REALICIDE YOUTH RECORDS

REVIEWS

 

 

20 Jazz Funk Greats, Brian Miller reviews Realicide “Resisting The Viral Self” LP, spring 2009.

http://www.20jazzfunkgreats.co.uk/wordpress/2009/04/15/brians-cali-trip-slimer-fetish/ 

 

Over the weekend I got to see my old friends Robert Inhuman and Jim Swill for the first time in ages. When they showed up with copies of the first 100% legit and mind-blowing album from their band Realicide, it was instantly determined that this weeks newsletter would be centered around their amazing take on gabber and punk. For those of you who love hardcore music, this is xxxmas day.

 

After ages of waiting, tons of CDr/tapes, way too little vinyl, and more touring than any band I've ever known is the FIRST TRUE ALBUM FROM REALICIDE! While the usual gabber/electronic hardcore references still apply, this fully realized release goes far beyond genre labels to be a perfect album. Both CD and LP versions come with a 24 page giant booklet containing all the lyrics, essays on all the songs, and tons of art and photos. The CD version has a whopping 31 bonus tracks.

 

Originally hailing from Cincinnati, this collective’s driving force, one Mr. Robert Inhuman, has been living in LA a lot these past years. Although Realicide tours so much he is really a nomad. I mean, they left a few days ago on a 4 month tour. Insane! Anyway, this steel drum version of gabber, swallowed by hardcore punk will make any summer day explode. Good for picnics in body armor.

 

 

 

Lissajou, regarding Realicide “Resisting The Viral Self” LP, spring 2009. http://blibdoolpoolp.blogspot.com/

 

Realicide? More like Fake-icide, as this album generously showers hot death upon nearly every shade of bullshit ever spoken. Immaculately produced, conceptually dense, and boiling over with hot-blooded exuberance, I am not exaggerating even a little bit when I say this game-changing LP may be the most perfect hardcore full-length ever recorded. Comes with stickers and an amazing, Toxic Graffiti-looking info-zine full of lyrics and ideas and lightning. These guys are currently touring the US in a tiny car, so give them good bread and attention when they play inside yr town, OK?

 

 

 

PODCAST: SEAN CARNAGE MONDAYS MEGAMIX (begins with Realicide “Not Enough”) summer 2009…

http://larecord.com/news/2009/07/05/podcast-sean-carnage-monday-megamix/#more-32547

“Just a brief sample from Robert Inhuman, whose music on ‘Resisting The Viral Self’ - despite it’s audiophonic brutality - is all too human and affecting.”

 

 

 

End Of An Ear (Austin, TX) regarding Realicide “Resisting The Viral Self” LP, spring 2009.

 

Realicide "Resisting The Viral Self" LP (Realicide Youth Records) Industrial gabber-punk hardcore noise? Not sure how to describe this awesome LP, it's all over the place. Intense content, lots of harsh screaming and heavy beats. Probably the best Realicide release. Expand your mind and destroy your self. Comes with a large photocopied zine.

 

 

 

Dusted, regarding Realicide / Capital Hemorrhage split 7”, February 2009.

 

     Admit it, you were waiting for someone to pick up the Digital Hardcore mantle where Alec Empire and company dropped it back when the funding dried up. Enter Realicide, one-man computer-grind machine, a hardcore band traded in for a laptop, jackhammering metric tons of oblivion into your eardrums. Strangely compelling for breakcore, and while I’ll likely never listen again, it’s fun on the first spin. Capital Hemorrhage play detuned, caustic, slow grind with feral, lungbusting vocals. Inept in the best way, their two tracks are lost in a universe of rage, skill level be damned. Had a great time listening to this one, but maybe you won’t…

 

 

 

Razor Cake, regarding Realicide / Capital Hemorrhage split 7”, February 2009.

 

     This split pairs up two seriously brutal, inventive bands. Both throw a noisy, industrial wrench into their scream-filled hardcore machines. Neither band is very accessible. Both appear to be in the first wave of an as of yet unlabelled subgenre. I could feasibly hear this blaring at some dance club, but I can’t imagine seeing it performed on stage at a bar. The experience of listening to these bands is kind of like tasting an exotic, kind of gross dessert: it’s nothing I’d hunt for intentionally, but I have to admit that it was a unique experience. – Art Ettinger

 

 

 

Crucial Blast, regarding Realicide “Narcissism Is The Enemy” CDR, summer 2008.

 

     Recorded live on a four track tape deck in March of 2008 at the Acid Fever House in Dayton, Ohio, this seven song live set is a BRUTAL battery of chaotic gabber-metal that is a lot different from the other Realicide discs we have. Some of the previous Realicide CD-Rs had moments of blasting digigrind and distorted grind riffing that were jackhammered into their raw-as-fuck digital hardcore jams, but were mostly distorted hardcore gabber delivered with abusive levels of vitriol and distortion. When Realicide played this show, however, they decided to go full on industrial metal; while the recording is a little on the murky side, the set is pretty fierce, with Robert Inhuman spewing his scornful ranting over tons of sampled thrash/grind guitar, splattery stumbling blastbeats and slow Godflesh style mecha-dirge, scorching electrical buzz lashing out of the amplifiers and nailing your skull to the cracked walls of the Acid Fever basement. I'm thinking that Realicide's newfound heaviosity is from the revamped lineup of the group, which has been whittled down to just Robert Inhuman on vocals and Jonathan Prunty on electronics/samplers. Jonathan is also a member of the improv-noise-thrash duo Capitol Haemorrhage who we really dig around here, and his grinding metallic blasts have really jacked up Realicide's energy/violence levels. Think Atari Teenage Riot, Pitchshifter, Merzbow, Nasenbluten, Godflesh, but with a seriously pissed off frontman excoriating you and everyone else in the room. The disc comes in a screenprinted wallet with a black and white insert sheet, limited to 125 copies.

 

 

 

Vital Weekly, regarding Realicide “Narcissism Is The Enemy” CDR, early 2009.

 

     Realicide is somewhat different. This is the noise end of things. Vocals and rhythm machines, also a duo of Jonathan Prunty on 'hardware electronics' and Robert Inhuman, responsible for words and voice. Loud, vicious, distorted, with the rhythm machine banging at times 150 plus beats per minute, and that makes the whole thing quite enjoyable. I was reminded of Xbxrx and their various off-shoots. I think the recording quality needs some improvement and it sounds a bit too much like a bedroom recording of two guys having fun, whereas the voice recording could have been better. But then: the lyrics could be easily heard, which is a rare thing. Quite entertaining noise music! (FdW)

 

 

 

Houston Press, regarding Robert Inhuman “Stabbed! In! The! Back!” net release, summer 2009. http://blogs.houstonpress.com/rocks/2009/08/friday_night_noise_stabbed_in.php#more

(This guy is some dunce that obviously has done no research and has no substantial interest in what he’s talking about.)

 

Ray Cummins, August 2009

     Robert Inhuman "STABBED! IN! THE! BACK!": So we don't know much about Robert Inhuman, except that he's apparently based in Cincinnati and he loves to make sample-based hardcore noise jams. Last year, MT6 Records released his Drowning In Betrayal cassette, which set strafing scree to porn-flick samples and was generally really, really terrifying. Now, the Dramacore label has unleashed "STABBED! IN! THE! BACK!": ten bruising minutes of copyright lawyer-baiting that might be 2009's best pop/mashup/noise totem. Inhuman has a classic hardcore scream: pained, spiteful, and animalistic, as though his esophagus were bloody from hours of yelling at himself in a bedroom mirror. That yowl suits the pinball brute beats he scatters, the "setting fire" and "polluting" cut-and-paste broadcast grabs he snatches from some unsuspecting newswoman, and his own indecipherable caterwaul. It's not shocking that he'd rip off the squeak-hinge hook and guitar snarl from Nine Inch Nails' "Ruiner" - perhaps the best fuck-you-for-fucking-me-up pop-industrial the '90s left us. But would you expect him to interweave and hack up Kanye West's "Robocop" or Garbage's "I'm Only Happy When It Rains" into his white-hot beat-crush onslaught? We sure didn't, but we're sure glad he did.

