Tag Archives: industrial

Pound Land – Live In Nottingham 20/10/24 (Self Released)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description: Recorded by Ben the sound engineer on Sunday 20th October 2024 (’twas a matinee performance in the afternoon). The cavernous venue was the Liquid Light Brewing Company Tap Room (very decent beer but no free food as promised) on an industrial estate in the Sneinton area of Nottingham. The show was part of the annual ‘Hockley Hustle’ festival. Note: this gig featured the debut live performance of new track ‘Cunt Do It’.

“Which leads us nicely onto Pound Land, whose mid-afternoon set at 3pm set the standard for the rest of the day. This five-piece hailing from places as disparate as Winsford and Macclesfield via Derby woke those present out of their post-Sunday Lunch slumber with a blistering sonic assault that sits somewhere between the monologues of John Cooper Clarke, early eighties punk bands like Blitz or Discharge and the doom metal of Black Sabbath via occasional forays into motorik inspired psych rock territories. If anger is an energy (and they cite PiL as an influence as well) then “voice” Adam Stone is a livewire, pent up ball of frustration that’s both incendiary and mesmerising. They have two bass players and a saxophonist (no guitars) and play songs with titles like “Cunt Do It” and “Paralyser” about people with “sausage dicks” and sound like your worst nightmare whilst simultaneously being the most captivating live experience we’ve witnessed in a very long while.”

Dom Gourlay, Under The Radar magazine. 22nd October 2024.

Cheers Dom, although no one in the band is from Winsford. Steve’s from Bolton though

Nordvargr – Resignation IV (Cyclic Law)

Posted by John Lithium on

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Label Description: Nordvargr Announces the Release of Resignation 4, the Fourth Installment in the Resignation Series

Swedish dark ambient and experimental artist Nordvargr (Henrik Nordvargr Björkk) is set to release the highly anticipated Resignation 4, continuing his sonic journey through rhythmic, atmospheric, and melancholic soundscapes. Building on the foundation laid by the Resignation trilogy, Resignation 4 expands the project’s signature blend of techno-inspired beats, dark ambient textures, and hypnotic soundscapes.

A Continuation of Sonic Exploration

Resignation 4 picks up where the acclaimed 2022 Resignation box set left off, offering a deeper dive into Nordvargr’s evolving sound. The album maintains one foot firmly in the techno scene, while also embracing moments of eerie calm and reflective melancholy. It is an album where rhythmic pulses and deep atmospherics converge, presenting a sound that is at once mesmerizing and abrasive, pushing the boundaries of electronic music.

This latest chapter sees Nordvargr taking his unique grasp of genre fusion even further, blending ambient melancholia with hard-edged, rhythmic elements. Fans of both experimental electronics and the fringes of techno will find Resignation 4 to be a captivating continuation of his visionary work.

Origins and Evolution of the Resignation Series

The Resignation project began in 2008 as an exploration of rhythmic, repetitive music paired with dark ambient soundscapes. It was born from a collaboration between Nordvargr and Nils Ekholm, merging techno-inspired beats with samples from old 78 RPM records. The first album in the series was described as “techno, if invented in the late 1800s,” drawing inspiration from the ill-fated 1897 North Pole expedition by S.A. Andrée.

Over the years, the project has grown, with each album taking a distinct direction—ranging from dubby techno atmospheres to harsher, noisier electronic soundscapes—culminating in the haunting, cinematic experience that is Resignation 4. Along the way, the project has evolved from its early experimental roots into a genre-defying force, standing at the crossroads of ambient, techno, and industrial music.

A Look Back at the Trilogy

The Resignation trilogy was re-released in 2022 as a deluxe box set, remastered with unique and exclusive material, including previously unheard demo recordings and bonus tracks. This set offered listeners a complete exploration of the project’s evolution, from the early rhythmic ambient experiments to the harder, more distorted sounds of later volumes. Note that the quickly sold out 3CD has now been repressed.

Tracks like Totem Visitations, originally composed for a Polish film soundtrack, showcased Nordvargr’s ability to craft immersive sonic environments that complement the darker edges of film and narrative.

Looking Forward: Resignation 4

With Resignation 4, Nordvargr continues to refine his signature style, exploring new territories of sound and emotion. This album promises to be a highlight of his prolific career, offering a bold and dynamic listening experience for fans of experimental and rhythmic electronic music.

