industrial feel at times. You can hear this odd industrial jazz sound in “Disco Volante” and more in “Thunderball”, which also features some tribal style drumming. Even a proto hip-hop track in “White Zombie”. This side is like a combination of all sides two and three, and definitely the most varied. I said side three was my favorite but it may actually be this. I don’t know, they’re both really fantastic.

This is a very good early release from Zorn, one of the best I’ve heard. Would recommend to fans of any sort of experimental music, as well as fans of no wave.

Ganryu Island (1984)

This time around, John Zorn teams up with Japanese musician Sato Michihiro for another improv album. Sato is a well renowned Tsugaru-jamisen musician, a style of Japanese music focused around the shamisen.


The shamisen, which translates to "three strings", is a three stringed (no way?) traditional Japanese instrument, which is played with a pick in a somewhat percussive fashion.

So I guess this album has a lot of Tsugaru-jamisen influence, which is pretty evident. These two make an interesting pair. Zorn, as usual, brings his free-jazz sax mastery to the table, but when coupled with Sato's shamisen shredding, we're left with a different sound and feel entirely, not that you can't hear the jazz influence. It's a very Japanese sounding album... I guess. Is that a good way to describe it? Like, if you just put this on for anyone without them knowing who or what it was, they'd probably call it some sort of Asian music.

I'm not familiar with Sato's other work, but apparently he left the traditional Tsugaru-jamisen style right before this to pursue shamisen improvisation. He's the highlight of this album, in my opinion. He displays a great deal of technicality and talent on his instrument, and keeps a steady rhythm of plucking throughout. Though he's also not afraid to mix it up with some off-kilter melodies and tempos. I'm also not familiar with how this instrument is played, but there are some moments on this album that make me interested to learn more. It seems like there's a lot of pinch harmonics and stretching and scratching, even some percussion on the body of the instrument. Zorn's brass is great, using all the techniques we've come to recognize from him, distinct squealing and chirps and the like. Vocals are incredibly sparse, a grunt or quick shout on occasion, but it accents the music just as well. I believe it is Sato doing these? Zorn performs some game calls as well.

This almost doesn't sound improvised to me, as the shamisen keeps such a perfect flow through the whole album, and also blends very well with the brass. These two were in sync no doubt about it. There's no absolute high or low points of the album, but it functions very well as a whole. Another highly enjoyable release. Can Zorn do no wrong? Okay, "Mikhail Zoetrope" was a little much, but even he admits that it was just a lot failed musical attempts thrown together.

I wrote this poem some time ago, I don't sleep right.


Damn, I'm so deep and troubled and society doesn't understand me.

Wanted to listen to this today so....

This is one of Zorn's most recognizable albums if I do say so myself. The first to come from his Naked City lineup, consisting of him on sax, Bill Frisell on guitar, Fred Frith with the bass, Joey Baron drumming, Wayne Horvitz on keys, and Yamantaka Eye with guest vocals. That lineup sounds like an experimentalist's wet dream, does it not? This album surely is. An overall jazz feel, often crossing into squealing hyperfast grindcore, along with elements of western and surf music, and whatever else you want in there. An essential album in my eyes.

This album pays homage to Zorn's influences including some renditions of works by Ennio Morricone and Ornette Coleman (and we know he'll be doing that some more), and some film music like "Chinatown" and "A Shot in the Dark".

After starting off with the cinematic and fun "Batman", a Morricone take is underway with "The Sicilian Clan". A very smooth and mellow track, with great keyboard work and a nice bassline. "You Will Be Shot" is the step into that grind territory. So much going on in only a minute and a half. Extreme bursts of blastbeats and radical sax squealing brought all together with a heavy surf riff. It even makes it's way into slow country styling after the mayhem. I think "Latin Quarter" was the first Zorn composition I'd ever heard, and I'll always love it. A great rocking jazz tune, with some excellent guitar playing from Frisell. One of the most accessible tracks on the album. Next is the band's take on A Shot in the Dark from film music legend Henry Mancini. This one makes good use of the keyboard and it's effects, opening up with some freaky psychedelic chaos, before reaching that surfy, jazzy Pink Panther sound. The next two tracks shift styles frantically and quickly, between the chaotic jazz grind we have moments of funk, downtempo guitar, free jazz, and rock. "I Want to Live" is another cover, pretty mellow jazz, I guess. I'm not very well versed in different styles of jazz to know what to call it. "Lonely Woman" is an Ornette Coleman song, with some cool keys added to the mix.

