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Skulls

Download / Listen from Bandcamp

Here is another ANW release in the vein of the Paranormal Incativity release. Guess I hadn't had enough of this sound eh. 

Both are 1 bass drone using white noise as source + some piezo mic action.

"All In Your Head" 's drone is Fuzz Factory + Death Metal.

"Hole In Your Head' 's is 4 Eyes + Grunge.

Additional contact mic noise is piezo + Fuzz Factory + Super Crunch Box + Memory Boy (+ some reverb for track 2)

Less Is More

The Stuff on B/C + a word about reverb and delay in HNW

 Listen / Download from the Static Park Bandcamp

I don't know if you've noticed, but I've been going for a different sound these last weeks. I've experimented with different settings but most importantly I've decided to really introducde FX like reverb and delay. I used to think that these were a big no-no in wall-making. I mean, of course you can use them, but it seems they shouldn't be heard. It's a bit like plastic surgery...

If you hear the delay or the reverb too much, it is sometimes perceived as "too electronic sounding" or even "plastic" which in my mind is a nicer way to say "fake". I talked about the auditory illusion that should be inherent in HNW in a previous post, and of course using delays an reverb can detract from this illusion of movmeent within the wall by "forcing it"..

So why use these FX today ? Well for one thing I started Static Park to experiment with the limits of the genre and do whatever thing I used to think was not allowed within the genre. That's what genres are for, they allow you to know what something is going to sound like before you even heard it, like "90's NYC Boom-Bap" or "Junk Metal Noise Assault"

The thing is I don't really mind anymore. When I started making walls in 2010/2011 I didn't really know what I was doing.. Of course I'd heard some HNW and it had really fascinated me to the point of wanting to make my own but I came from a different background (mostly electro-acoustic music) so I did lots of weird shit that I probably wasn't supposed to do, like using a computer, putting the sound of running water in the background with The Sandman Wears A Mask project, (of which you can DL two or three albums for free from the HNW Graveyard) and it felt good.

After that, the more I got immersed in the HNW scene, the more I developped an unconscious urge to conform to a certain way of doing things. Like making my walls sound "dry", meaning not over the top delay for instance...

ANYWAY, gear used in The Stuff is as follows:

"On"=

white noise => Dream Crusher => 4 Eyes => Pitch-Shifter (with the Harmonize function at -1) => Super Crunch Box in simple "boost" mode => Bass Big Muff => Octaver => Memory Boy => EQ (with 100, 200, 800 and 1600 hz at 0, 400 and 3200 at -5 and 6400 at -10, I wanted a crunch mostly in the mids, not too high because I initially planned on adding a layer of high-pitched contact-mic squeals but finally didn't)

"Low Substance"=

white noise => Dream Crusher => 4 Eyes => Pitch Shifter (with the Harmonize function at +2, which brings the sound into "electronic" territory, something I used to carefully avoid in the past) => Super Crunch Box in "boost" mode => Octaver => Reverb => EQ (with 100 and 800hz at +5, 1600 at +10 and all the rest cut out)

Paranormal Inactivity

This is an Ambient Noise Wall track I made right after watching the 5th Paranormal Activity movie (6th including the ''Tokyo Nights'' one maybe ? That one is my favorite btw). There is a recurring drone in the series' soundtrack used to illustrate moments when the ''evil force'' is felt.

I wanted to emulate that drone because I like it very much, it's mostly sub-bass with just a tonal hint. So, I used white noise as source fed into the Fairfield 4 Eyes fuzz with the lows at maximum, frequency at minimum and all the rest cut out. I added reverb and Equalized with the 100 hz at 10, 200 hz at -5 and all the rest at minimum.

I think I'm close to the drone in the movie but perhaps I put a little too much reverb on it, which makes it a tad more tonal than it should be.

I then added two layers of piezo mic into my brand new Memory Boy Delay to get more creepy sounds.

Listen / Download HERE

Tunnel Of Night, Glimpses Of Day

Static Park - Tunnel Of Night, Glimpses Of Day

WARNING= really long post, so if you want to go straight to the download link, it's HERE

So,

I'm working 12-hr nights again which means I have much time to think about noise tracks I could possibly make but very little time to actually make them. These tracks were kind of ''written down'' at night (main idea, gear, sequencing) and recorded during the small intervals when I'm awake before I have to go back to work. I wouldn't go as far as calling them ''compositions'' (although the term has been covering suprising things) but you get the idea...

