arthur havent come back to life yet (supposedly it will happen next month),
06/05/2007
“BULL TONGUE” by Byron Coley & Thurston Moore - June 2007
Posted by jay babcock
BULL TONGUE
Exploring the Voids of All Known Undergrounds Since 2002
by Byron Coley and Thurston Moore
Trans Industrial Toy Orchestra’s
Alzheimer Underground LP (Ti Prod) [
www.transindustriell.de] is a pip. They are a German troupe where the decidedly fluxus membership play and record by reading words without “e” with nuts cracked in a nut cracker and reading backwards while tearing a sheet. They also utilize record players in aurally illegitimate ways. Sounds dada, bizarre, unlistenable? Actually yes and no: it is indeed a fucked up thing but quite alluring in its tribute to brain blankness.
Very nice slab here from Liverpool’s
Solar Fire Trio (Invada) [
www.invada.co.uk]. Formed in ’05 by Spiritualized saxophonist, Ray Dickaty, alto player Dave Jackson and drummer, Steve Belger, their eponymous debut LP is classic squee-pileage in the post-ESP tradition. Unlike some Euro players, these three base their sound on loose sonic collisions and and interwoven blather in ripely extended fire-form, all revolving around theories of meat and its ability to burn. Solid, savage blurt.
Debut release by
Weak Sisters is a cassette called
Subterfuge (Basement Tapes) [
myspace.com/boilerroomemissions]. Awesome cut up screams and dead-time pronouncements make this release unbearably savage. The fact that it’s not just wank but pretty taut and focused nihilist sense-slicing makes for killer listening. Weak Sisters is basically a solo spurt of Will van Goern of Other People’s Children and word on the streets of Fort Collins, Colorado is that this tape don’t come close to his live actions. Hopefully, we shall see.
The great Marcia Bassett is rightfully hailed around the globe for her work with Double Leopards, Hotogitsu, GHQ and plenty more. She’s been responsible for some beautiful visual projects as well, but we are here this time to praise her new solo LP, recorded under the monniker
Zaimph.
Mirage of the Other (Gipsy Sphinx) [
myspace.com/gipsysphinx]. This album seems much more flowing and less harsh than the last Zaimph CD (not that flowing necessarily trumps harsh, it’s just different). The combination of voice and guitar here has lots of raspy edge, but there’s a deep gorgeousity to it making the record seem like it’s glowing when it spins. Long lunar notes have rarely sounded so fresh. Gipsy Sphinx also has a fine album by
Bear Bones Lay Low [
hets.tk] called
Djid Hums. This is another solo album, cut by an 18-year-old Venezualan ex-pat living in Belgium. Guitar drones and tape loops pile up higher than kites and there are blasts of fuzz that will tweak every psychedelic bones in yr body. Beware!
Right before Xmas ‘06 two of Ohio’s newest and finest released a mugfull of cassettes that really brought that year to a heightened and stoned/zoned close.
Tusco Terror [
diamondshiners.com] have been riding the blinds for a couple of years now with the accolade of being fellow Ohioan noise artist lone she-wolf
Leslie Keffer’s [
myspace.com/lesliekeffer] self-proclaimed favorite band. They’ve been bombing around the Midwest with a young duo of boymen named
Emeralds who have the distinction of being
Zac Davis’ (of Ohio noiseaton legends Lambsbread) most recent fave act. So what the fuck. All we can tell you is both Leslie and Zac — the lad who weirdly keeps escaping her obvious charmz — are totally onto something. Ohio is burning, well always has been with Cleveland, but this is Delaware, Ohio and Athens, Ohio. You ever been to those towns? When some interviewer asked Leslie about the local noise scene she said, “You’re looking at it.” So with the Ohio exodus of
16 Bitch Pile-Up [
16bitchpileup.com] to Oakland and
Mike Shiflet [
www.gmby.net] to some weird outpost in Japan, it is more than exciting to see this new noise-puh action rising forth outta the more weird-villes of Ohio. The aforementioned cassettes by Tusco Terror and Emeralds are in such scant quantities I find it rather annoying to talk about cuz you ain’t gonna hear em too readily. TT are the more traditionally skronked and blasted with all kinds of anarchy moves and environment-zapping noise blonk. All pretty good, particularly the Feral Cousins release. Emeralds are rather deep with a slow and low drone mind at work where they spend a great deal of time in silent space, which is fantastically radical amongst the social clatter of their scene. One of the cassettes they released as a split with Tusco Terror was stuffed in personally monogrammed Christmas stockings. The Emeralds track on this baby is as sweet as anything we’ve experienced for some time. Beautiful, thoughtful musical propulsion at a space/human pace. Along with these boss blasts and the also too limited releases by Epicene Records [
www.epicenesound.com] where they document the Nohio scene (of note is the gut-ripping duo of
Sword Heaven [
www.swordheaven.org], one of the bands in the Nohio series – Omigod – completely monstrous/incredible) Ohio is not gonna ever seemingly lose its lineage of having some of the most outside and great bands/artists (Pere Ubu, Devo, Rocket From the Tombs, Electric Eels, Offbeats, Beat Offs, Starvation Army, Great Plains, Death of Samantha, Vertical Slit, Times New Viking etc etc) of the 20th/21st nexus.