Like fellow dial-twiddler and object-botherer Daniel J. Gregory’s album Heard Under Orphan Eyelid, Пустая Волна’s self-titled debut tape (the name, appropriately, translates to “Empty Wave”) feels simultaneously active and passive, participatory in the most understated and innocuous of ways, small but noticeable kinks injected into apathetic everyday occurrences. “Пустая Волна,” the eponymous multi-part piece that comprises the majority of the release, is an extended radio improvisation that feels densely physical, as if we’re placed inside the car or small room in which the dead air and garbled voices are actually located. Interludes such as “Код 112” provide spatial and textural diversity between the successive segments, turning the lens toward wider public areas and hints at more sweeping expanses before diving back into the static-soaked sarcophagus. Parts five through eight may be the strongest slice of the extended centerpiece track, each individual fraction uniquely illustrating the amazing, diverse sublimities that can be coaxed from such a simple process: empty frequencies hypnotize ghost-tones and other hallucinations into unsuspecting heads, a motorcycle ignition is briefly fiddled with, and just about all of language itself breaks down, all within the confines of the aforementioned vessel, the identity of which likely to remain unknown. The “Звуковой Объект” (“Sound Object”) series brings further complexity to the table, and it’s the first section that provides the most enduring contextual basis for the whole release: Пустая Волна, whomever they are, is both portable recorder–toting field recordist and active musician, creating their own self-contained, imperfect environments that tightly focus even the most inconsequential of sonorities, whether they are produced, observed, or both.

The explosive revival of Myspace metallic hardcore aesthetics and musical styles in the past few years largely manifests in two distinct forms: exhumation (e.g., collectible reissues by Wax Vessel, Tomb Tree, Zegema Beach, and others) and, obviously, continuation. While Why Im Dead, a new band out of Indiana that’s most likely a solo project, mostly belongs in the latter category, there are plenty of instantly recognizable tributes drawn directly from classic scene releases that work tremendously well as catalysts for more modern elements to take shape and remain sturdy. The most noticeable example of this is the vocals, which are undeniably reminiscent of Richard Lombardi’s distinct abrasive yowls atop the impatient chaos of beloved quartet The Sawtooth Grin. Unlike genre touchstone Cuddlemonster (which recently received an amazing remaster for its vinyl reissue that enables the already violent music to hit ten times harder), though, How to Handle the News, While Sailing Through the Confusion has a smelly foot planted squarely in contemporary metalcore, whiplashing between low-end sludge chords and fretboard-scaling dissonant stabs just as often as it grinds and growls. “Tribal Tats & Backwards Hats,” besides evoking the magical time that was the mid- to late-2000s just with its title, bulldozes eardrums with snappy Tower of Rome snares and dense guitars to culminate in a ridiculously heavy-hitting just-on-the-verge-of-deathcore breakdown, and while you’re still recovering from that it launches into “Cage Caster,” whose anthemic surges and eviscerating coda provide an epic conclusion that makes the diminutive EP feel more complete than one could have ever imagined. Make sure to check out myspace.com/noisenotmusic for more sick tunes and talented goons.

“Anyone could make this” is never a valid criticism of any piece of art, but it often becomes egregiously inaccurate and misrepresentative when it comes to abstract forms of music like noise, which as a genre is too often the punchline for sneering accusations of pretension or pointlessness. For me, it’s difficult to imagine listening to something like Peace Doctrine’s second self-titled tape and thinking it’s anything but virtuosic; of all the many forms of noise music, cut-up noise is one of the most difficult to get “right,” and it’s certainly no easy task figuring out how to even make these sounds in the first place. This new project from Matt Gomes, which flared into conspicuous existence with June’s C20 debut on PRESSORTAPE (also self-titled), doesn’t just flirt with negative space via jarring stop/starts or stitch together dizzying assaults of disparate samples, instead focusing on filtering diverse flavors of harsh distortion and feedback through meticulous sound design and clever left/right channel play. My immediate thought was that the music could use a more robust mastering job, but the (relatively) quieter presence of these eleven tracks quickly grew on me, settling somewhere between violent cacophony and airy detachment, all the while running merciless circles around your head. I probably bring up Jesper Forselius’s Blod project too often, but I think the comparison is reasonably apt here in that both artists seem to blare their caustic blasts from somewhere quite far off, and yet the sharp edges refuse to dull even the slightest bit. A promising (to say the least) new project with releases on two equally promising new labels? 2021, as I’ve said many times already, seems to be the year of noise.

There are quite a few keywords that, if included in an album description, are instant attractors for me, but the same isn’t really true for bands, because most comparisons between artists—especially those made by the artist themselves—are notoriously unreliable. That being said, if C.C.C.C. is brought up in any capacity, I’m automatically all in, and Space Beyond Space, the most recent tape from relatively new Finnish duo Fricsvel, thankfully does not disappoint. The aforementioned comparison was made as part of a demonstrative stylistic continuum between the legendary Japanese project and Skullflower, and for the most part it tracks; the two ten-minute slabs of psychedelic mayhem evolve from unstable pedal-distortion rumble and sheet metal shriek to fleeting bouts of delirium, whether it’s the distant, deranged vocal specters at the end of “Within the Outer Planes” or the hallucinatory layers that shift and smother on “History of the Afterlife.” Despite these presumably being studio recordings, they still feel sweeping and gargantuan, and would sound just as majestic flooding the cavernous confines of a massive warehouse venue as they do on cheap earbuds or portable speakers. Fricsvel members Veikko Rajanen and Mikko Ahokas faced multiple tall orders with this release in living up to the high expectations set by both the introductory text and the memorable cover artwork, but their soaring conjurations easily surmount them all. See you on the other side of the asteroid belt.

