I almost didn’t check out Police Costume because I had the audacity to believe I knew exactly what to expect from Theo Gowans’s prolific Territorial Gobbing project. This was a poor instinct, and luckily one I didn’t end up following. Sure, there are the typical irreverent gargles and rough-edged collaging one (quickly) grows to love, but overall the Leeds art brut master’s response to the absurdity of authoritarian, militaristic police is a uniquely colorful affair, matching the bright, saturated cartoon cover penned by Zad Kokar. “…Or How I Learnt to Stop Sitting on Benches and Love the Cops” is a surprisingly focused bit of noise, and its vivid, vibrant palette of whipping electronics and malfunctioning circuits serves as one of the most exemplary contradictions of the established Territorial Gobbing formula I thought I had all figured out. On the next two tracks Gowans falls further back into his bag of tricks, yet keeps the energy level high with hyperactive re-arrangements and an unsettling amount of volatile, deranged anger behind every saliva-splattering utterance. Something else added is the increased presence of intelligible spoken word, which somehow only seems to add to the confusion and delirium of the proceedings (especially in the case of whatever one? two? three? -sided conversation is happening on “Mic Check One”). Don’t make the same I mistake I almost did; when Gowans is involved, in the words of VJ Emmie, “EXPECT DA UNEXPECTABLE.”

Physical copies of Police Costume are also available from Beartown’s website.

Strings and Syllables, composer and musician Ilya Ziblat’s newest release, collects excerpts from three duo improvisations recorded with string players Maya Felixbrodt (viola), Jellantsje de Vries (violin), and Hen Goldsobel (violone), himself contributing “live electronics” using a real-time sound processing touchpad. The three guest musicians each have distinct styles and approaches they executed during the sessions that are easy to pinpoint amidst the decoupled tracklist, but each most frequently rely on a combination of percussive extended techniques and swelling, resin-shredding drones to provide Ziblat plenty to work with on the fly. He splits time between manipulating pre-loaded speech recordings and what are ostensibly snatches of the string playing itself, grinding it all down into an arsenal of high-velocity granular sound objects. This allows for a sonic agility that provides some of the album’s most impacting moments: when the elements are all so scattered and hyperactive that you can’t even identify what is coming from whom, breathtaking mangled messes of the smallest semblances of musicality. Ziblat’s pad can also work the samples into a dense, impenetrable frenzy, which most often occurs when he is using voice as his source material; it becomes a meaningless swamp of unintelligible verbiage, frequently dwarfing the brighter cries of the strings in its soupy mass. The composer centers the deconstructive approach of Strings and Syllables in the context of the worldwide statue removals and general radicalization that’s been occurring, making it a volatile document of a volatile time.

The members of the amorphous UK-based Mosquitoes/Komare crew seem to be no strangers of the sort of existential despair and hair-raising ontology that I can never stop reading or thinking about. The first Mosquitoes 12″ features titles drawn from the work of experimental author Christine Brooke-Rose, whose Out/Such/Between/Thru tetralogy delves deep into surreal, delirious comedy and the confusion and agony of being, but Komare’s new LP—whose pre-release inclusion on my First Half of 2020 list was unconventional but still an absolute no-brainer—reminds me more of the mud-crawling malaise of Samuel Beckett’s “muh-” characters (Murphy, Molloy, Malone, the Unnameable, and finally just ‘a man’), increasingly spare and fragile consciousnesses cast into sentience from void. The sonic palette at work on The Sense of Hearing is perhaps the most minimal of either of the two related groups’ releases thus far: ghostly shades of humming electronics, lethargic delay-slogged vocalizations, shifting and snaking layers, a whole lot of empty space. To listen is to be surrounded by a palpable void, the paradoxically deafening sound of nothingness ringing in the ears as one slides, stumbles, slithers through a pitch-black and entirely unfamiliar landscape. The “drugginess” of this album is certainly an important element, but after many listens I’ve come to the conclusion that The Sense of Hearing gets you a different sort of high than any substance I’ve ever tried; its intoxication is one of blurred perspective, eroded security, creeping doom. The whispered threat of an eternity alone.

