Reviews

HOMF002 - Gorgonized Dorks/Sarlacc "Grind wars" split c32:

The Noise Corner:
I took this because I was extremely curious about Sarlacc, and Gorgonized Dorks is a synonym for great noisecore.
Gorgonized Dorks, for those who still doesn't know them, is an experimental/noisecore duo from California. They're challenging SMG and Disleksick on the competition "Highest album per month average". On this one, there's a 15 minutes untitled track recorded in February '09. The sound of this track is filthy and there's a "cosmic explosion" sounding feedback on the background of the uncountable number of noisecore songs, with savage vocals and a good dose of fuzzy dirt. It has as well some more experimental parts with clean low-pitched vocals talking some Tatooine slang and keyboards too. Drum tempos varies from the classic noisecore blasts to some slower ones, like the drums accompanying the low pitched talking nonsense. This track surely doesn't lack of distortion and feedback, so you noise lover will love this side. As always (at least on the releases I heard) Gorgonized Dorks prove to be one of the best acts around, speaking of noisecore.
On the other side of the tape there's Sarlacc, a couple of Star War nerds hailing from Pittsburgh. 7 songs including a long intro for a fast, heavy and without bass version of Star Wars themed grind, including samples from various movies. The massive use of slower sludge-ish parts (a perfect example is the third track "Applied Human Carbon Freezing") continuously combined with faster ones, and harsh as fuck screams and growls describing how bad is pissing off Wookies when playing chess, makes this side really enjoyable and good. They have a raw sound, partly due to the quality of the recording, but the lacks of a bass player is noticeable, especially in slower parts, but they manage to sound heavy anyway. "Dune Sea Destruction Attack" is the best track, with a thrashing metal riff that makes Deathcore bands shit in their pants.
Fun drawings as artwork and inlay (on the GD's inlay there's a C1P8 holding a ghetto blaster).
Worth buying split tape if you ask me. I think it's sold out, but try to ask anyway.

HOMF005 - TxQxB "Spontaneousdeath!" c10:

Stapesaw zine:
While a lot bands in the genre tend to get lost in themselves and/or end up a tad messier than intended, Norwegians TxQxB have a sense of eeriness about them that lends a different sense of artistic merit to the racket they make.
Now the last thing an anti-music soldier in a noisecore band wants to hear is “artistic merit.” But rather than just non-stop noise, TxQxB lay off every so often, and play around with texture and atonality more creatively than most, covering noise in more aspects than just harshness. The subtle, minimal, atonal bass lines lend a creepiness to the sound that blends well into the flowing in-and-out of guitar noise, tortured vocals and harshly-produced drums.
So while they may not really want to hear an artistic critique of their work, “Spontaneousdeath!” is a far more interesting approach to noisecore, something you can appreciate creatively as well how evil and harsh it is.
Rating: 8/10

BlogFuck Zine (Norway):
"TQB have created an opus out of practically nothing but their own
sadistic treatment of resonating objects and a fair share of hellish
howls like the agonised, gurgling screams of some sorry ass soldier
being ripped to shreds by machine gun crossfire somewhere in a foreign,
merciless desert. The thematic structure, insofar as there is one, is such that any
attempt towards - or relapse into - familiar patterns of shred, level
rhythm or sustained tonal frequency is pounded, smashed and annihilated
by the recurring artillery of standing bass waves, white guitar noise
and the erratic drumming waves that probably were played by a gorilla
and/or orangutan. We have no problem recommending this sweet piece of
pain to listeners of all calibers."

Holidays Reviews:
As of recent, I’ve noticed a lot more noisecore discussion floating around the internet. At the moment, it all seems rather murky to me in regards to where exactly it came from, and where it stands today- all I know is that for the most part, the sounds I’ve been hearing as of recent have been pretty appealing, and Spontaneous Death resonates in my brain as a great entry into the genre.
Spontaneous Death is a quick tape from Norway, spanning just 10 minutes of blasting guitars, fast drums and feedbacking microphones that spans over the course of a few different genres to create the overall “noisecore” sound. All instruments sound blown to bits as if each were turned up as loud as possible, creating a recorded cacophony that I can’t help but call anything short of wonderful . Throughout the course the the tape, the sounds range from grinding rhythms, to completely spazzed out noise/chaos/confusion that ends all too quickly.
It’s an awful shame this tape is so short, but it’ll certainly keep your ready for more. Being pro-dubbed with some bright and decent artwork, it’s a wonderful presentation of the music within by Hair on my Food, I can’t help but recommend this to all fans of extreme/chaotic music.

GERÄUSCHKRIEG!:
TxQxBx reminds me a lot of the American noisecore scene circa early 2000's. With the speed record having long been broken in the 90's by everyone from Deche-Charge to ops-psf, the emphasis shifted from being the fastest to sounding the harshest. Soaking everything in feedback was the reason for the season and what little song structure existed in noisecore was entirely forsaken for chaotic improvisation. Honestly, it's not a style of noisecore I'm into, but TxQxBx manage to play it skillfully, if you can fathom feedback being played skillfully. If you like it loud and sloppy, you need to get your grubby hands on SPONTANEOUSDEATH!.

