Hagbard Celine � FreeCore, the history Cassette
Isomer � The lotus eaters Cassette
Contact: SMELL THE STENCH c/o Leigh Julian, 2 Clematis Court, Meadow Heights, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 3048
He gives me noise tapes. No glimpse of a fullery (Japanese spelling) uniformed �Chinese schoolgirl stood at the top of the stairs� watching some (Biffy Clyro??) in-store band acoustic set in a Scottish Borders for me, oh no. Instead, I get 3 noise tapes to review. OK, this some-would-say-sad mini wank-fantasy doesn�t quite make much sense here in the real world (and, let�s face it, what DOES??) but it has served to kick-start my herewith evaluation of around 3 billionths of the noise genre which, as Sniper Glue�s �noise correspondent� (god help me) and at the risk of repeating myself yet again, I�ve just about had it up to here with! Gripes and Loli-splatting out of the way now, I bravely focus on the task at hand, that is 3 nasty looking tapes from Australia�s Smell The Stench label. Poo�
Starting with Apes2Men vs RWW, for no other reason than the fact it begins with �A�, this poor old sod (=me) is faced with yet another shitty cut�n�paste p.copied cover, not unlike the thousands I�ve seen already and, I�ll put my dickie on it, the even more thousands I�m gonna be faced with before the bastard game is up. Think �Fiend� label, those of you in-the-know, and you�ll get the picture. Unfortunately. And yes, it�s noise alright�hissing, pissing, discharging static, demented buzzing, wanky warbling, squelchy sqeeking�one runs out of descriptions having used them all before in reviews of, it could easily be, the same �artists�. There�s a similar problem with the titles, I�VE seen it ALL before but, for those of you lucky cunts who missed out, try �eschewing Roland corp we flail at our damp cardboard boxes�. Oh ho! THAT was a funny one! Really fuckin� wacky! Ain�t it wacky?! Or �the 5000 rectal polyps of Dr T�. Give me a fucking break maan!! Now THERE�S a track title for ya. It wouldn�t be so fucking tedious if the music was any good, but it ISN�T!! I�m very soddy Apes2Men vs RWW but if you really want to �VS� someone, why not VS Kelly fucking Osbourne (who, I heard, got well bottled at the millenium dome last week! Great!!) and the likes, rather than churn out this incestuous and becoming more and more pointless and retarded as the looooooog years go by, blandness. Noise should have topped itself at the turn of the century. Why? Because no one has got anything NEW to offer, that�s why. Alright, to be totally fair there are a number of more dreamy. Ambient, droney �experimental� pieces on here but nowhere near enough out of the mire to stop me sending this cassette back to my editor for a good old taping over. TAPING over, I said.
Nah, alright, I lied�it�s the best fuckin� thing I ever heard in my entire life!
Let�s try Hagbard Celine�s �FreeCore, the history�. Another cruddy sleeve artwork which COULD have been good if it were printed clearer, being some depiction of a pyramid with an eye, sprouting hands clenching guns. What a waste of what looks like an impressive image. Scanning down the track titles; �this is freecore pt. 666�1�, �there is no law, except:�there is no law!��, �for some this little piece of shit is enough� (it WAS!), and �think about your live (sic) or we will squeeze the trigger!� My fave is (for a TITLE I mean, not as a piece of music) �we have toasted your brain, right???� Hmmm, actually that doesn�t sound anywhere near as smirksome as it did whilst scrawling out the first draft of this here critique and therefore makes the point quite plain as to what we�re dealing with, but, I�ll carry on as I planned, so�Looks like this MAY be good, start the tape rolling and�OH DEAR!! Well, the optimism was exciting whilst it lasted. You know, I WANT the stuff I review to be good. More than good, I want it to be wonderful, superb, excellent and �worthy of a fuck�, right? But all I�ve got here is the talentless, directionless buzzing thud thud thud and ting ting ting of a cyberman (he with the �toasted brain� probably) on a drum machine! The sneeking-in of a 15th rate gothy keyboard and a bubbling diarrhoeic electronic arse hole will nay save the day, Leigh. The last track is rather too conveniently entitled �you are shit! but it wasn�t told you yet!!!� Talk about asking for it. So, I suppose it�s down to me to have to tell it� Hagbard Celine, YOU ARE SHIT!!! You gotta be cruel to be kind, in the right measure, BAAYY-BEE, you gotta be cruuuelll t�bee KYYNNDDD!! Oh, and fuck off by the way. There, it is told.
