N O P A R T O F I T

N O   P A R T   O F   I T
Far more important than baking bread is the urge to take dough -beating to the extreme - Otto Muehl

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Proto-futur


NOPARTOFIT.BANDCAMP.com

Also on the horizon (pre-order), we have some new releases and perhaps the first NO PART OF IT "batch" (if you must) available as a tentative "PRE ORDER"...   Everything is done, there may be room for cosmetic adjustments.   These are $7 postage paid in the USA, $12 ppd in Canada and Mexico, and $17 ppd rest of the world.  Paypal can be made to nopartofit at gmail dot com.  PRE ORDER.  These will ship on or before MAY 13th, 2016.



Ataraxic Ataxia - "Shadow Sea"



Reissued from a very limited CDr on Side of the Sun Recordings, more than half a decade ago, Ataraxic Ataxia is a duo of electronics and violin by Dominick Dufner and Nicole Pizzato.  Unlike many combos like this, there is a unique delivery of organic, true industrial noise mannerisms that only could have come from this configuration.  It is not simply the dialed in ambiance of strings.   The beauty and grit of this release is not only palpable, but also sort of regenerating and constantly transforming.  The rest is enshrouded in mystery.   Ataraxic Ataxia has done a recycled cassette on RRRECORDS and a few low profile releases, like an extremely limited 3 inch CDR that comes with a post card from the 30s, for instance.  Dufner's solo project, Sigulda, was absolutely thrilling at Neon Marshmallow Fest in 2010, using MINIMAL electronics.  This application with the expert use of string instruments by Nicole Pizzato is not to be missed.  49 minutes.


   
Thirteen Hurts - "UVB-76"



 Thirteen Hurts is a recording artist named Richard Adams who has performed at Denver Noise Fest a few times, as well as Norcal Noise Fest, and in one instance, he drove over 2,000 miles to play St. Petersburg Noise Fest.  At that time, he lived in a solar powered home in rural Colorado, 6 hours from any form of civilization.  I imagined him in some sort of geodesic dome listening to numbers stations and Coast To Coast AM with only the cold, dead air of winter, and hitherto useless power lines in the distance to accompany it.

      Thirteen Hurts live was also quite a surprise.  Whenever I see about 30 pedals sitting on a table, I always assume that there's going to be a great deal of muddy, buzzing garbage to endure, but not in this case.  Each time I saw this phenomena, there was such a level of control and focus,  also accompanied by a casual, playful demeanor, that it looked like that of a practiced, serious scientist, or maybe a "rocket surgeon" would be a better term.  The assurance that this person could fix a car or save a life while laughing, chatting, and gesticulating, came to mind.  The man was like a ninja with his pedals, building little ditties and then destroying them with epic blasts of clearly articulated,  yet cataclysmic, disastrous noise.

     It's only appropriate then, that NO PART OF IT is releasing UVB-76, an album inspired by a Russian shortwave radio signal whose origin has never been found, and whose communications have been poured over and analyzed for decades.  Naturally, much (actually about half, I'm told) of the source material is from radios, and certainly there will be some segments of this release that the kids will call "brutal!" and "sick!", but the depth and range of this release, like the two Thirteen Hurts CDs before them, is unprecedented.   The attention to detail is without comparison.  Each track is amounts to prime numbers.  At times, layers of heavily panned electric rhythms dance in and out of sync while what sounds like dying drip-drop synth burble cascades in and out of the picture.  At other times, it sounds like the sci-fi soundtrack to an animal stalking its prey, despite ominous, disruptive climate patterns.  Brooding, creeping static pulses punctuate swarms of oscillating ghost hiss.  Musique Concret glossolalia meets high-speed cut-up squealing robot ganglia.  With what seems like a minimal approach, "UVB-76" runs the gamut.  Each track is rich and unique, and any two tracks would compliment eachother as sides on a stellar 7 inch.    66 minutes in duration, and not a moment is wasted.





Blood Rhythms - "Heuristics"



   One day it dawned on me that tons of material over the last 15 years had sort of grown an organic cohesiveness to it that is suitable to be looked at together, both backward and forward.   In 2004, I had a dream about a child going through what could be said of a certain toad; that if you put a toad in a pot of water and slowly boil it, this toad would adapt and survive.  If you put a toad in an already boiling pot of water, it would die immediately.   In my dream, I saw a child suddenly being immersed in a similar fluid, causing him to grow up immediately.  When he did grow up so abruptly, the result was a person with writing all over his body and black tar coming out of his mouth.   Like the Empress in the tarot, this child lept forward from virginity to creativity.  I made this photo shoot happen with my friend and photographer, Iris B., and I never knew what I was going to do with it.  At one point, I thought it would be an exhibition of photography.   Eventually, though, it dawned on me to de-saturate and sort of purify the images and use it to frame this material.

This material, ranging from 2000-2015, represents a lot of things I sort of hoped would be on 7 inches or prestigious compilations, or they were criminally under-released, perhaps prematurely.  For instance, I went to a piano class at a local community college to learn just one song; "Viper's Drag" by Fats Waller.  My final exam was to be able to get through the first page of written music, and I did it, like a gallivanting jalopy and a horse-drawn carriage of maddening, youthful frustration.   My version, "Maggot's Drag (Notte Del Casu Marzu)" tells a short horror story of killer flying maggots.  It was meant for a "monster music" compilation I was curating, that was more or less sabotaged by a cover artist whom I paid in advance, who didn't deliver for over two years.  I got my money back after a fair amount of doin', but the steam I did not.