Bring on the grindcore! A series of "hardcore miniatures" featuring the outrageous screaming, growling, grunting, and gurgling of Yamantaka Eye. This is quite a blistering movement. The song titles here spawned two band names, Fuck the Facts and Blood Duster. An average grind fan would be happy with some variety here.

Phew, that was hardcore. Naked City does that though (see: Grand Guignol). "Chinatown" is another film song. Beginning with some quiet, slow avant-garde, before the smooth sax comes in. Another mellow track. The mood is broken however by the extreme cacophony of "Punk China Doll". This one is absolute chaos, for a minute. Genres on this album are shifting constantly. The second half of this song is an atmospheric piece from Horvitz. "N.Y. Flat Top Box" is a quick little western song, with half second blasting moments in there. "Saigon Pickup" is another favorite, and a beautiful piano melody. Pian, then loud sax attack, a surf riff, and more jazz, some loungey stuff, surf riff, piano melody. It sounds like a lot, but it's another one of the easy tracks on the album in my view.

Next is a fantastic and fairly straightforward cover of the James Bond theme, aside from a bit of harsh free jazz in the middle. "Den of Sins" starts with more unadulterated chaos, but moves on to something else entirely, and moves back into chaos. That's one thing about this album, it doesn't sit still. First time listeners should expect to be surprised often. I know I was. More film scores with "Contempt", this one's a bit heavy, with drumming that could be suitable on a doom metal album. The heaviness continues with "Graveyard Shift". There's a riff pretty early on, I swear it's a god damn mid-paced black metal riff. But funk takes over. Then jazzy dub. "Inside Straight" is a basic one, some good ol' jazz.

I can't stress this enough, this album is bipolar, genre splicing, mood shattering. I can't tell you what to expect going in, better to just jump in without expectations, as any you have would probably be destroyed from that very first radical genre shift.

Another one of my favorite Zorn albums though, highly recommended.

Painkiller - Guts of A Virgin (1991)

Here's the first release from Zorn's Painkiller lineup. Him on sax and doing vocals this time around, Bill Laswell on bass, and former Napalm Death drummer/Scorn mastermind Mick Harris behind the kit, also delivering some gut wrenching vocals. This is similar to Naked City's jazz/grind output. But while that album veers into dozens of other styles almost constantly, this one stays with their consistently bass heavy, avant-jazz/grindcore, but also displays a lot of elements of doom/sludge metal. It slows down a bit throughout.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Zorn screams at the top of his lungs to kick this album into gear immediately, dunno what he says first, but I can make out "OH MY GOD!!!", and just like that, we're introduced to the doomy approach that Painkiller will often take. Considerably heavier than Naked City, thanks to Laswell's loud, distorted bass riffing and Harris's deathgrind drum style. He's seriously a monster at the kit, and always has been. "Portent" is a highlight of this album. Starting with a driving sludge riff that progressively speeds up to chaotic tempos after Zorn's sax is introduced, slows back down, and repeats the formula. This is full of awesome noise rock style bass lines that sound oh so nice when coupled with the heavy drumming and jazz.

While obviously not as diverse and frantic as Naked City, this feels more focused and dare I say mature. They give you a groove and keep at it. This is some of the heaviest stuff to come from Zorn's discography. Would recommend to fans of sludgy noise rock and free jazz.

I kinda bailed on that, didn't I? Got 5 albums in and haven't listened to a Zorn album since. Still gonna do what I can but the listening and reviewing probably won't be as rapid.

Some WISK remix action though?

This album was one of the ones from Zorn that I'd read and heard a lot about before I started to explore his discography. It features a few guest musicians, most notably Mike Patton on vocals. This was another reason I'd seen a lot about it, as I was already a huge Patton fan and checking out stuff he'd been involved with. Trey Spruance is in there too.

