Bacterial (HNW) + a word about Dead Body Collection

I thought it was time for a HNW release after all those beats... As a matter of fact I was working on another release, a harsh noise collab I'll tell you about later, when I stumbled upon a sound I'd like to hear on and on, so I thought, hey, let's do just that and let it flow for 10 minutes.

The set-up for this is=

Radio static as source + Fuzz Factory (gate wide open) + Harmonise (just high enough to "electronize" the sound a little, something I used to avoid like the plague but was influenced to do by some Werewolf Jerusalem releases like Carnal Violence from 2011 on Robert & Leopold or Just Before Dawn from 2012 on Burial Recordings, you can check this last one out here) + Super Crunch Box (with the gain open) Bass Big Muff (set on Low, with tone and sustain at minimum as not to cover up the bass and drone completely with crackling) + Memory Boy + Reverb + EQ.

I have been listening to Dead Body Collection a lot recently. Aleksandar Nenad, the man behind DBC and also Creation Through Destruction, is a fine noisemaker who has more than a hundred releases behind him already. They are always solid, and among them are many gems. I am proud to have collaborated with him on the Ghost /DBC Whore Of Babylon split as well as releasing his split Somnolence / L'Homme En Noir with Ekunhaashaastaack on Slow Death back in 2010.

Although he has slightly changed this over the last couple of years, DBC has long focused on diseases and such for his themes and visuals. The title of this wall is of course a reference to him. Also, this wall is more flowing and straight-forward than my usual stuff these days, perhaps because I was influenced by all the DBC I've been listening to.

Check out DBC's fantastic Bandcamp HERE and please support the artist by buying releases, in physical or digital format. Here are 10 of my favorite ones, apart from the 2 releases I'm involved with obviously =

Incomplete Fracture - Bored Bear Recordings - 2010
Living Dead - Smell The Stench - 2011
Trypanophobia - Self-Released - 2011
Untitled - Inactivist - 2011
I'd Fallen Before But It Never Hurt Like This - VNA - 2012 
Nosocomephobia - Self-Released - 2012
Recycled Music - RRRecords - 2012
Zvala Si Se Svetlost - Vagary - 2012

Collezione Dei Corpi Morti - Total Black - 2013
Deep Into The Halls (with J. Adolphe) - Geräuschmanufaktur - 2014

Now, this should not prevent you from listening / downloading Bacterial HERE

To Quote A Phase EP

I'm making a lot of beats again, probably because I've been listening to tons of rap and reading Sylvain Bertot's excellent book about Indie Rap (at Le Mot Et Le Reste Edition, 2014).

 The fact that two of my beats were used in a documentary about a fine street-artist named BMX also helped motivating me (I'll share the link to the video as soon as it's officially released)

Here are 3 beats made in the last week or so.

''Lonely Blue Returns'' is a traditional boom-bap track which samples Aretha Franklin's ''Nobody Like You'', which I had already used for one of my very first projects, Lonely Island, back in 2000 or something. I think it's the 1^st time I go back to a sample like that, maybe you noticed I'm feeling a bit nostalgic music-wise.

''Orange Meow'' is completely different. I'm playing the guitar and the electric bass over the sampled drums. The only other sample is the cat's meow, which I simply took from the internet. This track is obviously inspired by some of the music Lou Barloh used to do with his Sentridoh project, as well as some Buck 65 although I'm just starting to get into his 2001 album Man Overboard on Anticon.

''Things We Used To Do'' samples Jimmy Scott's cover of ''Almost Blue'' by Elvis Costello, one of the best songs ever in my opinion. If you don't know Jimmy Scott and like vocal jazz you should give him a try because he is a very original singer. Scott has a disease which prevented his voice from breaking, which added to his chain-smoking gave him a very particular tone. Back when images of singers were scarce everybody thought it was a woman singing. He is also famous for his elongated wording and timing. I know Ray Charles produced his 1^st album (of which I'm not particularly fond of by the way) and that he was Lou Reed's favorite singer ever since he had heard him sing at a common friend's burial.

I sampled the piano introduction, + a couple phrases from later in the song, to add some variety. Electric bass + a couple vinyl scratches and that's about it.

