Lavas Magmas – Toxic Communion C26
Self Released
I had the opportunity to witness Lavas Magmas live and it was a barrage of sights and sounds which I could only behold in wonderment. I was lucky enough to be given a few releases of his among which this one-sided tape was one of them. Housed in kind of shabby and bedraggled scrap material with stickers and wrapped in wire this D.I.Y. effort is just a bit deceiving because Toxic Communion delivers one hell of an auditory experience that transcends your typical limited …

Cloama – Death Certificate 7″
Freak Animal Productions
Cloama is a project with many faces. Check out the Self Titled CD from a few years ago and you will hear a clean electroacoustic ambient atmosphere. Listen to his earlier Revisionist Knowledge CD on Freak Animal Productions and you will find searing power electronics noise attacks. Finally, pick up one of the collaborations with Blutleuchte and you will discover a surge of blackened noise. Whatever the face though, Cloama always tends to please in one form or another and this quick 7″ is …

Brandkommando – Patria Socialismo o Meurte! CDR
Sickcore
This disc from Sickcore has a special handmade D.I.Y. touch with thick stock and minimalist packaging that works perfectly. The entire presentation is quite impressive. I wish the audio was as consistent as the packaging though Brandkommando tends to have more ups and downs than I would prefer on this release.
The style that Brandkommando employs is somewhere along minimalist death industrial atmospheres of Atrax Morgue or N. However, a lot of the synth work featured on Patria is a bit under whelming seeming to …

Antoine Chessex – Fools LP
Tourette Records
Antoine Chessex is a Berlin-based musician exploring the world of noise with – love it or hate it – a saxophone. Luckily, you’d barely have any idea this is derived from a sax in any way shape or form by merely listening to Fools but the live photo on the back and the credits to Chessex for “tenor sax, amp & electronics” says it all. I am perfectly ok with this because after experiencing his intense miasma of sound live, I just had to pick …

Propergol – Ground Proximity Warning System CD
Annihilvs
This is actually the first complete Propergol album I have immersed myself in and I believe it is one of his later efforts. Ground Proximity Warning System predictably explores airports, airplanes, flight, and subsequently all the many things that can go wrong with this system. An easy way to describe Ground Proximity Warning System is to say it is the evil twin of Brian Eno’s Ambient Music for Airports. And let me say I’d much rather be listening to this when preparing for …

Gerritt & John Wiese – Panoramic Glass and Mirror LP
Misanthropic Agenda
Panoramic Glass and Mirror is a collaboration between Gerritt – who seems to be going by his full name Gerritt Wittmer now – and John Wiese two noise artists who have been drifting closer toward the electro acoustic realms. This collaboration here certainly enforces that theory, with pretentious minimalist artwork and carefully edited, fragile sounds that click and pop their way into my subconscious.
Despite the nice thick clear vinyl there’s not much here as far as the graphic art goes …

Corpuscle – Jaguar Mask C64
Waterpower
Here’s a new project hailing from Boston, MA. Neatly packaged in a standard cassette tape with color artwork on the cover and some decent black and white collage on the inside. This is a one-sided tape that consists of 3 tracks.
The sound of Jaguar Mask is the harshest of the harsh. Total pushing wall-noise that is completely relentless. Lo-fi and uncompromising among the crackling distortion lives sickened vocals settled in the mix. There’s a strange kind of reverb in the mix that pervades each track and …

Bereft – Your Messiah Will Fail CDR
Bloodlust!
Your Messiah Will Fail is a New England project that consists of Peter Lee (patron of Force of Nature Productions and former member of :MOMENT:) and Andy Grant (patron of Danvers State Recordings and sole member of The Vomit Arsonist). What happens when these two heavy-weights of noise collaborate? Basically one of the most intense noise and power electronics albums to hit my stereo for a while.
The first two tracks here are completely devastating. “Hidden Agenda” within seconds is balls deep in blasts of …

Sewer Goddess – Verdigris 7″
Baseborn Records
Right off the bat this release delivers. I believe what I have here is the “deluxe edition” with an extremely heavy gatefold jacket with silver silkscreen and two inserts. All the artwork here is predictably lo-fi and high contrast but the vinyl is thick and the release obviously has a classy streamlined vision to it which can’t be ignored.
It appears the release is based on some murders that occurred in Oregon, and I’m guessing each track is named for one of the victims. Side A …

Reviver/Medicine Lake – Split C30
Self Released
Here’s a quick split from these two Connecticut artists. There must be something heavy in the air there because this is drone-laden doom ridden washes of sound that these guys deliver. Not much to say about the packaging, a cassette in a plastic bag with some less-than impressive artwork on it.
Medicine Lake is up first with “Mandible Feast” a lo-fi smoky blur of a track with black ambient tendencies, echoing metallic sounds, subdued noise, and distant moans. The composition here is solid and the sounds …