''Death Compass''

I more or less already said that in a previous post... but I don't use the Death Metal pedal too much. That's probably because that was the first distortion I got (not very original, I know) and I used it all the time when I started making 'walls with gear back in 2010/2011 (before that I processed everything on the computer). There was that and the fact that of course everyone else was using it too, which means I hear A LOT of Death Metal pedal so I don't turn to it too often nowadays.

Another aspect of the Death Metal that bothers me is that I really need to push the lows to the max in order to get any kind of crunchy sound from it, otherwise it quickly veers into ''Fast-flowing Death-Metal mud'' (you know?) and I never really was into that.

With this said, I decided to make this track with the DM, resorting to ''extreme equalization'' = only sub-bass and highs... The source is the piezo, into the Earth Quaker Dream Crusher + Fairfield 4 Eyes + Super Crunch Box and obviously Boss EQ.

I switched textures during the track by switching the Pitch Shifter and Crunch Box on successively..

''Jenny Says Wassup''

For ''Jenny Says Wassup'' I took a scene from Larry Clark's 1995 movie Kids, extracted the audio and used it as source. Although I put the unprocessed sample at the start, the source is actually the scene that leads to it. It's an important scene in the movie because Larry Clark (or maybe rather Harmony Korine, the scenarist) really shows how a bunch of kids can be equally naive and cruel, bright and stupid.


The audio was fed into the Earth Quaker Dream Crusher and Fairfield 4 Eyes Pedals, but I tried not to mangle the dialogues too much. You can't really make out what they're saying, but it's clearly people talking.. I added a slight delay with the Electro-Harmonix Memory Boy and then straight into the Bass Big Muff.


I swithed distortion during the last segment of the track, opting for a Metal Zone with all the frequencies cut out except the highs, with Distortion at maximum. In the meantime, the delay goes into overload and creates a loop I decided to keep because I find it suits my relationship with this movie...


Kids was very important for me at the timeit came out (I was 16, roughly the same age as the male characters) and a friend also gave me the soundtrack by Lou Barlow, including songs by his bands Sebadoh (with the poignant ''Spoiled » my favorite song of theirs with ''Magnet's Coil'') and The Folk Implosion, Slint (who's gig in Paris I'm going to miss because of my tinnitus) but also Daniel Johnston, of whom I was hearing for the first time and who turned out to be a big source of inspiration for me.

So yeah, New-York, slacker rock, skateboard, hip-hop, getting high... all this made a big impression at the time. I watched Kids again with my wife recently and it felt good. The kids are forever young on the screen, living in a state of constant danger, while I'm getting deeper into adulthood and the dangers are of a different nature I guess, but that's alright.

''Flesh-Eating Fuzz Heads''

As the title implies with this track I wanted to hear the (almost) unadulterated sound of fuzz in action. I used white noise as source, put it through the Earth Quaker Dream Crusher and the Fairfield 4 Eyes and that's it for the sound. Well, I must admit I added an octaver for a more meaty sound and a little delay on the Electro-Harmonix Memory Boy to get that flesh-eating sound I love so much.

''Husband & Wife'' (with The Girl With The Stanley Knife)

This is a collaboration with my wife, whose noise name is you guessed it, TGWTSK. We decided to make a new track together with voluntary constraints=

• each of us records on one channel of the stereo track (she's on the L, I'm on the R)
• each has to chose 1 FUZZ, 1 DISTO and 1 FX and work with these only

so this reads :

L = Earth Quaker Dream Crusher + Electro-Harmonix Bass Big Muff + Electro-Harmonix Memory Boy

R = Fairfield 4 Eyes + Proco Rat + Boss Reverb

Source is a piezo mic for both of us and of course there's a little EQ at the end of the chain.

I take this opportunity to remind you that I still have a couple copies of TGWTSK's Dark Feed 3'' Cdr on Ink Runs Recordings. We also have a minimal noise duo called FleshClocks whose 1^st release I reissued for a gig, and I still have copies of this one also.