Release Formats and Artwork

The album will be available in multiple formats:

•Vinyl: Edition of 300 copies. 100 Special Edition on marbled brown & Black vinyl and 200 copies on black vinyl. Printed Innersleeve and matte lamination. 9 Tracks. Running Time 39:57 EAN: 3770033798171

•CD: Edition of 300 copies in 4 panel Digipak, matte lamination. 9 Tracks. Running Time 39:57 EAN: 770033798164

The stunning album artwork and photography are created by Sandrine Pelletier, capturing the stark, otherworldly aesthetic of the Resignation series.

Resignation 4 continues Nordvargr’s exploration of the balance between beauty and brutality, inviting listeners to immerse themselves in a world where atmospheric depth meets rhythmic intensity.

Various – 60 Minutes Of Laughter (Cause And Effect)

Posted by John Lithium on

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Label Description: For more info on 60 Minutes Of Laughter
including additional pictures and texts
www.haltapes.com/60-minutes-of-laughter.html

new digital transfer from the original master tape, November 2015

60 Minutes Of Laughter was recorded in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1981 and 1982, and was issued in 1983. 60 MOL was Deborah Jaffe’s tape project, the fourth issue of a small press magazine Debbie published called 12 Seconds Of Laughter. 60 Minutes Of Laughter features sounds by Hal McGee, Debbie Jaffe [aka Master/Slave Relationship], Viscera, Gabble Ratchet, Trish & The Swishettes, The Dancing Invisibles, Residential Rick (Karcasheff), and more. 60 MOL is a lo fi lo tech collage consisting of earliest recordings by Viscera, tape cut-ups, primitive noise jams, simultaneous poetry readings, deconstructed rock songs, a live dada performance recording in a Country & Western bar, weird pop songs, experimental music, and more.

Pseudo-dadaist music, noise and poetry circa 1981 and 1982 from your friends at Cause And Effect. Our biggest seller to date, 60 Minutes Of Laughter is a wacky collage of nonsense bits and non sequiturs like “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” by Trish and the Swishettes”, “Dharma Proclivity/Butchered Calf” by Jolifanto Karawane and Mipoola Palinga and “Freedom To Be Immoral” by The Conversations. Also includes early ultra-minimal music by Viscera (“Starvation And Beating”, “Seeing The Future”, “Outraged Civilized World”, etc) and a ten-minute “Dada” performance by Karawane and Palinga in a country and western bar. For $2.00 what the hell?
– January 1985 Cause And Effect Cassette Distribution Catalog
www.haltapes.com/cause-and-effect-january-1985-catalog.html

60 Minutes Of Laughter Side A 31:21

Red House, Blue House – DJ & HM
Voulez In The Voulez – GS
Untitled/uncredited excerpt from “The Edge” – Viscera
Ant War – HM
Kurtz Kapers (Apocalypse Later) – Kurtz Memorial Band
A Different Kind Of Music – Viscera
Love In The Tropics
Starvation And Beating – Viscera
Floatin’ On The Waves – Dancing Invisibles
Love Is On My Side – Trish & The Swishettes
Home – Viscera
Composition – HM
Outraged Civilized World – Viscera
Another Simon And Garfunkel Hit
Three Blind Pigs – Residential Rick
To Tristan, With Love
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah – Trish & The Swishettes
Seeing The Future – Viscera
Airplanes And Engines (Are Beautiful) – Dancing Invisibles
Husband And Wife Scenario
New Eyes
Pain Research – Trish & The Swishettes
Improv – Gabble Ratchet
Apple Pie
Wurlitzer Intermission – DJ

DJ – Debbie Jaffe
HM – Hal McGee
JK – Jolifanto Karawane
LE – L. Extentensa (Toby O’Brien)
MP – Mipoola Palinga
RK – Rick Karcasheff

60 Minutes Of Laughter Side B 31:17

Wurlitzer Intermission (cont)
Collage/Gertrude Stein
Dharma Proclivity/Butchered Calf – JK & MP
Tinyness – Park Avenue Rick
Live At The Sanctuary – JK & MP
Bird Is Dead – HM & DJ
I Love You I Love You I Love You
Repercussive Illusion – HM
WWIII – Army Brats
WWIV – Army Brats
My Balls – LE
Public Lavatory, Blue Light – HM & DJ
The Edge – Viscera
Negative Image
Everything And Nothing – Viscera
Tiger Talk – Burnt Circuits
I Don’t Understand – DJ w/ “Mr British”
Silly Love Songs
Why Do You Do It?
Freedom To Be Immoral – The Conversations
Accepting Things As They Are – Viscera