Also in the picture, is the audio for a performance I did with Right-Eye Rita on 06/06/2006, at a party I curated with  Betty DeVoe.  It  was a ritual performance called "The Stifling Air", supposedly based on some works by Jacques De Molay, Grandmaster of the Knights Templar in the 13th Century.  It included a custom made coffin and a nude model, and a king.  I always felt it needed to reside somewhere, but only now did it make sense to put it somewhere.  I could have produced the piece yesterday.

Some of my early performances exhibited a variant amount of sound structures, with me screaming the words "Remove All Doubt" over it until I felt like my vocal chords were bleeding.   Featured here is one such piece, some of my more musical work.

 There is also a track, "Mention This", featuring the vocals of Atalee Judy, a woman who was a kind and passionate supporter and friend early on.  She'd given me a cassette of a'capella recordings, and I was inspired for weeks to create music to them.  In this case, prior to knowing anything really about experimental music, I made music that is still bizarre, even to me now.  Screeching synth-cellos and heavily effected broken glass, sampler percussion, among many other things, provided a back-drop for Judy's incredible voice.  I once played this track to a man who did sound engineering for radio plays, and he said I'd achieved sounds and dynamic stereo ranges that he wouldn't understand how to do.  Maybe he was just being nice.

 Another track features Nikola Vasilic, where he and I did another piece for a Halloween compilation, with piano, organ, and lots of samples from horror movies.   Yet another track was made by me with harmonica, bass guitar, sampler, vocals, and masochistic microphone abuse.  I could go on and on.  There is a story to every piece, and it is a diverse listen for sure.  It is 60 minutes in duration, and I humbly suggest you give it  a try.




Arvo Zylo - "Hello Walls"


This strange album was originally released on cassette by the very discriminate and taste-making Enemata Productions.   Then again, it was reissued on cassette two years later, in a black vinyl bag with three full color post cards, a page from a book in German that I'd found in an abandoned church, probably from the 19th century, and dirt from various places, namely, the notoriously haunted Bachelor's Grove Cemetery.  Naturally, the moisture caused the tape to rot, but even before that, I was getting eerie reports of tapes being "completely blank".  Even so, while the decay did lend a certain something to the experience, if not the physical detritus, it also limited the range of that experience. 

 This material is not for everyone.  I made it in a sitting of about 36 hours straight, at my friend's studio space, "Scab Labs", with mostly voice, an SS330 keyboard, a sampler, field recordings from a construction site, destroyed tapes, and a bunch of EVP that I'd recorded from Coast to Coast AM, in real time, the old fashioned way, for the most part.  For me, it brings to mind Giusto Pio's "Motore Immobile" at times, and at other times well, "autistic" is the only word I could use to describe it.  It could be haunting, it could be my soundtrack for the times I spent the night at the aforementioned Bachelor's Grove Cemetery, or it could be just an unusually precocious lo-fi dark-ambient album made by a somewhat high-strung person with not much of an ability to sit still long enough to be truly ambient. 

 It comes off as minimal, but there are sometimes an excessive amount of layers.  In the case of the title track, there were over 150 tracks used in various mixdown sessions.   I'd say this is best listened to in a solitary environment, preferably outside, and in the dark. Is it still possible to do that?  If not, a boiler room from a building built in the 20s or before would do.    Approximate running time is around 70 minutes.    


IN OTHER NEWS




I was a guest on WZRD yet again, on leap day.  I had an especially fun time, mixing various sorts of excitable messery.  Some artists that crept in were Kenny Loggins' early stuff, Dusty Springfield's synth pop phase, Skinny Puppy's rushed and spacious album, Neil Young's Kraftwerkian experiment, Alvin Stardust's all-encompassing bouffant-meisterisms, Warren Zevon's song with lyrics by Hunter S. Thompson, A couple of Steven Stapleton's favorites, Art Zoyd's alternate Nosferatu soundtrack, and more!  DIG IT

I am very grateful for the following people who have taken the time to air and review NO PART OF IT releases....



WILT was aired again on a noise-focused edition on Wm. Berger's My Castle of Quiet Radio Show.  "Moon Diver".   Also in there was a soon-to-be-released cassette on Phage Tapes, SWOLLEN ORGANS, plus Kakerlak, Bretwaldas of Heathen Doom, Whitehouse, and lots of obscure gems (check out that Terrine track!), as usual.

A REVUE OF "333" SURFACED FROM TRAUMATIC STATIC!

ARVO ZYLO - 333 - CD
NO PART OF IT RECORDS
EXPERIMENTAL NOISE/HARSH NOISE/INDUSTRIAL/GLITCH
PRO PRESSED CDR IN A JEWEL CASE WITH INSERT.


