Adrian Clement

[Currently listening to a lot of new music, see below:]

Just as a precursor to this post: As you can see, I've been taking some time off from art/photography related things at the moment, during which time I have been planning and preparing larger scaled installations that will incorporate sculpture, photography and sound art.

Regarding my photography, I am also currently working towards purchasing a Canon 5D, which I should have by September. Once I get that, I'll be taking a LOT more photos than I have been, and I can assure you that the content and quality of them will far outstretch most of what I've done in the past (where I've only had very limited access to usually quite poor cameras).

The installation-type work I'm planning and preparing at the moment is also geared towards an exhibition at the end of the year, which I am in the midst of working out. For this I am mainly looking at places like Don't Look Gallery in Dulwich Hill, Black & Blue Gallery in Redfern and at The Chauvel. More information on this will come in the following months.

OK, now on to music. As I said in my previous post, a site that I used to write articles on music called We Are Not Journalists has strangely disappeared, and I've heard no word from Brock Sharp about what happened. Thus, I'll be going back to posting some articles here about music and whatnot (you may have already seen the start to that trend). Over the next few weeks I'm going to go start through quite a few artists and new music (at least relatively new) that I've been listening to lately. This feature will be repeated monthly, each covering reviews of 10 records that also highlights independent record labels and festivals.

1. White Mice - EXcreEAMANTRaINTRaVEINaNUS
2007, Blossoming Noise

The first band that I’ve been listening to lately is White Mice, who are a three piece noise-rock group hailing from the Rhode Island scene that spawned Arab On Radar, Lightning Bolt, Six Finger Satellite, Daughters and Chinese Stars. To date, they’ve release various proper and improper releases on cassette, CDr and full-length releases on CD and vinyl on Load and Blossoming Noise Records. Their latest record, EXcreEAMANTRaINTRaVEINaNUS, is a good example of their work and sound, even though it emits the theatrical element of their live performances, which dabbles in Satanic imagery and features the performers wearing blood-soaked lab-coats and creepy mice masks because “both are cheap and available in Black” (Rock-A-Rolla Issue 14).

To give you an idea of what The White Mice sound like, check out The White Mice's video for their 'hit' song "Cheesus Saves":

Also, if you're so inclined you can purchase some of of their stuff from their official website.

The next few records are from Southern Lord Records, a label operating in the U.S., which comes with the caption "Let There Be Doom" on all the packages I order from them. Specialising in excellent releases of doom, drone and experimental/avant-garde metal and headed by Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley of Sunn O))) fame, this year kicked off well with a re-release of Burning Witch material on a compilation called Crippled Lucifer: 10 Psalms For Our Lord of Light consisting of Towers and Rift.Canyon.Dreams.

2. Pentemple: O))) Presents...
2008, Southern Lord

Now sold out on their official website and limited to 3000 copies on CD, Pentemple's O))) Presents... is a recording of a special live Sunn O))) show in Melbourne last year, where Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley collaborated with Attila Csihar (Mayhem, Tormentor), Sin Nanna (Striborg) and Oren Ambarchi. Wonderful dark and brutal low-end drone-doom that features a live drummer for the first time on a Sunn O))) record.

In the spirit of Greg Anderson's line of thought that "the underground may even be benefiting from downloads and digital sharing of recordings", here are the two tracks from this record:

'Pazuzu I'

'Pazuzu II'

3. Ascend: Ample Fire Within
2008, Southern Lord

In ways I could not provide myself, here is a description of Ascend from Southern Lord Records' website:

Ascend is a new collaborative musical project between Gentry Densley (Iceburn, Eagle Twin) and Greg Anderson (sunn 0))), Goatsnake, Engine Kid).

Both have been making music that has crossed paths several times in the last 19 years.(!!!) The most notable being during the 90s when Andersons' band Engine Kid toured with and shared a split album with Densleys' band Iceburn. During that time both were heavily experimenting with the fusion of jazz (Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis, John Coltrane) and the dark behemoth tones of influences such as The Melvins, Gore, Slint, and the Caspar Bratzmann Massaker.