This album has a diverse range of sounds and influences, from chamber music to ambient, sound-collage to avant-garde (you know, whatever that means in a general sense). It has an overall chamber/orchestral sound to it, created by a wide array of instruments such as flutes, viola, guitar, percussion, to name a few, and the use of turntables and samples.

It is a tribute to French activist Jean Genet. The album is a short one, under 30 minutes, consisting of four file-card compositions, all named after a color (Blue, Yellow, Pink, Black). The first two tracks are very downtempo throughout, featuring incredibly sparse instrumentation and even sparser vocals. "Pink" starts out a bit more raucous but soon retreats to the more lax chamber sounds of the first two, albeit not for long. It breaks into a sample heavy piece after about four minutes in, with crashing waves, and ethnic vocals. Patton maintains his "creepy breathing" vocals as well, soon to be accompanied again by the rest of the band. Six minutes in dynamics start to get a little crazy, with thumping percussive moments alongside squealing sound effects, shifting from this back to the chamber music multiple times. It goes on like this for the rest of the track. The closer, "Black", is my favorite here. A very unsettling atmospheric track featuring some throat singing by Patton (I assume) and other dramatic vocal movements. The atmosphere for this one grows very dark with rattling chains, scraping, choral samples, distorted guitar, and an overall feeling of anxiety. A great way to close the album, in contrast with the "easier" chamber music from the first three tracks.

This is generally a quiet album, that seems to rely on the sparseness. Not one of the more accessible ones from Zorn's catalogue, but also one that's not at all too hard to digest.

You know, I have no idea what it's like to be in real need. Sure my family's income is below the poverty line, but the same goes for dozens of millions of other US citizens who aren't making ****. Sure, I'll go a day or two without eating, but growing children are going weeks. Sure, I have to sleep on the street sometimes, but I don't live there.

That being said, I'm sitting here at a laundromat waiting to hear from my parents, completely unsure of whether or not we'd be getting another hotel room today. The last one would be *recollects last two years* the twenty-first different weekly we've stayed in since moving here. My parents wanted to move for better work opportunities and better general living. All that's changed is that we haven't seen anything we've had locked up in storage at all, we're making less money, and I don't sleep on a bed anymore. It's the same aside from that, their attitudes haven't been good for like six years. They complained every second then, they complain every second now. I've woken up every night for a couple days shouting terrible things at my dad because of a dream I'm having where I'm doing the same. I've had near uncontrollable urges to kill them both in their sleep, sometimes the only thing that's stopped was lack of a weapon. But then I feel so bad for them, like when my dad goes and does something pleasant and completely selfless, or when I get an email from my mom while I'm away saying "It would be better if you stayed a little longer. Don't know where we are going to be staying tonight. Sorry it has to be like this."

What's a boy to do?

To relate the first paragraph saying it's not so bad and the second filled with bitching: The whole point is, I just don't even care anymore. I've grown completely numb to anything at all since moving here. Sure, sometimes I visit friends and have a good time but they don't know I'm dead inside, why would I bother them with that nonsense? And yeah, there are days worse than others, but who the **** cares. I'm cursed with this crippling indifference. Not upset and not happy. There's nothing I can do about anything so why dwell on it?

tl;dr: I'm too punk for feelings anymore.

Here's some random things I've wrote down in my physical journal

"I am surrounded by dirt and large crawling organisms and trees and leaves. Clouds are my favorite natural occurrence. If I were a cloud, would a cloud be me? Above everything else (quite literally), the cloud is sublime. The cloud is carefree. I bet that the cloud is happy. The cloud is moisture attached to dust. I am a skin bag filled with moisture. the brain controls me. The cloud has no brain, it is not controlled. The cloud looks so soft. but the cloud's life is short. We see new ones everyday. All different yet all the same. A cloud could not be me and I could not be a cloud. I'm lost in these woods again, but not like the first time I was here. Leave me here, let the bird chirps and branch cracks fade. This is where I find myself at ease. However, I am a weakling."