I.) QUICKSAND EGGS OF A BEATEN PATHOS:
Even if I hadn't heard ARVO ZYLO's music before (I've heard one
release up until this point) It would be pretty obvious from the
album art that it was going to be a strange experience. The layout
art of 333 looks like a surrealist nightmare featuring images of 
scorched industrial landscapes populated by featherless chickens,
A small brass ensemble, Cars floating among clouds (As well as 
mushroom clouds on the horizon) Angelic statues and castle ruins
and beggars digging through piles of rubble...So yeah we are in
for a crazy trip..."Quicksand Eggs Of A Beaten Pathos" opens the
record and carries along the weird surrealist overtones of the album.
This track is around half an hour long so strap in. Slow throbbing
drum/bass rhythms guide us into creeping and sinister Electro-Industrial
patterns. Harpsichords play along and glitchy, warped synths add a plethora
of strange and unnerving elements. Chaotic pulses and signals fill the air
and then all Hell breaks loose. An all out high end noise fist-fuck quickly
becomes and aural gang-bang. Frantic noise with a very unique sonic quality
is heard over slow booming bass drum kicks. Unnerving to say the least. This
would literally drive someone outside of the noise scene fucking crazy. Even 
the most bizarre Japanoise act could seem relatively calm in comparison to
the insanity that ARVO ZYLO manages to conjure up. Shrill signals drill into
your skull, Rumbling electronic waves vibrate the brain and corrosive static
textures scrape like a dry old sponge across your eyeballs. You can literally
"feel" the sounds inside you at times. After some added percussive blasts we
go into a lo-fi area of audio murk featuring dismal piano playing that sounds
like a Phantom of the Opera type of character playing away in a dark, Dingy
basement in the bowels of a haunted mansion over a backdrop of whirring electronic
experimentation. The piano notes begin to glitch and somehow start to sound even
more ominous. Spacey keyboard notes, Thick bass lines, Every manner of beep and
bloop, Carnival organ grinders, Powerful slamming drum rhythms, Harmony, Melody,
Disharmony and atonal chaos all come, shift and morph. Mid-paced Electro-Doom
passages march on and send us deeper down a spiral staircase of utter madness.
Rhythms within rhythms and patterns within patterns. It is impossible to describe
everything featured here. Bubbling textures, Break-Beat percussion's that sound
like Speedcore in slow motion...Elements of Techno, Ambient, Experimental, Noise,
Industrial, Trance, Acid-Tech, House, And just about every other form of Electronic
music are present. It's really one giant digital head-fuck. Various passages are 
highlighted for extended periods...Some longer than others, But all interesting
to the ears. The quieter and denser segments explore Death Industrial and Harsh
Ambiance until they eventually too fall into experimental territory. At times
we go into fragmented Cyberpunk style synth work and at other's it sounds like
a Nintendo game on LSD. Warped, Wonky Techno parts carry on the drug use aesthetic.
Like I said...It's a trip...And then some. 

II.) DEADBEAT DELUXE:
If you've made it this far, We go into "Deadbeat Deluxe" where we are treated
to: Stop/go patterns that come in loud barrages as Harsh Noise outbursts form
a nice rhythm to accompany them. It sounds like a very broken machine attempted
to start up to no avail until dis-harmonic madness comes in looped segments only
to splinter off into fragmented 90's style underground Techno. Dance-able segments
and thick bass lines come and go as caustic explosions boom in the near distance.
Classic 8-bit video game style synths are tossed into the mix along with various
other synths that come in hazy, Lo-fi and distorted tones. The rhythms formed are
pretty cool and definitely keep it interesting. A lot of this sounds like the crazy
music they play on Adult Swim really late at night in-between shows or similar to those
"Cows and Cows and Cows" videos on YouTube. Other moments take us into pure mechanized Industrial that sounds like heavy pistons and steam powered machines marching across the landscape and pressing everything into a pancake. This eventually slows into scrap metal percussion's over
pure sonic experimentation. The slower pace gives you a chance to collect your wits before we
head into a really cool Nightcore/Techno/DnB/Glitch movement features playful, Cartoon melodies
and a really nice ever-evolving groove to it. Later on this transforms into dense rhythmic noise
that still carries similar patterns although they are rough, muffled and obscured. After a while
it becomes entrancing and right when you are hooked into it's lull we are hit by heavy Industrial
once again which makes for a brief, But awesome ending to the piece.

III.) PLASTHMA:
"Plasthma" starts in a similar place where the last track left off. Humming machines,
Metallic drum loops, Crisp static waves, Thundering sheet metal percussive elements,
Break-Beat/glitch drums...All that good stuff in a really nice blend. Things soon
become more frantic but without abandoning the initial rhythms. Sci-Fi/Space noise
tones come and go and switch and change. Although ARVO ZYLO can be quite busy and
overbearing at times and a complete sensory overload, There are still some really
cool moments for those who are looking for something a little less hectic. This 
last track sounds a lot more "mechanical" it it's madness and really demonstrates
a style that I rarely hear anymore these days. If you are into stuff like IN DEATH
IT SEARCH OF DEATH, BODY SHAME, and similar artists than this is worth checking out.
This track eventually goes into this almost orchestral/symphonic movement with very
doomy/eerie vibes. Cinematic stuff that has a spooky feeling to it. Kinda like an
old 70's or 80's Slasher B-movie soundtrack. The types of chord progression's that
you'd hear on a KING DIAMOND record. The synths used go from campy to haunting and
back again. Early Industrial style drums and slightly distorted lead notes give this
one a solid finish.

ARVO ZYLO ARE IN THEIR OWN GENRE. ONE OF THE MOST UNIQUE PROJECTS IN THE
NOISE SCENE. CHECK EM OUT:

FIVE NO PART OF IT RELEASES WERE REVIEWED BY LOST IN A SEA OF SOUND!  