Sore Throat, Nausea & Headache Blog:
And now…NOISECORE! Eehehhe. Don’t get me wrong, I love to experiment and listen and talk about stuff that is not usual in my listenings, but talking about what I love most is a bliss. TxQxBx is a trio + a session guitar player hailing from Stavanger, Norway which delivers a gruesome and harsh noisecore holocaust. First of all, a tape that starts with a quote from Pink Flamingos states from the beginning a high level of awesomeness and Spontaneous Death fits perfectly in that level. The first thing that sticks out is the high level of reverb thrown in the mix, with guitars and vocals that overwhelms almost everything in a echo-filled noise. The compositions seems improvised and the huge fun factor that flows out of them reminds me a lot of the most messy stuff by Deche-Charge. TxQxBx are often slowing down, creating a noise wall from dissonance and feedbacks, but they give the best performances when they go apeshit and start a full throttle mind blowing assault. Only nine minutes but FUCK, they’re intense and awafully insane. The muffles sound, the reverb, the feedbacks, the improvisation factor, the “let’s push the record button and destroy everything in visual range” attitude. Wow. Buy this shit!

Kittycock Webzine:
Desde el sello Hair On My food(ñam!)recibo esta aberración de feedback, voces guturales y demases en sonido monofónico. Como algunos pueden adivinar por las "x" presentes en el nombre de la banda, esto tiene que ver con algo terminado en "core", y así es, aquí tenemos una descarga de casi 10 min de noisecore, que debo decir, sin ser el mayor fan del género (no por pussy, si no mas bien porque en gral. hay muchas bandas que al final me aburren) me dejan un buen gusto de boca, y me hace escucharlo mas de una vez al hilo. Esta realización que viene originalmente en un tape de 10 min es la verdadera pesadilla de un sonidista tradicional, voz distorsionada, gutural, mas aguda que grave, y para ser sincero no me aventuro a decir que instrumentos están involucrados, solo se que hay presente una batería y una voz(y según la info, bajo y guitarra, pero no me pregunten sobre el desempeño técnico o sonido de ambos instrumentos por separado, esto es una verdadera comunión de sonido cuya única intención es atacarte). Machaque sonico sin misericordia, solo me hacen pensar que en vivo deben ser la patá misma, si eres un fan del grindcore y estás empezando a encontrarlo un poco marconcito, te recomiendo altamente que le pegues una escuchada a TxQxBx, saturación, violencia, acoples... ¿que mas necesita uno?
A.R.

HOMF006 - TORBA / DOTÅBÅTÅ split c31:

Sore Throat, Nausea & Headache Blog:
Torba is a German-emigrated Italian which deals with a cool mixture of drone, noise, ambient. This side features four songs, one being a remix, which switch between droning and quite evocative parts to pure noise sections. The droning parts are quite ethereal, even in their distorted way, and reminded me a lot of early Sunn O))) (Flight Of The Behemoth). When things start getting harsher Torba starts to sound similar to Bastard Noise, with strong digital noises that clamp the structure of the songs parasites. They’re not so harsh and add a disturbing feeling to the analogue parts. The third track, Arduino, (which is, by the way, a surname really common in my hometown ahahah) deals with HNW aspects, torturing your earpads with a strong and hard square waves loop. The last song, #6 (Extreme Noise Remix) is a white noise filled black/drone track, sounding like the ItTookTheNightToBelieve Sunn O))) jammed with the InUmbraMalitiaeAmbulabo,InAeternumInTriumphoTenebrarum Abrutum. Nice stuff.
…….
Influences : Dirt, fire & rain. I think this is one of the fittest describtion I’ve ever found about a band. Dotåbåtå is an Aussie one mand band which deals with a really cool mix of drone, ambient and harsh noise. Carey Knight describes himself also as black metal and I think it’s not wrong, feeling-wise. This long track (about 15 minutes long) is created by melting two recording session and it’s very cool in its way of changing mood. It starts with a great bass droning section, coupled with noises and harsh burstes. Evrything outside the bass notes is liek whispered, it doesn’t overwhelm the analogue chords and fits perfectly in a disturbing way of music concepts. Music-wise it reminds me a lot something like Black Boned Angel or EGB, just darker. Little by little the noise increases, just to explode around the sixth minute in an orgy of chaos waves and distortion. The disturbing feeling is greater now, with the bass guitar that drones in the background, just to come back to his magnificent dilated arpeggios at the end of the song. It’s really cool how the compositions starts in a creepy and humble way, climax in noise at the middle and then turns out in its intimate droning end. Really cool band and really cool song. They’ve made a lot of releases and it should be your, and mine, objective to pursue some of them!

GERÄUSCHKRIEG!:
Groups that attempt to blend drone and noise generally fail miserably, resulting in what sounds like harsh noise played at ½ speed. This is not the case with this cassette. TORBA starts things off with four tracks of drone that shifts between raw and hypnotic. Dotåbåtå fills the flip side with a single track that starts out as haunting, minimalist drone and evolves into a rumbling wave of sound before fading away. Take a note, this is how you do the drone noise thing right.