Army Brats – HM, vocals; RK, drums; DJ, keyboards
Burnt Circuits – DJ & HM, vocals & keyboards
Dancing Invisibles – HM, vocals; Roger Vice, guitars; DJ, misc. items
Gabble Ratchet – RK, keyboards; David Mattingly, keyboards; Jack Sexson, guitar; DJ, guest vocalist
Trish & The Swishettes – Trish, vocals; HM, vocals, guitar; DJ, vocals
Viscera – HM, vocals; DJ, keyboards

60 Minutes Of Laughter was the first audiotape artwork on which I ever appeared. 60 Minutes Of Laughter was Deborah Jaffe’s tape project. It was the fourth issue of a small press magazine Debbie published called 12 Seconds Of Laughter.

I met Jaffe in August of 1981 while I was working as a prep cook at a Mexican restaurant in Indianapolis. We found that we shared a lot of the same interests in music, art and literature and Debbie and I became best friends. We often visited her friends Rick Karcasheff and David Mattingly, who knew a lot about weird avant garde music. They had a group called Gabble Ratchet and they played analog synthesizers, with Jack Sexson on guitar, and recorded their noisy experimental music on cassette tapes.

Debbie published a small press magazine called 12 Seconds Of Laughter, the subject of which was “the obscure, in all forms”. She took photos from foreign film catalogues, nonsense absurdist phonetic poems, cut-outs from advertisements, tracts, etc. and collaged them together to make non-statements about “love, sex, politics, psychology, religion”.

After publishing three print issues she conceived of an audio version on cassette. 60 Minutes Of Laughter was a compilation of audio routines of material by ourselves and our friends that Debbie and I had recorded on a small portable “shoebox” cassette recorder during 1981 and 1982. Deb made a collage of these recordings with various segments from poetry and language instruction records, a Wurlitzer organ, domestic audio scenes, her junior high school band and sundry sonic doodles.

Debbie and I recorded numerous simultaneous poems. We chose texts from a wide variety of sources — our own poems, magazine articles, shopping lists, advertisements, The Bible, etc. The often arbitrarily-chosen texts clashed, collided and melted into one another.

Debbie and I read in the newspaper that a local Country & Western Music bar called The Sanctuary had an open microphone night every Wednesday. Anybody could go into the little performance area and play a song. We constructed big paper cones to put on our heads. We chose Dada names for ourselves: I was Jolifanto Karawane. Debbie was named Mipoola Palinga. We wrote our new names on the hats. I taped the words of Hugo Ball’s Dada abstract phonetic poem “gadgi beri bimba” (1916) onto my beat-up $70 acoustic guitar. We both donned long black coats. When it was our turn we donned our big tall cardboard cone-hats and walked to the stage. Deb went to the microphone on a stand stage right. I sat down in a chair in front of a boom mike lowered to my mouth level. I spoke into the microphone, addressing the audience:
“The first step is to realize you’re asleep.I mean, would it really matter if you stuck your head in a Waring blender?”
I began to rub and scrape a grooved stick against the guitar strings, pulling the stick back and forth roughly over the strings and striking the body of the guitar with my hands and the stick. I increased the speed of the rubbing and striking and abrasive scraping up to a big crescendo. I cried out in a loud voice inflected with a pseudo-Caribbean-tribal wail, stretching the phrasing out and down and around as far as I could: “Gadji beri bimba!”
Debbie took up the response in a long cascade of wails, yelps and pseudo-operatics. Our vocal lines crashed into silence.
Then I took up the next call: “Glandridi lauli lonni cadori…”
We continued this call and response of a line from Ball’s poem with Debbie providing the elements of contrast, background and setting. Debbie warbled and chirped and giggled like a maniac and screamed and bellowed out and swooped in big arcs up and down. I leaned into the microphone, coughed up the words, rolled and gargled them around in my mouth and throat and spitted and barked them out – going through a rapid-fire catalog of exaggerated phrasings, monkey chattering, accents and character voices from Monty Python and bad jungle movies.
The audience soon started to make lots of noise, with lots of loud talking and people standing up, shouting and yelling and shaking their hands and gesticulating. People yelled out their responses to what we were doing, things like: Devo!
We were up there making a bunch of racket, just yelling a bunch of stuff, and me beating and misusing and abusing my guitar. After several minutes of this chaos we brought the assault to a close and the audience burst out yelling and clapping and shouting – united together in their response to us. As we finished a guy in the audience yelled out “Heil Hitler!”. And the rest of the audience burst out cheering and laughing in agreement at the sentiment. They were clearly excited and everybody was having a good time.
We were scared and decided it would be a good idea to pack our stuff and head out the door as quickly as possible before we were attacked. Neither of us wanted to get beaten up and we didn’t think it was unlikely if we hung around much longer.

