Incapacitants & Savage Gospel CD (White Centipede Noise)

Japan’s Incapacitants have been responsible for some of the most fulsome, bristling, and vibrant noise works – studio recordings but with particular renown as a live act – stretching back over 30 years. It’s often felt like a contest with only one entrant: few have been willing to try and match the efforts of Toshiji Mikawa and Fumio Kosakai.

Finns Savage Gospel bring a continentally different sensibility to the exuberant rush of Incapacitants’ take on harsh noise, but have signalled a clear intent and capacity to produce dense and high volume noise works in tribute – and perhaps in competitive comparison – to the long-standing titleholders. The tundras of Finland give an immediately different sensibility to Savage Gospel’s work compared to the vibrancy of Tokyo’s bustling stimuli, even if the primal power of noise is a common fundamental: the movement and business to Savage Gospel’s work can often occur within the track rather than moving through it, creating a more solid and impenetrable sound compared to Incapacitants’ bustle, when the volume is at 11.

Savage Gospel’s CD opener “Maxihard” is suffocating even at low volume, a slowly vibrating density and seemingly constant block of sound leaving air movement for the wisps of feedback which evaporate from the central mass of oxygen-depriving sound – even as more frantic motions take place towards the rear of the textural hierarchy.  “Missing Peace” and “Shortwaving, Not Drowning” are defiantly different, hollowed-out feedback and a slow low-end boil leading “Missing Peace” to some more familiar Incapacitants-like electronics stutter, before again falling behind a curtain of more static noise which on this track is quite fuzzy and transparent. “Shortwaving, Not Drowning” too finds spatial vibration with a less overbearing frequency expanse, its more demure opening passages again exposing the sickly insides of well-abused equipment, and even its denser bliss-outs sharpening a fierce feedback edge – even finding muscular flex in its obscured mid-range.

The blanketing effect of “Maxihard” causes oxygen to slow and time start to slip, movement imagined as much as experienced. The two remaining tracks open the door and head out into the snow to spar: the cold and dark present but clinging to more discernible movement as that becomes necessary for survival. Both approaches seek to press the listener into submission, but the grim ferocity of “Maxihard” is too good for the other tracks to be quite so effective in their capability to exert pressure.

“Extreme Mother Nights” may not be prime Incapacitants but it carries much of what makes this duo so legendary in its dense and agitated sound, which is somehow both insistently thick and roomily unsettled.  The lengthy live track starts with parts of its insides showing, garish electronics, throttled voice/filter abuse, and an initial nervousness on display all giving a hesitant glimpse into the duo’s instrumentation. But barely five minutes in the set latches on to its full exuberance, variations on a slightly muffled amplifier roar providing unsettling constancy as high-end shards and feedback tempests are repeatedly conjured from the cauldron of bubbling mass.

Even proponents as skilled as the noise world’s favourite salarymen can’t continue to escalate their sound indefinitely and the second half of “Extreme Mother Nights” recognises that, turning on itself hungrily to dig out a quasi-rhythmic thread from its dense shapelessness, before repeated drillings and angry bursts of self-harming blind fury begin to hack away at the greater whole until the set consumes itself to conclude. The gruesome attacks are as fearsome as many an Incapacitants heyday recording, but are not a constant - but rather an emergent strike against the self, each time seeming to leave a bigger hole until exhaustion and self-consumption trigger a final collapse.

It's highly appropriate this CD finds its home on White Centipede Noise, the label a bastion of pure noise appreciation (in addition to being a highly valuable store/distributor) helmed by Oskar Brummel whose enthusiasm and knowledge run deep. Even with plenty of noise around on which to blow your savings, White Centipede Noise – and this CD especially – are highly deserving of your time, support, and precious earholes. It can be easy to dismiss work as imitative or less deserving than pinnacle works (which Incapacitants 1990s output clearly is), but it can also be unfair when original, engaging, and uniquely characterised recordings such as this CD are being released.

https://whitecentipedenoise.bandcamp.com/album/incapacitants-savage-gospel

Kali Malone @ The Lab, San Francisco, 7 April 2023

My recent trip to the USA was a chance to reconnect with the depths of live underground music which I felt had eluded me since 2020 and the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the world recovers so too does underground and experimental music, but the return of live events – particularly outside festival events – has been slow and selective particularly in making their way to my corner of the world. Good Friday 2023 was an opportunity to hear Kali Malone perform two works principally composed for synthesizer, with a clean and encircling surround sound provided by suitably austere San Francisco venue The Lab.