Illusion of Safety - Surrender

With the world getting more and more crowded, the collective consciousness is hopefully increasing to a higher vibration. Music has a special ability to push this process faster down the path. This album titled Surrender by Illusion of Safety throws the listener around the sun in a gravitational slingshot. The frequencies are soaring and minds will be untethered from their snug mortal coils.

Dan Burke, the person responsible of Illusion of Safety has created a sonic world simultaneously living in many places. Surrender touches the ambient world of drone and peaks though with industrial constitution. This duality of drone and abiotic field noises provides the nourishment for a subdued organic harmony to flourish. As the composition moves through it's course, a sense settles in of how well everything is put together. Opposing genres, both almost lifeless in their own respects, creating a harmonic consciousness with limitless possibilities. Beats and samples grow then fade away to dusty porches with a single tattered wind chime clanging in the swirling atomic dust. Mutated insects swarm and devour the earth emitting noises like Viking hoards piercing the fog on to shore. Then into space and beyond, droning over time until future planets fall in the path. With the entire score on compact disc, the sound quality gives the complete album the sharpness it needs to vault your speakers into organic vestibules. Surrender drips with life, undiscovered and completely fresh.

This has been released on No Part Of It. A label that started off in a different direction than the dogma of our digital world demands. Now swinging around and making Illusion of Safety easier to hear and discover. Available on compact disc from the labels site or bandcamp page. Surrender definitely has talent behind it's making, maybe so much this could still be beyond it's time.




Links
No Part Of It site - bandcamp
Illusion of Safety site 

Arvo Zylo - 333

Arvo Zylo is a mysterious cat that must have razor sharp shaped blood cells. His music crosses over into a world of jagged noise and chaotic intensity. I always thought it was interesting how old punk songs are now music used for everyday commercials. I do not think Arvo will need to worry about this in any near future. 333 pulls the ripcord and plunges from the earth's surface going to it's core.

Three tracks at almost an hour. Somewhere in the first track you will be checking to see if your speakers are blown. After this, the second song "Deadbeat Deluxe" sounds like a reprieve. Actually though, more like music for an alternate dimension of "Bugs Bunny" cartoons. Slowly building quirky processes, all foreign in understanding. Industrial music fed by space mushrooms and super caffeinated robot energy packs. Being able to sustain these sound processes is what makes the difference. Lasting long enough to provide impact and giving sense of the rhythm within, then changing and becoming new again. By the third track, the music becomes more spaced out. The processes are lengthier and almost touch into drone world. They never really do though, maybe the intensity knob is turned back to eight instead of ten. The consciousness of Arvo Zylo is a special place indeed. His talent rest in harnessing this swirling cacophony, pulling forth feelings in the form of sound and focusing it long enough to capture for others to hear.

This is released on the No Part Of It record label.  Not sure how old or new 333 is. It is available through Arvo's discogs page along with an assorted mix of other releases. 333 is pretty intense in the beginning and works itself into being a well rounded composition.



Links
No Part Of It site - bandcamp

Arvo Zylo / Dental Work - Velcro Bismal

Cutting deep into unknown metallic like material, Velcro Bismal is a sheer force of sound. Turned to a loud enough volume, a vaporizing beam aimed directly into your cerebral cortex. Arvo Zylo takes the sounds of Dental Work an experimental sound group from Detroit with ties to Chicago, pulls, plucks and pinches them into something more or something less.

Moving from rhythmic shape of steel belt iron production to cataclysmal melt down of Three Mile Island, Velcro Bismal ebbs and flows from factory made steadiness to sheer turbulence. As the composition moves forward, Arvo takes haven in the title track. Maybe this is what break time sounds like in his mind. Swirling sounds dancing in the distance, none ready to be touched only engaged at the reach they present themselves. The last two tracks exemplify the ability of Arvo to create new worlds of sound. For many, these are places you would never want to visit, but for the stalwart listeners this is the realm of the "in between noise and industrial".  Difficult to maintain the balance without becoming to methodical or chaotic altogether.

This was released last year in October and is available on the No Part Of It bandcamp page. The cover art is for a series of collages project Arvo did. This is available as well in various forms.



Links
No Part Of It site - bandcamp


WILT - Nocturnal Requiem

I am staring at a map of the Hunnic Empire around 450AD. The movement of the Huns throughout what is now Europe becomes alive. Their conquests and sufferings burn into your thoughts augmented by Nocturnal Requiem playing as the map animates itself. WILT, the project of James Keeler, is grandiose in scope like the conquest of Attila. For some, like the Huns, beautiful and awakening while others, whose land is fertile, evoke shuddersome feelings of a dire world slipping from their grasps.

Nocturnal Requiem is somewhere near an hour of ambient beauty from bleakness. A sonic world the listener falls into, landing on some isolated outcropping and unable to move or touch anything. The sounds of this world are intense and mysterious and permeate your lonely position from every direction. As the title states, this is a requiem, but all things concerning the repose of dead souls do not have to be bleak or disheartening. Nocturnal Requiem could be heard from a conduit connecting the underworld, but for others, simply sounds of the world just outside your body. James definitely has the talent and ability to make this listening experience exceptionally beautiful. He also delivers this composition directly in the center of the field, allowing many different feelings to expand in any direction. Dense pastoral scenes of realities in some flux of experience. Never jagged or piercing, more vast and expansive like amber skies just before the color goes away or moonlit valleys where distance and definition blur into the night.

This is out on the No Part Of It label. Recorded a few years ago, but just released in December of 2015. The digital download has three more tracks than the compact disc. The cd sounds really good though and will be a beautiful composition to return to for many future listens.