''Pillow Of Sorrow''

This is another of my ''Noise-Hop'' experiments. The beat is made out of samples from various RZA productions I reprocessed a little. I played the electric bass and there are two layers of noise. The first layer is made with the Boss Metal Zone, the second, feedback-y one is the MI Audio Super Crunch Box with lots of reverb and delay (which seems to be the new trend around here)

 

HNW + Drugs ?

Highly Prolific Artist

Lay Delay Lay / Memory Boy by Electro-Harmonix

Static Park - Lay Delay Lay

1st of all sorry about the awful pun in the title of this one.. I'm a Dylan fan and this came up, usually once a bad pun comes up I know I'm gonna have to use it eventually.

There's a reason for this title though= I've got a Memory Boy by Electro-Harmonix !

I bought this because, well, I didn't have a delay pedal yet, and as I said in a previous post I've been listening to A LOT of harsh noise lately and I started really noticing the heavy use of delay. 

For my first session I wanted to try it out in a "wall" context but nevertheless decided to use the piezo mic as source to be able to make "short" sounds and see the delay's potential better.

I hesitated a second between the Memory Boy and its "nano" version, the Memory Toy, but the man who sold it to me told me I wouldn't be able to feed the delay into itself unto madness as I would with the big boy. With only a 15 euros difference, I took the latter.

I never really understood the point of delays in HNW as the idea of wall-making in my opinion is to create an auditory illusion of movement when there is none. Using a delay comes as a kind of contradiction because = 1) it would be cheating and 2) it would detract the mind from the illusion the wallmaker crafted by adding artificial, recognizable layers of hypnotic sound.. don't know if I'm clear here.. but I'm sure you get the idea.

With all this said, I still wanted a delay because Static Park is all about breaking the rules I made for myself with noise, and I plan on using the delay for harsh noise and drone. I'm sure It'll work wonders within those genres.

Of course, I'll try wall-making with it again, this time using an already static source ie white noise.

"Bat Radar" is an excerpt from my 1st recording session with the Memory Boy by Electro-Harmonix. Source is Piezo mic through Fairfield 4 Eyes and Proco Rat Distortion. "Toy" is sampled drums + piezo mic taped to acoustic guitar through MI Super Crunch Box + extra layer of noise with the Crunch Box gain all the way up.

Listen / DL from Bandcamp

Noise / Harsh Noise Playlist + Links

01. Solmania - DLO - Alchemy Records – 1998 CD

02. The Cherry Point - The Night Of The Bloody Tapes - Troniks - 2005 CD

03. Un - Nowhere Near - Deadline Recordings – 2005 Bandcamp

04. Merzbow & Carlos Giffoni - Synth Destruction - Important Records – 2007 CD

05. MAAAA & K2 - Split - Triangle - 2011 Bandcamp

06. Filthy Turd & Roro Perrot - Rotating Smells Two-Bob Druids - Self-Released – 2013 Bandcamp

07. God Pussy - Live Performance - Dream Noise Records – 2013 archive.org

08. Vibrating Garbage - A Waste Of Time For A Time Of Waste - Tumeric Magnitudes – 2013 Bandcamp

09. Poète Maudit - Recycled Music - RRRecords - 2014 Bandcamp

10. Wires & Relays - 5 - Tumeric Magnitudes - 2014 Bandcamp

I've been listening to a lot of noise, harsh or not, recently. It's funny because I've been into this stuff for quite some time but it seems it's only now that I'm ''getting'' it as pure fun and not just paying attention to the sounds and how they're done. I guess I'll always be more of a static noise person but I appreciate cut-up noise, loops, controlled feedback and the likes more and more..

By the way, I put the 5th release from Wire & Delays because I had to pick just one but really the 5 you can find at Tumeric Magnitudes Bandcamp are excellent harsh noise. Vibrating Garbage is also really good in a muddier, dirtier way, as the name suggests, so help yourselves.