Ascend re-visits some of the tones, and moods of their past works as well as traveling into uncharted territory all done with the utmost focus on heaviness and power.
Special guest appearances on this album by Andy Patterson (drums), Steve Moore (aka Stebmo, also in Earth and often times : sunn 0))) ) trombone, organ and wurlitzer, Bubba Dupree (Void) guitar AND none other than Kim Thayil (Soundgarden) put down some incredible lead work! The packaging and layout was created by Stephen O' Malley with a homage to our favorite jazz records of the past from labels like ECM and Impulse! (Multi-panel digi-pac w/ booklet inserted.)

Here is the title track from Ample Fire Within:

4. Boris: Smile
2008, Southern Lord

Smile is the latest release from Japanese three-piece experimental metal band Boris. The record was released on both Diwphalanx Records in Japan and Southern Lord Records in the U.S., and are both significantly different sounding releases. Both records feature a sort-of continuation of the neo-psychedelic-rock sound of Pink, but flirt with other genres such as hard rock, Japanese hair metal and feature the standard Boris drone/doom cut. It also plays around with the concept of an "uncool" record centred around comical lyricism and Boris' re-examination of their Japanese roots.

Here's the video for the single "Statement":

And you should be interested in hearing "Flower, Sun and Rain" (a track on the new record) featured on Rock Dream, which is a live-collaboration with Merzbow:

5. The Chuck Dukowski Sextet: Eat My Life and Reverse the Polarity
2006/2007, Nice and Friendly

Founding and original Black Flag bassist Chuck Dukowski has ventured out to create a new band called The Chuck Dukowski Sextet with fellow musician, artist and wife Lora Norton, who provides the artwork for the albums as well as tantalising vocals that sound stoned or enraged above solid tunes rooted in Punk Rock. Their two records--Eat My Life and Reverse the Polarity--were released on Dukowski's own label, Nice and Friendly, which aims to "change the world with a smile". Eat My Life features wonderfully unusual (and somewhat baffling) cover songs of Black Flag's "My War" and Velvet Underground's "Venus in Furs". Here are those tracks:

'My War'

'Venus in Furs'

Also of note is the Chuck Dukowski Sextet message:

Punk rock is dead. Maybe we can stand on its corpse and reach a higher
ground. Maybe not. Perhaps the flimsy imitators and the cleansing maggots of tomorrow's fresh style have weakened punk's bony skeleton too much. It might take us nowhere. Crumble on punk rock! We give you props
But feel it! The wind of change is coming with all that is new and beautifully unnamed. Beware changing wind; when your name comes it will carry a burden. The happy burden of community, of recognition, and most ideally of change, will com with the dark side of rules, of cheesy merchandising, of co-op and distortion. So many things will rush under the banner of this name we can only hope this new wind can bear the weight.

Something new is coming, it always does. In music, the new has most often come with a fiery rejection of the past, like a phoenix from the flames. Actually, the fiery rejection is a pose; everything is born from something else or someone, and all musicians are influenced by what came before. It's liberating to claim to come from nothing. You shake off the doctrinaire. You reject the false concept of progress, because music is not a line, it's an expanding universe.

Musical revolution comes with a name, but it starts with iconoclastic vision. When someone creates something they want and haven't seen before. Others realize they want it too. More are inspired. The direction of the musical discourse is altered. A need is filled. People want to show they are part of this new direction. They create a style, so everyone who sees them will know that they set themselves apart from the mainstream. That's great but watch out 'cause it's also a product to sell. The iconoclast just wants to create; the revolutionary wants to make the new rules. He wants to sit on the old throne and say his is the only way.

The CD6 has no rules for you. We just throw in our DNA and hope to build a lovely new corpse.

Another independent record label that I'm really liking at the moment is Important Records. Also operating in the U.S., Important specialises in noise and experimental music related releases. To date, they've released music by bands like Boris, Throbbing Gristle and Grails through to spoken word material by Noam Chomsky.

6. A Place to Bury Strangers: S/T
2008, Important Records (Third Pressing on Vinyl)

One of my favorite new bands on Important Records, A Place to Bury Strangers, have received a third pressing on vinyl for their debut self-titled release, which has become increasingly popular. Drawing comparisons to early Jesus and Mary Chain, A Place to Bury Strangers take cues from noise and garage bands from that era and mix it with contemporary noise-rock influences such as Liars in a way that sounds completely new and fresh. Self-proclaimed loudest band in New York, A Place to Bury Strangers have acclaimed live performances, and are featured performing on the artwork for their record. A Place to Bury Strangers is also opening for Nine Inch Nails on their upcoming Lights In The Sky Tour, and are featured on a Nine Inch Nails compilation with other supporting artists Deerhunter, Does it Offend You Yeah?, and Crystal Castles, which you can access here.

