Sonic Youth - 100%

 #Sonic Youth #noise rock #alternative rock #experimental rock #indie rock #post-punk #avant-garde #no-wave #1980s #1990s

Sonic Youth emerged from the experimental no-wave art and music scene in New York before evolving into a more conventional rock band and becoming a prominent member of the American noise rock scene. Sonic Youth have been praised for having "redefined what rock guitar could do,” using a wide variety of unorthodox guitar tunings while preparing guitars with objects like drum sticks and screwdrivers to alter the instruments' timbre. The band was a pivotal influence on the alternative and indie rock movements. After gaining a large underground following and critical praise through releases with SST Records in the late 1980s, the band experienced mainstream success throughout the 1990s and 2000s after signing to major label DGC in 1990 and headlining the 1995 Lollapalooza festival. In 2011, following the separation and subsequent divorce of vocalist bassist Kim Gordon and vocalist guitarist Thurston Moore, the band played its final shows in Brazil.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_Youth

100%: This is a mournful song with a creepy undercurrent, made sadder and more tender by the way the lyrics address a dead friend in the present tense. This present tense isn’t in denial — maybe there is the tiniest glimmer of denial in “I been waiting for you just to say the zaftig girl is mine” but beyond that the lyrics more consistently acknowledge that this charming friend who “[rocked] the girls” was “shot dead,” that they’re “blasting the underworld,” that they are undeniably and irrefutably dead. Instead, to me (a person very much prone to projecting) that present tense feels like a natural progression for a friendship that’s been suddenly impacted by tragedy. That tragedy is violent — a shooting — but there’s also a dark little predatory feeling throughout the song. Musically, it’s both driving and alluring. The song is the musical incarnation of a violent eighties horror in which some cool zombies pursue their victims. A stark contrast to the lyrics! But fitting when you consider how the song mourns these friends’ pursuit of girls, which isn’t necessarily predatory, but does feel decisively prowling. The most mournful lyrics are still aggressive. The lyrics consider revenge, and sure that is violent, but capturing pain by saying “I stick a knife in my head thinking about your eyes” is such a very specific, physical, disturbing manifestation of grief. Not dishonest at all! But rarely articulated.  From: https://medium.com/@pkeene27/capsule-reviewed-dirty-by-sonic-youth-a1986ef54850

OvO - You Living Lie

 #OvO #noise rock #sludge metal #industrial #extreme metal #experimental #avant garde #dark electronica #Italian

OvO is an Italian noise rock duo formed by Stefania Pedretti and Bruno Dorella in 2000 in Ravenna, Italy. The two initially planned for the band to be totally improvisation-based with an open lineup. After encouragement from members of their local music scene to become a band and tour, they decided to do so in order to play with Cock ESP, an extreme noise band from Minneapolis. Since, the pair have released eight full-length albums on a variety of international record labels. The origin of the band's name, OvO, stems from using a piece of the Italian word "nuovo", or new, which creates a palindrome. Decibel Magazine summarizes OvO's 2016 album, Creatura, as "making rhythmic, layered, sludgy noise" and a "David Lynch dance party.” Counting Swans and Diamanda Galás as their biggest influences, Pedretti and Dorella are known for primitive industrial sounds and Pedretti's theatrically dark vocals. The band is set up in minimalist fashion, with only two members, one of whom plays a half drum kit. Stereogum's Doug Moore described the band's sound as, "music – rhythmic noise, really – that simmers with a flat-affect malice, owing equal debts to extreme metal, noise rock, industrial music, and dark electronica," while Christian Eede of The Quietus recalled their music as being "punctuated by slamming, swampy drums, squalls of feedback and punchy guitar riffs, as well as Stefania Pedretti's no-holds-barred vocal."  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OvO_(band)#cite_note-Decibel_Magazine-5

Pigface - Kiss King

 #Pigface #Martin Atkins #Meg Lee Chin #industrial rock #alternative rock #indie rock #experimental rock #avant-garde #noise rock #industrial dance #electronic #1990s

Pigface defies categorization. Less an actual band than a recording and performing ensemble of well-known musicians in the alternative/industrial genre, it is also, in a way, a political statement. Founding member Martin Atkins had tired of the rock star attitudes he witnessed as a member of successful bands like Public Image Ltd. and Killing Joke; in addition, despite the fact that both acts presented groundbreaking, anti-establishment-themed sonic artistry, both remained under the thumb of record label executives. Sandy Masuo, writing about Pigface in Option magazine, equated it with “a savvy, calculating brand of post-punk punk attitude - one that’s all about recapturing the means of production that was supposedly seized in the 70s” with the birth of the punk movement.  From: https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/pigface