Kittycock Webzine:
Mas pelo en nuestra comida en formato cassette. Este "teip" es un split entre los proyectos Torba (Alemania) y Dotåbåtå (Australia) quienes se reparten esta cinta tomando un lado cada uno. Gruesa distorsión acompañada de sonidos etéreos es lo que prima en el trabajo de Torba, que podríamos clasificarlo dentro del drone/noise. Delicadas texturas de sintetizador junto a corrosivas texturas de distorsión (a veces digital, otras veces me suena mas análoga pero habría que preguntar directamente al creador/es que fue usado en la grabación). Oscilaciones sonoras que se podrían considerar poco amigables al oído me producen una gran agrado y sentimiento de relajación con el pasar de los tracks, terminando en el track "#6 extreme noise remix" que justamente NO le hace honor a su nombre porque se trata de un composición bastante atmosférica y drone . El lado B consiste de 1 solo track de 15 min del proyecto Dotåbåtå, esto ya es definitivamente drone, pero ojo, no confundir con el drone mas conocido por los amantes del metal y el doom, estilo cultivado por aquella banda de encapuchados que todos conocemos. Vibraciones oscilantes, ocasionales acoples (no de muy alto octanaje), para luego introducirnos a momentos de muy cálida distorsión, es inclemente, si, pero bellamente hace que tu mente se evada y se sumerja en el sonido, incluso me recordó a momentos a lo que logra el HNW(harsh noise walls), ese sonido recargado pero a la vez muy agradable(en el sentido mas común que se usa esta palabra), es como si el track se dividiera en 2 movimientos...la distorción lentamente acaba en un fade out para dar lugar a sonidos como los que escuchábamos al principio. Definitivamente vale la pena chequear estos proyecto, si te gusta el ambient, drone y el ruido,claro, pero creo que quienes no son muy tolerantes al ruido pueden disfrutarlo o al menos empezar a meterse en estilos mas agresivos con el tímpano.
A.R. .-

Memory Wave Transmission:
The relatively new harsh noise/drone artist Torba leads off this split cassette with four shorter tracks. The first, “Anemia Modulaire,” begins with crumbling static walls that vibrate and shift until a lilting high-pitched tone makes its way into the midst of the noise, providing a bit of melodic anchorage in the haze. Then the track slips into a bit of a harsher noise bent, building those crumbling walls of static while the drone of buzzing electronics and that sustained high-end chord continue on undisturbed in the background, creating a sort of oasis within the noise as the storm rages on until the electronics finally dissipate and allow that peaceful drone to end the short track.
“My Guitar Want to Kiss Your Mama” follows a similar pattern, starting with some hiss and static while sounds rumble into the forefront. There are times when Torba sounds almost like a HNW act, although the whirrs of sound rarely become static. Instead, the track loops, locking into a groove while other buffets of noise blast against the sound orchestrated from the opening of the track. Toward the end, we get a distantly screeching tone that completes the ensemble.
“Arduino” takes its cue from drone and harsh noise wall again, and like “Anemia Modulaire,” begins with a looping, peaceful chord that rises and falls in pitch until some snowy walls of bass rumbling break the calm. As the track progresses, Torba layers walls of crunch until that first melody is drowned out by thicker cacophonous walls, and then slowly breaks it down to its original component. Showing more attention to detail and volume than “Anemia Modulaire,” this is my favorite track off of Torba’s side.
And finally, “#6 (Extreme Noise Remix)” kicks in with what I’d describe as a noisier sunn o))), providing black and bleak guitar drones that are drenched in noisy static. This is a great track for those who take their drone with a side of black metal, and being a fan of that side of the genre as well, I think that sticking this on the end of Torba’s side of the split showcases an extension of his abilities as an artist.
Dotåbåtå delivers one lengthy track on his side of the split, entitled “Rusted Nails Driven Into Dead Wood.” With that piece of dark imagery already in the mind, it’s no surprise that the track opens with a very bleak drone of guitar chords and distant electronic buzzing. It stays in that mindset for a few minutes, until a screeching begins to claw its way into the mix. The darkness of the drone continues, staying around the same type of sound while also broadening its scope to include new chords and electrical whining that carry the listener through the track. Towards the halfway mark, Dotåbåtå switches over from guitar drones to more electronic walls, encompassing the listener with a barrage of harsh noise that carries over similar themes from the Torba side of the tape.
This split is definitely for those fans of drone who like their tracks infused with some harsher noise, and the tape should even appeal to those who have a fling for harsh noise walls. Both Torba and Dotåbåtå bring enveloping drones into the mix while also infusing each track with a great deal of harsh electronic manipulation, and it results in an exhilarating combination of melody and chaos.

