Raven Strain – Past Eminence C30
Self Released
Raven Strain is a project of Matthew Billings and has little-to-no web presence which is interesting in this day and age. A few years ago I had the pleasure of hosting the project at a live event in Boston and was given this tape. Worth mentioning is the nice silver silkscreened ink on heavy black matte paper as the j-card.
What is contained within the tape is total lo-fi murk. I believe that the material itself is extremely raw and muddy and is in turn …

Agarttha – A Water Which Does Not Wet Hands LP
King of the Monsters Records
This one took me by surprise. I had never heard the project or was familiar with the label at all. The artwork is simple and understated yet the packaging comes with a nice fold-out poster on heavy stock. The music presented within is a great mix of psychedelic drone, goth, and neo-folk.
Most of the tracks feature underlying minimal drum beats with either drones or subtle yet simple melodic ideas and a driving bass line. The atmosphere is …

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The Artists

Hollow Seed (Belchertown, MA)
Hollow Seed – Untitled
Hollow Seed is the new project from Jesse Allen the man involved in several landmark noise units including The Cathode Terror Secretion, Cowards, and Migrations In Rust. Having newly relocated to Western Mass he debut’s his new project in a whirlwind of aggressive distorted rhythmic elements and grindcore paranoia.

Ultra Negative (Portsmouth, NH)
Ultra Negative – From Nothing To Nothing
Ultra//Negative, everyone’s favourite Namshaw Powerviolence band lives up to their name lyrically and musically, and it’s only right, seeing as they have Jan of …

Peter J Woods & Instinct Control – What We’ve Done 3″CDr
FTAM
What We’ve Done is a pairing of two midwest artists Peter J Woods hailing from Milwaukee and Instinct Control from Chicago. They both produce experimental music but in slightly different forms. Wood’s sound is usually more composed with a darker touch and Instinct Control’s is more free from and improvisational.
This disc collides the styles of the two artists very well working off the strengths of each. Instinct Control’s usually ultra-dry and raw sound is mixed with Wood’s manipulated and morphed …

Instinct Control – Who We Are 3″CDr
FTAM
Instinct Control is Ryan Dunn not to be confused of course with the late, great Ryan Dunn of the infamous Jack Ass prank troupe. The Ryan Dunn we are concerned about is a resident of Chicago, the man behind the unrelenting experimental noise project Instinct Control, and one of the people responsible for the Enemy show space which gave host to many incredible shows during it’s duration.
My first experience with the project was a live performance where Dunn manipulated a 4 track tape machine …