Here is 'To Fix the Gash in Your Head' from the S/T release:

Also of note on Important Records is their wide selection of quality merchandise at low prices by designers such as Seldon Hunt (pictured in the third panel below) and Stephen O'Malley (pictured in the fourth panel below), which you can purchase from the Important Records official website.

Go to Important Records' official website to view larger images of their merchandise and apparel.

As mentioned in my previous post, Liquid Architecture is one of Australia's premier sound-arts festivals. The festival took place earlier this month, and featured concerts, surround sound presentations, audio-visual and recorded work, exhibitions and installations by musicians, composers, sound designers and media artists. I could only attend the first night of the festival in Sydney (for reasons I'll talk about later), but from what I caught it was a difficult (in the sense that it was challenging) selection of sound art by an impressive array of talented musicians/artists. The only complaint of the festival that I heard was its heavy focus on computer-based music, but I didn't see this as a drawback in any way. If anything it was interesting to see the variety with which that medium could be used to different ends.

7. Defektro: Valverian
2007, Lastgasp Art Laboratories (CDR)

Defektro is a "3 human, many machine noise unit" consisting of Hirofumi Uchino, Ayako Honda and Laura Oyaizu (of Australia unit KUNT). Hirofumi Uchino is the mastermind behind the machines and pedals used in Defektro, which he releases through his self-founded company/label Lastgasp Art Laboratories. I spoke with Hirofumi on the first night of Liquid Architecture, as he was there selling merchandise as well as watching the performers. I picked up this CDR and found it to be a well-crafted piece of work, highlighting the diversity of their sound (from abstract sounds to pieces of extreme computer music/noise). Defektro supported KTL on their Australian tour last September, which they were definitely worthy of doing. KTL are a two piece mixing elements of extreme computer music and black metal, consisting of Stephen O'Malley of Sunn O))) and Peter Rehberg of Pita.

Here is 'Porncots' from Valverian:

Unfortunately, I missed what Hirofumi Uchino was there at Liquid Architecture for: a collaboration with Nick Wishart from local noise-group Toy Death. After seeing Toy Death at a special presentation at the Chauvel Cinematheque, scoring part of Sergei Eisenstein's classic 1925 silent film The Battleship Potemkin, I hope some sort of release of their collaboration will come out in the near future.

8. Erikm: Stème
2003, Room 40

Erikm's record was given out for free to people who attended Liquid Architecture. I don't know too much about it, so here is some information from Room 40:

Between his reputation as swift shifting improviser, concréte composer and turntable deconstructionist, Marseilles based artist ERIKM has earned himself an enviable position in the European music community. With Stéme, his most ambitious and fully realised compositional work to date, he devolves and recontextualises the boundaries between sound source and sound media.

In essence, Stème originates from a selection of ten one minute long sound pieces burned on a CD which was deliberately damaged. These media (music on modified media or field recording) formed the basis of multiple improvised session including multiple stages of construction and destruction of these acoustic matters using my different electronic real time live music systems (3k-pad system & MD or CD-dj and electronics).

The resulting sounds are truly distinctive – filigree like sonic details are brought into sharp focus, tuning the ears with their paced spatial movements. Occasional grabs of the source sound material appear and are erased equally as quickly. A genuinely powerful statement of compositional intent.

ERIKM has instinctively followed a relatively unusual, even risky, career path. Stemming from his interest in visual arts and his first musical experience as a rock guitarist, he has for some years now become steadily more and more renowned for his virtuoso turntabling and his use of electronic instruments and tools in an integrated scenic set-up eRikm has followed up musical collaborations with Voice Crack, Christian Marclay, Luc Ferrari, among others.

He is certainly one of the better equipped artists of the new generation to actually demonstrate a relationship between rock music (in its widest sense) and contemporary music; hiding behind neither cultural camouflage nor an easy pandering to his audience.

