Noise

If you "sort of like" The Endless Blockade but can't get into "all that feedback and effects and weird shit" then you'll probably want to skip this post entirely.

Gack has a new CDR out called Thrombosis. Because this isn't my project i can say i really enjoyed this release in a big way and it's not a callous lie. Warped sounds all of his own that aren't trying to consciously fit in with any particular strain of noise. I wasn't expecting much from this one but in all honesty it was one of the most compelling noise releases i've heard in an age.

Contact him via myspace or at theendlessblockade@gmail.com

Joshua Norton Cabal (and i really should put more songs on that page) has two new releases out that i'm pretty happy with.

We Speak Through Wires is available on cassette from the mighty Self Abuse and Counting The Ways is available on CDR from Traumatone

You might want to e mail Self Abuse for availability as Patrick seems more concerned with trying to grow his dredlocks back than update his site. Anyway, Self Abuse was basically the Slap a Ham of modern noise in the 1990s.

There are a lot of Ground Zeros for noise but in my humble opinion Self Abuse was the genesis of harsh noise as we know it in the western hemisphere today.

Self Abuse (d)evolved noise past it's goth and industrial European roots and the zen-like Japanese approach and gave noise a particularly US flavour adding a depth of embittered nihilism to the genre that wasn't present before in the harsh noise scene. It took the sheen off the hyper animated (and let's face it sometimes far too empty and glossy) then massively influential Japanese scene and dragged it down into the gutter.

And of course Macronympha and The New Blockaders were hugely important in the creation of modern harsh noise but to my mind Self Abuse was the focal point that brought everything together and got shit done in a way no one else really did.

As for Traumatone, after Self Abuse came Hospital Productions and Prurient who developed the scene further. In my opinion the next tangible development was Wall Noise and its chief midwife and theortician is still clearly The Rita but equally important (again, in my humble opinion), but much less in the public eye to the Wall Noise world's formation was Ryan Bloomer of Traumatone.

None of this says anything about the two new Joshua Norton Cabal releases and in all honesty that's kind of the point. Both releases veer from harsh full frequency spectrum overloads to more composed psychedlic electronics and found sound work outs. Fellahean contributed a small number of sounds to the end product on Self Abuse and Chris Dodge contributed all the source material for the second track of the Trauamtone release which i then spent too long pulling apart and putting back together again.