Debbie knew a guitar player who idolized Tom Petty. Deb and I tried to work out some songs, with Deb and I doing some vocals along with Roger’s hot electric playing. “Airplanes And Engines” was extracted from an epic nine-minute version. I had written a poem of several pages treating the subject of how technology, in spite of its drawbacks, will be the instrument through which we will transcend earthly, bodily limitations and enter into different realms of the spirit or consciousness. I do my very worst imitation of Jim Morrison. “Floatin’ On The Waves” was another example of how Deb and I banalized and deconstructed rock music. The excerpt here shows us reducing song lyrics to mere arbitrary sounds, with no regard to content – only to the way the words sounded together.

A couple of times that fall of 1981 we visited a waitress I knew from the restaurant where I worked. We all had a lot of fun sitting around in her house doing trio vocal improvisations – stream of consciousness – start with no preconceived idea – listen to the others – make sounds in reaction to what you hear – whatever came into our heads. Deb and I were trying to cultivate a kind of artistic infantilism, to draw closer to true uninhibited expression. We experimented quite a lot with babbling, shouting, crying, screaming, whining and giggling. We also cultivated artistic “primitiveness” in an effort to communicate as directly and instinctively as possible.

“Ant War” is a recording of me playing my cheap electric guitar through a small amplifier. I liked to misuse, abuse and overuse the tremolo and reverb effects on the amp. I was trying to create something that had a lot of energy but that evoked visual imagery. A driving rhythmic pulse, with noise in overlapping, frothing currents of distortion and crackling electricity, controlled feedback and pitch manipulation.

“Composition” was composed with a Casio VL-Tone, and is an early example of my use of programmed music. The VL-Tone was the first keyboard ever made by Casio. The VL-Tone was a hybrid calculator/musical instrument.

There are two recordings of Rick Karcasheff and David Mattingly’s experimental music group Gabble Ratchet on 60 Minutes Of Laughter. Both date from the months before I met Debbie, Summer 1981. I admired Gabble Ratchet’s improvisational style, and their use of Korg MS-10 analog synthesizers.

“Improv” is a short snippet from a much longer jam. Debbie included it here to showcase her weird stifled scream. “Collage/Gertrude Stein” is composed of a collage of pop music, news programs, TV ads and other sonic detritus, mixed completely into the left channel; and in the other speaker, a Gabble Ratchet jam tape with Deb doing readings from a book by Gertrude Stein.

Rick’s two short tracks are original works that clearly point to an infatuation many of us had at that time with The Residents. “Three Blind Pigs” is based on a traditional nursery rhyme I knew well from childhood, but in the original it was three blind mice. In Residential Rick’s world the mice become pigs.

On 60 Minutes Of Laughter Debbie Jaffe included several audio scenes and oblique references to her life that illustrated some of the themes that she would later develop in Viscera and Master/Slave Relationship. Debbie’s early life experiences caused her to doubt and rebel against common notions of romance, marriage, family, religion and popular taste.
The pieces “Husband And Wife Scenario” and “New Eyes” were from a recording Deb made of her much older half-brother Jim, his ex-wife Val talking with their church minister in 1973 in Des Moines, Iowa.

“Kurtz Kapers” was taken from a recording Jaffe made of her junior high school band in 1976. She played clarinet in the band.

When Debbie lived in Marion, Indiana she went to the Wurlitzer Electric Organ shop downtown and played the organs, which were available for rent on an hourly basis. There were cassette recorders built into the organs. Debbie took extracts from her hours of organ jam tapes for the “Wurlitzer Intermission” segments on 60 Minutes Of Laughter.

Deb got the sound effects, language and poetry records from the main branch of the Indianapolis Public Library. One of her great finds was the Gertrude Stein record that had a scratch on it that caused the phrase “sometimes Vollard mumbled” to repeat over and over. Debbie used this recording as a segue into the first Viscera piece on the 60 Minutes Of Laughter tape.