 

 

 

Digiters, regarding Robert Inhuman “Stabbed! In! The! Back!” net release, summer 2008. http://digiters.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/robert-inhuman-stabbed-in-the-back/

 

Antes de começar, queria agradecer a galera que o blog do !Digiters!, que vem mandando e-mail, deixando recados nas resenhas/entrevistas, dicas de projetos que não conhecemos, isso é um puta incentivo para a continuação das toscas resenhas e para a troca de informaçõesValeu ae!

 

Lembrando que temos a comunidade no Orkut, quem quiser entrar , o endereço é: http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=41051259

 

Robert Inhuman ( http://www.myspace.com/robertinhuman ) é nascido em Cincinnati, Ohio (EUA).

Ele toca nas bandas Realicide ( http://www.myspace.com/realicide ) e Hentai Lacerator ( http://www.myspace.com/hentailacerator ). É desenhista de logo de bandas que pode ser baixado aqui ( http://www.mediafire.com/?x1ntjgdnooj ), caso você tenha banda, escreva pra ele, de repente ele vai gostar da idéia de fazer logo para uma banda do Brasil! Hehehe . É vegetariano, inclusive no blog do Myspace tem umas explicações bacanas sobre isso, “A minha escolha de deixar de comer carnes e gelatina não está resolvendo coisa alguma, mas é, pelo menos, um passo no que eu sei que é o rumo certo para mimMinhas decisões são apenas um símbolo para aquilo que espero, e que possa ser uma compaixão pelos animais…” E tem o projeto com teu nome de nascimento, e é dele que vamos falar

 

Robert não gosta muito de ter projeto solo, ele curte ter banda mesmo e compartilhar palco com outras pessoas, acha mais bacana… O primeiro lançamento, intitulado Robert Inhuman’s Rockin Summer é de 2005, pela Realicide Youth ( http://www.realicide.tk ) que é o selo do Robert, que tem mais de 50 lançamentos!

 

O Stabbed! In! The! Back! “nome de uma música do Limp Wrist ( http://www.myspace.com/limpwrist ), de repente tem algo haver, porque o Robert é do rolê punk/hardcore de ” é um lançamento virtual do Robert Inhuman pela Dramacore ( http://www.dramacore.com ) que tem duas músicas, breakcore insano, me surpreendi pelas idéias, letras e som, altamente recomendado!

 

Ano: 2007

 

Download do Album: http://www.mediafire.com/?tjmtggytudj

 

BASIC TRANSLATION…? http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://digiters.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/robert-inhuman-stabbed-in-the-back/&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://digiters.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/robert-inhuman-stabbed-in-the-back/%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26hs%3DeU9

 

 

 

Crucial Blast, regarding Hentai LaceratorSugarsplash!” CDR, spring 2008.

 

     Out of all of the Outfall Channel related projects that I've been exalting here in the corridors of Crucial Blast, my favorite is probably Hentai Lacerator. An unapologetically harsh and art-damaged project that is a conceptual fusion of underground porn and Japanese Ero culture and frenetic hardcore grind, the uninitiated might assume from their name and the wonderfully goofy and explicit artwork that Hentai Lacerator is connected to the "pornogrind"/goregrind scene, but that's actually far from the case. Musically, Hentai Lacerator mash up an assortment of raging old school hardcore riffs, sludgy West Coast powerviolence a la Spazz and Despise You, weirdo noises and demented vocal sounds, and dissonant riffs slashed out over churning rhythms that come off like yer hearing an Am Rep band being forcefed a bucket of coke and then set on fire. Hentai Lacerator is essentially the members of Capital Hemorrhage backing the throat spasms of Robert Inhuman, the guys behind the DIY gabber/grind force Realicide, and you can chalk up the brutal thrash to the Cap Hemorrhage guys knowing their way around a crushing riff. The group had put out a couple of home recorded efforts in the past year that I thought were righteously ripping, but it's only now that they are presenting their first actual "studio" recording, the 12-song, 20 minute EP Sugarsplash, their most focused and faceripping effort. Man, when they kick into the detuned thrash overdrive on songs like "Slimebeast" and "Blobbo" and the shrieking, whimpering carnage of the disc opener "Killed By Cum", I feel like I'm being smashed in the eye by some mutant two headed conglom of Man Is The Bastard and Unsane. You may have noticed the preoccupation that Hentai Lacerator has with gooiness, a fetish that extends to every track and indeed the very spirit of the band, that of carnal powerviolence drenched in green slime and bukkake annihilation. But where yer typical mindless gore/porno grind outfit seems to revel in misogynistic hatred and violence, Hentai Lacerator's visions are an orgy of dripping ghost orgasms and impossible tentacle penetration and other fantastic sexual absurdities that are culled from the slimiest side of Japanese Ero art and media. Wild shit, done up in dayglo colors and crazed artwork that you do NOT want your parents to get their hands on. Add to that Robert Inhuman's nutso vocal hystrionics that go from shrieking hardcore screech to bizarre whimpering noises and other weirdness, and you've got a raging slice of slippery, oddball blastcore that extreme HC fans will dig. Especially if you like slime. And porn. And slime porn. The silkscreened disc comes in a bright lime-green DVD case that also holds a large foldout poster/lyric sheet plus a cool 16 page booklet filled with artwork and thoughtful, sex-positive fanzine-style interviews that Robert Inhuman conducted with porn stars like Amber Evans, Petra Verkaik, Taylor Wane, and others. Limited edition of 100 copies!

 

 

 

Knox Mitchcell, regarding Hentai LaceratorSugarsplash!” CDR, February 2008.

http://greenrecordsreviews.blogspot.com/2008/02/hentai-lacerator-sugarsplash.html

 

Artist: Hentai Lacerator

Title: Sugarsplash!

Label: Realicide Youth Records / Outfall Channel

Released: January 2008

 

After seeing vocalist Robert Inhuman's band "Realicide" in July 2007, I was captivated by the music he created. Around November 2007, I was introduced to Hentai Lacerator, and began to hear talk about an album called "Sugarsplash!". After searching and searching, I found that the album wasn't even out yet. Well, January and the new year roll around, and thanks thanks to Robert Inhuman, the album is now in my hands.

 

I'll begin with the packaging.....these guys really went all the way on this one! To start the album comes in a green DVD case, with a pink insert featuring an illustration of a girl passionately holding a slimebeast (Slimer, the Ghostbusters character, seems to be somewhat of a theme on this album). The disc itself is silkscreened pink with black text, done by Outfall Channel. The quality is very good (I have a few other releases screened by Outfall Channel, these guys are great). The album comes with 2 inserts - one is a booklet featuring interviews Robert did with porn stars Amber Evans, Petra Verkaik, Belladonna, and Taylor Wane (porn also seems to me another theme of the album, this shit's PORNCORE) among super cool illustrations by Robert, the staff list, thanks list, etc. My favorite part of the booklet is the front cover, which features Slimer performing a sex act on what looks to be a teenage girl (think of the front cover of the album, but more graphic). The second insert is a poster, featuring lyrics on one side, and an illustration of the different types of slimebeasts on the back. If I wasn't such a completeist I’d hang it up in my room.

