Patrick Emm – Trash Playback Forms C24
YDLMIER
Here’s another great release from Boston’s own Patrick Emm that focuses on slow droning and free improvisational music. Lonely soundscapes for a dusty day. This continues Emm’s growing body of impressive work.
Side A is split into two tracks the first being a bubbling lo-fi synth study reminding me a bit of Pauline Oliveros’s Beautiful Soop but much more ambient. The second track Current and Tide turns to more white-noise and cable-crackle oriented sounds with a mellow tone in the background and it provides a …

Endless Bummer – Fritzl CDr
Spit And Cuss
Endless Bummer is a project involving Grant Richardson, the man behind the brutal Minnesota power electronics act Gnawed. Endless Bummer is a quite accurate moniker for this project, because Fritzl is a very depressive, slow moving piece. Consisting of heavily distorted, drawn out riffs, this is doom, sludge, noise, and ambient all meshed together to form a massive titan of heaviness.
Fritzl is pretty repetitive and extremely drawn out, but it really works. Everything sounds so hateful and plodding; Endless Bummer hammers the same riff …

Demergo – Westwater Meadows CDr
Ahasverus Records
With a heavy, brooding sound, Demergo’s Westwater Meadows presents a sound that straddles the line between ambient and death industrial. Long, looping drones and frail ambient textures collide in an expansive and diverse way. Although the energy and diversity start to taper off near the end, Demergo’s sound is definitely immersive.
The liner notes outline a short story in which a researcher explores a dead world that he is ultimately consumed by. The sounds here apparently are meant to accompany the narrative and do so very …

Disthroned Agony – Hexakrvl C30
Northern Lord
Disthroned Agony is a pretty infamous noise act by now due to many (rumored or true?) live antics. Here is a tape filled to the brim with the absolute filthiest noise I have heard in a while. This is more along the experimental and slow side of noise rather than spastic harsh cut-up style stuff.
Opening with an evil sample sounding like it came from some 80s horror flick Milking Potion is the first track and it sounds like a lot of distorted drones, slowed …

Bad Rep – Chicago Slime CDr
Heretic Recordings
Bad Rep’s Chicago Slime appears to be a re-release and one of the few releases on Italian experimental label Heretic Recordings, and is the only recording I can find by this project. The album is divided into three parts and all of them consist solely of distorted samples culled from lo fi sources. The sounds are looped and distorted but overall come out as pretty one dimensional and not particularly interesting at all.
Most of these tracks stem from other musical sources. Everything is heavily …

Holzkopf – Sober Materials #2: Not By Power CD
Self Released
Holzkopf may not be a name familiar to fans into the more hardcore power electronics and industrial but Jacob Hardy who now resides in Vancouver, BC creates a unique flavor of dance/electronica that flirts with such styles as noise, power noise, electronica, techno, and reggae. To any reader I think this may sound like a total clusterfuck, but the catch – GASP – it’s actually really good.
What you can expect from the sounds of Holzkopf is the steady thump of a …

Astro – Synthetic Spectra C60
Blossoming Noise
I have to admit I’m a little more ignorant than I should be when it comes to the Japanoise scene. But I at least can say that not only do I know that Astro is Hiroshi Hasegawa also of C.C.C.C., but also that I have witnessed him perform live as well.
It seems that the Astro sound is one of mostly harsh noise culled from modular synthesizers and the material I’ve heard before hasn’t really won me over. Synthetic Spectra however is a new beast …

En Nihil/Gnawed – The Fall of Humanity C36
Nil By Mouth
Two great acts team up for an insane noise tag team on this split cassette. En Nihil is a veteran of noise/industrial while Gnawed is a relative newcomer. Once again Nil By Mouth kills it with the extra touch on packaging, a black plastic bag and a huge nail piercing the front.
En Nihil is featured on side A presenting 3 tracks of heavy chugging noise. It’s like a hurricane that’s on fire pummeling at the walls of your concrete fallout shelter. …

Rings of Smoke Through the Trees – s/t C50
Danvers State Recordings
I can’t believe this is merely the first Danvers State Recordings release to be reviewed on Existence Establishment. I guess it’s just a random set of circumstances that has led us to this point, but I’m happy to report the first review will be a very positive one. Rings of Smoke Through the Trees is a new project to me, and is a trio featuring the work of Andre Custodio, Thomas Dimuzio, and Mark Wilson. The name Thomas Dimuzio rings …

+DOG+ – Forced Morality CD
Love Earth Music
Forced Morality is one of +DOG+’s latest recording and the artist presents their typical fare of harsh, diverse power electronics on this release. Though Forced Morality is a little slow to start, overall, this release is a solid, brutal bout of aural assault while tastefully dipping into territory that could be described more as brooding than hostile.
The album starts out with Generation XXX, a pretty typical track of pulsating industrial noise with bits in the background to accentuate the sound. It borders on HNW …