Links
No Part Of It site - bandcamp
WILT site - bandcamp


Arvo Zylo - Sequencer Works Volume Two

Sequencer Works is an interesting output from Arvo Zylo. An earlier work not anywhere near the industrial noise scope of some of his more recent releases. This cassette was just released at the end of last year but was recorded over ten years ago. This is similar to controlled bedlam, sounds recorded like pictures being taken of an entire assembly factory, all moving parts on one expansive image. As you look at the details of this snapshot, you can hear each individual process sustained clearly and exactingly.

Nine tracks, all titled the same with their corresponding track number. Around sixty minutes of music pouring expansive sonic variations from your speakers. Rhythms and beats sometimes noisy and violent other times subtle and subdued. Like a trip through a carnival both nightmarish and joyful simultaneously.

This is out on the No Part Of It label and available at their bandcamp page. Songs over driven into a world blurring reality and mental thresholds.





Links
No Part Of It site - bandcamp


A track from Upheaval was aired on Little Fyodor's "Under The Floorboards" radio show on KGNU!

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Monday, February 22, 2016

Thunderous!....Metallurgic!....Pulsating!


I was a guest on WZRD twice  this month, and I played some recent experimental / noise releases as well as some other things that I thought were relevant to me in the stream of (conscious) things, and some things that I maybe never got around to playing on my former radio show on WLUW.  Among them, Captin Beefheart, David Bowie, Depeche Mode, an old split LP with Illusion of Safety, a recent flexi by dave phillips, Vertonen does Robert Turman, Nurse With Wound vinyl, PBK & Jim O'Rourke double LP, new/old COIL, and much else.  I also spent some time with the voluminous music catalog and make new acquaintances and old friends in the cassette collection, such as many figures whose rotting spools of plastic and wheels,  have ascended to deluxe box set heaven on the vinyl-on-demand label; Insane Music, Esplendor Geometrico, Muslimgauze, Ptose, and others, not to mention WIZZARD's early glam brew, Armand Schaubroeck's prison music, surrealist synth music by Slava Ranko, Art Zoyd, Der Plan, etc etc etc.    Ogle away!



A 12 minute version of Upheaval (Version 74) is now up at the latest edition of Necktar 2017 (Volume 8).  Necktar is an annual net release series based in France, and somewhat inspired by Carl Jung's Red Book.    It began in 2007 with the intention to continue until 2017.  This edition has over 100 tracks and is over 15 hours, featuring Dino Felipe, La Flore Intestinale,  mystified, and SANG MORT, a short-lived project between myself and Elizabeth Floersch (Fatale).  


I answered some questions for a net label called PCP, who will release a compilation including a version of Upheaval (84) eventually.  A long list of favorite musicians, perfect albums, favorite smells, sounds, phobias, inspirations, and evasive answers.





Upheaval cassette Reviewed by Lost In A Sea of Sound


Even though there are tracks on Upheaval by Arvo Zylo, this sounds on this cassette reside in a world incongruous with anything known to man.  Make seven separations or versions or what ever you want to call them and plug you brain into this... Nothing will matter by the end. Upheaval will leave your mind wiped of that bad day you had. That is for sure.

I have listened to a good amount of industrial music through the years. Arvo Zylo can walk in stride with any band i have heard, most likely set the pace. Upheaval exists in an unforgiving world of mechanized subjugation. Noises for reprogramming man and machine. The sounds are beautiful at the times before the perforation of your brain is complete and the remaining "versions" take the place of any thoughts you had. Take a look at the cover of this cassette. That's not artwork... Just a real picture.

I am not surprised at this point from Tymbal Tapes. Curating music and noise from minds alien of man. They must have a galactic sign post somewhere with instructions to send compositions to earth.
Beautifully put together from cassette all the way to the wicked artwork. Most people know because there are only four out of fifty of these left.


Upheaval was also reviewed by Tristan Bath/Spool's Out for The Quietus' regular cassette round up.  

Nebraskan label Tymbal Tapes is steadily becoming one of the most adventurous and reliable young tape labels in the States. Their last wonderfully packaged (again design by Tiny Little Hammers) batch of four sonic head trips features some banging weird techno from IXTAB; soundscapes from Romanian duo Somnoroase Păsărele; experimental noises from San Francisco’s bran(…)pos and this gem from Arvo Zylo. This cassette is about "the art of the edit" as Tymbal Tapes’ bandcamp page reveals, and each track is a reworking of the same base materials. Not that this would be easy to divine though, except perhaps in the generally metallurgic atmospherics. ‘Upheaval Version 65’ could positively pass for a muddy field recording of a steel mill - although the rhythms Arvo Zylo sculpts out of the noises end up outright meditative. ‘Upheaval Version 66’ and ‘67’ both shine up a rusty iron mass into gleaming church bells, while ‘68’ sits on a haunting moment of stasis for some eight minutes. In the able hands of Arvo Zylo, this is one of the most instantly rewarding experiences in resculpted noise for some time.


At the time of this writing, there are 4 copies remaining from Tymbal Tapes.




A review of UPHEAVAL cassette arrived via Guide Me Little Tape

Tymbal Tapes recently released Upheaval, the ominous work of Arvo Zylo. It’s a force to be reckoned with with it’s thunderous industrial sounds and pulsating rhythms. What sounds like whirring machinery and an extraterrestrial invasion gives this release an overwhelmingly menacing feeling. I feel like I’m under attack. It’s perfect. When it’s not a full onslaught, you’ll find the artist scanning the wreckage looking for any signs of life. The warbled tape transmissions wash over you in a hypnotizing fashion. If you weren’t subdued by the attack, you will succumb to the surging cries.