"Why do the woodland creatures run away from the humans? The birds and rabbits coexist, and I am a giant. But I am no predator, I'd tell you that if I could. But I don't think you would believe me. I am just like you, scared, confused, frantic. Our bodies are not without fur. I am no predator, we are all prey."

"Life is a long, drawn out improv, not a three chord pop song. there is nothing more surreal to me than the day to day life we lead. Call it boring or mundane, but it is an infinity of spontaneity. Each second is different, each minute breeds new possibilities, each day is a miracle. Is it wonderful or terrible? I dunno, I'm all negative. That's the way I see it though, and I'm still sad."

"I've got a bird's eye view of the ground but I'm still not high enough."


I do really love clouds

Very profound, those words.

Gonna start of my Winter special with these cold mongers, one of the grandaddys. I will be talking about at least one black metal band per day, spotlight some of their albums, mix in some old school minimal wave.

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Immortal - At the Heart of Winter

If there’s anyone who knows cold, it’s Immortal. Music sometimes has a feel of “coldness”. It’s raw, it’s atmospheric, it’s minimal. I don’t know if Immortal fit the bill for having the sound or more just the imagery and lyrics about ice, some kind of musical placebo effect. By the time this came out, they weren’t all that raw or all that minimal. This album is a showcase of talent, with more complex structures, riffs for days, and an ever changing tempo. From here on they’d act as a kind of technical/thrashy black metal band. “Withstand the Fall of Time” is the opener, and boy howdy does it set the tone. No dilly dallying here, right into the blastation. Immortal does the mid paced stuff really well, we see it slow down from their first albums, which I would actually considering a better example of cold music.

Anyway, the mid paced jams are incredible. Extremely catchy and always rather epic sounding. The guitar is the undisputed champion of the music. Immortal are a black metal band that pretty much always drop one of the best riffs you’ve heard. “Solarfall” starts of with the trudging. A really nice instrumental intro. It dips into a more atmospheric break and right back into this super riffing. Like I said, always dropping these badass riffs, and the one after the break is definitely no exception. Some clean guitar to aid the chug riff that comes up next. There is a heavy amount of “riding into battle” riffs, if you know what mean I use the term to describe these epic and galloping moments of genius.

“Tragedy Blows At the Horizon” is the the longest song, coming next. Once again right into the heavy groove riffs. I’ve never thought about Abbath as an awesome black metal vocalist, with his froggy croaks in the early days. With this album it’s a bit more harsh and extreme. Fun fact: Immortal started out playing straight death/thrash metal.



“Tragedy” brings the fast blasting back. Some more clean guitar in here too. It’s seriously one of my favorite things in music, double kick and midpaced drum beat.

Really though, the thrash influence so prevalent. Think about bands like Artillery and Coroner, for example. It’s a fairly progressive album in terms of the plethora of hard riffs and tempo changes. Clean breaks directly into a massive shift to brutality, and vice versa.

This album pretty much never lets up, we have no shortage of excellence. It’s a good album to recommend people getting into black metal. It’s definitely accessible and I’m sure they couldn’t resist these riffs, usually featuring tremolos and heavy and chords all day. and Also a very clean production sound to show off this mastery of sound.

One of my favorite moments comes from “Where Dark and Light Don’t Differ”, an amazing breakdown around three minutes, nine seconds. With this new style shift we don’t see Immortal dealing too much with speed, but when they do, it’s some of the best out there. The title track starts clean and slams right into a mega heavy riff, easily one of the heaviest songs on the album. Two years prior Demonaz got severe tendonitis (from playing so brutally fast, how about that”. My favorite Immortal album, a definite standout in their discography if not just for these riffs. Like I said, I’d recommend this to black metal newcomers. The thrash, the leads, the clean breaks, have it being a great introduction.

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Immortal - Battles in the North

Skipping Blizzard Beasts to talk about this. One of the early albums, but not quite as complex as the first. Now this album is all about speeds and rawness. No clean guitar, or atmospheric stuff. They still do the midpaced stuff, and it really works well with the blasting. A less heavy drum sound than At the Heart… but the kicks have a much louder sound and go for the fast beats all around. It’s a no nonsense album, fairly simple but a relentless attack on the senses. This was the album to introduce the theme of Blashryrkh, a winter land of demons and battles. They continue on with it from here on out.