Musique Machine:
Hair on my food tapes brings us a split between italian harsh drone artist Torba from Germany and Australian noise/drone artist Dotåbåtå attractively packaged in a silver on black printed cardstock.
The opening track on Torba's side "Anemia Modulare" fades in with a harsh buzzing and swirling texture of harsh droning sound and a background layer of delicate ambience. The way the track plays out is a build up starting with the noise at the beggining leading to an abrupt clarity of the ambience which appeared subtly at the beggining of the track and ends shortly after.
Following up is "My guitar wants to kiss your momma", a combination of crunchy bass wall and vacuum like droning that gets heavier as the track progresses and intensifies its texture to cyclone style patterns. The build up was very interesting, but I am highly confused at this point because the track seemed to end more abruptly than the last. Assuming this is not a defect on behalf of the dub or the master the track lead somewhere attractive and I would've liked to hear an extension of where it was going.
The next track "Arduino" opens up with a bell tone chiming sound that goes straight into choppy sputtering noise. The build up takes this track into a louder and more crunch driven texture as it develops into an intensified wall of noise with swirling textures behind it. The crunch becomes deeper and mortar like with textures of grinding rust and a parasitic lock of hollow air latches beneath the crumbling static. To close out the Torba side is a final track of heavy blackened drone entitled "#6 extreme noise remix". The use of heavy gloom laden guitar drone constructs ultimately meditative ambience and invokes dark patterns of industrial synth tones. Overall all tracks play through with little repition of textures and vary in structure but maintain a serious tone throughout. Though I'm not sure if it was just my copies of this tape, but at times there were moments when a completely irrecognizable sound would loudly pierce through.
Dotabata begins his side long track"rusted nails driven into dead wood" like a stage set with black droning matter and eventually reaches a point where a few riffs from a bass guitar overlap the drones before shifting into a blossoming wall of noise. The track carries out no longer in a very dark manner, and the atmosphere is seemingly relient on heaviness over actual atmospheric effect at this point. The wall is slow moving and crunchy with a muffled quality, but builds on that same texture as it closes out with a drop in volume until completely fading out. There was not much
to say about this side as it truly just built up and left, but the noise wall very well could've stood on its own without the preceeding ambient introduction.


HOMF007: THE BLACKMOOR STRANGLER "The Mark of M" c80:

Sore Throat, Nausea & Headache Blog:
I’m not much into harsh noise. It’s a kind of “music” that lures me, but I still miss my good ol’ instruments when I listen to most of it. Anyway, I find it really fascinating and I like to spend some of time listening to a lot of good artists within the genre, like Hal Hutchinson, Richard Ramirez, Masonna, Takeshi Okawa, Maurizio Bianchi and so on. Dwelling in the noisecore area, I’ve encountered a lot of noise bands that sometimes go apeshit and record harsh stuff, like Gorgonized Dorks or Disleksick, so I can say that I’m not a total outcomer to harsh noise music. Anyway, wall was something I’ve never dealt so much. Being a huge listener of drone music I think I wouldn’t have problems in dealing with HNW, since I’ve always thought of it as harsh noise thrown in a drone way of composing. The Blackmoor Strangler is a musician ensamble hailing from Texas; they’ve made a bunch of releases prior to this, three tapes for being more precisely, called Choke Or Slit, Murder At Dawn and Knife Fucked, but this is the first one I’ve ever listened from them. They deliver two tracks of HNW, one called Dinner Party Murders, the other The Mark Of M. I’ve said just above that this band is formed by an ensamble of musicians and the website says that different musician were involved during the history of the project, but talking about this release, the artists performing are Richard Ramirez, Geoff Markoff and Rachel Rasmussen. Not bad at all, isn’t it? Each track lasts for 38:50 minutes, circa and, as expected from this kind of music, features little changes in structure. On the A side we have a monotonic distorted white noise track, which is a little bit sneaky, not so harsh at all. It creeps in your ears, working underneath your consciouness level and it slips away very easily. I’ve found very interesting listening to an HNW track that flows like water and it doesn’t pinches your ears like a spider pinches your skin when trapped under the t-shirt! Very fun, indeed. On the flipside we have the title track, The Mark Of M, and things start getting harshier. White noise morphs in an endless sequence of square waves, with an electronic sound put in infinte loop, just for added annoying factor. From the half of the song a low and disturbing drone kicks in, creating a cool anxyety feeling. The aesthetic of The Blackmoore Strangler is really cool, all dealing with the almost eponymous movie from teh sixties and recreating the creepy black & white feeling of that flick. In the end, a very nice release that can be liked also by those who don’t dig HNW so much. The musicians involved and the fact that each tape is handpainted add value to this fine piece of plastic.

Kittycock Webzine:
Vaya, vaya... nada menos que el señor Richard Ramírez (Werewolf Jerusalem, Black Leather Jesus, etc) está involucrado en ese proyecto junto a Geoff Markoff y Rachel Rasmussen (no me pregunten quienes son ellos, probablemente sean reconocidos noisistas y yo soy el tarado que no los identifica). Ahora si entramos en materia! y cuando digo MATERIA es con mayúsculas y en negrita.Estamos ante 80 minutos de HNW, sin descanso alguno, cosa que todo fan del genero está acostumbrado a experimentar. El lado A "Dinner Party Murders" es un estático muro de crujiente y agradablemente ecualizada distorsión, ninguna frecuencia está sobre el tope, puedes sentir tus parlantes o audífonos llenos de frecuencias en forma equitativa.
En el lado B la cosa cambia, empezamos con delicados (y extraños) sonidos bajo irritante estática, esto se mantiene hasta los 18 min aproximadamente donde los sonidos extraños que me recuerdan a un modem antiguo, mutan a un sonido mas profundo que da la sensación de estar inmerso en una alcantarilla o recorriendo algún tipo de conducto subterráneo, este track da título al tape. Sin duda la mitad de este cassette se sale un poco de la norma del HNW, una buena combinación.
A.R. .-

