Emeralds – What Happened CD
No Fun Productions
Looks like this is the Emeralds full-length following their last release on Hanson entitled Solar Bridge. They’ve released about 2 splits between these two albums with What Happened having been released in 2009, has it already been 3 years?!
The first two tracks kick off with weird experimental wankery but both are commendable for the emotional rifts they eventually open up with their slow building climaxes. Alive in the Sea of Information using vocal chants and Damaged Kids using strummed guitars while both employ layers …

Cathartec – Lithogenesis C30
Sonic Munitions
Here’s a tape from the Seattle based musician Cathartec presenting roughly 30 minutes of ambient drone. Simply packaged with earth tones and runes the design is a decent implicator of what is contained within.
The tape kicks off with Orthoclase which is a floating and airy drone piece with a ton of great textural layers in the mix to add detail and subtlety. The piece swirls around the listener like a raging blizzard, but peaceful in it’s beauty. A really nice amalgamation of sounds here. Lithogenesis is …

A Wake A Week – Little Black Cloud CD
Spectral Liquid
It’s always interesting to dive head first into a project of which every aspect is completely unknown to you. I’ve never heard of the label, the artist or anything else having to do with this release. All I know is that the disc is contained within a carefully and professionally designed digipak.
Little Black Cloud has an undeniable soundtrack-like quality. If this was a proper soundtrack disc linked to a film I would not at all be surprised. It has several features …

Streetmeat – Nails C20
Anabolic Dimensions
Here’s some more traditional power electronics delivered for the fans of a classic sound out there.
The general sound is of warm, lo-fi electronics. Pulsating oscillators, cheap distortion, flangered vocals all culminate into the typical formula for a brutal power electronic assault. Style like this has been employed before but Streetmeat continues to further define the sound.
One of the better moments here is the closer of this quick tape Nail For Your Coffin which ups the ante for aggressive sounds with a nicely layered core of distortion. …

Nite Shadez – Black Holes For The Face And A Graveyard C47
Out-of-Body Records
Out of Body Records and Rob Buttrum literally never cease to impress me with fantastic aesthetic and a brand that is somehow “so Texas” in the weirdest and most sinister way possible. Black Holes For The Face and A Graveyard is the latest tape from the Nite Shadez project, a duo consisting of Rob Buttrum and Andrew Michael. The mood here is consistent with Out of Body’s regular output, and the influence that Buttrum has on the music …

Tourette – Jardin du Sommeil. Chant d’Amour sur la Nuit Grandissante CD
Antropofago Ateo/Troniks
This could possibly be the first Troniks release I have reviewed on Existence Establishment but I have to say I am happy to see the label back in operation, even if their output has slowed down some. My limited experience with the project Tourette has led me to believe that what I can expect is pure lo-fi harsh noise, although the graphic design here screams of something much more artsy.
Jardin du Sommeil kicks things off with a page …

Friends With Corpses – Don’t Turn on The Lights C30
Phage Tapes
Here is a sick Pusdrainer side project featuring Justin Lakes and Joe Walter. Friends With Corpses delivers saturated power electronics and death industrial experimental sounds with their debut effort Don’t Turn on the Lights.
First off, the packaging on this record is sick – ugly neon colors and a piss yellow tape remind me of something from a Gaspar Noé flick. Also worth mentioning is that the track titles are quite wonderful.

Side A kicks off with Throbbing Pisshole an overdriven synth …

Pacing – Summer Tour 2011 CDr
Human Beard
Here’s another older release yet definitely one that warrants a review. Pacing keeps bringing it with no expectations and no strings attached in this 4 song CDR (also available online for free).
Pacing seems to employ a general song structure with most of their tracks here. Droning mid-range tones are used as a bed with various layers of noise folded over it. Feedback, junk noise, synth madness it’s all here and the tracks unfold quite nicely.
The epic closing track entitled Aftermath Live 5/3/2010 delivers an …

Arabian Blade – The Pressure Mantra C20
Self Released
Arabian Blade is Christopher Donofrio of Reviver and Donovan Fazzino a name I’m unfamiliar with. This is an older release having been recorded in 2008, who knew it would take me this long to review it! With this quick cassette the duo presents 2 fuzzed out dead noise tracks, both untitled.
Side A features bubbling overdriven synth attacks employing a heavily squashed sound. There is literally no room left in the recording for anything else because the frequencies are spread so wide. It’s quite …

Knurl – Thiocarbamide CD
Phage Tapes
Harsh noise is the name of the game and with Thiocarbamide Knurl makes himself a key player. The artwork depicts corrosion – lots of it – with rusty metal, gritty textures and old machinery.
Taking no time to get into the thick of things Knurl explodes the album with the opener Morphocrylate a blistering barrage of distorted sounds, junk metal, crunchy starts/stops, screeching feedback and everything that makes a harsh noise album great. Neuromyositis follows suit with yet another obliteration of sound.
Even following into the second half …