Lex EP

Static Park - Lex EP

Not really an EP come to think of it, more like a 7'' but I'd feel silly calling a Bandcamp "release" a 7''..? Anyway, 2 short tracks here: "Make The Bat Drink" is straight up static noise with different textures juxtaposed. It was made with the piezo mic into the Fuzz Factory + Super Crunch Box + Rat pedal. The intro is the Crunch Box with the gain overblown (Rat switched off). The rest is different settings of the Rat pedal with the "crunch" at a minimum. "Don't Forget" is more acoustic guitar playing on top of two layers of noise. The "crunch" part is Fuzz Factory + Super Crunch Box and I use the Boss Pitch Shifter with a medium setting, before it gets all electronic-sounding. The feedback is the same with the gain of the Crunch Box at maximum level, not moving the piezo mic too much. I did a lot of transposing on the computer for this 2nd track, not so much to get it "in key" as there is so much feedback it would be impossible, but to muddy-up the sound. 

As usual, listen / download from Bandcamp

Trade-Only CDr = How Is The World Treating You ?

Static Park - How Is The World Treating You ? - Self-Released CDr

I went through the stuff on the Static Park Bandcamp and selected 14 tracks that could make up an album. It's mostly hnw but there's also some harsh noise, guitars, even some beats here and there... 14 tracks for a little less than 1hr of sound.

So here's a trade-only Cdr (There's a Static Park sticker with it + an insert detailing the gear btw) I'll trade you for a Cdr, comic-strip, zine, drawing, button, sticker or whatever you see fit.

Night Action

Static Park - Night Action

Yet another ''Noise-Hop'' (?) track, I could have put them together but the truth is I really wasn't planning to do another one so soon. However, I got the inspiration this morning to do just this= how it feels to walk in the lonely streets all night long, not sad but in a kind of frenzy.. kind of a cliché I know but that's how I felt.

On the techy side, the beat was done with a (sampled) Oberheim DX, which was the drum-machine used in the 1st ever digital reggae riddim back in.. 1984 ? and produced by King Jammy (he was Prince Jammy back then but the digital thing made him King eh...) It was also widely used in Hip-Hop and has this extremely old-school flavor. I played electric bass and melodica (another nod to dub, more specifically Augustus Pablo) added a chopped-up vynil scratch and that's it for the beat. 

The noise part is Dream Crusher fuzz + Metal Zone with bass and high cut off and mid at maximum with distortion at medium. Like last time, lots of Reverb (Boss). I played this set up with the piezo mic in order to get some feedback. Didn't have to transpose it digitally this time as it was already in the right key..

Listen / Download here

Review of Belphegore / Static Park split on WNA in CAUTION FALLING PLYWOOD

Belphegore / Static Park - Split - Wall Noise Action - 2014

Read it here

I'm very happy about the review and I must say it's nice to see more people writing about static noise in general. Check the blog out, there are also interviews, the last one with a new fav of mine, Angel Of Mercy.

Speaking of ''HNW journalism" I must mention the wonderful work Roger Batty does at musique [machine] lots of interviews (including one with me when I called myself Ghost and ran Slow Death Records) and pretty much every physical release within the genre gets reviewed eventually. So if you don't know M[M] and are interested in static noise, run!

Another place worth mentioning is Memory Wave Transmission where Ryne does reviews of (mostly) HNW.

''Noise-Hop'' ?

Static Park - Rooftop Issue...

I've made another attempt at ''noise-hop'' = noise + hip-hop beat. The previous one was really simple: saturated drum-machine + static (check it out here) This time it's a bit more ''elaborate''..

So I've made some drums with a freeware drum-machine I found on the net and played the acoustic guitar + electric bass on top of it. The scratch were sampled from A Tribe Called Quest's ''Oh My God'' which was featured on my 90's Hip-Hop Playlist) and that's it for the beat.

The noise is piezo mic into Dream Crusher fuzz into Super Crunch Box with the gain all the way down to avoid the ''static wind'' FX and get a lot of feedback. I put A LOT of reverb on it because I thought it would make the noise blend better with the beat.

I also took the whole noise file 3 semi-tones down with the computer so it would be in the same key as the guitar. I hate doing so much processing on the computer but it really sounded better like that..