2022 LP ‘Living Torch’ was an unexpected highlight to the year for me, a pinnacle of the Portraits GRM series which has produced works from an extremely high calibre of artists so far (acknowledging, of course, the legacy of INA GRM and Editions Mego which have merged into Portraits GRM). Kali’s April 2023 set had links to the humanised solemnity of ‘Living Torch’ and the eerie refraction of this year’s ‘Does Spring Hide Its Joy’, while given greater spatial and dynamic movement to befit a more engaged live dynamic.

The first circa 50 minute piece of the evening, which (if my recollection is correct – a troublesome assumption) was a work yet to find its way to a recorded release, synthesised stems provided by cellist Lucy Railton as was also part of the compositional language on ‘Does Spring Hide Its Joy’. Initial monotonic cycles burgeoned with sympathetic layering of synthesizer tones, which then slowly opened into harmonic dispersal and strong low-end thrust – before returning to a minimal place from which to build an even stronger second quake, further shifts of synth adopting the repetitive melodic shape of the underlying string refrain. Over visuals seeming to find microscopic detail in natural elements – a clever representation of the finessing of acoustic sounds which Kali’s work often surveys – the acoustic and electronic elements rose in tempest, before a slow retreat left more fragmented cello off-cuts to bounce against one another to finally quell the extended piece.

The second work of the evening was an eight channel spatial remaining of material from ‘Living Torch’, this time using breathy woodwind tones as the track’s building blocks rather than the tensile strings of the first set. The coarse quality of the bass clarinet notes lifted into its own low grey noise which lurked at the back of the speaker space, treated orchestral lift-outs becoming further immersed with the synth treatments, also starting to peer out from the simpler stereo presentation which started while imperceptibly stacking small interval builds over its clean tones. The result traversed more complex chordalities than the first piece of the night, and was a more diffusive work as well: not done with marking puncture holes from the increasingly dense and pressured-affected acoustic stems, a patina of storm cloud distortion moved in over the increasingly unsettled drone and embraced its tumultuous tangle, urging the piece to an aggressive climax before a retreat into remnant tonalities.

To describe Kali’s performances as drone works, while somewhat true, feels somewhat dismissive and uncongratulatory. The complexity to both, while was slow in affect and trajectory, was in focus and detail on the finer edges of sound, demanding attention as much as immersion. Whether my memory has aggrandised the live works compared to Kali’s sedate recordings, or whether the live setting added an inevitable keener dynamic, I can’t now say with confidence – but regardless the care and detail to Kali’s work easily translated to a live setting and embraced the volume and space of the venue for maximum affect.

http://www.kalimalone.com

V/A ‘Mixed Noise Soup Vol. 1’ C-47 (Satatuhatta)

‘Mixed Noise Soup’ reads as an attempt to encompass the already impressive discography Satatuhatta has amassed in the last two or so years, extracting new tracks from the tentacling Finnish scene which has already proven so lucrative for the highly active label. While the likes of Freak Animal have long championed the depths of Finland’s noise and power electronics capabilities, Satatuhatta seems responsible for a groundswell of material and invigoration of projects associated with the label and its allies, all now coalesced on the label’s first compilation.

Things are stickily wicked from the beginning: Moozzhead’s opening blast casts a virulence which the remainder of the first side can only dream of meeting, thick sheets of rolling distortion compacting the left channel while bleating curls of unrepentant filtration dominate the right, further agitated sounds swarming around in further aversion. The project’s previous releases have favoured a retrovised sleazy aesthetic, and “MILF Command Til War” has both the title and squelching fluidity to match that.  Tyhjä Pää are equally prominent but replace Moozzhead’s sexual splurging with a focused hostility, “Burnout and Repeat” a prophetic title as the track unfurls densely vibrating shards of what may have once been scrap metal which has since been abused and sliced into saturated chunks of high noise viscosity, supplemented by filter sweeps which explode half-submerged like landmines with a hint of Pain Jerk-esque flair - with a crude drum machine interlude adding a drop-out dynamic fault line which somehow only increases the Kohei Gomi vibes.

Beyond those two beacons ‘Mixed Noise Soup’ never disappoints, although (as with almost any compilation) some tracks shine more than others.  The closing trio of tracks ensures the second side is the victor: Mogao’s wet and messy spray of untrimmed harsh noise defiance sweats simple metal bashing feed through cheap distortion, and Umpio’s somewhat similar “Karstanen” pummells several layers of over-crisped electronics, a rutted low-end and spitting high tone constants as the piece frays into trails of unkempt and fired-up spurts of effects-soaked virulence. Scrap Furnace then closes with a piece which could almost pass for recent The Haters material, “Radiant Praxis” cascading metal blows which are thrown into a washing machine and doused with clinging distortion for a bruising experience on par with the duo’s excellent debut cassette (no prize for guessing the label which released that).

