the body

Swans- The Great Annihilator

This record seems to be hated by many and most Swans fans, probably because it pretty much marked the beginning of a gradual replacement, or a "deconstruction" and perhaps a "dilution", according to said fans, of the slow, heavy, at times brutally physical sound that typifies the early Swans sound.

Nevertheless, to me, with my limited knowledge of the Swans catalogue and my untrained ear, it seems that both Jarboe and Gira are more than capable of conveying, at times even evoking, deep, dark, complex and multi-layered emotions as with heavy use of samples and effects and as through the use of a simple, acoustic guitar. The sound may have changed, but the affects are very much still present, if not intensified.

here

Infidel?/Castro! - Bioentropic Damage Fractal

Infidel?/Castro! is an "experimental" band from Philly comprising of George Korein and the incredibly talented Colin Marston (of Krallice, Gorguts, Dysrhythmia and Behold...the Arctopus fame). They've been on hiatus since 2005 which is the year they released Bioentropic Damage Fractal. I'm really upset that I got this album only now because I would really have liked to discuss this avant-garde...creature with Colin when I met him. No point dwelling in the past, let's move on to the album.

B.D.F., simply put, is a sprawling amalgam of noise, idm, glitch and dark ambient. There are probably more genres/sounds thrown into the cauldron that I don't think I have heard...yet. Originally packaged as a double-disc album, us downloaders will have to experience the whole thing as one (unless you tag the 2 sets of track as different albums). I'm not complaining. The songs on this album range from under 2 minutes to over 20 minutes and every single one of them is insanity in audio form. I'm still on my 2nd listen and loving this shit more than ever.

Word of advice: I don't want to alienate my blog readers but it really would help if you are into the noise genre otherwise this album will go unappreciated. This is not easy-listening but rather rewarding once you get into it.

download

Unsane + Keelhaul

This post is in honor of this awesome show that I'm going to tomorrow (Unsane playing all of Scattered, Smothered & Covered goddamn!).

The first part of the post is Unsane's classic '95 album Scattered, Smothered & Covered. For those of you who don't know, Unsane are a noise rock/hardcore band formed in '88 and based in New York City.

download | last.fm

The next part of this post is Keelhaul's Subject to Change Without Notice. Again, for those of you who don't know, Keelhaul are a mix of sludge and progressive (I want to say math rock but I haven't listened to much of it to know what it is) with some hardcore/post-hardcore thrown in for good measure.

download | last.fm

p.s. Also playing at the show are Disappearer and Pigs. Haven't listened to much of Disappearer's work so I can't tell you if they're good or not.

p.p.s. if you're in the NYC area and you dig any of these bands (or if you just got into them because of this post lol), do show up at Santos Party House tomorrow for some good times!

Rat King

I love concept albums, especially when they are done right. Larva is the second effort of the unconventional Rat King, who are (or should be) noted for their brilliant avant-garde industrialism. Their music can best be described as a mix of dark ambient, noise and industrial. Compared to their debut, Larva comes across as mightily ambitious and the scope of the album is lushly varied. The concept behind the album the effect of a man's dreams on his being; a difficult concept to play out without any visuals or vocals. Be that as it may, the key word here is atmosphere and there is a truckload of that. The great thing is that there's no "terror" overkill (i.e. Rat King don't try to be overly terrifying with their music). Even with varying from cavernous percussion to lush orchestration to occasional airy interludes of swirling ambience and stabbing discordance, Larva flows absolutely seamlessly.

Songs are untagged so here's the tracklist:

01 - Egg
02 - Hour Of The World
03 - The Duel
04 - The Wake
05 - Spiracle
06 - For Absent Gods
07 - Tranquility Lane
08 - Smorgasbord
09 - Vapour

Download

Henry's Dress

Noise/indie from San Francisco. Alternating male/female vocals and very lo-fi.

Mediafire

piglet

Math rock, but not overly complicated math rock. digging it right now

Burmese

Crazy, heavy, experimental, incendiary, high-speed, low-end noisegrindsludgedoom from San Francisco.