Musique Machine:
“The Mark of M” is a c80 tape which offers up two forty minute slices of brutal & mostly unmoving HNW that’s themed around black and white horror movies of the 1940’s, 50’s & 60’s. The Blackmoor Strangler is one of the less prolific projects that texas Noise supremo Richard Ramirez is involved with( a few of the projects he’s connected with are: Werewolf Jerusalem, Black Leather Jesus, Fouke, Vice Wears Black Hose, An Innocent Young Throat-Cutter). Also in the project is Geoff Markoff(S.S. Electronics, Viking Movement, Wasp Honeymoon) and Rachel Rasmussen.
The blue tape with pink tippex like dabbing's comes in a pink card sleeve that features on it's front cover a still from a 1950’s horror film of a severed male head with the letter M branded on it . Inside the sleeve there’s a black and white creepy picture of what looks like houses of Commons & Big Ben in London taken around midnight- all of this nicely sets the mood for the dark and brutal wall pummelling’s you find inside.
On the first side of tape we have “Dinner Party Murders” which after a second or so of sustained high pitched noise jumps into mid-paced rolling slice of walled noise that’s built around patterns of thick ‘n’ murky rumbling static judders, which interlock into each other in a pleasingly enchasing and moorish manner. The track really stays on this same muffled ’n’ rumbling path for the first half of it’s run time, and sure some tones seem to shift slightly but mostly it’s fixed in its attack.
At around the twenty minute mark it seems to speed up slightly, becoming more urgent, and slightly more battering/buffeting in it’s feel- which nicely adds a bit of tension to the ‘wall’. The track brings to mind walking fog shrouded city streets, and been stalked through these streets by a limping and clocked figure with a sword stick ready to strike. With the latter part of the track bringing to mind been cornered by the killer. The track also seems to capture nicely that melancholic feel of black & white horror movies of the 1940’s & 50’s where the streets seemed people-less and deeply sinister.
Over onto the second side and we have the title track, which after another brief high pitched tone dwell drops into a more open sounding mesh of static juddering tones that are underfed by distant high pitch sustains and lighter bashing static subtones. The juddering static patterns nicely circle back into each other in an appealing and slightly blurry manner. Once again this track is fairly stayed and unmoving in its feel for it ‘s first half, though there are slight shifts in the judders pitchers and movements. At around the twenty minute mark a billowing & looped slighty 50’s sci-fi drone is added to the track, and the judders also seem to speed & tighten-up too, bringing more tension to the track. For some reason this track seems to bring to mind a movie scene that you’d often see popping up in 1950’s horror movies where you'd find a sinister eastern european man trying to hypnotize his victim in submission .
So all in all two rewarding, hypnotic, moorish and lengthy walls from this lessen know of Richard Ramirez projects. This has a run of 55 copies so hopefully more will get a chance to pick this up.

HOMF008 - SMOKE "Haze" c47:

Sore Throat, Nausea, & Headache Blog:
Joe sent me also the promo download for the other new releases from Hair On My Food Records. This time is the new tape from Smoke, a cool raw black metal band hailing from Utrecht, Holland. Even if i’ve enjoyed listening to it I’m very ignorant about this genre, so I won’t give an in depth opinion about this tape. All I have to say it’s that Smoke is raw, grim and features a very cool artwork, those who love Black Metal the way it used to be will enjoy this tape!

Damned By Light Blog:
It seems Smoke is still behind schedule with their releases, as even their most recent one features material from the end of '09. Well, they're slowly catching up with time. Smoke is a duo from the Netherlands that explores the dimensions of chaotic and improvised black metal, and this is their third release (the previous one can be read about here). "Haze" was released as a CD-R with fancier layout and a "baggie containing various items," and as a bit simpler tape version with one additional track.

The tape differs from the band's two earlier ones by having a consistent soundscape, aside of minor balance changes between some songs. Aside of this one factor the tape continues from where the previous one left off; crude, violent and improvised black metal with both a dark and hostile feel. The sole guitar sounds even heavier than before, and has a good amount of grain in its sound which helps it fill the soundscape nicely without the band having to resort to a thinner, more hissing soundscape, or heavy use of echo; and through using just one guitar, the soundscape has enough breathing space as well, so it doesn't sound overcrowded. The overall heavier soundscape gives the songs power, not the least through the powerful, primitive and highly energetic drumming, and keeps them from becoming a stale mass of pointless motion.

Even though the songs are improvised, as said above, they have enough variation and changes to stay interesting. Still, I think it's clear that the atmosphere and overall style are the release's selling points instead of any actual compositional or musical talent. The harsh and gritty guitar teams up with the drums in making a dense and powerful soundscape, and the guitar sound has some softer harshness due to the lo-fi recording equipment so it automatically creates some background texture as well. The music would eventually become dull, but the echoed growling and howling vocals lift up their value a lot every time they appear; when the music relies on primitive and simplistic values, not much is needed to make an impact. For example, a brief moment of feedback right before a song's start can make it a lot more powerful.

The songs come of as a collage of shorter and longer "black metal jams" (with some death metal-twist), which vary from mid-tempo to downright slow bits with punk-simplisticity, as well as to some faster and full-speed blasting parts; the songs are mostly fast but the is still no particular emphasis on any of these, as the songs take their uncontrolled trails to any of these as long as it fits their slowly morphing crusade for chaos. The B-side's opening song or two are a bit fumbling, partly due to their just a bit harsher more audible guitar sound (it's just a small change in balance), but otherwise Smoke has got their act together pretty well. There are some unintentionally sloppy chords and short bits here and there, understandibly, but overall the tape stays well on the positive side when it comes to its quality. The atmosphere is kept hostile, instead of just attempting to do so.