Just why these people can�t simply jerk off to videos of 13 year-old soap opera �stars� like the rest of us whilst bored in their bedrooms�frame-by-frame or one-tenth speed and thus climaxing at thee moment of favoured facial expression or clothes-fold mania�rather than churn out this vacuous dross is completely beyond me. Maybe they don�t have a sex drive. Or don�t know how to mastabate. Or something. Anything. Someone?
Devilcake are the Sex Pistols compared to this.
Onto the third and last tape now, Isomer�s �the lotus eaters� has a decent minimal cover that at least LENDS itself to steam-driven photocopy machines; a top left side framed quarter of an oriental face but, by now, I�m not clinging onto much hope of it being any good. Do you blame me? Title example time��baby fuck me please�, �package deal option�, �call to arms��could it be a�a�a concept album? A sampled speech from some grizzley old sounding git gives way to a slowly evolving cacophony of a hundred whispering voices carried along on a hellfire wind, the �dispossessed� I would presume. Pulsating hums, distant rhythmic clicks and rattles, like mercury dancing, one gets the impression they are being immersed in and becoming a part of an HR Giger painting. It�s true!! This is accomplished material!
Gentle industrial machinations and japanese language cut-ups induce a lethargic and seductive dream-like quality. It�s all a far, far cry from those other two puddles of last night�s puked-up �bud� that I�ve only too recently had the discomfort to sit in. Ee-yuk. The title track is amazing, an eerie, atmospheric and sinister piece, very quiet, very simple, a buried voice here, a ghastly creak there, all carried along on a black river which at times seethes, at times moans but mostly isn�t there at all�a triumph! This is what it�s all about! This is how it should be done!
Gradual build-up and imperceptible maturation are the name of the game with �compressed formula� sounding like the workings of my stomach after boil-in-the-bag kippers & garlic bread�only I�m now too respectful of Isomer to even suggest that. Quick, I�ll give you the contact before I forget; [email protected]. �Technology� gives a hint at influences, Esplendor Geometrico, old Maurizio Bianchi�ohhh, I�m orgasming as I write!! Stunning! It�s 1983 all over again!! Don�t know what happened to the missing last track, maybe I fucked-up along the way but, no matter, Isomer get full marks from bastard jaded old me and I cannot recommend this cassette enough. At last, a diamond on a pebble beach. Isn�t this tape deserving of a �proper� release now? A �real� CD or a slab of, I�ve gone all gooey, EXOTIC vinyl?!
Funny, I feel all different now to when I first started this review. I feel all �humble� like. Smell The Stench don�t stink as much as the first two tapes would have had me believe but it does press the question; what�s a nice chap like Leigh Julian doing putting out shite like Apes2Men and the unforgivable Hagbard Celine when he�s got truly gifted musicians under the guise of Isomer to push? Fuck knows. Maybe he feels sorry for lowly cunts? Or has a Florence Nightingale impulse toward pathetic fuckers with too much electronic equipment but no inkling as to what to do with it? Or, worse still, maybe he himself has got absolutely no taste at all and therefore cannot tell them apart from each other??
And did you know, Glastonbury is a registered Trade Mark!?!? Buttered & battered bollocks on Matt Algie�s caramelised Belgium fucking biscuit snaps! Get yer baseball caps off, get yer sign-of-the-devil-salute fingers in action, wankers in session!!
I�ve done my job. Goodbye�A AND M!!!
(By Gary Simmons, June 2003)