Pigface is an American industrial rock supergroup formed in 1990 by Martin Atkins and William Rieflin. Pigface was formed from Ministry's The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste tour. For the tour, Al Jourgensen brought along Atkins, Nivek Ogre and Chris Connelly. Also on the tour was Rieflin, regular Ministry drummer at the time. While Atkins enjoyed the dynamic of playing with a second drummer, he felt that the lineup was capable of doing much more than being, what he has frequently called, "a Ministry cover band." Once the tour was over, Atkins and Rieflin decided to continue working together and recruited several of their tourmates. Pigface was born with the intention of keeping a revolving-door style collaboration with many experimentally-minded musicians, many of whom, especially early on, had recorded for the influential industrial music record label Wax Trax!. Trent Reznor was also an early partner, before Nine Inch Nails became a household name. "Suck," co-written and sung by Reznor, was something of an underground hit, and Reznor later re-recorded the song for the Broken EP. Rieflin left Pigface after the first tour, leaving Atkins as the sole founder of the group. Hundreds of musical collaborators have since recorded and performed with Pigface, ensuring that each album, tour, and song is unique.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigface

 

Meg Lee Chin

Swans - Better Than You

 #Swans #Michael Gira #Jarboe #experimental rock #post-rock #noise rock #industrial #no-wave #neofolk #industrial rock #gothic rock #dark folk #apocalyptic folk 

Swans is an American experimental rock band formed in 1982 by singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Michael Gira. One of the few acts to emerge from the New York City-based no-wave scene and stay intact into the next decade, Swans have become recognized for an ever-changing sound, exploring genres such as noise rock, post-punk, industrial and post-rock. Initially, their music was known for its sonic brutality and misanthropic lyrics. Following the addition of singer, songwriter and keyboardist Jarboe in 1986, Swans began to incorporate melody and intricacy into their music. Jarboe remained the band's only constant member except Gira and semi-constant guitarist Norman Westberg until their dissolution in 1997. In 2010, Gira re-formed the band without Jarboe, establishing a stable lineup of musicians which has toured worldwide and released four albums to critical acclaim. This iteration of the group performed its last shows in November 2017, ending the tour in support of its final album The Glowing Man. Since 2019, Gira has been touring and recording with Swans as "a revolving cast of contributors". Since 1990, all Swans records have been released through Gira's own label, Young God Records.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swans_(band) 

Smegma - Mr. Potatoheads' Flotation Excersises

 #Smegma #avant-garde #noise #experimental #electronic #sound collage #tape music #free improvisation #noisecore #musique concrete #sound art #Los Angeles Free Music Society

Another one out of the archives for a band whose name sounds like something from a Harold & Kumar movie and whose album titles and covers are clearly aimed more at shock value than any kind of artistic statement. I wonder how many disappointed punk fans back in the early eighties picked this up expecting anti-social shrieking, two-chord guitar feedback and audio stage-diving? Had to be a few at least. This was the group’s second studio effort I believe, coming nearly ten years after they formed in Los Angles and somewhere around the time they relocated to Portland, Oregon. The ‘songs’ here - using the term loosely since this stuff is noise experimentation so the concept of a song is a subjective matter of opinion - are somewhat more structured than the band’s third record ‘Smell the Remains’. For the most part each track is centered on some sort of repetitive, mostly musical structure usually coming either from guitar or from some sort of DJ’d taped-sound sequence. Around this the many contributors (17 people listed in the credits) lay down various embellishments using both traditional instruments (guitar, bass, drums, violin, flute) and some slightly less-conventional ones (electric mandolin, toy piano, kazoo). There are few vocals, and those that emerge are either from recorded sounds woven into the arrangements, or are brief, punk-inspired rantings mostly delivered from guitarist Harry Cess Poole (hmmm, wonder what that guy’s day job was). There’s even a sort of a tribute to “Several Species of Small Furry Animals” but in this case featuring cows (“Dying Cows with Putrid Not Praiseworthy Predation”).
I’m describing the music in rather sterile terms mostly because I’m not sure how else to write about it. This record came out in 1982, trailing the punk era and predating post-rock though well inside a brief window of experimental music that included folks like Laurie Anderson, early Art of Noise, and a couple of weird records from Robert Fripp and Andy Summers. But in the case of Smegma there’s a distinct level of experimentation with even the musical structures themselves, and clearly a lot of improvisation around a simple theme with few (if any) rules involved. In that respect I’d place this record a bit closer to folks like Set Fire to Flames, a bunch of classical and rock musicians who locked themselves in an old farmhouse and embarked on several days of sleep-deprived debauchery just to see what sort of music would come out of that experience.  From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yeT_mPkFgA&list=PL-FqCeKWusJl7J17-McZXPvQhDtmRs5o4&index=25

Smegma is a long-running, influential Dadaist experimental noise collective. Noise fans might recognize Smegma from a collaborative album with Wolf Eyes called Beast. But if Smegma can be considered part of that scene, it's only by default: they've been making their psychedelic free-jazz noise for more than 25 years. They began by helping to found the Los Angeles Free Music Society, and have collaborated with everyone from Wild Man Fischer to Merzbow to the infamous rock critic Richard Meltzer along the way. The noise scene has grown unto them while they've kept a low profile and persistently crafted their avant-garde improvisations under the radar, firmly outside of the mainstream due to their confrontational sonics and formless compositions. (And, just maybe, the fact they named their band after uncircumcised dick leak).  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/7813-rumblings/