Primitive Wings, New Boyfriends and Amek-Maj are as similarly unashamed as Mogao, the latter scrappier but each adopting an eyes shut style of noise intuition which is admirable but which is perhaps a little too uninhibited and wasteful when compared to the more energised and focused tracks found elsewhere on this cassette. While their flurries of self-propelled mastication perhaps give some time to refill your cocktail glass, their crudities are a little shallow when compared both to the excesses of the compilation’s more fervent tracks – but also the less dynamic moments of ‘Mixed Noise Soup’ which demand the listener’s return and attention. Be sure to be reseated for Corral Shut, whose “Rub It To Dry” is an unnerving meditation centering upon raw junk metal scrapes, a distant thudding repetition and blossoms of fountaining feedback ultimately imploding into a flurry of groaning metal grinds and zealous beating: all a close approximation of The New Blockaders’ penchant for raw scrap metal abuse which has none of the excesses of the likes of Moozzhead, but which permeates an oxidized atmosphere which has soaked into many of Satatuhatta’s releases. Resting Place also unfurl a more dismal industrial excursion, a prominent elongated loop casting a heavy machinery shadow over a second background repetition and a sickly feedback tone, which lingers into H.Ö.H.’s second side opener which is equally dismal and repressed, its uneven repetitions unspooling under a thick layer of pleural decay.

Add in a booklet of bespoke art, and collage art seemingly drawn from the social excesses of the 1970s, and ‘Mixed Noise Soup’ is the ideal introduction to Satatuhatta, for those few who have avoided it. Those whose shelves are already overflowing with the label’s riches have another gold bar to add to their treasure chest. I may favour the tracks at the dynamic ends of the compilation, but nothing on this compilation is sub-par: an observation applicable to the breadth of the Satatuhatta discography that I’ve heard so far.

https://satatuhatta.bandcamp.com/album/mixed-noise-soup-vol-1

Small Cruel Party ‘Sic In Se Sua Per Vestigia Volvitur’ C-30 (Chocolate Monk)

I’m an unashamed Small Cruel Party fan: in a world of listening excess the project burrows to the core of chosen items, microscoping into physical objects to extract the awkward and unknown sounds at their centre. While ostensibly working with ambient sounds, Key Ransome has always been more immersive in a Honey-I-Shrunk-The-Audience kind of way: I rarely think I know what is being foraged but the sounds always seem to create expanse out of minutiae, grandeur out of smaller found objects.

It’s rather surprising, then, to play ‘Sic In Se Sua Per Vestigia Volvitur’ and immediately take a step or two back, that previous intimacy replaced with a rocky low-end rumble, upper register twitter and careening filter sweeps which seem overwhelmingly synthesizer derived, and which give side A’s “De La Beatitude Malgre Soi (Pour Daniel)” its dominant formation. While not static, the piece plays on its repetitions and constancies and settles into a singular (if uneven) repetition for most of its playing time, only revealing some welcomingly screechy harmonic tension in the final few minutes.

Reverse side “Par Chu Fait Om Un Angle Tenir Son Doit Ades Vers Le Solel” is a more familiar vernacular, although the tonal ambient drone dominates the physical rustling which quickly cowers to the back. Long-form vocal tones, misaligned rhythm and scratchy synth cast-offs add depth to the piece but again it settles into a comfortability and very little shifts once that comfort is found. There’s something of a simmering industrial tension to the last part of the track, but as with the A side there’s a long and somewhat overwrought lead-in to that modulation which doesn't really reward the outcome.

Focus and closeness have long been central to Small Cruel Party’s work, and while ‘Sic In Se Sua Per Vestigia Volvitur’ expects both it rarely rewards either. Its layered ambience is a less iconic and more mainstream expression of ideas as compared to previous releases, even acknowledging the elongated sound components that have washed across previous releases. The cassette is listenable but quick to dissipate, and without any of the intimacy of Key’s previous work. While perhaps acceptable in isolation, ‘Sic In Se Sua Per Vestigia Volvitur’ withers against the magnetism of Small Cruel Party’s previous decades of personal and more intriguing listens.

http://chocolatemonk.co.uk/enter.htm