60 Minutes Of Laughter contains the earliest recordings by Viscera, from the Summer of 1982. That Summer Deb and I started developing some pieces in which I would recite, sing or act out poems and stories we’d both written, and Deb would compose a minimalist background/ backdrop or mood setting using simple instrumentation – mostly our Casio VL-Tone mini keyboard. We wanted to get right to the heart and guts of the matter of life and existence: to live and show the pain and torment of existence through the art. There was no redemption in life except for the artistic expression of our experiences. This expression must be direct and bare, devoid of artifice and rationalization, all the loose psychic wires hanging loose and going every which way. Erratic mood swings and spurts of energy followed by lassitude…our fragmented perplexed perception of the world outside and our fragile mental states.

Music we were listening to during that time included: Patti Smith, Talking Heads, The Residents, The Doors, Eno, Joy Division, New Order, Lemon Kittens, Nurse With Wound, Throbbing Gristle. Plus, we were reading lots of books on dada and stuff by William Burroughs.

Originally released by Mirth And Merriment Productions. Reissued by Zidsick.

Anatoly Grinberg & Andreas Davids – Emergency Landing (Ant-Zen)

Posted by John Lithium on

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Label Description:

EMERGENCY LANDING – a remix mini album & addendum to the album INSPIRED BY A TRAGEDY by anatoly grinberg (aka tokee) and andreas davids (mainly known from xotox).

remixes by room of wires, autoclav1.1, flint glass, loss, empusae, ah cama-sotz and spherical disrupted

released November 4, 2024

layout by stefan alt

this is ant-zen dig077

INSPIRED BY A TRAGEDY:
ant-zen.bandcamp.com/album/inspired-by-a-tragedy

Atsushi Izumi – Observable (Opal)

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Label Description:

The initial information the observer has about the system comes from a set of measurements. The operator is a specific instruction or set of instructions. Every observable is associated with its own operator.

credits

released October 31, 2024

Written and Produced by Atsushi Izumi
Painting by Linnmaru
Mastered by Bishop

OPAL267

Collector Of Dust – Entropic Tapestries (Argali Records Netlabel)

Posted by John Lithium on

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Label Description:

Ten years in the making, Reon Moebius’s long awaited and threatened project Collector Of Dust makes it’s recording debut via Argali Records having retired his older venture The Jesus Fish Experience in 2019 and his short lived solo live project Seagull Died On Impact in 2024.

Lush yet minimal, spacious but dense, sweeping and intimate: Collector Of Dust’s orchestral ambitions betray the sparse instrumentation and lonely isolation that was employed to create what Reon has dubbed ‘chambergaze’. Music meant to invoke vulnerable romanticism set against the vastness of ancient, decaying hyper objects and indifference of the natural world. To lovers, dreamers, and survivors this one’s for you.

Dedicated to the memory of Peter & Ursula Megert, Dominick Pfefferkorn, Hasan Abdur-Razzaq, & J Guy Laughlin

credits

released October 30, 2024

Reon Moebius: All instruments (Ebowed bass guitar, bowed guitar, mellotron, drum machine programming), arrangements, lyrics, vocals.

Keith Hanlon: Mixing, mastering, and additional production.

Recorded at Home from 2021-2024.
Mixed & Mastered At Secret Studios 2024.

This is ARGREC61.

Savage – Technomicon (Ohm Resistance)

Posted by John Lithium on

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Label Description:

ALL TRACKS PREVIEWED HERE:
soundcloud.com/ohm-resistance/sets/savage-technomicon-previews

Savage returns with an 8 track of blistering, headshifting Technoid Drum n Bass. Raised on the old school technoid of Offkey, Kemal & Rob Data, Proket, the heaviness of Technical Itch and golden era Renegade Hardware, and influenced by Hardcore, Industrial, and Speedcore, Savage delivers 8 cuts of pure dancefloor hybrid Techno Drum n Bass. Collaborations with MC Fantom, Submerged, Section 63, Katharsys, and NecroFox make this album a special landmark in the history of Technoid Drum N Bass!

credits

released October 31, 2024

All Tracks Written, Produced and Arranged by Árpád Szrnka.
Except ‘This is your last word’ Written, Produced and Arranged By Árpád Szrnka And Gábor Csepai.
‘Technomicon’ Written, Produced and Arranged by Árpád Szrnka and Submerged.
‘Daemons’ Written, Produced and Arranged by Árpád Szrnka and Dave Edwards.
‘Underground’ Written, Produced and Arranged by Árpád Szrnka, Gábor Csepai and Peter Szidor.
‘Top Acid’ Written, Produced and Arranged by Árpád Szrnka and Hugo Figuera.