I first encountered Berlin ensemble The Pitch via their 2015 live album Frozen Orchestra (Amsterdam), released just a month after their studio debut, and which features an impressive guest roster of Lucio Capece, Valerio Tricoli, Okkyung Lee, and others in addition to the core lineup of Baltschun, Nutters, Olsen, and Thieke. The sublime Sofa release, which remains a staple on my always rotating set of reliably somniferous records, demonstrates the group’s ability to conjure arresting drone meditations that sounds massive and frail at the same time, gathering both density and diaphony from their subdued string-based approach. KM28, a new cassette from formidable new improvised music imprint Tripticks Tapes, documents a live performance from October of last year that presents a few apparently novel directions for the musicians, namely forays into just intonation tuning and duo/trio subsets. Besides “Frozen Just,” a reimagining of a 2018 piece originally recorded with the prodigious Splitter Orchestra, and “Just Pillars (String Redux),” each of the sections of KM28 is titled for the materials used to create it, i.e. various combinations of vibraphone, clarinet, bass, sine wave generator, and custom magnetic tape delay systems. Though the former two tracks will feel the most familiar to existing fans—and the sustained, crystalline trance of “Frozen Just” especially is an otherworldly high point of the whole tape—the more adventurous excursions introduce welcome diversity to this often deliberately glacial music. The pair of cassette delay experiments are particularly strong; despite making use of effervescent electronic textures atypical for The Pitch, they ultimately feel just as relaxed, contained, and purposeful as the rest. What a lovely evening this must have been for those lucky enough to witness it.

I have never heard of Bizarre Audio Arts, which has apparently been “destruyendo oidos desde 1995” (destroying ears since 1995); nor have I heard of Iwate Yamagata, the “obscure” musician from Japan and Ecuador (!!!); nor have I heard of Yusuke Furusawa, another artist whose photographs are included in a booklet packaged with the cassette and presumably on the cover; nor have I any idea of what Hanada Will Say “RON” means. But even if you’re anything like me, who despite not wanting to admit is always desperately scrambling for context and background information, any and all frustrations will be washed away by the searing molten metal avalanche that is the primary noise palette on this thing. After a brief introduction, “Hyper Object: Thomason” sets the stage for the sort of high-octane psychedelic chaos that is to come, whipping up densely layered storms of howling feedback squall and pummeling mid-range churn. For much of its duration Hanada Will Say “RON” settles into a hypnotic static dynamism on par with the most legendary of harsh noise classics; unrelenting hyper-currents of dense, caustic distortion form a base of shifting scrap-metal sands for contained sound events within the blurring onslaught (it’s nearly impossible to tell when one track ends and another begins), which range from screeching industrial clamor and soaring errant tones to sluggish loops and haunting samples. It’s a wild ride, to be sure, and I feel like having a better understanding of what the hell, if anything, is going on here thematically or conceptually, but I’m content to wallow in ear-destroying ignorance for the foreseeable future.

Haunted Home is a concise but dense display of do-it-yourself rough electronics sound design, manifesting across the three bite-sized tracks in the form of simmering static, broken rhythms, and howling abrasions. “Spectre” introduces the infectious structural character of the release right off the bat with its restless volatility; it finds shaky footing on a half-materialized obstacle course of needle-drop punctures, rumbling bass transmissions, and metallic-tube air drones, all the while threatening a coalescence into something more cohesive that never quite occurs—I’m oddly reminded of “There and Back” and its sister track on Lambkin and Lescalleet’s The Breadwinner. The false hints at coherence continue with “The Messenger,” which introduces punchy beat fragments that sound like a hard-hitting EBM track put through the “deconstructed club” blender. With the way it seethes and surges it could be the score to some bleak cinematic post-apocalyptic romp, or perhaps an extra-dramatic walk through an industrial city at night. “Enemies Known & Unknown,” the side-long closer (the whole release would fit comfortably on a C14), is a sort of deconstructed power electronics affair, a shifting mass of strangled bellows and distant noise that succeeds as both an aggressive assault and an atmospheric meditation. Haunted Home certainly won’t feel like “home”—at least, I hope it won’t—but everything in moderation, right?

I doubt anyone would expect otherwise from a release titled Total Scorn of Life with “Orgy of Wounds” as its first track, but Nicaraguan duo Reflection of Misery’s debut demo is a dark, ersatz nightmare. Almost every sound on this thing has something… not quite right with it, the magnitude of this uncanniness ranging from slightly off-kilter to deeply unsettling. On the aforementioned opener propulsive drums and crunchy, classic-sounding tremolo guitars rise out of and fall back into ominous ambience—often at the most unexpected moments, just when you’ve become acclimated to whatever’s happening. Despite this comprising the band’s inaugural public recordings, the style and songwriting indicate a deep appreciation for the tropes, textures, and general spirit of the black metal genre as a whole, pulling from so many different influences that the result is both nostalgic and timeless. “Miasma in Decadent Wombs,” beyond somehow outdoing the preceding title’s grotesqueness, is a more focused track that shows off the two musicians’ instrumental chops, as well as their ability to conjure a tremendously hypnotic onslaught of riffs and blasts that retains a shining simplicity. It’s all one big smear of soot, ash, and hellfire-scorched bones, and yet there are also so many memorable bits that anchor our wayward minds: the jarringly hard-panned bell hits in “Orgy,” the halftime climax of “Miasma,” the slinky, lumbering groove that false-starts “Wrong,” the creeping dread and demon-babble of “Perpetual Deluge of Pus,” et cetera et cetera. From the first inhuman growl, Reflection of Misery makes the most of skeletal but worthy production and hacks open a path to an exciting musical future.