It’s an album for the chaos, the merciless and frantic. The riffs are more in the way of traditional black metal riffs, as opposed to the epic riffs of At the Heart. A ravaging from beginning to end, nonstop. It’s not regarded as a discography standout, sounding like the awesomer Pure Holocaust. Short and super effective, razor sharp to the core. I’d recommend stopping here after you’re more acquainted the raw assaults of old school black metal.

Vinterriket

Vinterriket (literally, the winter realm) is a man of many albums. An extensive discography of mostly ambient, in fact. The metal stuff focused on an unorthodox style of black metal, interlaced with programmed drums and neofolk influences.

Having as many albums has he does, there’s bound to be some clunkers. After giving up on black metal he switched to a strictly ambient/neofolk sound. Some is great, some is definitely boring. Programmed drums and synths are used heavily in these albums, to create a “shinier” ambient.

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Der letzte Winter - Der Ewigkeit entgegen

Here’s one of the more metal oriented albums, with just three ambient tracks. His trademark ambient soundscapes set the tone for that shiny black metal. The guitars are raw but the synths swirl together with the riffs. His vocals on this ambient are reminiscent of Varg on Filosofem. Drowned heavily in feedback. They are pushed underneath the music. Combining the rawness with the synths is a really great sound. These synth sounds are often epic and folky sounding. Still have a neofolk influence in here, with many string instrument sounds, and bells and woodwind sounds and whatnot. Even some electronica infusion.

It’s something different in the world of ambient and black metal. Opposed to Immortal, he utilizes repetition and simplicity in the riffs and the atmosphere is just great. The programmed drums work well enough, but not enough soul as a drum kit. All the qualifications are here, raw, atmospheric, and cold. Once again and artist who has dedicated his project entirely to the Winter. Synth melodies are everywhere, but there’s some especially great and epic sounding. Check this out for an example, great atmosphere and plenty of beautiful synth lines in here.



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Horizontmelancholie

As mentioned earlier, the ambient albums are pretty hit or miss. Here is one of the better ones. black metal is gone, and we hear some clean and deep vocals a la neofolk. These albums have a pretty dark feel, amplified by the album covers in grayscale or black and white, samples of swirling winds. It’s quite immersive, you get sucked in. Oddly enough, I feel these ambient albums catch a more epic atmosphere than the black metal ones. Synths are showcased, it’s like a forest, man. Quiet and cold for those nights of snowcapped trees and building fires.


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Let’s give it up for Gaahl, well besides wanting to torture a gay man to death and drink his blood. This guy lives on the top of a cold Norwegian mountain in a lone cabin built by his grandparents, tell me that’s not cold. A pretty black metal guy too:

“Gaahl is a practitioner of Norse Shamanism and can often be seen wearing a Mjölnir pendant. Gaahl has stated that his intention with Wardruna is to bring Baldr out of Hel so he can die an honorable death and return to Valhalla.”

He’s one of them prejudice dudes though. He came into Gorgoroth a bit into their career, it wasn’t the best era. Gorgoroth’s first two are classics of the genre and really great in the relentless department.

Winter is my favorite time of year. A traditional winter scene, snow all around, covered trees, and wintery looking houses with smoke billowing out of the chimney, one of the most pleasurable images to my eyes.

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It’s a thing of mystery and wonder, and a strange yet warm and familiar comfort. It’s a thing of silence and isolation. It’s a thing of atmosphere.

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https://troublesalad.bandcamp.com/album/rejsekammerat

This is my own album dedicated to it. The title translates to “travel companion”. I used that isolation to create something beautiful. The songs just beckon to the Winter. I’ve put together some of my best compositions and development here. Even some electronic melodies. The closer is the highlight in my opinion. Using reworked arrangements from collaborations between Bill Laswell, Pete Namlook, and Geir Jenssen (Biosphere) to layer the others in a song with an atmosphere like no other. Tibetan field recordings from Jenssen are showcased as well. I have also featured a sinister, dark, and raw cover of the theme to the Snowhead Temple in Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.

