Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Forest Friends : self titled DBL release

Seattle noise whimsy mayhem makers Forest Friends have released their first album with debacle records,
the duo consists of garrison and chad although they sometimes team up with Todd Dickerson (soup purse,space hawk,smegma,)
the trio can be heard on track three which is a spastic open room recording of bells and angry duck quacks emitting from some mixer loop or synth set up,
the song turns into a haunting sing along with a gentle repeating xylophone tone (maybe a home made instrument or something electric not sure)

the improvisational record is for the most part chad and garrison feeding off eachother for brief spacey freefolk psychedel-noise pop tracks,
and its one of the best records i have heard in a while, it comes across as six perfectly crafted pop songs memorably intelligent yet deliciously minimal,
the opening track takes you right into the fore mentioned forest and starts with whistling birds and rustling leaves and a whole myriad of forest voices, mumbling monkeys and chanting shamans, track two throws us into an Indian market place with the echos of Rabab's and sitar's and a distant la la da lala chant,
the market place seem to than be taken over by robots beeping and chirping and wandering around, the song fades into slow hand clapping and ends,

the album ends with a ten minuet track that could play as a prayer session, gentle folk instruments and and a repeating voices saying "Whug wug wugwug" the track ends with quiet
UFO sounds and the album is finished,

this was my first time in the forest, the duo have been making music together for the last 13 years in one form or another,
this is as i said the first forest friends release and a accomplished effort, they formed two years ago and have already opened for TLASILA
and in my opinion could easily be picked up by Paw Tracks or fat cat or some other label soon,

over all a great effort and i cant wait for the next release,

Photobucket

CD-r
DBL015
2008
http://www.myspace.com/debaclerecords
http://www.myspace.com/forrestfriends

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

.cut & Maggot Breeder : la voie sacree

so here we have a collaboration between .cut & maggot breeder, .cut started as AlBéRiCk's solo experimental project in Quebec back in 1992,
and he has been paying his dues in the Montreal industrial scene for the last sixteen years, he joined forces with french experimental guitarist
Gibet in 2003, the duo have drawn comparisons to Montreal GSYBE and industrial hero's Psychic TV,

more recently AlBéRiCk joined forces with the godfather of Montreal noise/experimental rock Reuel Ordonez,
they have released three albums together which is a good sign for any collaborative effort in a environment that houses
so many projects and efforts that put out one album and than fold,

the three inch cd-r from walnut+locust records starts off with that high tone melodic white noise that maggot breeder has become famous for,
if a blank white canvas had a volume control and you cranked it as far as it would go it would sound as vast as this track,
the sound scape builds with the high pitch screams of locust or cicadas to a comfortable level and stays that way for about the first ten minuets,
through out those ten minuets you can hear
a distant string instrument twanging discordantly set to the roar of a jet engine, as the track progresses you start to pick out the sound of more and more
horrible machines and air raid sirens, crushing wheels and thunder,
the mayhem dies down at the fifteenth minuet mark and an empty desolation spills out,
the song leaves us with a chanting monk choir and electric buzzing wires,

if im being honest i enjoy .cut and maggot breeder separate more than together, the simplicity and distinction of their solo work is more coherent
than this collaboration in my opinion, in ways it sounds like a .cut song and a maggot breeder song played at the same time,
with that said the talent and experience of the two artist comes through by the end of the twenty minuet track,

maggot breeder .cut are doing a great favor to industrial music in Canada, with the last twenty years industrial music has been under attack from
drum machine ravers, but its bands like .cut&maggot breeder that keep the dream alive,

the art for this album is a simple plastic sheath with a color print out two page pamphlet and a walnut locust catalog page,

.cut & Maggot Breeder : la voie sacree
Photobucket

wl013
3" cdr
2008

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Wyatt Howland & Andrew Kirschner - Torture

first off the casing reminds me of a middle james co or cuthands release, its a simple one image
B&W xerox, with a 1"x1" insert explaining whats going down!

whats going down is a co op of Wyatt Howland (SkinGraft) and Andrew Kirschner (tooth, relentless corpse, Mistake label owner,)

ok so i would love to see a live set of these two, cause the recording does no justice,
there are a lot of peaks and you tend to lose all the highs,
side a starts with a claustrophobic muddle of sounds that lead you to believe you are being
buried alive in a pit of snakes, you can hear distant noise from outside the hole and the hiss
of snakes and a constant dropping and muffling tone with ever shovel of dirt,
the entire recording stays pretty quiet and staticy with the occasional helicopter noise,
there seems to be some maaa-ing and baaa-ing at the mid point,
which is followed by the sounding of an alarm, its kind of like a sheep factory melt down,
it teeters out into digital clipping&skipping, in come some moans and groans and the tape stops,


side b starts of with storm static,
a metal banging and clanging comes in like an old hermit looking for provisions in his shed,
the stereo is fun on this side, with the different sound sources in different ears,
static in one side and the metal banging loop in the other,
this side also has the peaking issues, but its not that big a deal,
overall they create a great atmosphere but the recording could have been a bit better,

mistake by the lake tapes (from Cleveland Ohio obviously)
run by Andrew and Zach troxell,
have recently secured connections with tomentosa and Hanson,
which not only means your doing something right,
but it also means it will be easy for you to purchase,
no reason not to grab one up,

contact and order here aswell...
http://www.myspace.com/mistakebythelake
http://www.polarenvy.com/

Photobucket

c40
MSL012
limited to 50