Screen capture due to My Castle of Quiet

Illusion of Safety and WILT were aired on Wm. Berger's My Castle of Quiet Radio Show, alongside Burzum, Plasmatics, Hermann Kopp, and others.  Wm. also included Blood Rhythms' "Assembly" LP and Arvo Zylo's "Falling Tower, Terrible Fountain" cassette to his huge 2015 year end list, which includes an intensive and worthwhile movie list.  
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A review of Sequencer Works Vol. 2 at KFJC.


recorded between 2000-03 with Yamaha Rm1x sequencer in a closet or crawlspace. industrial cartoon mutations of layered loops and tethered chaos; much of the sequences took up the entire memory, full of arcade boss-level malfunctions, metal slug invaders. among Arvo Zylo’s most musical work, not harsh noise in itself but not easy listening either. compiled from dozens of hours of archives of limited and unreleased material. 9 fucks given





Sequencer Works Volume Two aired on Little Fyodor's Under The Floorboards Radio Show on KGNU!

MP3 LINK

  • Little Fyodor - Those Three Little Words - Slither
  • Jeff Chenault - Monocular Stereo - Sonic Rebirth
  • Arvo Zylo - FUCK*01 - Sequencer Works
  • Numbra - Elinvar - I:Alloys
  • Sterile Garden - Erleben - Gemini Trajectory
  • Inside/Outside - Radio #1 - Territory
  • Architect's Office - SO 02 "Sym 40" 4th Movement - Soundtracks
  • Ken Clinger & Charles Rice Goff III - Twenty-Four Hour Toll Road - Midiosyncrasy
  • Paisley Nightmare - In The Daylight They Kill 1 - In The Daylight They Kill








Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Upheaval Inc / Pigswill VS Arvo Zylo - "BEAST" /Bonus WILT



New version of Upheaval ^



Dig the new bonus material that comes with the digital version of Wilt's "Nocturnal Requiem", 2 bonus tracks are now available.
 From James Keeler:
"These are the complete recordings. Raw sewage electroniks. Field recordings, etc. Think "Field of Skin" by Daniel Menche.
Similar process. Rotting tapes. Micro and standard. Lo fi synths. Tossed in dirt. An opus for eastern europe."





Arvo Zylo's "Upheaval" on Tymbal Tapes was aired on Spool's Out, hosted by Tristan Bath of The Quietus.  Therein he expressed that this episode was something of a pre-end of year list for late year releases that may get lost in the 2015 shuffle.

The playlist:
  1. O$VMV$M – Shinobi (No Corner)
  2. +DuLT+ – +Cave [Ancient Energy]+ (Cruel Nature Recordings)
  3. Circular Ruins – Intuitive Knowledge (Portals Editions)
  4. Leonardo Martelli – Ritorno (Mixed Up)
  5. Head Dress – Strong Arm (Cønjuntø Vacíø)
  6. DJ K-Sets – Canaanite Galaxy 2 (side B excerpt)
  7. Serbey Gubka – Valentine’s Bus (The Association for Depth Sound Recordings)
  8. 猫 シ Corp. – Wifi&Airco
  9. Blood Mute – Paraffin (Acroplane Recordings)
  10. Bromp Treb – Vultures
  11. Colin Webster / Andrew Lisle – BIII (Raw Tonk)
  12. Cukier – 8 (Pawlacz Perski)
  13. Barda – Arroyo (Was ist Das? / Pakapi Records)
  14. Harmonia – Tiki-Taka At Harmonia Studio In Forst (Grönland Records)
  15. Chris Spearman – Loom 3 (Sacred Tapes)
  16. Elizabethan Collar – 06 (Aught)
  17. Arvo Zylo – Upheaval Version 68 (Tymbal Tapes)

Speaking of...  Scott Scholz of Words on Sounds and Tymbal Tapes was interviewed by The Formant, wherein he discusses at length the motivations behind his label and, more specifically, this recent "batch" of cassette releases.  Well worth reading!  As I write this, there are 6 copies of Upheaval remaining at the bandcamp site.
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In other news, Frans De Waard, of Vital Weekly, wrote one of the most egregiously dismissive reviews I have seen, of Sequencer Works Volume Two.  If you want, read here, and you can also listen to the release to decide for yourself here.

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"Sequencer Works Volume One" was #66 on Tabs Out Podcast's Top 200 Cassettes of 2015 List.
It was also #22 for Words on Sounds top 25.  Thanks folks!




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I've just been made aware that someone made a track from Amtrak field recordings, myself performing in Denver, as well as Fatale and Personal Injury Lawyer.  I believe it is, Eucci, a side project of AODL.  Here it goes:



"Bridgeport, California Zephyr" samples an impromptu tabletop noise session AODL (Eucci), Fatale, Personal Injury Lawyer, & Arvo Zylo and loops and droops it into decaying feedback barriers. Original sample recorded in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago, played and recorded on the OP-1 on Amtrak #5, "The California Zephyr" across the plains of Iowa and through the Colorado Rockies, into the Utah desserts. Often under beautifully stormy skies as seen from the observation car.