 

Now onto the music. This is an extremely great album. Everything about the music contained within just makes me enjoy it. I received this in mid January, and still play it a few times a week. The lyrics are incredible, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Here's an excerpt from track 3, "Hentai Gore":

 

"where will I live? I am a prostitute!

Can I call you 'cunt gem'? we are all prostitutes!

this is an advertisement for the toys beneath my skirt"

 

The track names also captivated me, with titles such as "Killed By Cum!", "Stripped Nude in the Slimepit", and "Fatal Surge of Tits".

 

Robert Inhuman's vocals are amazing on this recording, with a screaming vocal range that can't be touched. Among the high pitched shrieks and screams, you also get slimey mucus sounds and moans, all of which bring this album together. The drums on this one are also especially great, listen to the beginning of track 1, "Killed By Cum" and you'll see what I mean. And the guitar, it is so on, in that mentally insane way.

 

These guys are demented, no doubt about it. And I hope they never, ever change.

 

Standout tracks: Killed By Cum!, Amber, the Most Romantic Slut, Sugarsplash.

 

Packaging: 5/5

Music: 5/5

Overall rating: 5/5

 

 

 

Crucial Blast, regarding Hentai Lacerator / Gaybomb split 7”, spring 2008.

 

     A neon orange snotrocket whizzing by in a ten minute slime assault of spastic hardcore noise and brutal glitchbeat rhythms. The new noise/skum microlabel Isle Of Man just put this platter out, featuring three tracks from Hentai Lacerator, the drums/guitar/screams trio from Dayton made up of the guys from Capital Haemorrhage and Robert Inhuman of Realicide, and a single track of harsh beat damage from Gaybomb. The Hentai Lacerator tracks actually sound like structured blasts of harsh chaotic fastcore rather than the total skullshred improvised noisecore of their previous releases, but it's still vicious stuff, old school hardcore riffs and shrieking LSD rants sped up to mach 10 speed and splattered with feedback and amp filth. Gaybomb is the solo project from the singer/saxophonist from Puke Attack!, a little-known noise/jazz/dirge band from South Carolina kind of like Mothguts that are pretty cool. There's no jazz in Gaybomb, though...the six minute untitled track on the b-side is a lumbering beatscape of sludgy industrial rhythms, glitchy soundcard abuse, and slashed-apart samples collaged together into a sputtering, abrasive blat of skrewed death-hop. The cardstock cover and the record labels feature some rad manga/cartoon style artwork that I think was drawn by Robert Inhuman himself. Very cool.

 

 

 

Crucial Blast, regarding Robert Inhuman “No Grip On Tomorrow” CDR, spring 2008.

 

     An earlier collection of solo recordings from Realicide frontman Robert Inhuman, this eight-track disc is a much more diverse gathering of sounds compared to his newest solo disc Identity. Recorded throughout 2006 and 2007, these are homemade tape recordings, 4 track compositions, live recordings, and sound experiments that range from ambient sound collages to pummeling industrial dirges to brutal a capella experiments. "Dream Of Rejection" opens the disc, a pounding, almost-Godflesh like beat and tribal rhythms underscoring Robert's choking screams that are layered over each other. On "Ache", slurred whispered singing drifts softly over rumbling background drones, and the haunting, beautiful "Moment Of Truth" is an intensely gloomy pop song formed from processed singing that circle melancholy acoustic guitars. "Hell Forward" is a live recording of snorting, choking vocal sounds and porno samples looped into a bizarre sounding, surreal collage. "All Yours" is a disturbing industrial dirge that rises up out of fog of looping piano notes and dark ambience, and gives way to the crushing breakbeats and spoken word vitriol of "Distance", a crazed pastiche of Godflesh-strength breakbeats, spoken word ranting, and crackling electronic noise that's over with in a minute and a half. Then there's the most challening track on the disc, the six minute "Putrid Acapella"; this track is a combination of disturbed spoken word and noxious vocal sounds, as Robert contorts his vocal cords into all kinds of animalistic snarls, drooling, whimpering, laughing, screaming...it's a way fucked, extreme avant-vocal performance that's really expressive but ultimately really tough to listen to, especially when Robert starts in with his vomiting snarls, which nauseate me every time I listen to this track. Sounds like the raw material that Randy Yau was using on the vocal-noise album Resuscitation from RYKE.

Comes in a xeroxed paper sleeve, on a screenprinted disc, limited edition of 60 copies.

 

 

 

Crucial Blast, regarding Robert Inhuman “IDENTITY” CDR, spring 2008.

 

     So prolific that he's released two solo discs on his Realicide Youth label, Robert Inhuman creates a more varied and abstract style of hardcore techno and gabba outside of his Realicide group that frequently chucks the techno altogether and goes off into spoken word, experimental vocal experiments, and pure noise. On Identity though, his newest solo release, Robert delivers pure beat driven aggression. It's a 32 track collection of punk-infected gabba recorded on his own, pretty close in spirit and form to the newer Realicide stuff, with most of the tracks being rough, metal-tinged hardcore gabba. Splattery breakbeats and gabba blasts are smashed with speed metal guitars, Robert's frantic screams and seriously pissed off lyrics, bizarre brain numbing loops, and awesome plunderfucked pop music samples. The whole metal/techno/speedcore/breakcore fusion that makes up the music on Identity has alot in common with the D-Trash label and groups like Schizoid, and fans of that sort of post-Atari Teenage Riot violence are probably going to LOVE this. There are also some slower, rock-tinged industrial jams that almost sound like a blackened, crusty Nine Inch Nails, and that stuff is what really separates this from Realicide. Great stuff if yer a fan of hardcore gabba punk like me, totally blood-rushing amped up BPM aggression. Comes in a blue xeroxed sleeve with a insert lyric sheet and a silkscreened disc, limited to 100 copies.

 

 

 

Crucial Blast, regarding DJ THUMPER! “First Blood” CDR, summer 2008.

 

     OK, this isn't for everyone, but I personally love this disc of 'ravesploitation' from Cincinatti gabber/hardcore techno artist DJ Thumper. It's another one of the killer handmade CDRs that we just got in from Realicide, the DIY breakcore/gabba/grind label run by Robert Inhuman from Realicide and Hentai Lacerator. All of this stuff reeks of old school handmade DIY energy and takes me back to the pre-internet days of do it yourself hardcore and punk...which is sort of ironic, seeing as DJ Thumper's music is constructed largely of pilfered top 40 dance pop hits. DJ Thumber is another project from Realicide member Mavis Concave and it's the most overtly "techno" release in the entire Realicide catalog, but this is hardcore, distorted, super aggressive techno that bleeds over into full on gabba at times. The whole premise of this project is the pilfering and butchering of video game theme songs and top 40 pop hits and creating these clandestine remixes that turn the originals into high speed blasting hardcore/breakcore mashups; Andrew WK's 'I Get Wet', Kelly Clarkson's 'Since You Been Gone', Drowning Pool's 'Bodies' are all plundered and mutated into thumping, pounding gabba jams with brutally distorted synth lines, screaming distorted vocals, distorted metal guitars, and speedy breakbeats. Obviously, this isn't for the techno haters out there, but I think it's a blast. Oh, and the last track 'Pound Puppies Suck It' is a remix from porno-noisecore squad Hentai Lacerator. Comes in a xeroxed paper sleeve with screenprinted disc and a vinyl DJ Thumper sticker, in a limited edition of 150 copies.