I had something in mind when I released Besvaer Salat, and cold and synthy piece of atmosphere and drone. While listening to minimal wave albums of the 80’s and noisier stuff from the modern day, I wanted to smash it all together. Less of a melodious jaunt than this, but still influential in terms of the 80’s synth sounds and minimalism. A great example of this style of music.



Croatian Amor have a very special sound. Can you think of something cold and warm all at once? A modern artist that still utilizes old school synths and drops them into a bath of lo-fi noise. This is the kind of thing I’d recommend to noise beginners.



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I find it wonderful how an artist can conjure different textures of cold. This is Alrakis, whereas you might have a winter forest feel with things like Vinterriket and Evilfeast, Alrakis has that lost in space, isolated coldness, and I’m sure space is pretty cold. When it comes to creating a lonely and cold atmosphere, he does a stellar job. Once again this is an artist burying the distorted vocals under the raw and harsh riffs. I always like to think of vocals in this vein of metal as another instrument, in combination with the music for extra atmosphere. Raw and melancholic are the guitars, riffs of sorrow and dejection. The drums are quiet but also vital to the atmosphere. It is generally slow or mid paced, unlike what you’d expect to find in black metal. It works well for this atmosphere. I think the synths on here shine with amazing melodies, the sound is way more crucial for creating the feel of this project than Vinterriket. Lo-fi riffs meld chords together creating a void of noise beneath these synths. It just all works out so well. Another incredibly immersive listen. This will draw you inside the music, it will engulf you.

With space in mind, I have to mention this. Now I’m not sure if it’s really, I’ve seen people say otherwise, but what a concept.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMB_cold_spot

A region in space even colder than the rest. Ain’t that awesome?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Void_(astronomy)

So, voids are a thing, a weird thing. Vast stretches of empty space containing little to no activity such as galaxies and stars. Space is nothing yeah? So, less than nothing in a void? I dunno, but it’s still just a radical concept.


Astral Silence

Astral Silence take it a bit further. Other acts feature heavy use of synths as a droning backdrop to the music, but this one takes the synths to create spacey and psychedelic textures as well. It’s a unique atmosphere, similar to Alrakis, but still in a league of it’s own.

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Slam the door on warmth and enjoy the frost. An ice land, Eismitte in Greenland, with a record low of -64.9 degrees C.

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Oymyakon, Russia, where the ground is permanently frozen. Record low of -71.2 degrees C.

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The coldest place out there, Vostok, Antarctica. It’s a lovely place. An arctic research station where has dropped to -89.2 degrees C. The coldest time of year here is August.

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Burzum - Hvis lyset tar oss

This is the landmark. Varg, the king of black metal, has put together the blueprint for what was to come in the black metal word. Just four tracks featuring repetition and cold atmospheres. He starts dabbling with synths to layer atop the metal, and captures that perfect, cold atmosphere. Each track is amazing, from the drawn out massive opener, the minimalistic snow drenched title track, to the magnificently epic “Inn i slottet fra droemmen”. In my opinion however, “Tomhet” (literally, emptiness) is my choice for top track. One hundred percent ambient perfection. With an old school synth set up, a raw and bleak feeling is conjured up here. It is super minimalistic, but I can’t help but listen to it entirely all the time. Broken up into two sections, the first half a moonlit walk through the forest, and the second a comforting almost nostalgic melody.



Fan made video that I really love. This is an awe-inspiring scene.

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Burzum - Hliðskjálf

After being sent to prison, Varg would set out into the world of pure ambient. The previous album, Daudi Baldrs, gets a good amount of hate for the production coming from a cheap prison synth. I still love it though, it's a medieval and evil in a ridiculous way sounding album. But this album is so much fuller, more complex, and you know, colder. Highlighting more folk elements and deeper compositions. The atmospheres evoked are truly something else, and imagery from the listener is surely amazing. I see dark forests, yeti like beasts, abandoned cabins of log, and a mysterious land of woods and permafrost. The production still leaves a tad bit to be desired, but works well enough.