Mastered by Lynn Standafer
Executive Producer: Submerged

JK Flesh – Echo Chamber Music 01 (Avalanche Recordings)

Posted by John Lithium on

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Label Description:

In the spirit of the intention of ‘dubs’, comes a new series, Echo Chamber Music, consisting of open ended manipulations of minimal JK FLESH 4/4 ‘techno’ tracks, loosely traversing the ‘industrial dub techno’ concept (some vague meeting point between early industrial music e.g Throbbing Gristle, etc, and dub techno pioneers Basic Channel); gritty dub techno tracks reduced and inverted, indulging in the endless possibilities of the application of the processes of dub through dirt…

The series was intended to begin in 2021 with this first volume, but due to clashes with other project releases around the period, the series was put on hold until now – Nov 2024….

released November 5, 2024

Justin K Broadrick – Electronics @ Avalanche studio, UK. 2021

AREC088. AVALANCHE RECORDINGS. 202

SABIWA, Queimada, Nathan L. – Sons of _ (Phantom Limb)

Posted by John Lithium on

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Label Description:

“Provides footholds like glimpses of truth, then snatches them away…Enjoy the experience of being dislodged.”
A Closer Listen

Rising Taiwanese sonic and visual experimentalist SABIWA teams up with Italian duo Queimada and Nathan L. for the release of strange and beguiling new EP Sons of _, marrying disembodied field recordings and processed orchestral instrumentation with coruscating noise and half-forgotten Taiwanese folklore.

“We wanted to achieve a unique sonic experience that gently pulls listeners into a calm, introspective realm of sound, visuals, and hidden stories,” write the trio. All based in mainland Europe, but bringing divergent and itinerant influences to the mix, SABIWA, Queimada, and Nathan L. each represent complementary elements to the deep and unpredictable elixir that makes up their collaborative debut Sons of _. The record is characterised by SABIWA’s heavily processed singing voice fluttering and glitching in strange, coded languages within a heavenly but deserted CGI cathedral rendered from crashed software. Italian brothers Marco and Lorenzo Colocci (Queimada and Nathan L. respectively) are both well versed musicians, exposed to classical schools as well as the outerspheres of experimental music. Their contribution to Sons of _ can be felt in its no-input thumps, its crawling of mechanical insects, its devastating waves of crushing noise. Together, the trio push at sonic realities and temporal structure to form an indecipherable messaging. “A rediscovery of a new self, unrecognisable from its former shape,” they offer.

Key moment “Nothing blue – 無憂無慮” feels culled from a dreamlike, alien mythology, fugged into disparate and divergent worlds as if the dust from a newly-collapsed Tower of Babel has still not settled. The track loops and swoons with raw distortion, James Bond fever dream strings, and SABIWA’s mystifying vocal experimentation before introducing a lolloping rhythm of church bells and crackling, staticky snare. Next, “What is true is not true -無明大夢” almost proceeds like a song. It has a recognisable rhythm – rare for Sons of _ – and a processed vocal loop maintains a riverine melodic flow. But throughout, its foundations splinter and shiver under the weight of malfunctioning modems screaming to escape. Later, “The Root of Unwilled Existence – 無自性” breaks apart under its own weight. Clouds of noxious gas swallow whole its harmonic voicing as mischievous transversal pixies haunt a psychedelic, reverberant inner chamber.

Cover photo by @yoteng087

released November 8, 2024

plateau – Kushbush + Music for Grassbars (Artoffact Records)

Posted by John Lithium on

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Label Description:

PlatEAU’s 2007 release, Kushbush, is a psychedelic, dub-infused electronic album that blends ambient soundscapes with heavy, bass-driven grooves. The project, spearheaded by cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy and Phil Western, delves into themes of altered states and introspection, combining lush synth textures, hypnotic rhythms, and distorted samples to create a trippy, immersive listening experience. With its laid-back, smoked-out vibes, Kushbush is a sonic journey through hazy atmospheres and experimental beats, reflecting the duo’s unique fusion of industrial influences and chillout music aesthetics.

Music for Grassbars, released by platEAU in 1997, serves as the debut album for the duo, laying the groundwork for their distinctive sound that would evolve in later works like Kushbush. This album explores a more minimalistic and experimental approach, characterized by downtempo rhythms, ambient textures, and an eclectic mix of organic and synthetic sounds. With its playful track titles and dub-inspired grooves, Music for Grassbars captures a sense of curiosity and exploration, offering a lo-fi, laid-back soundscape that’s equally suitable for contemplative listening or background ambiance. It’s an early testament to platEAU’s ability to blend electronic innovation with a relaxed, hazy atmosphere.