Since it was free, I assume it will be OK for you to download the entire album. Here is the link to do that. If you wish to purchase it, you can do so at Room 40's website at this location.

I view this record as a highly conceptual piece consisting of soundscapes that explore our relationship with different environments. Audio-recordings of soundscapes and environments is an interesting concept, and was something that Andy Warhol showed interest in over a number of years. I'd recommend you research that a bit more if you are interested in this record, as well as other people who performed or exhibited at Liquid Architecture.

The next two records are from Heathen Skulls, which is a small Australian independent record label and booking agency that focuses on new and interesting recordings, usually of a darker, heavier, and experimental variety. Initially called Black Mountain, the label was founded in 2001 as a booking agency, mainly to accommodate Grey Daturas, and on the side as a record label. In November 2005, Black Mountain changed its name to Heathen Skulls, and since then, has been operating as a full time company.

The following two records are also from bands I have recently discovered after attending Static Age Festival (which unfortunately clashed with the second night of Liquid Architecture): a great showcase of a variety of musicians/bands ranging from garage rock, noise, noise rock, drone, metal, post rock, free jazz, grindcore, folk/singer-songwriter and ambient. Of special note is Scissor-Lock, a one man ambient musician, who has been self-releasing his own material. His set, which opened Static Age Festival, was highly absorbing and showed up quite a bit of his potential.

9. Grey Daturas
2008, Heathen Skulls

Grey Daturas (alongside Embers) of Heathen Skulls headlined Static Age Festival, which I wrote about in my previous post. Their performances were obvious highlights and complimented each other even though they were rather different. Grey Daturas, who have their roots in Sunn O))), Nadja and Earth style drone rock or drone metal in addition to noise and lo-fi rock, performed an incredible freely improvised set. It was an extremely captivating (and almost hypnotic) slice of their sound as of late that finds its way on their new record Return To Disruption.

Here is a review of Return to Disruption from Aquarius Records:

Huzzah! Our favorite instrumental down-under doom-bringers return (to disruption) with this new full-length, the prolific Melbourne trio's debut for Neurosis' Neurot label. It's a good fit, of course, this should go over well with the whole post-rock/metal crowd, this album often grindingly hypnotic, the Grey Daturas' lumbering sheets of distorto-drone skullflowering forth over a roiling bed of precision percussive clangor right from the get-go! Their threatening waves of pure heaviness, sharpened into a drill-drone of an attack, also occasionally take detours into areas of abstract ambience, the guitars of Bonnie Mercer and Rob MacManus carving psychedelic feedback sculptures, then tightening again back into full metallic impact, driven by the skittering drums of Robert Manson. As heavy as they are (which is HEAVY) you can't really call the Grey Dats a metal band. They're in that quasi-metal realm with the likes of SUNNO))), Boris, Harvey Milk, and Nadja, perhaps, with a certain amount of experimental lo-fi fuckery going on that reminds us of many of their freenoise comrades over in nearby New Zealand... The title track itself is a clattering, pottering about, like something the Dead C would come up with, while the track called "Undisturbed" is anything but, sounding like a violin or creaking door hinge dying a slow and dismal death. And the high-end scraping skree of "Balance Of Convenience" should peel some paint. And then, as already mentioned, there's all the juggernaut, trance-inducing, spaced-out, instrumental doom rock post rock surging through tracks like "Beyond And Into The Ulimate" and "Neuralgia". The Grey Daturas definitely like all the varieties of drone! And fans of, what should we call it, avant-doom, or drone-doom, or whatever, should like all varieties of the Grey Daturas, starting with this disc if you haven't already made their acquaintance, covering all the bases as it does

And here is Neuralgia, the final track from Return to Disruption:

10. Embers: Slag Welters
2008, Heathen Skulls

Now to Embers' performance: Despite the fact that Embers were probably twice as old as most of the musicians/performers there that night, their performance eclipsed everyone else's in terms of their high energy (which my friend and I had trouble believing they could sustain). Their set consisting of improvised free jazz meets grind-noise, which finds its way on Embers' Slag-Welter; an outstanding album that exemplifies their status as an incredibly talented, original and fresh example of the current Australian music scene. The recording quality is great as well, so do yourself a favor and purchase Slag-Welter from Heathen Skulls.

To conclude, here is the first track (also the title track) from Slag-Welter: