Continuing with our REWIND! of 2007, here are the Top 10 Electronic Musings on ([HearingTest]) in 2007… All but “Lion” were released this year, and most of them can be found on BLEEP.com or Boomkat.com. 2007 was also a great year for watching the magic of electronic synthesis and we enjoyed watching loads of wonderful videos. I consider myself very lucky to have attended some of the Bay Area’s hottest live electronic music performances and somewhat capture them on video. It’s all here as we REWIND! 2007’s Greatest Hits! ([More →])

Brian Chase, the drummer we all know and love, has just released a new CD for one of his jazz projects. He and Seth Misterka recorded an album with only sax and percussion that is reminiscent of works by John Coltrane or Sun Ra. Misterka is a Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist and composer who specializes in free-jazz saxophone. If you’ve read my review of the recent Yeah Yeah Yeahs concert, you know my feelings about Brian Chase becoming our generation’s Max Roach, so this new free-jazz album must be fabulous! I think the music was actually recorded in 2005, but just now released as their debut album, titled Brian Chase & Seth Misterka Duo. ([More →])

Experimental electronic noise scientists - Nate Young, John Olson and Mike Connelly, aka Wolf Eyes - added new tunes to their music $pace page plus new tour dates through Europe. Before they leave the US though, they will play four shows in northeast US: Buffalo, Brooklyn, New Haven and Cleveland. So, check out the new music, and look out for your chance to catch them live. Wolf Eyes’ live shows are fascinating crosses between metal, punk, noise, and guitar destruction. They have so much fun on freaking out on stage and they are so much fun to rock out to.
([More →])

This is a concert review of Murcof and .pig at the 2007 San Francisco Music Festival.

Last weekend featured an accidental theme of deep relaxation. Maybe it was cosmic alignment, or reaching an omega point of stress and fatigue, but everyone around me was discussing how to relax and feel creative. On Wednesday I reached a state of zen relaxation while sitting in the Artaud Theater at the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival listening to Murcof play ambient atmospheric music over a wonderfully rich soundsystem. I have a sample for you, so that you can try to create a place of zen for yourself with the beautiful song “Cielo” off of Murcof’s new album Cosmos. But first, a review of the band who started off the evening and the entire Festival: .pig an electronic noise band from Mexico City. ([More →])

Jesu has added experimental metal band Yakuza to a few of their US shows in support of the new Yakuza album, Transmutations. Yakuza’s music is described as “a metal base with progressive flair, while somehow also incorporating elements of jazz, world beat, and post-rock ambience” and “psychedelic elements alongside stretching, doomy movements and the band’s trademark jazz-influences, while also incorporating breakneck grind riffs and grooves at the same time.” With that many different elements coming together in such a fluid and evolving sound, you can see why I would refrain from trying to describe them in my own words! This one place where I will let the PR people figure it out… I really like their music though. It’s extreme to say the least, but with very classical elements. Almost like post-rock band Do Make Say Think if you played their music at 78 rpm… ([More →])

Machine Girl (End.User and Line 47) once was half of a limited edition split with 3 tracks from End.User himself on the flip side. The record was released in 2003 and quickly sold out. But, for those who are looking to plump up their breakcore/noise/electronica collection, Sonic Terror has just provided a fresh opportunity to own this gem. Meanwhile, if you can be in the SF area on September 6th, you can catch End.User, Exillon, Fluorescent Grey and more electric Circuitry live and loud! ([More →])

We’ve got two grand tours by Ipecac artists: The Melvins with Big Business and Otto Von Schirach with The Locust! The Melvins have announced a jam-packed tour of the US from mid-September to mid-October where they will be screening the new DVD they created with hipster cartoon toy designer Dalek - “Purge of Dissidents” at each show! Big Business will be opening the shows, but first The Melvins play one show with Mudhoney in LA (which will also screen the new DVD). If sludge rock isn’t your mug o’music, but weirdness is, you might want to check out the Otto Von Schirach tour with analog afficionado insectoids The Locust that is winding around Europe! Ahhh, I remember when Otto was just a lad, playing underground warehouse shows in SF and The Locust were scaring kids at The Gilman… ([More →])

Black Metal Updates Abound! Boris will again tour the US, but not with Sunn O))) this time. The tour begins in Chicago on September 30th, and features the japanese metal outfit playing collaborative sets with Michio Kurihara! They will play material off their most recent release, Rainbow plus many surprises! ([More →])

It was not so long ago that I was really digging Einsturzende Neubauten’s music. Saw them live back in the day, and it had a deep influence on the amount of noise and chaos that’s evident in my own music. I haven’t heard much from Neubauten in recent years and never looked too deeply into why that is. I’m constantly surrounded by so much fantastic music. This often deters me from looking too far for more. Well, it turns out that the reason I hadn’t heard much from Einsturzende Neubauten in recent years is that they changed their methods of releasing music. And I am absolutely intrigued by what they’ve been doing! Neubauten decided to create a new way for fans to support the band’s musical efforts directly, rather than through a record label. ([More →])

Fans of extreme music, experimental electronica, ragga and grime - I have a fantastic treat for you! There is an excellent interview with The Bug over on the french DubStep website. Kevin Martin (The Bug) talks about everything - how he first got involved in music, his time spent working with Justin Broadrick (Napalm Death, Jesu) as Techno Animal, his brief stint with Warner Brothers, and a whole lot more that has led up to him being a brilliant pioneering musician that blends ragga, breakcore, dubstep, dancehall, electronica, and extreme noise into totally original music. ([More →])

Noise enthusiasts in the EU - great news! It looks like Wolf Eyes is extending their travels round Europe in the Fall! ([More →])

Wrap your punk-deprived ears around this sound friends - Holy Molar are funtastic old school lof-fi clown punk at its very best. I think of it as Captain Beefheart in a secret rendezvous with Die Monitor Bats, but the press likens it to an incestuous relation between The Locust and Mr. Bungle. Both equally obscure and impossible to categorize, so you must listen!
Their bio reads like the screenplay for DJ Qbert’s Wave Twisters:

There is a tooth stuck in your knuckle and it is rotting from the inside out. The cavity-ridden lackadaisical cultural genocide dirty dentists know no novocaine can ease the pain or tell-tale stench on your breath that is your rotting mouth, so they just ball-pin hammer them out. Back ally dentists pocketing your gold plated teeth and molding the holes with tin foil. There is a chemical reaction in your head. Your teeth are shivering and it’s not from the cold. Because the blood of your gums is the missing ingredient for the elixir that could cure your stupid, stupid nerves, we give you Holy Molar, five dental school drop out hacks still willing to drill away at you just because there are so many obvious holes to fill.

Musicians from as far and wide as Final Conflict, Cattle Decapitation and The Oath came together to create this blasphemous noise that some dare to call music:

ron avila [drums] (get hustle, ex antioch arrow, final conflict)
bobby bray [keyboards] (the locust)
mark mcmolar [vocals] (the oath, virgin mega hore, ex charles bronson, social coma)
justin pearson [bass] (the locust, ex struggle, swing kids, the crimson curse)
gabe serbian [guitar] (the locust, cattle decapitation)

Their latest EP hit the virtual shelves today. It’s titled Cavity Search, features some amazing art by Mark McCoy, and according to the band’s label 31G, it’s “loaded with some serious metal drumming, songs about Pocahotass, and some of the strangest sitar and horn arrangements added to the bands recorded material.”

Cavity Search Tracklist

1. Cavity Search
2. You’ve Had More Kids Pulled Out Of That Thing Than A Burning Orphanage
3. The Night Pocahotass Spread Her Land O’ Lakes
4. My Saturday Night Fever Turned Into A Sunday Morning Rash
5. Der Werewolf Breath

Links

Holy Molar in the DEAF SPARROW zine
Holy Molarspace
You can buy the album direct from 31G

Sunn O))) has announced more tour dates on their artist page at Southern Lord Records! I guess the Pacific Rim and Roadburn festival were good to them, because after they play the Sonar Festival in Barcelona, they will be playing one show in the UK and then heading home to the US for some west coast shows with label mates and mentors, Earth.

Dang I wish I could have been at that Roadburn, but I would be happy to catch their performance in Belgium with Wolf Eyes. One of my very favorite Sunn O))) performances ever was with Wolf Eyes at the Lobot in Oakland. Both bands have been a huge musical influence on me. My bandmate in T113 grew up in Ann Arbor and was friends with Nate of Wolf Eyes, thus sharing some of the same musical influences and ideas. My mate first introduced me to Wolf Eyes’ brilliant chaotic noise and I was hooked. I think an ideal show for our band T113 would be with Sunn O))), Wolf Eyes and Merzbow in Japan (where they truly appreciate noise as an artform). This festival in Belgium comes awfully close! Who wants to fly T113 out to the Dour Festival to perform as well?