 

 

 

Crucial Blast, regarding Realicide “Which Is Your War” CDR, fall 2007.

 

     I've been getting more and more into Robert Inhuman, his hardcore gabba/digigrind/anarcho outfit Realicide and the whole tiny cottage industry that this guy has created around his artwork. I was first turned on to him through the guys from the label Outfall Channel, who also play with Robert in the band Hentai Lacerator, and from there I discovered his tiny label Realicide Youth which produces handmade, ultra DIY cdrs and tapes from his projects as well as from those artists that are a part of the western Ohio electronic/punk scene that cross Inhuman's trajectory. I picked up a selection of some of Realicide Youth's titles that are still in print, and all of this stuff comes highly recommended to fans of passionately created DIY gabba, speedcore, and industrial whatzit with a fierce punk rock attitude.

 

     Which Is Your War is the latest album from Cincinnati psycho-gabba-blasters Realicide, and it's the harshest, noisiest, most pissed off collection of jams that they've produced, 19 tracks of harsh-noise infested gabba recorded on a 4-track in late 2007, ultra raw and immediate. Every one of these tracks is a psychic scream, a brutal mash of frontman Robert Inhuman and his surreal, antiauthoritarian ranting and piercing death screams over the punishing abstract gabba and drum-machine grind blasts spewed out by Mavis Concave. The recording is raw like a live performance, which I suppose this was, more or less, just sans an audience. It sounds pretty guerilla, and the whole vibe is a bit different from the other Realicide recordings I have. Their past released have combined plundered pop music with hyperfast gabba/speedcore, but on this disc they've nixed the hooks and melodic elements almost completely, instead going for a stripped down attack of just vocals, beats, and abrasive vocal-noise loops and harsh electronic noise. Tracks like "The Shit Punks Hate" remind me of Nasenbbluten, and the hardcore gabba jam alternate with the brutal breakcore of "Deathbomb" and the pure power electronics of "I Wanted To Feel Alive". The last half of the disc actually is a live set, recorded in June of 2007 at a loft in Brooklyn and features covers of Black Flag and The Screamers. Fucking punk hardcore electronics, bookended by Jello Biafra-esque spoken word pieces from Jim Swill. Comes in a red xeroxed paper sleeve on a silkscreened disc with a vinyl sticker. Limited edition of 100.

 

 

 

Crucial Blast, regarding SACRIFICE #1 zine, fall 2007.

 

    I love fanzines, especially the xeroxed, hand-assembled, heavily personal sort that were such an important element of underground music and art culture from the 1980's up through the end of the '90's. Webzines and blogs have both evolved to the point where they are a perfect means of staying on top of up-to -the-minute news on bands, artists and music, but there's a certain tangible vibe that digital publications lack that will always have me reaching for 'zines like Oaken Throne and this new bit of mutant noise press called Sacrifice. It's put together by Robert Inhuman from Realicide, an old-school 8" x 5" black and white job with a nice clean layout, loads of artwork and abstract photo images, and 40 pages focused on aggro avant music forms, bizarre DIY hip hop and performance art, harsh noise and mutant metal. Issue #1 includes well written interviews with plexiglass-molestor/noise artist Justice Yeldham, NYC power electronic muggers Halflings, gabba/speedcore artist Vankmen, Gordan Ashworth from Oscillating Innards, legendary industrial percussion sorcerer Z'EV, Lydia Lunch, Italian space-sludge weirdos OVO, Bunny Poe, Jason Zeh, along with writings from Split Horizon, David Lim, Noam Erica, Andrew Barranca, and drawings and art from Dominick Fernow (Prurient/Vegas Martyrs/Ash Pool), Jessica Rylan (Secret Diary/CAN'T), Robert Inhuman, Adrian DeQuiros, Ryan Faris, Pamela Mogollon, Mister Ben S, and Nicole Bailey. Only 300 of these have been printed, so it's not going to stick around forever. This is definitely one of the best noise/avant zines I've read lately - recommended!

 

 

 

Crucial Blast, regarding Realicide “Lethal Gabber Smackdown” tape, spring 2008.

 

     Man, I dig Realicide, alot, but what the fuck were they thinking spraypainting this cassette completely in black so that you can't tell which side is which? Argh! Once I spend a couple minutes rewinding the tape so I can start from the beginning, though, my aggravation subsides as Realicide's cathartic gabba/metal hybrid erupts into my field of hearing and all is well with the world. The only new Realicide-related release that didn't come to us from the Realicide Youth label, Lethal Gabber Smackdown is a full length tape put out by Michigan's Green Records that features four tracks or so of extended gabba jamming, super brutal and abstract explosions of high speed beat fuckery, spliced gabba beats, splattery malformed blastbeats, squelchy rhythms, harsh screamed tirades against corporate evil and mindless cultural bankruptcy, bits of speed metal guitars and harsh noise woven into grueling rhythmic loops, distorted computer noise, spastic glitchscapes, and other sonic carnage. This is Realicide's most freaked out release, an abstract speedcore blast collage like Nasenbluten being remixed by Masonna, that was originally put out on a now out of print CDR (I think?) and now on tape in a black and white xeroxed package with the aforementioned stroke-inducing paintjob. And limited as fuck, too, with only 33 copies made.

 

 

 

Crucial Blast, regarding Realicide “RRReady To Fight!” LP, fall 2007.

 

     Realicide is fast becoming one of my favorite outfits in the underground noise scene, their ferocious combination of raw DIY spirit and no-bullshit social outlook with a skin-peeling hybrid of speedcore gabber, digital grind, samples, and fast-paced harsh electronic noise. I was kinda surprised to see a new LP from the band coming out on RRRecords, from whom I usually expect to hear more straightforward harsh noise or weird cut-up stuff, but Realicide fits nicely with RRRon's confrontational underground aesthetic. Ready To Fight is a new limited edition vinyl-only release, only 350 copies pressed, and it's the first ever LP from the Cincinnati blast collective; it looks amazing, in a white jacket with bright red artwork silkscreened by the Outfall Channel dudes and accompanied by a huge B&W xeroxed booklet and a vinyl sticker. The tracks are ultra spastic blasts of gabber beats jackhammering at splats of animalistic vocal noises and aggro spoken word pieces, low-fi digi-grindcore, hyperspeed electronic cut-up, and mutated hip hop, about as high energy as it gets, and festering with that aforementioned DIY punk spirit that I've gotta turn to the noise scene nowadays to get a fix of. This is great shit, like hearing Nasenbluten and Agoraphobic Nosebleed mashed together in an all-ages VFW hall show through a wall of blown amplifiers.

 

 

 

Dominick Fernow of Hospital Productions, regarding Realicide “RRReady To Fight!” LP, summer 2007.

 

     Extreme physical live band of harsh electronics, destroyed unstable gabber beats and fierce beat box insane screaming vocals. Totally relentless. If you think Incapacitants are a tough listen I dare you to sit through this LP. While the sounds may not fit into the traditional and accepted ideas of what noise is, the spirit of freedom regardless of audience is highly present on this damaged and individualistic record. Not for everyone by any stretch, but the noise world should thank Realicide for having the courage to be themselves. Bravo guys.

 

 

 

Crucial Blast, regarding Realicide / Evolve / Capital Hemorrhage split CDR, summer 2007.