A man, alone, finds himself deep within frozen trees. He rests as his journey is long.



The best track here. So oddly calming, powerful and daunting.

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Arctic ambient is a minimal and obviously chilling style of music. It’s basically what thirty below sounds like. More isolated than most other things. The wall of ambient sound will sometimes resemble harsh arctic winds and the like. It’s generally full of nuances and different textures, it may as well be snow in audio form. This kind of minimalist stuff is more engulfing and calming than other types of ambient in my eyes. Easier to get lost.

Thomas Koner here is top of the game. Welcome to the north pole.



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SleepResearch Facility - Deep Frieze

Now here’s a stunner, possibly the best I’ve heard from the genre.



Described as "Ultra deep, glacial Dark Ambient, based around Antarctic co-ordinates", what else do you need to hear? An entity of sound. Then again, I am no album review expert, and while I love this music, I lack much of the proper musical and sound knowledge to go too far in depth with the ambient reviews… Still...

...there is a certain comforting warmth in the encroaching slumber of hypothermia


Battle Dagorath

This is a cut above the rest in my eyes. Incredibly solid atmospheric black metal. They utilize minimalism and repetition to the fullest, creating long icy jams. This album here is my favorite, and one of my black metal favorites altogether. In the vein of Paysage d’Hiver and things like that, a perfect mix of freezing ambience and raw walls of sound. Now these guys have surely dedicated everything to cold. Look at all their covers. Read the song titles. Snowy mountains and trees, souls and darkness and all that. Among the most monolithic and massive of the style. I was already hooked though, before even hearing the music, just seeing that awesome name.

Some Classic But Forgotten New Wave Gems

So, maybe not all strictly new wave in the vein of Devo or whatever, but it’s just a blanket term. These are some gems from the 80’s that all seem to have flown under the radar. Heavy on the synth in here, and usually a coldness to it to tie into the theme. “Coldwave”, even. It’s a thing, you could recognize the sound. Minimal synthpop based around a darkness and chill, like the black metal featured here.


Solid Space - Space Museum (1982)

Starting off with my absolute favorite, another all time favorite as well. Although still highly obscure, Solid Space were one of the most revered in the scene. Alright, I dunno if that’s true, but I imagine it very well could be. This is their only album, a sci-fi inspired oddball amalgamation of post-punk, synthwave/electronica, and folk rock. It’s so short at barely over thirty minutes, but just so effective and sweet. This is actually less minimal than most minimal wave I think, with more layered compositions and a richer, more complex setup. Bizarre acoustic guitar acoustic guitar melodies and samples pertaining to science fiction and space. A certain mystery to it, a masterpiece, highly recommended.


Oppenheimer Analysis - New Mexico (1982)

Another one I’d imagine being bigger than the others. This is more straightforward synthpop than Solid Space, with very catchy, dancey pop melodies and the like. Still fuller than some minimal wave. Another masterpiece.


[b]Ceramic Hello - The Absence of A Canary (1980)

Getting a little more esoteric now, colder, deeper. This is a minimal synthpop album with experimental elements. Full synthpop songs with a nostalgic and raw (if you will) mood, sprinkled throughout with whacky instrumental interludes ranging from atmospheric to downright odd. The full tracks get fairly odd too, with erratic and unconventional synth lines and reverb/delay riddled vocals. The third track, “Climactic Nouveaux”, is an iconic song for the style, at least I think so. That’s what I play for people to describe minimal wave, such a great track.


Crash Course In Science ‎– Signals From Pier Thirteen (1981)

Noisier here, kinda more abrasive. Industrial-ish sounds under the synthpop, it’s metallic, sharp, and brilliant. Almost a Suicide sound, but less no-wave. Pulsating and mechanical beats, female vocals.


Circuit 7 (1984)

This is the dance jams. Muffled percussion under the synths, which are highly new wave. Is that a saxophone? Hell yeah.


Pavillion 7B

Prominent French coldwavers. Great female vocals and dark beats.


Martin Dupont - Just Because (1984)

Some more guitar utilization like Solid Space. New. wave.