Also on this upcoming tour, Sunn O))) will playing shows with Wolves in the Throneroom, whom I have also mentioned as a fantastic metal band. If you get the chance, definitely catch them live. They are TIGHT, and play furiously passionate metal. T113 has played shows with them, and Wolves has honored us on a few occasions by playing on our soundsystem, including at the Autonomous Mutant Festival. In fact one of my fave live performances as T113 was with Wolves in the Throneroom at Overload in Oakland. My mic wasn’t working, but my mate and I played a killer set that included a doom metal cover of Ledbelly’s “In The Pines”. The guys of Wolves in the Throneroom are such down to earth and sweet people in addition to playing stellar, dark music. Not theatrical, like Sunn O))) but intense nonetheless.

Tour

Jun 16, 2007 Sonar Festival Barcelona
Jun 18, 2007 Meltdown Festival London, UK w/Chrome Hoof
Jul 2, 2007 Casbah San Diego, CA Earth, Weedeater & Wolves in the Throne Room
Jul 3, 2007 El Ray Los Angeles, LA Earth, Weedeater & Wolves in the Throne Room
Jul 4, 2007 Independant San Francisco, CA Earth, Weedeater & Wolves in the Throne Room
Jul 6, 2007 Mt Tabor Portland, OR Earth, Weedeater & Wolves in the Throne Room
Jul 7, 2007 El Corazon Seattle, WA Earth, Weedeater & Wolves in the Throne Room
Jul 14, 2007 SuperSonic Festival Birmingham UK Om, Mogwai, Miasma, etc
Jul 15, 2007 Dour Festival Belgium Wilco, Merzbow, Wolf Eyes

Sunn O))) has also announced that they will be releasing a 12″ vinyl record called Oracle in the US this summer. The 2 singles that would comprise the 2 sides of the record are:
1. “Belülrol Pusztít” – 16:01
2. “Orakulum” – 18:37

The jackhammer on the A side is provided by Joe Preston (Thrones).
It will be accompanied by a bonus disc:

“Helio)))sophist” – 48:17

You should be able to acquire your copy at any of the US shows. Southern Lord has not yet announced whether they will carry it in the online store, so expect a super limited edition.

Links

Sunn O)))

Wolf Eyes

Wolves in the Throneroom

Merzbow

Related posts on HT:

Sunn O))) and Wolf Eyes Play Sonar Fest
Growing Wolf Eyes On Thrones Touring Europe
Boris and Sunn O))) tour Pacific Rim 2007
Sunn O))) Adds Roadburn Festival To Tour
No Fun Noise Fest Tortures NYC 4th Year In A Row

Technorati Tags: metal, music, news, noise, Merzbow, Sunn O, Wolves, Wolf Eyes, doom, drone, guitar, tour, vinyl, album, UK, SF

Just 2 more days until the 4th Annual No Fun Fest at the Hook in Brooklyn, NY! Why would anyone want to attend a fest touted as No Fun? Well, consider it no fun for the neighbors, and no fun for your mom, but No Fun Fest has some of the most prolific and fine-tuned noise bands that the globe has to offer. Consider this years headliners:

Thurston Moore
Merzbow
Incapacitants
Pain Jerk

Plus the huge list of bands that will play between Thursday the 17th and Sunday the 20th of May:

Hair Police
Yoshimi+Kim gordon
Hive Mind+Damion Romero
Lambsbread
Evil Moisture
Crumbling
Orphan Fairytale
Sissy Spacek
Carlos Giffoni
Raionbashi & Kutzkelina
Anti-Freedom
Mouthus+Axolotl
Grunt
Princess Dragonmon
Charlie Draheim
Keiji Haino
Tom Recchion, Ju Suk Reet Meate and Oblivia
Religious Knives
Slogun
Sickness
Demons
The Rita
Gastric Female Reflex
Burning Star Core+Zaimph
Aaron Dilloway
Enema Syringe
Leslie Keffer+Rodger Stella
Stegm
Hacky Pack Sac Sac
Deathroes
American Band+ AirConditioning

Plus DJs:

Tony Rettman
Mike Simonetti
Jackie Oblivia
Nautical Almanac Sound System
Andy Ortmann,
The Olson Twins
The Harbinger Sound Plastic Punk Explosion
Joachim Nordwall
Lambsbread Sound System

For more information, go to the No Fun Fest website and read about the curators and philosophies behind the festival at Village Voice.
You can also purchase music directly from No Fun Records.

i especially like this quote in the VV article from Michael Bernstein, of Religious Knives who have played the fest every year :

“People are more drawn to noise music because it’s really a reaction against boring bands and weird rock hierarchies,” Bernstein says. “Noise is really a product of political frustration and musical boredom. Kids also come to the scene because it is still pretty small, and they want to be part of something.”

“This was about saying NO, a new freedom, a positive NO. Musically it was like a new beginning; everything was based on one beat, archaic rhythm and feedback. It was for the first time that a band seemed loose and free and oriented towards the future.”
Jochen Irmler, Faust

“A banjo with a microphone in it to make it electric, a fuzz bass en ’66, and an amazing singer, not to mention the drummer and organist, both out of this galaxy with what they were doing.
Their melodies were pop destructive and must be played to your younger brother.”
The White Stripes

monks Tribute Album Will Be Released In US - June 19 2007

silver monk time - features the following 29 international artists covering Monks songs :

The Fall
Faust
Fehlfarben
Doc Schoko
Gudrun Gut
Die Goldenen Zitronen / Chicks on Speed
PTB 3 (psychic tv)
Noise Conspiracy
The Havletones
Alexander Hacke
Michaela Melian
Barbara Manning and the Go-Luckys.
Floating Di Morel
S.Y.P.H.
Alex Empire/Gary Burger
Silver Apples/Alan Vega
Mouse on Mars
The Raincoats
Jason Forrest
Singapore Sling
27/11
Nista Nije Nista
Mense Reents
The 5.6.7.8’s (the band in Kill Bill 1)
Cycle
The Gossip
Jon Spencer/Solex
Charles Wilp / The Monks

liner notes to silver monk time - 29 international artists take on the legacy of the monks

in 1965 the monks were looking for a new zero point in pop music and created what later turned into the milestone record “black monk time”. “black monk time” accidentally or intentionally pre-dated several genres that were to come: kraut rock, electronic music, heavy metal, punk, industrial and techno.
when the monks in january 1966 launched their “living (pop) art project” at famous reeperbahn top ten club the largest german tabloid “bild-zeitung” wrote “noise, noise and no melody – robot music!”.
in july of the same year the monks presented their black record for the first time live on the teenage tv show “beat-club”. to the surprise of many they started the show with an improvised new song, which wasn’t even on the record. you could call it commercial suicide. the song itself was archaic, one repetitive beat, three monks beating on gigantic tambourines, an organ gone mad, a guitar on the floor that fed back and at one point was shyly touched by four band members. all typical macho rock attitudes were taken out. it was pure and swinging joyfulness and seemed to have more in common with avant garde art than with regular pop music. therefore maybe it was misunderstood. to some degree though it was the end of rock music as we knew it. the monks called the song “monk chant”. rumor has it that “monk chant” was supposed to be the one and only idea for their second long player. one primitive beat spread out on two lp sides. “the rolling stones are baroque, the beatles for old grannies, you, the monks are playing the music of the future, you are supposed to play the audience into ecstasy,” demanded their two german managers. this second (never released) record was to be called “silver monk time”.
play loud! is proud to announce 29 international pop bands who continue the musical journey initiated 40 years ago by the seven monks: gary burger, larry clark, dave day, roger johnston, walther niemann, karl-heinz remy and eddie shaw.

crank it up and enjoy this brand new ecstatic monks record.

it is (finally) silver monk time.

MASTERED AT Faust Studio BY HANS-JOACHIM IRMLER (FAUST).
buy the album from the Play Loud Shop

words about monks’ sound

excerpted from the original liner notes of BLACK MONK TIME

Gary Burger plays guitar and was born in Minnesota. Roger Johnston, a Texan, gives his drums the works. Chicago boy: That is Larry Clark - crazy-fingers at the organ, for his father was no gangster, but a priest. And Dave Day has more than one banjo and more than one microphone built into each of his banjos. He claims that he was born in Washington. And Eddie Shaw, who hails from California, uses his bass guitar as he sees fit!

as part of an introduction to the monks, Spazz Chandler described their music thus :

The backbone of the Monks’ music is in Roger’s drumming. The thudding of his omnipresent toms is constantly accenting and coloring his sharp snare work and sparse use of cymbals. He is always in control. It sometimes sounds as if he is directing the band, which is a rhythmic experiment in itself, from the rear. Dave, whose banjo is exclusively rhythmic, usually takes his cues from Roger’s snare, often playing at twice the drummer’s speed. The hollow, mad clacking sound of Dave’s banjo is at times evocative of a locomotive that has dropped its cars and cargo in favor of a faster pace. Playing somewhere in between the two is Eddie’s overdriven bass seeking to put everything into some kind of harmonic perspective. Gary and larry play what might be viewed as the “melody” of the song as well as the solos. Gary’s soloing technique is to rip sheets of feedback out of his guitar, which yammers and howls in protest, before slapping it back into the framework of the, er . . . “groove.” Larry usually skitters across the keyboard allowing occasional glimpses of fat cathedral-esque tone. His infrequent chords show the kind of caterwaul his organ would actually be capable of, if he slowed down long enough. The overall effect is maddening. It is without a doubt the most uncompromising stuff ever to call itself rock ‘n’ roll.