Listen / Download here

90's Hip-Hop Playlist

Here's my playlist for 90's Hip-Hop, my favorite era given my old age (although many young people seem to be listening to this stuff now...) I also say ''Hip-Hop'' and not ''Rap'' because it seems to me in the 90's music was still a part of the culture, as opposed to just trying to find a good hook for a song to hit the pop charts.. I'm not bitter though, it was good while it lasted and I listen to a ton a contemporary stuff from Atlanta or Chicago so...

A couple more things about this playlist, I left out the Wu-Tang stuff which obviously belongs here because I've maybe listened to it a bit too much, furthermore I suppose everybody knows their music from that era even when they're not familiar with rap, so I've favored some stuff I consider classic but didn't ''overdo'' as much. You might notice I included lots of songs that were featured in Larry Clark movies. That's because he's a genius.

Playlist is in chronological + alphabetical order within the years. Here we go:

01. 1993 - A Tribe Called Quest - ''Oh My God''

02. 1993 - KMD - ''What A Nigga Know''

03. 1994 - Artifacts - ''Wrong Side Of Da Tracks''

04. 1994 - Brand Nubian - ''Word Is Bond''

05. 1994 - Jeru The Damaja - ''My Mind Spray''

06. 1994 - O.C. - ''Time's Up''

 

07. 1995 - KRS-One - ''De Automatic''

08. 1996 - Mobb Deep - ''Extortion'' (Feat. Method Man)

09. 1997 - Company Flow - ''Vital Nerve''

10. 1997 - Rakim - ''New-York''

True Story

Movie Theme

Yeah I know some of you have used these themes, absolutely NO OFFENCE intended to any fellow wallers here.. Just so you know..

Crunch Practice

Static Park - Crunch Practice

1st of all check out this awesome cover art by my wife Carlotta Skb (did I mention she also makes noise as The Girl With The Stanley Knife ?) She's taking calligraphy lessons and this is a mix of her growing skills and the piece of paper she uses to get rid of the excessive ink from the quill. Love it.

On to the sounds. If you're familiar with my other projects, you'll have noticed that I've taken a more laid-back approach to noise-making with Static Park. I've been listening to lo-fi and very raw music a lot in my life but somehow I couldn't help myself being very obsessive on details with my own stuff.

With this project I think I've somehow managed to let go a little, focus on the essential (which is the feelings I'm trying to convey, being a little more 'honest'..) and make rawer noise. This goes back to what I was saying about Richard Ramirez in a previous post, so use the ''tags'' button if you're interested..

So anyway, I'm now going as far as making public what I consider ''practice sessions'', in this case I was looking for the Holy Grail of HNW, the ''crunch''. I extracted about 15 minutes from these sessions when I thought I hit interesting results.

Gear-wise it's the return of the Zvex Fuzz Factory. Distortions for track 1 are Rat & Bass Big Muff, for track 2 it's Super Crunch Box & Metal Muff Nano (alternatively)

Listen / Download here

My wife Carlotta is doing calligraphy, check out the awesome logo she did for Static Park!

Fabric Eye

Static Park - Fabric Eye

Still working with the same set-up as last time, which is: piezo mic / radio static => Dream Crusher fuzz => 4 Eyes fuzz => Boss pitch-shifter => Super Crunch Box => Rat distortion => Boss octaver => Boss Reverb => Boss EQ.

"Move Your Eyes" as the title suggests is an attempt at "wall with movements" working with the contact mic and doing a mix of sudden changes in the chain with slow turning of knobs. 

I think I'm getting better at using the piezo mic as source for unedited works because I've been doing a lot of Harsh Noise these days so that was good practice and I'm trying to broaden my idea of what "good noise" can be and toy with things that do not fit my original ideas about static noise as a genre rather than dismiss them immediately. I owe Richard Ramirez's music a big debt for this as it's really the way he uses all kinds of noise in a static or harsh noise context that has made me realize that there were more than a couple of textures that were "acceptable".