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Gonzo Circus reviewed the "333" album, apparently some time this year.  I must have sent that to them 5 years ago!  Here is the translator engine's go at it:

Demonic spirits have it for 666, Willam Burroughs chose 23, EBM fanatics seek to 242, and the creator of this CD-R everywhere sees the combination 333 popping up in his life. All these numerical input is again spewed in noise and atmospheric distortion guitars, tools, metalwork, electronics and voices. Live shows this American of Croatian origin themselves stand out by hiding behind a metal mask as well (covered with contact microphones) is used as an instrument. ?? 333 ?? is a concise mix of industrial atmospheres (wrought iron), noise and feedback. What Zylo drop here, reminiscent of the early days of Merzbow or the nihilism of the New Bloc Frames. But it is by the use of rhythms / loops ?? 333 ??something easily digestible, even as an occasional tone firmer rest is built.A course in visual thing started with the combination 333: Earlier this album was also released on cassette (99 pieces) in three versions with three times three different inserts, and this CD-R will not always look the same everywhere.

CHRISTMAS IS NOT YOUR FRIEND





The Culture is Not Your Friend website did a compilation featuring Pigswill superbly remixing material from my album 333.  It is entitled "Beast", it goes into some excellent martial/ominous territory, from a segment of the 32 minute piece "Quicksand Eggs of a Beaten Pathos" (I think), and the compilation is pay what you want.

Undressing Underground podcast used some material from the Upheaval  release on Tymbal Tapes, in the background, for an interview with the National Cynic Network on KFJC.

Thank you.


Saturday, December 12, 2015

Illusion of Safety & Wilt now on Bandcamp / Decaycast review / New Releases / Final Distribution



Download features a bonus 23 minute "remix overview" piece set to video ( https://vimeo.com/87319213 ) by Dan Burke himself. There is also an excerpt from a live Illusion of Safety performance on WLUW's Delirious Insomniac Freeform Radio Show. In addition to that, "Surrender" was initially released with white letters on the cover, an edition of approximately 20 copies before being recalled and revised. There is a "demo version", so to speak, of the final track, "Access to Core", expanded upon by Dan Burke.

"Somewhere, an old T-shirt from Illusion Of Safety exists (the last we saw was affixed to Sigtryggur from Stillupsteypa some 10 years ago) with a deadpan/ironic catch-phrase "Illusion Of Safety gives you that soaring feeling" next to an image of a man tumbling headfirst out of a skyscraper window. Such a calculated juxtaposition of word and image was emblematic of the '80s art world (e.g. Barbara Kruger), often speaking to the underbelly of callousness, cruelty, violence and general amorality within consumerist society. 

Outside of this bold piece of iconography, Illusion Of Safety has operated within a more liminal state of mysteriousness through signifier and meaning. Even in their most placid albums of soft-focus ambience, the specter of some unknowable threat lurks in the background. 

More common in the Illusion Of Safety catalogue is an iron-fisted grasp of that sense of foreboding and dread through psychologically tense sound design. Over three decades in existence, this Chicago based project has been whittled down to its core member Dan Burke - with a few comrades-in-arms joining him occasionally - and is probably the longest running American industrial project, having produced a very impressive body of work. 

The 2014 album Surrender fits comfortably next to some of the masterpieces of the IOS back catalogue (e.g. Cancer, In Session, Historical, etc.) through the trademarked juxtaposition of noxious frequencies snaking in and out of harmonic phase patterns only to snap out of existence with a razor-cut edit into an electrical burst of tesla coil noise (for example). Disjointed rhythms, mediated collages, decontextualized field recordings, and psychoacoustic phrases map this album with incredible control and precision. Illusion Of Safety proves once again that they are one of the greats of industrial culture. Grab this album before it disappears...." - Aquarius Records


WILT is James Keeler's main project since the late 90s, and Wisconsin's best kept secret as far as I'm concerned. The feeling of rural desolation just oozes from these tracks, which maintain or expand on an industrial infused dark ambient sound nicely. There is a sense of brooding, but nothing beyond the residue of anything like a dirge exists. Masterful reverb, factory engines in the distance. Crumbling layers of synth loops being thrown off of a cliff, metallic swamp clang, utter dread and resignation. Keeler's particular take on imaginary horror soundtracks comes off like he's able to walk into an abandoned mental hospital and put all of the essence into a jar without any unnecessary bells and whistles.... or accoutrements of any kind. For those who notice the difference, this work stands alone.

There are definitely a lot of vintage synths somewhere in here, but "80s synth soundtrack" would be too lazy of a tag to place. Lots of little elements comprise a sound where no particular texture is too prominent. It's hard to tell what is a synth and what is processed field recordings of strange insects. The whole album though, could easily fit into those moments of epiphany in a horror movie, where the group of naive and sex-crazed teen day campers/life guards, in their tent in the middle of the night, realize by lantern light that they're trapped with something much stronger than them, and it's something they can't know or see, much less escape from... Moments before the axe comes down. It's hard to explain. There is an unspoken complexity in this artist's body of work. With Keeler's own "Institute for Organic Conversations" label, he's worked with subject matter expanding upon Buckminster Fuller and Lovecraftian ideas, while others are still rehashing the same emotionally stunted, serial killer bullshit. 