 

     An hour of live performances from three bands that are part of the really cool and vibrant progressive/noisy hardcore scene that's happening in the southern Ohio area, this split was released primarily for Realicide to sell on their U.S. tour this summer, but we were able to get a few for C-Blast. Features a bunch of live tracks from each with fairly solid recording quality that sounds like it came off of a soundboard, but most importantly each set is super energetic and a great document of how wild each of these bands are. The only outfit on here that we had seen before in a live setting is Captial Hemorhhage, who we caught at the 611 Florida house in DC back in December '06...their set of brutal "aktionist hardcore" os from a show in St. Louis from March of 2007, and it's just as nasty and violent here as it was when we saw 'em, a drummer and guitarist two-piece unleashing gnarly noisy hardcore, deformed Am Rep noise rock riffs, throwing cymbals and lead pipes around the room, and devolving into formless sludge. Evolve is a guy named Colin Murray who performs a kind of sound collage/avant hip hop hybrid that's firmly rooted in old school Industrial moves, graff culture and a passionate DIY punk aesthetic. His set from Johnson City, TN in December '06 is a spacey experience, with airy dub beats and heavy drum machines rattling beneath layers of field recordings and effects-heavy tape collages. Last up is Realicide, the noisecore/gabba/electronics trio featuring Robert Inhuman's spoken-word/hip hop inspired anarcho rants. Their set is from Nashville in December '06, with second vocalist Jim Swill and drum machine/sampler/synth abuser Mavis Concave joining Inhuman in whipping up brutal wacked out panic speedcore, rhythmic blocks of noise, blastbeats and breakbeats, sometimes sounding like a fucked up mixture of Nine Inch Nails, Atari Teenage Riot, and hard drive grindcore. It's a cool little live document, the disc sorting a cool screenprint on it's face, and packaged inside of a plastic wallet sleeve with a large xeroxed poster insert. Released in a tiny edition of 110 copies.

 

 

 

Chaotic Underworld for Realicide “1/07/07” CDR, summer 2007.

 

     Realicide is the brain child of Cincinnati Ohio natives Robert Inhuman and Mavis Concave; they founded the band with their label Realicide Youth Records.  One Way Sacrifice is a live performance at the Lemp in St.Louis, with Mavis drilling away at the drum machines and samplers while Jim Swill and Robert are narrating and screaming their fucking minds about. This album delivers all together very intensely and passionately in both verse and instrumentation. It is a very honest representation of this band's live performances and we a very proud to release it. This release is limited to 66 copies.

 

 

 

Crucial Blast, regarding Hentai Lacerator “Covered In Fun” CDR, spring 2007.

 

     40 blazing free-noisecore jams vomiting out in a neon green spew from the collective cracked skulls of Hentai Lacerator! It's the Capital Hemmorhage guys with Robert Inhuman on vocals, and they cram in a ton of microsecond blasts in just 17 minutes with this low-fi collection. Free jazz drumming, incoherent muttering and childlike crying, nasty abstract doom, dayglo spunk and total blurr grind guitar all flying around in a mess of improvised, in-the-moment blastnoise destruction with song titles all ending in "Suck"..."Gargantuan Suck", "Pound Puppy Suck", "Doomsday Suck", you get the picture. Think Gerogerigegege, modern improv, 7 Minutes Of Nausea, Borbetomagus, Hanatarash, and old Earache grindcore as reference points. We love this stuff! Obviously if you're looking for more "structure" in yer grind, this probably isn't for you, but fans of free-noise/grind fusion will love this shit. The Cap Hemmorhage guys released this through their own Outfall Channel imprint in a single run of 100 copies, and it looks awesome, packaged in a bright green spraypainted wallet that has their wicked logo and artwork screenprinted on the front, with the silkscreened disc and a bright yellow xeroxed insert inside.

 

 

 

????? about Hentai Lacerator “Covered In Fun” CDR, 2008.

http://cubismlog.blogspot.com/2008/09/hentai-lacerator-covered-in-fun.html

Hentai Lacerator - Covered In Fun!!! Crazy, crazy skronk/grind improv. All the songs have something to do with "suck," i.e. "Pound Puppy Suck," or "Gargantuan Suck," and for the most part this is some pretty ridiculous stuff. This is their first full length, with 40 short songs of lo-fi skronk. They also have a "cassingle" with a few more songs. There's also two more releases floating around, one a split with Gaybomb and a more organized chaotic version of Hentai Lacerator (I like this new direction) and another full length called "Sugarsplash." http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?vx5dz8b9t5b

 

 

 

Crucial Blast, regarding Hentai LaceratorPoud Puppy Suck” c02 tape, spring 2007.

 

     Easily one of the most absurd releases we carry. Pound Puppy Suck is a cassingle of the "1st hit single from the Covered In Fun EP", or that's what it says across the top of the enormous foldout postersleeve that this tape comes wrapped up in. It's a goofy companion piece to the Covered... CD-R that we also listed this week from the Ohio noisecore crew Hentai Lacerator, whose supershort, low-fi improvised grind freakouts are equal parts Gerogerigegege, old Fear Of God and 7 Minutes Of Nausea style blurr/grindcore, and Hanatarash's avant wipeout. This is actually pretty cool, if yer a tape junkie like us - the tape is a mere 2 minutes long, with "Pound Puppy Suck", a super short blast of low-fi noisecore improvisation that is also on their CD-R, a couple of other exclusive eruptions, and a remix from DJ Thumper that pretty much kills. And the whole thing is only 2 minutes long, if you didn't catch that the first time. The poster sleeve has more of their awesome graffiti-style grind art, plus an extremely weird written piece from Robert Inhuman that involves a sex act with Slimer from the movie Ghostbusters. Allegedly the green paint that covers the cassette itself is glow-in-the-dark, but we haven't had a chance to put that to the test yet. Definitely looks neat though!

 

 

 

Crucial Blast, regarding Hentai Lacerator “Succulent Suck” c02 tape, 2008.

 

     The slime and Slimer obsessed maniacs over in the Hentai Lacerator crew are the last people on the planet still putting out music in the "cassingle" format. Or could you even call this a cassingle? There's only two minutes of music here, just like with the Pound Puppy Suck tape that they put out last year, so it's basically another one of Hentai Lacerator's tape pranks, a set of five micro-assaults of screeching improvised noisecore that rush by in a blur of blastbeats, garbled noise, vomiting screams and goofy babbling. Think Anal Cunt, early Boredoms, Fear Of God, Gerogerigegege, but with a bizarre obsession with fantastical visions of bodily fluids run rampant, ectoplasm, and extreme sex. The tape surface has been completely painted over with a nauseating-looking vermillion paintjob, and it's bundled inside of a huge 11" x 17" poster cover that is filled with crude cartoon porn drawings, lots of spiky crusty logos, a short story that graphically describes a sexual encounter with Slimer from Ghostbusters, and the following consumer warning: "If you thought our last tape was a bad idea, wait till you fuck up and listen to this one! There's not even a remix this time, so it's 100% "our bad". Are you into this army font? Are you into D-beat crust and nothing else? Road Warriors 4 life. Muggafucka, talkin 'bout pretending we live in the movie "Waterworld". Fuck you for getting this tape though, dude, seriously. Especially if you got the first one and should have known better!" Released in a run of 50 tapes, and packaged in a plastic ziplock bag. Caveat emptor!

 

 

 

Crucial Blast, regarding SX CDR, fall 2007.