Listen / Download from Bandcamp

New Gear

HNW playlist + links

1. Å - Sagra Del Lardo Noise (Live) - Anarcho Freaks Production – 2010 Bandcamp
2. [untitled] – I – H Series HNW – 2011 Tape
3. Horrible Mess - Alone - USR Records – 2011 HNW Graveyard
4. Namazu Dantai / Alo Girl – Split – H Series HNW – 2012 Tape
5. The Rita - Eyeliner Into Nylon Black Seam - Sickcore - 2012 CD
6. Abyzm & Light Collapse – Split – Torga Amun – 2013 CDr
7. Bleak Existence – Love Earth, Hate People – Narcolepsia - 2014 Tape
8. Panic – The Ring – Bored Bear Recordings – 2014 CDr
9. Unusual Affairs - The Gruesome Twosome - H8-Track Stereo – 2014 Bandcamp
10. Uv Ursa Spr & Nuits Rouges – Split - Nahàsh Atrym Productions – 2014 Bandcamp

Here's another playlist from the Static Park headquarters, don't know how regularly I'll be making these.. When I feel like it I guess. Less DL links than last because I've been revisiting a lot of physical releases this last weeks.

Oh and it's listed by release date btw

If you don't know the HNW Graveyard yet and want to DL some classic releases from pre-Bandcamp days do yourself a favor and check it out thouroughly. The 1st multi-upload links are dead but all the Mediafire ones are still active.

Cold Walls

Split w/ Belphegore on WNA netlabel

Belphegore / Static Park - Split - Wall Noise Action

I'm very happy about this split because it's with Belphegore, one of my favorite current wallers (listen to his work on his Bandcamp) I put his Concrete release on a recent HNW playlist on here and then we got in touch about a split and here we are: Oh the magic of internet.. Do check out his other stuff because it's loud and crisp.

2nd reason to be happy is that it's on the WNA (Wall Noise Action) netlabel ran by Ivan Sandakov. I consider Ivan a pioneer of modern HNW with his prolific project Sleep Column. However, he has recently ended this project but keeps on making walls. He has many other projects but my favorite one has to be Oasis Of The Zombies, which has released records on Smell The Stench and my own Bad Rip Series (btw I still have a couple copies, so check it out)

My track on this split is special to me because it was made during the first recording session I made with my new set-up:

Dream Crusher Fuzz => Boss Pitch Shifter => Boss Octaver => Rat Distortion => Boss EQ

Usually, my tracks are not very loud by HNW standards because I never record "in the red" and use minimum compression. I don't think that's a problem most of the time because I don't really like having to put the volume at the minimum every time I play HNW at home or on headphones when I've listened to something else right before if I don't want to blow my ears and speakers. The difference in volume makes it impossible to make a varied playlist for one thing...

Anyway, this is a problem for comps and splits. I have a track with my project The Killer Came From The Bronx on the recent HNW Kompilation Vol.2 on Nahàsh Atrym Productions alongside great wallers like Richard Ramirez or Clive Henry and I regretted the low volume of my track a bit. 

So for this split, Belphegore's tracks were so loud I decided to break one of my own rules and let it go in the red slightly... Just this time !

Listen / Download from WNA netlabel.

RATS

Fuzzy Thing= Dream Crusher

Dream Crusher by EarthQuaker Devices

Of course it's not as versatile as my other Fuzz pedals, you can really do lots of things with a Fuzz Factory or a 4 Eyes which you can't with this one. It's got only two knobs, volume and amount of fuzz. That's it, no filters, gates, nothing... But the sound !! It's deliciously warm and full, perfect for the kind of sound I'm after these days, like the tiny bit of distortion after the final chord of a lofi rock concert, but which would last forever.. or 10 minutes at least. For the moment I've replaced the Zvex with this one to experiment with it. I don't think I'll get some sharp crackling out of it, but pairing it with the Metal Zone I could get some nice flow and sludge.

Little Fuzzy Things

Static Park - Little Fuzzy Things

Yes, still obsessing over this song and especially its introductory guitar sound... I know J Mascis is a Fuzz guy and so am I. These recordings were made using my new Dream Crusher Fuzz pedal, courtesy of EarthQuaker Devices. Nothing else really, except the Super Crunch Box by MI Audio to beef up the sound, octaver to get some bass + EQ.