WILT's releases always are a complete package, as Keeler is not only an accomplished sound artist, but also a graphic artist and visionary. Every detail is attended to. Through his work with various projects; Hedorah, Astronomy, and various collaborations, he's worked with several well-accomplished labels, such as Ad Noiseam, Angle, Phage, Small Doses, Urashima, Danvers State, Chondritic Sound, Cipher, Husk, Bloodlust!, Hospital, RRRecords, Turgid Animal, the list goes on. 

Truth be told, WILT was the first noise act I saw live in 2003, and I still remember it fondly. The man did amazing things with a brick and some rusted sheet metal that he'd affixed little knobs to, while a video ran that seemed like a 16mm film that was pressed on dirty church windows. With that said, I'm extremely proud to present this new release and important part in the story of Wilt's body of work.


My friends at DECAYCAST (also behind the surrealistic costume noise acts Styrofoam Sanchez and Nerfbau) did a darling little review of Sequencer Works Volume Two on Out-of-Body Records.  Thanks fellas!

This one was released back in march of 2015 on one of our all time favorite labels here at DECAYCAST, OUT OD BODY RECORDS. This is some of the most intense / frantic offerings I’ve heard from Mr. ARVO ZYLO of Chicago, IL. ARVO has been making experimental music in multiple genres and formats for decades and their work is always dark, unnerving, at times whimsical but always unique, and “Sequencer Works, Volume 1” is no exception. According to the label description , some of these tracks are out takes from the now underground famous “333” album Arvo released several years ago, but this work breathes it’s own breath without a doubt. 

 The first track on side A, “Hypnochondria” is a spastic, arrhythmic exercise in sequenced chaos, starting off overloaded and blown out the track slowly gives way to more musical sections, funky freak downs, chaotic synth stabs and textured low end bass rumbles all sequenced in a choking, nervous fervor. Some of the sections are dialed in with intricate precision, as if Aphex Twin was taking stabs at post industrial music, or inversely, if Nocturnal Emissions covered Squarepusher . About halfway through the first side, the track begins to clarify even more, getting further reduced to just the essential rhythmic synthesizer elements. Stabby, no frills Bass elements , abridged hi hats and snare like punches and mid range rhythm exercises, ARVO has worked the sequencer inside and out. 


The a side eventually slows down and as the dust settles, the listener is left with a more ambient , atmospheric piece which continues onto the B SiDe ARVO IS NO STRANGER to creating dark , esoteric sound collages and dense, textured scrapes and the B side of “Synthesizer Works, Volume 1” is further proof of that indeed. The B side is much more reminiscent of many of the works from the “333” album we have all grown to know and love, or even his delicately crafted, masterful, yet playfully dark radio collage exercises. The B side’s two tracks really open up the scope of sonic territory on this album. Dense, decaying percussion hits, phased out static walls of distortion and arrhythmic exercises round out the album nicely. The second Side is definitely less rhythmic and structured overall but still holds a nice tension and tight compositional choices. 


This album covers a wide array of noise, synthesizer music and collage techniques glued together to create the soundtrack to your nightmare stuck inside. Dying pinball machine buried under the earth. Beautifully packaged full color artwork printed on transparent j card with an underlay, as does everything on Out Of Body Records, this tape looks and sounds fantastic! Highly recommended!

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A little bird told me about this master thesis because it used an article I wrote on noise in the bibliography:
Extreme Audio Culture in the New Digital Underground By Tamatai-A-Rangi Ngarimu A thesis submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Media Studies
It is 149 pages and seems to go into great detail on the various ways "urban culture" has used technology of pop culture and created something new, not to mention an extensive list of odd noise releases packaged in children's gas masks and whatnot.   Enjoy!










My split c60 with Critter Piss is ready from KaRyeEye Tapes, as is the Blood Rhythms pro CDR "Skin Flint" featuring my work with Wyatt Howland (Skin Graft).  Feel free to get in contact : kretapes at gmail dot com.  Limited to 30 copies.

The Upheaval cassette is now available from Tymbal Tapes.  It looks and sounds great in person, and comes with a download code.


Arvo Zylo's work is often the product of literal years of toil, the potent result of countless hours refining, perfecting, and focusing wild energies. Projects like his "333" and "Assembly" feel more like they've been finished in a metal refinery than a mastering house, their labyrinthine vertical layers chosen and fixed in place with firm force.

These Upheaval versions, each created in a single sitting from one block of material, act as industrial etudes, a peek behind the curtain at Zylo's unique approach to sound, space, and the art of the edit. Enjoy these fluid sessions of extemporaneous work from a master aural sculptor.

Keep up with Arvo Zylo at: nopartofit.blogspot.com

credits

releases December 12, 2015

Production Notes:
Recorded in May 2015. Created from samples of divas holding sustained notes. Each version of Upheaval must be completed in one sitting. 





Blood Rhythms "Assembly" LP is just about sold out from NO PART OF IT HQ here.  There are two copies with covers by Ron Lessard, and that's it.  However, there are some copies that should have arrived at Malignant Records and Crucial Blast Shop by now.  They may not be on their website yet, but these are the final copies with my covers and the extra 12" anti record.  There is no skimping either, these copies are made with razor blades, plexi glass, sheet metal, sand paper, and everything else (pics here).  Feel free to inquire with these fine establishments.

ONE MORE THING:  The diligent Culture Is Not Your Friend! site is ending, but for a final hurrah, they are soliciting submissions for a Christmas compilation, and I've been told that Pigswill will be contributing a remix version of Arvo Zylo's 333.  Keep an eye out in the coming weeks for that.