 

     Pronounced "Sex", SX is yet another project from Mavis Concave, the uber-prolific member of Cincinatti anarcho-gabber blasters Realicide and the dude behind the awesome top 40 pop-gabba-noise mashups of DJ Thumper. This short (19 minute) but blazin' disc is another limited edition jobbie from the Realicide label, and comes as a spraypainted stenciled disc in a punk as fuck black and white xerox wallet foldout sleeve jobbie, filled with lyrics and punk-collage artwork. The music? Think Crass-influenced anarcho punk meets blasting drum machine grind, primitive death metal riffing, and way-fucked gabber. Quite rad, I think. Mavis employs two different female vocalists on these tracks, and both of 'em howl, scream, and sing like maniacs over the array of samples, death metal guitars, and drum machine beats that switch up between monotono-thrash beats, hyperspeed blastbeats, weird splattery rhythms, four-on-the-floor gabba, and even a classic techno beat here and there. Occasionally some soft jangly guitar, brain damaged singalongs or other fleeting moment of mellowness pops up, but these jams are mostly crushing electro-death anthems that sound like a mutant cross between Riot Grrl punk, early Earache death metal, and Atari Teenage Riot. Limited to 150 copies.

 

 

 

Realicide “I Gotta Break Free” CDR, summer 2006, from http://noisear.blogspot.com/2006/11/realicide-i-gotta-break-free.html

 

     Realicide has been on tour for some time now and their live sound is some of the most creative punk-noise-core I've heard in a while now. I got into it from the GBN/Merzbow split a few years ago and love the stuff now and Realicide's release, I Gotta Break Free, is no exception. The track listing is broken down into 5 live shows that took place in various states, from LA to TN.

 

Robert Inhuman and his crew showcase some great effects with the aggressive vocals and pounding drumbeats. There isn't just a hard beat layered over with some vocal trash. You get to hear some great digital delay effects used to loop some pretty far out samples. A great example is their cover of the Black Flag track, "Depression". Being a noise fan myself I like their version better than the original. Robert pushes his voice across the air as the room is filled with some pretty drum'n bass pounding beats mixed with great sampled loops from the original track. Some other great tracks to note are "I W-is-H", which features samples from The Mob. And if you like the straight in your face punk-noise-core jam look no further than "The Shit Punks Hate" and "Art Palace Fossil Fuckers". Perfect mosh pit gore.

 

Track #2, Open Eyes, stands alone and is one of my favorites on this disc. The simple reason is because it is such a pure early 80's sounding industrial track. Open Eyes puts my mind in that time frame and I feel they could have opened for Throbbing Gristle or something. The other stand-alone live track is "Man O Steel"; this one is up there as well. Perfect.

 

The packaging is limited to black and white print with a silver spray painted CDr, but you get Roberts and Jim Swills lyrics on the inside sheet so you can read along if you can't understand what the fuck they're saying. Cheap price, perfect punk-noise.

 

 

 

Crucial Blast, regarding the Big Nurse + Realicide CDR, spring 2008.

 

     This disc documents some of the sonic events that led up to a brain melting live collaboration between the Nashville dwelling free-rock unit Big Nurse and Cinci gabba/speedcore agitators Realicide. On paper, it seems like an odd fit, but after listening to Big Nurse and their deafening blasts of crumbling chaos rock, the shared bond between these two bands starts to make itself more clear to me, labeled as it is on the inside of the sleeve as "defective punk rock falling apart". The disc opens with two tracks from Big Nurse, "Big Wall" and "Ny-Quil Thrill Kill", two colossal free rock jams, the first sounding six drummers all playing different songs simultaneously while the guitarists and bassists ram their instruments (and any other object they can lay their bloodied hands on) right down the collective maw of their amplifiers. Brutal, utterly destroyed improv that sounds like the Dead C on meth, or an even more blown out and violent than usual Grey Daturas jam with a full backline. The second track is a swirling sea of black sludge, all distorted blown out sludge riffs and brown-notes and spacey psychedelic guitars swamped and drowning and buried in the mix, a thick syrupy black haze of low-fi Sunn O))) sludge drone and demolished stoner riffing. It's all crushing and loud and way in the red, and if I didn't know any better I woulda sworn that these two jams were being beamed straight into my cranium from the wilds of New Zealand.

 

     Then it's Realicide's turn, and they spew an untitled live track recorded in Big Nurses's hometown in 2005....this is something different from the normally-gabba powered group, a murky stew of tribal drums and clattering percussion and piercing feedback that sounds like it escaped off of Prurient's Black Vase, and eventually overrun by blasting amp rumble and droning feedback hum. What the fuck? It basically sounds like a continuation of the crushing free-rock destructo slop that Big Nurse was slinging just minute prior...finally I'm checking the notes in the sleeve, and yep, this is Realicide as joined by several members of Big Nurse.

 

     But it's the fourth track that's actually presented as a full blown collaboration, a massive noise rock orgy recorded at Sudsy's in Cincinnati in March of '05, the full lineups of both bands joined on stage and captured here in a low-fi minidisc haze of industrial/tribal percussion, roaring guitar noise, and grating screams, a massive twenty minute free noise jam that moves from tweaked pedal-humping psychedelia to melted metallic dirge and No Neck-esque clatter.

 

     Finally, we get another Big Nurse track, but even this is filled with the collaborative spirit...recorded in St Louis in '05, this turns into a mighty hypnotic psych jam with members of the audience climbing on board and contributing to the wall of percussion that bulldozes it's way like a pile of drumkits staggering through a fug of psychedelic fx and one skulldrilling garage-rock ur-riff that is pounded out to fucking infinity.

Falling apart punk indeed, this is great stuff provided that you don't mind the murky production of these mostly live recordings. The disc is another screenprinted jobbie from Realicide Youth packaged in a foldout xeroxed poster sleeve, and limited to 100 copies.

 

 

 

Crucial Blast, regarding ULTRA//VIRES “You Want Some?” CDR, spring 2007.

 

     DIY low-fi archive of live actions from the combative Ohio duo Ultra//Vires recorded over the course of 2004 and 2005. We've been digging these Ultra//Vires jams...these guys do super combative electro-acoustic improv with a raw punk attitude n' early Industrial spasms, and inject lots of megaheavy freeform sludge that pushes their music into another realm of heavy. At times they achieve a sort of raw, Khanate-meets-Wolf Eyes gravitational pull. This disc starts off more in the free-feedback/drone jam/improv clatter vein, lots of piercing tones and metal being hurled into the sky, but by track 5, Ultra//Vires are blowing up amps by hurling gobs of ultradistorted guitar noise and sucking all of the oxygen out of the room. Kinda reminds me of Burmese. The disc comes in a simple xeroxed wallet sleeve with liner notes and weird basketball imagery. Not sure what that's all about.

 

 

 

Crucial Blast, regarding Robert Inhuman “Putrid Sacrifice” tape, early 2007.