Listen / Download HERE

HNW & Noise Playlists

HNW Playlist

01 The Blackmoor Strangler - The Mark Of M - Hair On My Food Tapes – 2010 HNW Graveyard

02 Sleep - Untitled - Inactivist - 2011 HNW Graveyard

03 Dead Body Collection - Zvala Si Se Svetlost - Vagary – 2012 Bandcamp

04 The Rita - Eyeliner Into Nylon Black Seam - Sickcore - 2012

05 Dead Body Collection & J. Adolphe - Deep Into The Halls - Geräuschmanufaktur – 2014 Bandcamp

06 Jonathan Valdez - The Chestnut Tree - KPFT 90.1 FM - 2014 Archive

07 Ultimo Mondo Cannibale - White Zombie - HNW Records - 2014 Bandcamp

08 Vomir - Quest, No Conquest - Geräuschmanufaktur - 2014 Bandcamp

09 WASPS - Obsession Tapes - Smell The Stench - 2014

10 Werewolf Jerusalem - Don't Go In The House - Deadline Recordings – 2014 Bandcamp

NOISE Playlist

01 Hijokaidan - Tapes - Alchemy Records - 1986

02 Otomo Yoshihide & Martin Tétreault - 21 Situations - Ambiances Magnétiques – 1999

03 Priest In Shit - No Room For Explanations - Deadline Recordings – 2001

04 Wolf Eyes - Dead Hills - Troubleman Unlimited - 2002

05 Cannibal Frequencies - Untitled - Gods Of Tundra – 2008

06 Hal McGee - As Lo-Fi As I Wanna Be - Hal Tapes – 2012 Bandcamp

07 Nuits Rouges - Self-Titled - Deadline Recordings - 2012 Bandcamp

08 Aaron Dilloway - Siena - Hanson – 2013 Bandcamp

09 Richard Ramirez & Crucifix Eye - Split - Forever Escaping Boredom – 2013 Bandcamp

10 Velfaerd & Robert Ridley-Shackleton - Split - Hissing Frames - 2014

I'm cheating a little there as the last two in the Noise Playlist could / should be in HNW..

As usual, chronological order + links to listen / download when available.

Review Of Static Storm on Caution Falling Plywood

You can read the review HERE

Listen / Download the album HERE

One Line, One Dot (for Maxime Aum)

My friend the original street-artist Maxime Aum is going to launch his solo show in Paris on June the 14th, at the NLM-Laoutec Gallery, so I had to come in with an old-school beat to celebrate ! 

You know the deal with these, Wu drums, electric bass plus a bunch of samples from the 1st track of Anthony Braxton's For Alto.

Listen / Download HERE and if you're in Paris you've got to come see the show

Static Storm

I read a comment yesterday from Sleep Of Ages (a mighty waller, if you're not familiar with him do yourself a favour and check out some of his stuff from his B/C) on the HNW Forum saying how he missed people using sources other than static for their HNW. I kind of agree, as other sources offer, if not unpredictability as long as they are recorded, a loss of control over the resulting wall which can be interesting, as well as a variety of textures. Using non-static sources can force you to deal with sounds you wouldn't have considered with the comfort of a white noise generator.

It happens that there was a big storm over Paris yesterday night, so I jumped out of my bed to record it (with my faithful Sony MRZ Hi-MD). The only problem I ever had with it is that Windows 7 doesn't seem to support Sonic Stage, the software used to extract ATRAC files, anymore. So I just use an old PC... Of course this morning I ran the recordings through my set-up. I had recorded 4 sections of the storm, so I used 4 different main distortions to treat each one of them.

The main set-up is:

Minidisc => Dream Crusher => 4 Eyes => Harmonist => Distortion => Octave One => Memory Boy => EQ

Distortions are:

"In The Air" = Super Crunch Box

"Shower" = Rat

"Clap" = Grunge

"Hard Rain" = Super Crunch Box

Listen/Download HERE

U.S. Eyes

Not a conspirationist reference to big brother spying on everyone (although I've been getting revelatory ads from Facebook these days) but rather a tribute to mid-2000 American noise. Labels like American Tapes obviously, Gods Of Tundra... The guys from Wolf Eyes, Aaron Dilloway especially but also people like C Spencer Yeh and of course Richard Ramirez (yes I'm aware these people are not exactly from the same scene, but it's still "American noise" especially seen from Europe I guess)

So we've got 3 tracks here:

"Private Sphere" is pitch-shifted voice (2 layers, one low and one high) plus the piezo going through the Fuzz Factory with the gate barely opened + Super Crunch Box + Memory Boy

"Shelter" is a white noise + 4 Eyes + Metal Zone (I heavily processed the drone after recording) + the piezo with the exact same set-up as "Private Sphere" only this time it's taped to the gorund and I'm throwing and moving stuff around. Title is the same as a split tape I shared with Werewolf Jerusalem on Dead Audio Tapes in 2013:

"Slow Master" is white noise + 4 Eyes + Grunge (lots of EQ on that one). I played guitar through the set-up, replacing the Grunge with the Super Crunch Box, and added more pitch-shifted vocals on top, whith a hard limiter to make it glitch a little.

LISTEN / DOWNLOAD HERE