The tape might seem a bit lenghty, but lasts surprisingly well for its lenght - at least as a tape version, can't really say anything about the CD-R. The really natural tempo-switches and the songs melting together into one entirety with some interludes, raw calm bits and a continuous unpredictability make this release really enjoyable, although there's still a lot to do when it comes to more innovative and daring guitar riffs and such experimentations; the band now handles the basics, and after still further refining them they should head further. A recommended tape for them who enjoy slowly progressing, hostile soundscapes and rehearsal tapes, and is noteworthy as a demo-stage release. Play loud. The band is in the process of getting their first studio recordings released as a split with ProSatanos, and I'm more than curious for that one.

One final comment. I found out that I had originally been listening to the tape's sides in the wrong order, since the sides aren't named. The A-side ends to an outro-like bit of guitar distortion and noise and opens up with the most straight-forward material, whereas the B-side opens up just a bit slower and ends to an extremely dull cut-out. The tape works well either way, so pick your preference. The drone-bit serves well in cleaning the listener's ears and keeps him/her from getting used to the soundscape in the halfway, and thus is a recommended pick as well. My main point: label your tape's sides if you want it to be listened in the correct order. Otherwise the tape's visual side is commendable.


HOMF009 - RAKUS / EXACERBACIÓN split c14:


Sore Throat, Nausea, & Headache Blog:
It’s a pleasure to hear a new release from Hair On My Food tapes. This time is a split C14 between Exacerbacion and Rakus.
Exacerbacion hails from Costa Rica and delivers ten songs of pissed off old school grindcore. This stuff is very raw and reminds me what SMG are doing these days, so expect a lethal dose of pure unrelenting straight to the point grindcore. The main difference between SMG and Exacerbacion is songwriting, since the Costa Rica greatest rely more on a simple and classic approach, without getting aside from a pretty standard way of thinking about grind. This is not a bad thing itself but tends to create a too much common pattern which is followed by each song. To put it straight, apart some variations, all the ten songs sound the same, with almost equal drum, bass, guitar and vocals lines. Sometimes they change a bit, adding bass “solos” (like in Sociopata and El Odio Non Cesa) or slower breath-taking parts (Autotortura and Vil Occiso II), but they mostly stick to the usual formula. As said above this is not a bad thing but will cut off from listening a lot of virtual new followes. This is a side made only for die hard fans of old school grindcore, who love their meal familiar and without surprises. Anyway this stuff will be loved by old school freaks who think Agathocles sounds too polished ehehehe! I’ve listened to Exacerbacion only on the Too Short To Handle compilation 7″ prior this release, but these ten songs put me in a good mood toward the band, so I want to give a spin to their new split 7″ (their first time on vinyl, besides the compilation appearance) with Psychotic Sufferance. As soon as I have an opinion about that you will read it here! A nice addition to the release is the artwork, made by my long time friend Fibro from The Noise Corner blog, support his works!
I’m not sure where Rakus comes from. On their MySpace is written Malaysian Pakistan, so what the fuck? Reading some of their flyers I can assume they come from Malaysia but I’m still doubtful about it…If someone can help me, please comment! Rakus delivers five songs of political crusty grindcore, not too far from an Extreme Noise Terror influenced session from mid 90′s Agathocles. The production is, obviously, very raw, while each song is played with a very strong punk attitude. Guitar riffing is pretty classic, with the usual dose of pounding chords and head first fast shreds during singed parts. Vocal wise Rakus dwells in the growl area, without big surprirses, just the ultra-classic crusty grunt. There’s a strange vibe about guitars, since they often use open chords, reminding me some weird black metal way of playing (like in P.P.), not too far by the thrashy pioneers of the genre, like Sodom or Bathory. That factor gives a quite strange chilling feeling to these songs, which are, anyway, strongly stuck in the crust/grind environment. The only big flaw about this release is drumming. While it works well during slow and groovy parts, the drummer starts losing beats on fast parts lasting more then a bunch of seconds. This could not be that important, we’re noise lovers, but the mix puts the drums in a very prominent position, so each lost beat is strongly noticed, even while you’re not paying so much attention, and it grows annoying. Rakus has good roots but I think I have to listen some new releases from them…
This tape is quite strange, it’s cool, even with some flaw, but I think it’s mainly for die hard lovers of old school underground grindcore. If you’re one of those, grab it, you’ll spend a bunch of minutes with two enjoyable bands!

Which Way To The Beats Blog:
It's a funny thing, 'cause grindcore will be grindcore. This tape shares two bands with the theme of playing short, fast, noisy and loud tracks via distorted guitars, blast beats and low growls barking angry messages from the speakers. Although Rackus offers a more punk rock approach to the genre, Exacerbación balances it out with a faster, dirtier sound. These are some fine tunes that seem well suited for the aesthetics of a cassette tape release!

