D/A A/D – This is My Hell CDR
Snip Snip
This is my first exposure to D/A A/D and it’s a bit of a surprise. Don’t know why, but I was expecting some harsh noise. This is My Hell is instead 3 longish tracks clocking in around 40 minutes of slow modular synthesizer compositions. It’s pretty minimalist and sounds like it’s half way in between Pulse Emitter and Klinikal Skum.
The first track doesn’t really do it for me. I find the sounds run-of-the-mill with the evolution of the track to be so-so. …

Caustic Castle – Makepiece 3″CDR
SMTG Limited
Ah, good ‘ol Caustic Castle. Caustic Castle is Kenneth Yates, one half of the experimental unit Harm Stryker. For Makepiece he is joined by the meandering saxophone stylings of Clifford Schwing. Makepiece is one longish track clocking in around 18 minutes which features barrages of high pitched squeals, mid ranged squiggles, feedback, organs, and even a little bit of melody here and there.
The piece starts off at it’s most caustic with harsh high-register sounds of the sax bleeting away while joined by feedback and organ …

Hunted Creatures – The Failure of Human Instincts CDR
Dynamo Sound Collective
Human Creatures is one Ryan Emmett of Pittsburgh, PA. I was introduced to the project when I had the pleasure of playing with him while on tour back in March of ‘09. The Failure of Human Insincts is an earlier effort of Emmett’s and it is a varied disc of found sounds, ambient atmospheres and slow-moving melodies seemingly culled from guitars, synthesizers and feedback.
Generally you will find a layer of ambience, or found sound to start. Weaved over that are …

RØD STÆR – Tilbake Til Varmland CD
Roggbif
This is a fucking weird one. Probably took me at least 5 listens to get my head around the whole album, and another 2 or 3 after that to form an opinion of it. Well, I was pretty fucking sick of it after that. I kind of suspected something like this after looking at the artwork, which I actually enjoy quite a bit more then I do the sound here. At least you don’t have to sit down and spend an hour experiencing all …

Peter J Woods – Afterthought 3″CDR
FTAM
This little 3″ clocks in around 17 minutes, but oh, what an intense 17 min it is. Afterthought presents a varied array of sounds, ranging from musique concrete, power electronics, spoken (screamed) word, and drone. I was lucky enough to also witness these works live as well and to have this as a document is just the icing on the cake.
The first two tracks are around 7 minutes, with the opener “Inanimate Portraits” bring a bit more ambient fading in with some singing vocal drones …