 

     Man, the Truculent tape output is one to watch. Phroq, Neuntoter Der Plage, Oscillating Innards...holy shit, all of these are killer. Aside from the boss skull-torching feedback and deathdrone action on display with these, I'm also very much digging the apparently consistent xerox insert and raw collage aesthetic that's going on here, reminding me quite a bit of the cassette releases coming out of the Hardcore scene in the mid-90's. Robert Inhuman's

Putrid Sacrifice tape really captures that vibe, with his sickoid solo vocal/tronix attack, awesome lyrics, and the handdrawn artwork and demo style layout of the tape sleeve. This C-20 is about as HARSH and BRUTAL as a dude and his microphone are going to get, channeling Masonna strength violence and nasty feedback onslaughts that will churn your stomach from a variety of live recordings captured in and around Ohio throughout 2005 that have been edited and cut up with a cappela song and blasts of deathvomit throat constrictions. Not for everyone, this is really harsh shit, equal parts Eye Yamatsuka, Prurient, and Masonna in a lo-fi basement bloodbath, but personally I think his amalgam of brutal feedback sculpture, consciousness raising Hardcore poetry, classic noisecore form, psychedelic tape slop, and avant-vocal deconstruction is fucking great. The stuff he did with The New Flesh on their last 7" was blazing, and I'm even more wowed by the man in solo action. Can't wait to hear more. And check out that crazy robotripping sludgemetal coda! What the fuck! And yeah, once again, this is already sold out from Truculent, and I only grabbed a couple copies of this as I thought we'd be able to restock. I was wrong, so don't snooze. Limited edition of 100.

 

 

 

From somebody in Canada (?) regarding Robert Inhuman “I Don’t Want Your Advice” CDR, 2006. (Ironically, despite the opening of the review, neither me or the Skeleton Dust label sent this guy a copy for review. I don’t send music out specifically to be reviewed, cos it’s kind of stupid after all. ~ Robert)

 

     It's hard to offer constructive criticism when you have been handed a disc entitled "I don't want your advice." The immediate response that comes to mind is "well, why send me a review copy then?" but whatever, I'll push the petty cheek aside and get on with it.

 

The disc tries really hard to alienate, perhaps too much. The opening track (the 20 second blurt before that doesn't count) is balls out feedback with no attempts made at demonstrating finesse or technique. Think drunk misanthrope stumbling in front of the PA, staring slack jawed while trying to figure out why there is blood all over the back of his hands. Ugly and taxing. The next track backs off on the one finger feedback solo and moves into some sort of acapella version of power electronics. There is some noise in the background but my money is on a one or two pedal chain with a mic driving it being responsible for the whole shebang. Simplistic and plodding but for me, satisfying in the same way that seeing city traffic driving over road kill is. No constructive broadening of horizons, just second hand smoke, the stench of piss and the nausea of urban alienation.

 

As mentioned, this recording is easily 50% feedback. It's simple single mindedness makes me think of Atrax Morgue a little though it's a lot harder to sit through Robert Inhuman's recording due to inconsistent levels and obnoxious EQ. The highend is so sharp that unless you have long ago blown your ear drums you will either need to ride on the volume knob like it's your daddy or shove the speakers under a pillow. Also, the spray painted case looks cool but expect the CDR to show the scars of such a rough life.

 

The disc picks up speed as it goes on and by 5th track we actually have some discernable structure and depth (even if still two dimensional). I dig the cold, emotionlessness of it as I do the obvious contempt. I do however wish that whomever mastered it could have worn comfortable shoes and gotten themselves a fresh bowl of cornflakes that day so that you could actually listen to the whole disc without feeling like you are chewing on tinfoil. This is one time that a shitty cassette would have smoothed things out just enough to carry the day. I don't want it to be like vanilla pudding, just tight enough that I can crank it without blowing my tweeters.

 

Do I like it? Yes and no. If I'm feeling overly happy about my lot in life, this disc will certainly help grey my skies. Truly sitting down and listening to it though is nigh impossible unless the high end of your hearing range cuts out at 250Hz.

 

 

 

Dillon Tulk, regarding Vankmen / Realicide split 3”CDR, spring 2006.

 

     GABBER! Two ten minute assaults on your body courtesy of each artist. Vankmen delivers a suitable speecore killfest. Really excellent cut-up into more hip-hop feeling moments, maintaining a steady noisy "cd-skipping" freakout throughout. Love that distorted bass kick? You get plenty, kicking around your fucking skull. Realicide ups the ante with some kids repping Cincinnati and samples a-plenty from Slimer to Slipknot. Pick this up if you can, seriously the fastest thing I've ever heard. Will make you BANG YOUR HEAD.

 

 

 

Cassette Gods webzine, regarding Realicide / Kairos split cassette (released by Molecular Reconstruction in Houston TX) 2006? http://cassettegods.blogspot.com/2007/06/realicide-kai-split-realicide-youth.html

 

     Cincinnati OH noisy hardcore with an emphasis on ear-piercing highs. No label info on this one, so I'm guessing self released? Realicide start off with what sounds like an amplified digital alarm clock. One of the most horrible things you can force someone to listen to, really. "5lowershop Pirate Radio, San Francisco 07-04-04" is all feedback, scratchy howls and frustration, then it becomes chopped up as if the band put down everything and started flipping through the radio to see what else was on. If you're lucky you might pick out the sound of instruments. The Kai side was blank, so I can't say much there.

 

 

 

From some guy in Canada (?) regarding Mavis Concave / F.U.S. split CDR, 2005.

 

     No thanks. Mavis Concave opens up with eight tracks of lo-fi noise that basically consists of distorted drum machine blasts, a few spurts of distorted keyboards, and frantic distorted screaming that has a bit of an overdramatic edge – not to mention lyrics like, "My jaws are locked on your neck, I told you I'd get my revenge…" "Undecided Ghost" is quieter and uses sparse percussive sounds with faint shuffling noises and whispered vocals that provide a welcome breather implementing a little more of an atmosphere (granted it's only a minute long), leading into the spoken vocals and lightly filtered piano of "No Heart Beat No Blood Flow", which explodes with more screaming and bashing drums towards the latter moments… which continues on until closer "Ladybug, I'm Over" brings back the piano and more spacious arrangements. I'm not bothered by the raw recoding per se, I just think the vocals sound very forced and almost whiny in their overdramatic tendencies, and beyond that I honestly find very little value in the material at all. Some of the vocal arrangements are alright, and some of the sparser textures are mildly interesting, but as a whole it's just too random and all sounds pretty much the same. In my opinion this comes across as the kind of stuff that could be put together in one afternoon in a couple of hours, from conception to fruition. F.U.S. (Fucked Up Stupid), another one-man act, follows with six tracks, the only one of which that has a title is the unfortunate "Spic in the Bedroom". These songs are a bit longer and more electronic in nature, using lots of blips and whirrs underneath intense distorted screams that aren't half bad, granted they make no sense to me against the musical backdrop, but whatever. If nothing else these songs don't all sound the same, with some leaning more towards traditional harsh noise with thin wisps of distortion or thick low-end surges and chaotic arrangements, but I still don't care for it at all. The CD-R is spraypainted and comes in a crude xeroxed sleeve with photos of each artist and plain text done up in a cut and paste style. I'm all for D.I.Y. stuff but this one's not cutting it in the visual department either. Neither of these artists is generic, I'll give 'em that, but I really can't appreciate their efforts on this one. Sorry. It's simply not my thing. (2/10) Running time - 25:33, Tracks: 14 [Notable tracks: I'm not really into any of 'em]

 

 

 

Royce Icon, regarding Aaron Quinn “Seafoam Green” CDR, mid-2004. http://industrial.org/releases.php?t=18770

 

     When Aaron gave me this cd a few months back, he said that it was more or less like his previous album Too Cool For School vol.1, only better. Seafoam Green definitely shares some traits with Vol.1, but for the most part it's a completely different beast. The sounds this time around are a lot more varied and the chaos is more euphoric, more violent at points.

 

The nefarious activity begins with the track "KILL!", which more or less sounds like someone shifting through a garbage bag full of broken glass and other assorted junk in a semi rhythmic fashion. I'm not willing to bet any organs on it, but I think there's some type of sequencing or looping going on here, if only a bit. Could be wrong. Regardless, it serves as a perfect introduction for the onslaught that comes after it.