Brandon Wald’s Black Ring Rituals label has come a long way from its humble origins. Originally a DIY outlet for Fargo, North Dakota’s burgeoning pedal harsh and power electronics scene, BRR has grown into an imprint showcasing some of the most forward-thinking noise music available today. Just this year has seen excellent releases from irreverent cut-up connoisseur Appliancide, 8-bit Famicom emulation wall from Bitcrusher, and many others. What is ostensibly E.M. Digital Spazz Unit’s debut cassette is somewhere between those former two examples, making use of both frenzied hyperactivity and motherboard mayhem for its punishing presence. To Sterilize Music accomplishes its titular goal through intense sound curation; there’s not a single element on this album that is not an abrasive, deformed, caustic extract from some condemned digital underbelly, even the vocal samples that are used on “Sponsored Cell Line.” The Spazz Unit is not at all concerned with conventionality, or even with demonstrating the death of conventionality by proudly exhibiting its broken bloody remnants that have been mercilessly ripped apart. It’s simply nowhere to be found in this contorted mass of synthetic, detached, yet always viscerally affecting artificiality.

There’s something special about the religious chapel as a setting for experimental music performance, especially an improvisation. Whether your preferred example is Mural’s Rothko, Keith Rowe’s Fairchild, or Áine O’Dwyer’s iconic Music for Church Cleaners, the building and space itself is always an established presence (or absence) in the music, its cavernous corners swallowing the frayed, decayed edges of confidently-conjured sounds, the passion and purpose contained within them soaking into the ancient walls. Jennifer Simone and Bob Bucko, Jr.’s first duo collaboration immediately gives a sense of that yawning openness, both from its geometrically arranged cover photo and the droning, organ-like dirges that begin the proceedings. That classic chapel instrument is nowhere to be found on Simone & Bucko, however; the only two instruments present are saxophones, Simone’s baritone and Bucko’s tenor. Their interplay is largely tonal: interlocking serenades of slightly discordant scales, dual overtone-drones, sublime major-key resolutions, lethargic call-and-response flurries. But what becomes more noticeable over the course of the nearly-50-minute set is everything but the saxes—the muffled wails of distant police sirens, the clacking of the musicians’ valves as they form their notes, the pregnant dead air that hangs in the recording like a shroud.

Simone & Bucko was originally released on cassette in 2018. This review concerns the digital reissue.

I’ve been listening to Yasutoshi Yoshida’s Government Alpha project for as long as I’ve been interested in noise music. Venomous Cumulus Cloud was one of the first harsh noise records I heard, even before I discovered future standbys like C.C.C.C. and T.E.F., but I also never lost interest in new releases as I did with Merzbow et al. Yoshida’s recent works aren’t simply rehashes of the classic high-octane pedal abrasion that made him famous; instead, you can tell he’s still very much interested in exploring and refining the craft, approaching each album with a unique methodology. Though I’m a fan of the (relatively) more reserved proceedings of Arrogant Ghosts and Insanityranny, I’m grateful that Yoshida has turned back to his eardrum-shredding roots with stuff like last year’s Vandalism and now Pathogens. The two “Regenerative Signal” tracks wrestle entropy from simple feedback loops while “Visualization” gets right down to business with densely-packed waves of caustic distortion, high-pitched squall, and iconic GA electronic oscillations. This latter track is easily one of the best examples of harsh noise I’ve heard in a long time and really reminds me of why I love this stuff so much in the first place, endless depths of enthralling textures and viscerally impacting chaos. Another unsurprisingly fantastic release from one of noise music’s most stalwart presences.

Due Matte is an enticing album for me in several respects. It initially caught my eye due to the presence of Valentina Magaletti, a renowned contemporary percussionist with an impressive resume and a recent Noise Not Music favorite with Sulla Pelle. Joining Magaletti on this release is Gnod member Marlene Ribeiro, with whom I’m much less familiar. The first document of their collaboration also features one of my favorite examples of those bizarre medieval paintings you see cropping up as macros every now and then; the framing of the two women, the homogeneity of the color palette, and the emphasis on the rich purple background makes it a both humorous and poignant selection for the cover design. Needless to say, by this point I (and hopefully you) am all in to see what the hell is going on with Due Matte. The label describes it as an “exercise in tropical concrete [sic],” and there’s definitely some choice processing going on to render these whimsical sounds so ambiguous and alien, but for the most part I feel like I’m hearing what’s really going on between the two musicians: just some very well curated percussion interplay, occasional vocals, possibly a bit of layering to produce soft intimate worlds of wonder. Certain tracks, however, display the beautiful results when more dissective techniques are used, like the calming drift phases of “Big Circle, Small Circle.” This hits a similar spot as Plastic Moonrise’s Papier Mâché: mysterious but always comforting, lightweight yet full of depth, perfect for sluggish afternoons.