How Minnesota musicians revived ’60s rockers the Monks

the monks accomplished a lot during their time in Germany, but it is no small detail that each musician hailed from the USofA before being relocated by the Cold War. check out this article to read about their further adventures in Minnesota, and how the Twin Cities inspired the revival of the monks 40 years after the band had disappeared.

Living Like a Monk by Peter S. Scholtes

monks demo tapes 1965

previously unavailable material! CD Will Be Released May 1 2007

these early monks recordings were made seven months before Black Monk Time.
play loud! and Munster Records release them now for the first time in Europe
plus 3 additional tracks by The 5 Torquays and Jason Forrest.
inner sleeve with liner notes and never-before-seen photographs!

the cd will be ready for shipping on may 1st, 2007
the 12″ vinyl can be purchased now from the Play Loud Shop

play loud! productions presents - a documentary film by Dietmar Post & Lucía Palacios

monks – the transatlantic feedback a retrospect into the evolution and devolution of UBERBEAT

the original press release [warning - pdf format] from Play Loud describes the film, monks – the transatlantic feedback :

the film (short synopsis)

The monks were 5 American GIs in cold war Germany who billed themselves as the anti-Beatles; they
were heavy on feedback, nihilism and electrical banjo. They had strange haircuts, dressed in black,
mocked the military and rocked harder than any of their mid-sixties counterparts while managing to
basically invent industrial, heavy metal, punk and techno music.
The genre-overlapping documentary film not only illustrates the pop music phenomenon in its political,
social and cultural-historic contexts, but also reveals the monks project as the first marriage of art and
popular music and this months before Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground.
The five protagonists of the film came to cold war Germany in 1961 as soldiers and left the country in 1967
as avant-garde monks. For more than thirty years they were not able to talk about their strange
experience. In the film the five original band members recount for the first time their adventure.

featuring
Gary Burger (vocals/guitar)
Larry Clark (organ)
Dave Day (banjo/guitar)
Roger Johnston (drums)
Eddie Shaw (bass)
Charles Wilp (fashion photographer, composer, Afri-Cola guru, ARTronaut and collaborator of the monks)
Jimmy Bowien (Polydor record producer of the monks)
Werner Henjes (Polydor sound engineer of the monks)
Wolfgang Gluszczewski (tour manager of the monks)
Joachim Irmler (Faust, 60’s eyewitness, fan, musician)
Jon Spencer (Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, 90’s fan, musician)
Byron Coley (Spin Magazine staff writer)
Genesis P-Orridge (Psychic TV & Throbbing Gristle, 60’s fan, musician)
Peter Zaremba (Fleshtones, 90’s fan, musician)

credit list
production company : play loud! productions
produced and directed by : Dietmar Post & Lucía Palacios
edited by : Dieter Jaufmann
additional editing : Karl-W. Huelsenbeck
camera & sound by : Dietmar Post & Lucía Palacios
additional camera : Renato Falcao
script : Dietmar Post
music by : the monks

special dedication
in memory of monks drummer Roger Johnston (1939 – 2004)
monks collaborator Charles Wilp (1932 – 2005)

format DVCAM – DigiBeta | 4:3 | 100 minutes | USA, Germany, Spain 2006
original language English + German (with English subtitles)

quicktime movie trailer which you can also view on both the monks’ website as well as Play Loud’s site.

German Film Festival Showcases Monks Film In Australian Cities

Sydney
Chauvel Cinema

Palace Norton Street Cinemas
Sat 21.04. – 8.45 pm
Sun 22.04. – 1.30 pm
Mon 23.04. – 9.00 pm
Sat 21.04. – 3.30 pm

Melbourne
Palace Cinema Como

Palace Brighton Bay

Wed 25.04. – 8.45 pm
Sat 28.04. – 4.15 pm
Thu 26.04. – 7.00 pm

Brisbane
Palace Centro
Sat 28.04. – 4.15 pm

Perth
Cinema Paradiso
Sun 29.04. – 6.30 pm