 

The track "Albino" is the culprit behind that previously mentioned slaughter, with it's a total , full on harsh noise assault that just keeps kicking you in the face with hypnotic high end , administering a shock to your system, making you bleed happily all over your new shoes. This sucker doesn't waste any time, undulating and shifting rapidly from one thing to the next. Rhythmic squeals clash with effected pitch shift sounds, rhythmic noises and more chaos ensues. Definitely one of the best tracks here.

 

Track number three, "Tee", starts off as somewhat of an delay noise track then quickly progresses into an amorphous storm of ring mod type noise, gritty sinewaves spitting and vomiting at every turn with the occasional reverberated low end assault coming in and out to lick up the mess. I love the spastic nature of it, and the contrast of some of the sounds. Really solid track.

 

The next track, "Ipoo", consists entirely of violin. But this isn't violin played in the traditional sense, no kiddies, this violin is being scratched and tortured, the sounds that flow from it at times resembling what I imagine a horse would sound like being sodomized; lots of squelches and scratching, with some mutated traditional playing occasionally. Really cool track. The only downer here is that I get a heavy yearning for some delay or whatnot to be put on the violin after awhile, I think it would've spiced the track up a bit. But as it is it's pretty cool.

 

Assailant number 5, "Eptnet", begins like a more distorted and feedback heavy version of "Kill!", slowly shifting into harsher territory, dabbling with all sorts of delay noise on the way. The structure on this one is really cool, the way that it kind of lays in middle ground for a bit and then assaults you with some really spastic noise and then goes back to where it left off.

This can be really annoying in the wrong hands, but here its really cool.

 

"Rude", the 6th track, starts off as what I believe is a wind instrument but may be violin again. The instrument begins dry but soon develops a trail of really nice delay, and then totally changes and fucking goes insane. All race of the instrument is lost and You find yourself in a storm of jagged and contorted noise, shifting and morphing, ripping at itself like the guy in the asylum in Hellraiser 2. And then it goes back to the instrument, then back to the noise. then it stops. Really fucking good.

 

"Olive" begins as a bunch of growling low end hiss with delay warping and then slowly sheds its skin a little bit to show a distorted symphonic piece. But unlike some of Aaron's other pieces that manipulate symphonies, the noise over powers it, making it just an underlining element in the over all composition. Good track, but one of the lower points on the disc for me.

 

The last track, "X-mop", is a semi slow groove of low end ring mod drones and high end noises that I associate as coming from a guitar. May be wrong, but the drones here sound like a down tuned low e string to me. Being as Aaron is a guitarist, I see it as a possibility. Anyways, this serves as a perfect ending to an overall kickass disc.

 

Aaron Quinn is the shit, and Seafoam Green is just another reminder of this fact. Go buy this album now.

 

 

 

Royce Icon, regarding Aaron Quinn “Too Cool For School Vol.2” CDR, early 2004. http://industrial.org/releases.php?t=7902

 

     This is the second and last volume in the Too Cool For School series by the ever productive Cincinnati sound rapist Aaron Quinn. Whereas the first volume was a solid blast of old school pedal noise, this disc is mostly software generated and gives the listener somewhat of a larger audio palate to choose from. Of the 11 tracks here, 7 are fully evolved pieces and 4 of them are billed as 'intermissions', which mostly consist of various samples (some from pornos, some from misc. films, I think one is from the you don't know jack computer game) being manipulated or played against minimal noise tweakings. If this were done by the wrong hands it could easily become an idiotic heavy handed concept album, but Aaron takes no such route and instead the intermissions actually add another level of depth to the disc.

 

As far as the full length songs go, this plate has more than enough nutritional variety to keep your body happy. Violent harsh noises are contrasted by soothing classical music compositions, glitchy bleeps and blips bleed into filthy gabber beats, tape deck conversations accompany angry sine waves, all of which are executed with a large amount of impressive ardor. My favorite tracks here are 'codetta' (track 3, the best noise track here, very fast paced, shifts between harsh noise outbursts and speedcore bass drills) and the last intermission (track 8, painfully beautiful strings with contrasting energetic rubber ball beats and tinkering synth mod noise), but I'm rather friendly with all the other tracks as well.

 

If I had to choose between someone stealing Vol.1 and Vol.2, I would rather loose the first one, because while it's a great cd, Vol.2's addictive goodness has etched itself deeper into my beat-less heart than its predecessor.

 

 

 

Royce Icon, regarding Aaron Quinn “Too Cool For School Vol.1” CDR, early 2004. http://industrial.org/releases.php?t=7833

 

     Aaron Quinn has been destroying various parts of ohio and areas abroad for a couple years now, both as a member of the amazing gabber punk noise band Realicide, and with his own solo shows. But this disc, the first in a series of two, is his first proper release.

 

The first track, Nugget, is a very energetic noise piece with plenty of frantic, brain shattering movement to keep you occupied. It starts with some rhythmic low end hiss, flirts with some midrange squealing, then launches into full attack with high pitched explosions that kill you and bring you back from the dead all at once. I'm not 100% sure as of the source of the noise on this track, but I suspect a digidelay pedal is being used for some of the high octave sounds.

 

P.B. on the Prowl, the second track, enters with what sounds like someone talking on the radio, then it launches into a land mine of rapid hiss with what I'm pretty sure is a distorted violin in the background. The violin comes on and off for a bit, remaining in the background, teasing you, until it starts screaming, a high-pitched siren from hell for the remaining 60 seconds. The build up of the violin is so intense at the last 10 seconds, when it abruptly ends, you'll almost cream your pants, it's that good.

 

The third track is a manipulation of a violin piece written by Paul Hindemith, titled sonate G-moll Fur Violine Allein op.11, Movement 2. The track mainly consists of the original put through distortion, though it's manipulated enough it doesn't get boring. At times the added distortion overpowers the original piece, shifting and morphing it, but it stays mostly constant throughout.

 

Track 4, Oats and Honey, starts off with the last couple seconds of track 3 and starts to build itself into a very rapid if slightly restrained rhythmic feedback onslaught. The feedback and other distortion keep moving and fighting, beating the shit out of each other until about three minutes and 20 seconds into it someone hits the floor and all turns into minimal feedback drone, which begins to slowly grow and shift until it ends, the sound pitch shifted into oblivion. Like the song before it, the last 30 seconds of the track serve as the beginning of the next track, Pink Pants.

 

Pink Pants begins with loud rumbling hiss, more active noises slowly moving in and out until it just cant take it anymore and starts to scream like someone set it's ass on fire. The climax of the song is early on however, and though the remaining three minutes are good, and the ending feedback is great, you cant help but feel a bit cheated.

 

The sixth and final offering (not to mention the track with the coolest name), Animated Life in Xeroxes, is probably the most overall rhythmic of the six songs on the disc. The track is centered around a fast moving static noise that is moving in a 1,2,3,4,5,6 rhythm, even when it turns into pure feedback it keeps a similar rhythm, which is really fucking cool. The pattern changes into more of a 1,2, then builds into more of a chaoticly beautiful mess, turns to a rhythm of 1,2,3, then eventually fades to nothing. Though my description of the rhythms are very asinine and inept, they are really very cool, and make this one of the best tracks on the album.

 

Conclusion: Too cool for school vol.1 is a really good harsh noise disc that will chop off your head and make you smile while its doing it, and at two dollars, you really have no reason not to be decapitated. Stay tuned for a review of Vol. 2.

 

 

 

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