I experimented a little with the sources. Track 2 is ''classic'' HNW rumble, using a radio tuned to static as sound. However for tracks 1 and 3 I used a piezo mic taped to the radio. The mic catches the static so it still sounds wallish to me, but it also catches my movements + how they affect the radio signal (there are so many stations it's almost impossible to get ''pure'' static from the radio, not even something really atonal...)

In a nutshell, I fucked around with it just enough to get some breaks and feedback from the thing.

You can listen / download from the Static Park Bandcamp

Perfect Split

Heart of the (Proco) Rat

Rat Distortion - Proco

So I'm not really at the heart of the Rat yet as it's my first session using this distortion but I already know it's going to be a good friend of mine. The distortion goes all the way from rattle-y clang to quasi-electronic textures and the filter obviously adds myriads of possibilities.. For the moment I use it to 'muddy-up" the sound when it gets too metallic (I think that shows on the 1st track on Heart Of the Rat, ''Been Waiting'')

My next step is experimenting with less flowing sources and see how it reacts to isolated sonic objects. I've seen video reviews with guitars and it sounds really nice, metal but not too much so I might even try it for my new band project when I get sick of the grunge...

Making walls with the Rat Distortion

Static Park - Heart Of The Rat

1st time playing with the Rat distortion here, so I kept the rest of the set up very simple and didn't use any other new stuff. The source is a long stretch of white noise on a mp3 player, fed into a pitchshifer all the way down + octaver and into the Rat. Slight EQ and that's it.

Listen / DL from Bandcamp

Reading - Late Century Dream

Late Century Dream - Black Dog Publishing

Late Century Dream is a collection of articles about US "Indie" bands from the 90's... I'd say the "theme" could be "life outside the mainstream" or something... So there are articles about Skin Yard, 7 Year Bitch, Butthole Surfers, Pain Teens, Polvo, Superchunk (!!!), Meat Puppets, Sun City Girls etc. It's a nice read although there is no obvious connection between the articles except references to DIY principles for example.. I just couldn't pass on a book about these bands.

"You Mean The Static ??" - GEAR

Digitech Grunge Distortion

Very minimal set-up for these recordings, Grunge is the only distortion. As you can see in the pic I always set the "grunge" knob to a minimum because I think it gives too much of an electronic sound to the output when it's on... maybe that's just me though..

The "problem" I have with distos like the Grunge or the DM is that you need to push the bass in order to make the mids really crackle or coalesce into something interesting wall-wise, and my EQ is apparently not good enough to cut all these bass frequencies out when I want the crunch only.. Maybe I just need a new EQ.. 

Anyway, the Grunge pedal is a great piece of gear that I've neglected for too long.

HNW= ''You Mean The Static ??''

Static Park - You Mean The Static ??

Whole recording session with the Digitech Grunge Distortion, cut up into 5 tracks. Intro and "interlude" are the piezo mic into a couple fuzz and into the Grunge pedal, the two walls are radio tuned to static as source. "B" is crumbling crusty static with a fat bass while "Jit" is lots of jittering static over a.. drone ? Last track is when I tape the contact mic onto the acoustic guitar that's laying there (because I'm currently writing songs for a new band project hehe) leave the set-up as it is and play a while.. I "can't help it" Listen and / or download for free HERE

HNW Playlist

Click on the ''B/C'' link to get to the Bandcamp page...

01 Muff Obsession - Dessicated Husk - 2008 B/C

02 Slackernoise - Listening To Harsh Noise Wall Is Better Than Listening To Your Sucking Crap - Muzikaal Kabaal – 2011 B/C

03 Slashed Pretty Girls - Of Madness - H Series HNW - 2012 B/C

04 Angel Of Mercy & Sleep Column - Split - Wall Noise Action – 2013 B/C

05 Angel Of Mercy - Mass Execution - Wall Noise Action - 2013 B/C

06 Crash At Every Speed - Pavement - Deadline Recordings – 2013 B/C

07 Nightmare Castle - Blind Dead - VBP – 2013 B/C

08 Swallowing Bile - Watch Me When I Kill - Crystal Lake Tapes – 2013 B/C

09 Wall One - Snapped In Half - 2013 B/C

10 Victims Eye - Belphegore - Concrete - Self-Released - 2014 B/C