HOMF010 - HEDORAH / MARLEE MATLIN split c24

Sore Throat, Nausea, Headache Blog:
Hedorah is a duo hailing from Illinois, USA, and delivers two songs of punishing slow music. The band features Dan on guitars and drum programming and James on pedals and synth while both share vocal duties. Their music has a quite wide range, from drone to a somwhat experimental kind of funeral black. The two songs form a concept, called The Pain Of Life. The first one si more extreme and it focuses more on mammoth riffs that stomps brutally throught the track, with a martial drum pattern and a dissonant and obscure screaming which coems directly from the depths of Telemark. This tune is breath-taking, punishing, asphyxiating. It’s even not too long, which is very good since a song in this style can easily grow boring. The second tune starts in a more melodic way, with an eerie arpeggio that reminds me a lot some classic albums by Earth, then the guitar explodes in an heavy and dissonant drone coupled with the usual screaming. There’s always a somewhat cyclopic feeling to Hedorah’s tune, which gives justice to the bands’ name, with slow, pounding drums and tons of power in the guitars. I think that ten minutes are not enough to judge this kind of bands, but I have to say nonetheless that this two parts that creates The Pain Of Life are surely very good and can provide a good listening to all the droning music fans out there.On the B-Side we can find Marlee Matlin, a four pieces band hailing from the USA. They deliver eleven songs of fast and simple grindcore, with a SHITLOAD of samples. Their music style is quite simple, with straight to the point riffs and linear drums. Maybe TOO simple. Almost every riff and drum pattern have already been heard, making this side grow old really fast. The only two songs which are somewhat interesting are Aquaman, Turtles In Time and the long, instrumental ending called The West Wing. There’s a persistent joke feeling going through this songs, which can be funny for the first two listenings but then grows old and can easily put this recordings in the “forgettable” bin. And that’s a pity, believe me. Their style is quite good and I always like when vocals are somewhat disjointed from the rest of the music, like the Disleksick’s ones on their split with Agathocles. And then there are the samples. A lot of great bands used a lot fo samples (Spazz? Last Days Of Humanity?) but not as much as here and with a stronger songwrting to provide inside one sample and the other. Just to give you an idea, Marlee Matlin puts samples EVERYWHERE, often at the beggining AND at the end of the songs. Boring. I really hope to hear something more from you and change my mind, but for now I’m sorry to say that this side of the tape is a bit weak for me.

HEATHEN HARVEST:
This release from Hair On My Food Tapes is an untitled split featuring a side each of crust/doom/sludge group Hedorah and hearing loss inspired Marlee Matlin. A rather incongruous pairing held together by vision alone. The tape is packaged with excellent xerox abortion collage by musician/artist Carey Knight AKA Dotobatawhose work is well worth checking out. Upon my first listening round of this split I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being harassed. It was a million little things all adding up, an email antonymical to that of a close friend, a gateway to a weird subculture I’ve been teetering on the edges of forever, the ‘hammer’ trigger telepathic-interrogation thing. I got over it, but can still hazily feel how this one could work its way in if I wasn’t on my guard. I very much enjoy and value an album that can elicit a strong empathetic response even an unpleasant one.

Side A is two tracks split over approximately ten minutes by Hedorah. ‘The Pain of Life’ parts one and two are slow cuts of undulating intensity. This recalls to mind a lot of the slower stuff I would hear during a different more metallic and filthy part of my life. Stuff like Dystopia, nineties Neurosis, a little Today Is The Day and newer acts like Bloody Panda or Barn Owl. Deep liquid textures, timbre on the red-to-black end of the spectrum. Gray sludge and radioactive waste panicking alongside the sidewalk as it courses to the unfathomable depths. Lead poisoning. The unrelenting nausea and disappointment required of us all as a trade off for our desire and vision. The monotonous and despair filled procession through time and space. The Pain of Life. Hedorah paints it well.

B: Marlee Matlin

I am now utterly assured that my neighbors have come together in my stead and forged a pact to do away with me. Had I any doubts before, they were deemed warranted upon repeat play of the Marlee Matlin side of this tape. The Pain Of Life (side A of said tape) is a nearly universal dysphoric state that most can empathize with, Thugporn sample-screaming hour however can present a challenge to many of the people I share walls with.

The first few times I listened to this it really weirded me out. I was having horrible internal dialogue in response to the breakneck barrage of samplecore madness accusing me of being a horrible person, laughing at me when I finally associated one of the samples with a prime time cartoon series I detest, and leading me by the nose through such varied dead end boolean wormholes as the music history of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games for Super Nintendo, the phrase ‘Not Welle’, and the representation of hearing loss in early Hollywood.

The opener ‘Tombstone Piledriver’ has a man demanding to be listened to, violently taunting the listener ‘you could probably read lips all along’ and ‘you have to speak MY language.’ While this guy is interrogating me, a line out of a nineties crust song ‘Squatter’s Defense’ by Eulogy keeps popping into my head completing each rhetorical call with a response of ‘Do You Understand?’ Then the track suddenly is engulfed by a woman’s long winded scream of an unidentifiable emotion. I cannot imagine the situation that would cause a body to scream with such terrible passion the words ‘circus freak.’ The track ends with a gloomy bell slowly tolling the count of four leading the tuberculate procession of a Chopin funeral march.

Of all the incorrigible lunacy offered by Marlee Matlin, the track ‘Thugporn’ seemed to to incense my straightlaced neighbors more than any other. Prominently featuring a harshly mixed exchange lifted from gay ghettoporn with such heartwarming ejaculations as ‘I’m leaving for the convent and if I can’t have your huge cock in me I’ll never fuck again’ and ‘I need some niggaz’d take some dick, can you take some dick?’ I had to listen to this about three hundred times in a row in order to take dictation of that charming dialogue. Pretty Ricky!