Chicago-based rapper and producer Chris Crack is well known for his provocative and often hilarious titles for his work; one of my favorite projects of his, last year’s Crackheads Live Longer Than Vegans, included cuts like “Black People Can’t Be Racist,” “I’m Grammy Nominated Tho,” and “My Ex Was a Garden Tool.” Crack’s colorfully-dubbed tunes also have the raucous, unhinged energy to match that of their names, somehow living up to the high expectations introduced by hard ass phrases like “Chipped My Tooth Eating Pussy.” Cute Boys (The Rise of Lil Delicious) is the young musician’s second release of 2020, following on the heels of April’s White People Love Algorithms, but if 2019 is any indication then there are many more to come. Since Crackheads Crack has been steadily toning things down a bit, leaning into the soulful, reverb-washed jazzy beats that compliment his subdued ranting flows so well, and Cute Boys is probably his most relaxing record in a while. This time, that mood is actually matched by the content of the track titles; in an unsurprising choice to respond to the current state of our country, the rapper’s headings hit much closer to home than usual, with emotional, supportive claims to the tune of “Black People Are Flawless,” “Sex Workers Over Cops,” and “White Lies Cost Black Lives.” I once heard Crack’s lyrical approach described as “eccentric ignorance,” which would be a good way to describe a lot of the other projects I’ve mentioned, but here he is more engaged with the world around him than ever, acknowledging realities and denouncing injustice amidst his typical repertoire of comedic self-absorbance and surreal hedonism (though he does drop the word “r******d” at least once, which needless to say I’m not thrilled about—hopefully he’ll have some “Post Nut Clarity” and update his lexus). Careless ableism aside, Cute Boys is a new favorite from Chris, and probably the album of his best suited for a lazy afternoon.

“Cinematic, so don’t forget to paint.”

I’ve been thinking about New Zealand a lot lately, but I’m not entirely sure if it’s because I actually want to move there or to just have a nice cup of tea with Jacinda Ardern. For Jonathan Bergen, a.k.a. Amethyst, it seems to have been the latter, for in 2017 the Berlin-based artist dramatically relocated to a new residence in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Unfortunately, this journey that gives the newest Amethyst release its title was cut short by tragedy and hardship, and Bergen was forced to return to Germany despite having already found a new home. I don’t listen to as much straightforward ambient music as I used to, but Amethyst is a project I consistently return to because of its tendency towards both harsh catharsis and singular emotional weight. There are so many things buried beneath the cold keyboard melodies, plopping raindrops, distorted voices, and creeping distortion—withdrawal, regret, nostalgia, appreciation, despair, isolation—that it all blurs together into one multifaceted mass of poignancy whose effects are impossible to avoid. In my opinion, Bergen relies a little too heavily on melody on The Journey (the final track, which features heavy electronic percussion and screamed vocals, is by far the weakest), rather than turning to the dynamic brilliance of more abstract releases like 대지, but even with an occasionally banal simplicity this full-length has a lot to offer.

I first want to acknowledge that Concessions (for my father), James Hazel’s new release, made me aware of a new imprint/project called Precarious Texts, which pledges to become “a space that re-turns [sic] to and re-emphasises “class” as part of the intersectional prism and supports practices within these spaces.” In a time where socioeconomic stratification is more ingrained than ever, there can never be too much acknowledgement of the  reality in which we reside. Hazel concedes that while making Concessions he was “located in relatively stable space/time” in objective terms; instead, the qualifying precarity in his life is an emotional one, an empathic one, formed by the deep connection Hazel feels to his immediate family, his ancestors, and the countless marginalized workers that have fought the same battles long before him. The exhaustion and defeat, the enshrouding malaise, the tiny beaten and battered beams of hope of the oppressed existence are translated to sound through minimal groupings of sources and an old tape recorder. Hazel’s frail transmissions hang in the dusty air with aching grace, slowly dissipating into blankets of soft whispers and woozy warbling. This album is a masterclass in evoking emotional weight via entirely abstract means. I was brought to tears several times by the volatile feedback currents in “Sensual Objects”—it’s one thing to absorb the sadness from an affecting lyric or somber melody, but it’s entirely another to feel unnameable emotions well up from the depths of yourself when witnessing something whose sorrowful beauty you can’t even describe.