Power electronics, despite having one of the coolest genre names of all time, has a bad reputation that is mostly well-deserved. Beyond just the stereotype of “angry white dude yelling,” many PE-heavy noise scenes have historically been encouraging environments for all sorts of bigotry and hatred, a trend that appallingly continues to this day (to name one brazen example I recently encountered, Finland’s Freak Animal Records, operated by known white nationalist and staunch racist Mikko Aspa, released a CD by Zyklon SS entitled Racial Superiority in 2019). For this reason, I’ve avoided the genre almost entirely for quite a long time. But it turns out that was a grave mistake, for there are plenty of artists now who are not just stripping the genre of its repulsive associations, but completely reconstructing it as a brash mouthpiece for oppressed marginalized identities and communities. This selection of tracks, many of them from this year, is full of reclamations, profanations, decontextualizations, and condemnations of all kinds. Keep screaming, and fuck Whitehouse.
(And to all the losers coming in from Special Interests, fuck you too.)
00:00. Straight Panic – “Catch/Release” from Apocalypse (Humanhood Recordings, 2021)
03:00. Polexia – “Atoned” from Immolation (SPINE, 2021)
06:06. Vivian – second part of Abduction Plot (self-released, 2021)
12:17. Absoluten Calfeutrail & Blarke Bayer – “Dominating the Discussion” from Conflict Resolution Seminar (AR53 reissue, 2021)
17:31. Scarlet Death – “Trauma Doll” from Scarlet Death (self-released, 2020)
21:33. SAMESEX – “YOU AGAIN” from SMITE (self-released, 2013)
23:22. Dysphoria – “Apart” [excerpt] from Falling // Apart (The Clap, 2019)
27:56. grutesk – “Shame” from F‐‐‐‐t Scum (self-released, 2019)
34:19. Identity Combat – “Pretty Little Ghost” from Self Abuse (Lady Gein, 2019)
38:11. CBN – “U Aint from the Hood” from Crimes Against White America (Phage Tapes, 2021)
Noise Not Music 