Other highlights in this collage of inane depravity include a gratuitous excerpt from hyper self referential recycled-television vomitfest Family Guy extolling the inadequacies of using fish as a rape prevention strategy, the realization that ‘Chelsey 15′ while certainly sleazy is not of the same age group or caliber of sleaze as, say, Nicole12 (…Do You Understand…) Not Welle’s Foot is a band and not any of the of the other things an image search of the term can conjure as wet dream fodder, and more than anything I learned just how seriously people on the internet take their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles while I simultaneously gained myself an entirely new and much more provocative way of thinking about those renaissance men. Did I mention improbably that this seems to be a concept album too? This side of tape has as subcontext the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. Seriously.

Oh yeah, the guitar-drums-screaming spazz outs garnished throughout, them too.

4/5

HOMF011 - FATAL POSITION / THC ERADICUS split c31

Sore Throat, Nausea, Headache Blog:
The second release I’ve received from Hair On My Food is the split tape between Fatal Position and THC Eradicus. On the A Side we find the former, a duo hailing from Indiana, which uses no guitars to create their fifteen minutes of noisecore madness. So, only drums+bass+vocals on this side, with a lot of songs connected together by a glue made of bass feedbacks and noise. Songs are not always fast, but tend to be chaotic and explosive, with a lot of straight and linear drumming added to a constant wall of noise created by the bass guitar. The abscence of guitars make everything really downtuned, with a general uncomfortable feeling going on, putting this side of the tape on the dark and violent side of noisecore. They sound like Permanent Death mixed with a 7 Minutes Of Nausea feeling (think of their first demos) and a somewhat polished down version of Gorgonized Dorks. The best part of Fatal Position is, imho, the vocals. Vocal lines are made by desperate screams, angry barks and an overall ultra tight usage of Kevin’s vocals. This session was recorded during their ten years anniversary and is also blessed by a clean yet very old school sounding “production”. The bass guitar is always creeping in the background, while drums (especially the crashes) and vocals take the lead to assault the listener’s ears. This is a very good band, shame on me for having missed it til now.
THC Eradicus is way more weird. This is a project by Derek who claims to have been helped by some imagianary friends. I guess I have to trust him. This side starts in a very usual way. Short bursts of heavy distorted and chaotic noisecore separated by an half second of silence. Nothing too weird, uh? Afer a couple of minutes everything goes fucked up. There’s a creepy bunch of sounds that lurks in the dark, waiting to explode in your ears and well, that’s pretty much what they does. For about four minutes everything goes apeshit, with a crazy amount of sounds smashing together and fusing ine ach other creating a terrible wall of noise. Bleeps, distrotions, waves, smashes, everything goes for THC Eradicus. But the best (worst?) is yet to come. After a vocal sample followed by a small part of ambient noise this side gets even crazier. It’s time for a mix of field recording sounding stuff, animal samples and almost tribal noise. There’s also some guitar arpeggios going on here. Then the ambient comes back, as a prelude to a harsh nosie section layered over an haunting toy-keyboard series of notes. Man, this is so fucked up. Fans of nonsense noisecore will love this side, I really enjoyed it for sure!

HOMF014 - HARSH SUPPLEMENT / I DIED SPLIT C16:

Memory Wave Transmission:
I remember once during my Myspace years I had a track from Fuck… I’m Dead on my profile. My friend thought it was a pretty hilarious band name. Maybe it’s the irony of releasing something even when you’re dead, or maybe it’s just the perfect moniker for a band that sounds like they’re in the process of dying on every recording. Either way, the name I Died certainly brings to mind those memories, and I think that the case can be made that both of the artists on this split sound as though their monikers are coming true.
Harsh Supplement is on the first side with some really lo-fi noisecore/shitgrind/I don’t know what else to label them. I love grindcore, though I can’t say I’ve ever found an outlet in noisecore, but Harsh Supplement definitely have the noise-making side down. Everything is so lo-fi that it all blends into itself: the vocalist simply yells things like a man with Tourette’s, the drums are constantly churning out double-bass patterns, and there’s so much fuzz from the guitar that it all just sounds like thuds against a wall. Yet still, the more I listened to it, the more I could pick out the actual rhythms and pitch shifts within the music, and for a nine minute song of pure chaos, it’s actually quite fun to listen to. However, it would be nice to have the guitar just a little bit more forward in the mix just to get a little more mileage out of it.
The I Died side is more straight-up harsh noise, with a sidelong track titled “Interspecies Domination”. It’s pretty clear what to expect here: lo-fi noise worship, with static scrawls of sound and cut-up tracks of differing electronic outbursts. Somewhere in there is a yowl of pitch manipulation, some light feedback and perhaps some samples or tape manipulations. Overall it’s a pretty good track that sticks with the theme for most of the piece, often adding on textures and then stripping them away to come back to the initial sound. The texturing is interesting since the recording is of fairly rough quality, and it all comes together in a muddled but thick manner.
For those who don’t enjoy the all-out shitfest of lo-fi noisecore, you might want to skip the Harsh Supplement side as its very rough, hectic, and just plain noisy; the I Died part of this split will be the side you turn to. But for those that enjoy harsh noise and noisecore, this tape has plenty of both on offer, and they make an unlikely pair that couple well together.