Received a whole box of goodies from the American label No Part Of It, which on first opening I thought might be a label dedicated to unpleasant loud and hostile noise, but it turns out to be quite different to what was expected and indeed very welcome too. If these CDRs share any common ground, it’s an interest in surrealism and dream-like wanderings, the artistes involved making a very convincing stab at passing on trance-states and vivid oneiric sensations to the listener, even more so than the much-vaunted Nurse With Wound and his acolytes. So far I’m enjoying them enormously.
Walter Campbell has Walter Ego, nine tracks of unsettling low-key drone that short-circuits common sense in the blink of a fly’s eye. This fellow was the co-founder of NVS, a punk band in California, and also declares that he sang in many goth industrial and alternative rocks bands from the mid-1990s onwards. There’s also Book On VHS, his lo-fi experimental noise experiment, and The Greening, a San Francisco duo which paid homage to Throbbing Gristle. In fact, having breathed a scornful word agin NWW in my opening salvo, I need to recant it when faced with this Campbell fellow who is happy to make plain his aesthetic debt to Mr Stapleton, and to related industrial / dark / United Dairies acts, including Cabaret Voltaire, Rudolf Eb.er, The Legendary Pink Dots, and Andrew Liles. What I enjoy about this CDR are the imaginative titles, torn straight from the notebooks of Robert Desnos or Louis Aragon (such as ‘Samus Eats Mother Brain’ and ‘Gazpacho Dream Police’), and the unsettling tone of the music, which never alights on a melody or a recognisable note when it can float endlessly on a thick fog. But it’s not all drone, as evidenced by those moments when logic is thrown to the winds and a random array of unpredictable sound edits may fly forth like a box of firecrackers from the hidden cupboard of Leonora Carrington. And there’s the collage artworks, although these are by Arvo Zylo (who also curated this set), and we’ll be hearing more from said Zylo as he’s the label owner. (In fact we first heard from him in 2011 and his bizarre self-released 333 album.) The cover image in fact is probably key to fathoming out the undercurrents of Walter Ego – a sleeping head, floating over a grey sea, living out the promise of track 5 ‘In Deep with the Deep Ones’. If such an immersion appeals to you, by all means dip into these hissing, tension-filled and nightmarish exploits.
Leslie Keffer has Reverie, whose cover art won’t let you look away – the word “visceral” doesn’t have enough syllables to adequately describe this anatomical aberration, and there are more details inside the jewel case to satisfy the curious surgeon, or repel the squeamish. This American lady is based in Ohio according to her BC page, and has been quite prolific since 2003 – over 40 releases tagged on Discogs. Nothing is given away about her artistic intentions on any corner of the internet so far discovered, which suites me fine – although her chosen avatar depicts herself as a Greek goddess or classical statue come to life, ignoring the curious onlooker with her stern and unblinking profile. Indeed her music here reflects that same cool indifference and aloof tone, coupled with the fact that it’s so determined to plough a straight furrow into what must seem like very unprofitable soil. I mean she seems very driven, focussed on her tasks. Through loops and abstract noise, possibly feeding tapes and other sources into a mixing desk where she turns her filters like a cruel manicurist from Hell, she succeeds in arriving at a similar dream-world to Walter Campbell above, except that her personal ocean has a much choppier surface than the calm seas of Walter Ego. It’s a controlled abrasiveness though, and the timorous listener need fear no outbursts of harsh violence from this mysterious woman. If I was wearing my taxonomist’s collar, I might be inclined to put her in a seraglio with She Spread Sorrow, Puce Mary, and Pharmakon; indeed there’s at least one Pharmakon album cover that is equal to today’s display of tendons, organs, and ribcages. Reverie dates back to 2003, is described as unreleased material, and she made it with voice and radios. I’m drawn into these mesmerising swirls like a slug falling into slowly-melting bar of nougat.
Unlike the nightmare twins above, Xerex Meets Dracula by Xerex has a slightly humourous edge to its rather over-cooked, Gothic organ drones, and the absurdist description printed on the back cover isn’t giving much away about the true circumstances of its creation. Karl and Jan, twin brothers from rural Germany? Conjoined twins, grown in a Petri dish in 1972? If you believe any of that, you’ll also swallow the tripe about this being a reissue of a limited edition LP…on the disc, 14 tracks which use everything from sound effects, tape loops, and organ music to present a warped portrait of everyone’s favourite vampire, in short fragmented episodes. It’s as though every chapter from the Bram Stoker novel were being rethought as experimental sound art, resulting in everything from organ music to bells and sinister drone effects. The episodic nature of it might be deliberate, since another part of the prank is to suggest it’s structured like a “choose your own adventure” novel, where the reader can follow different pathways towards different conclusions. Perhaps less successful than the above records in hypnotising the listener, but it does manage to hold your attention by the simple trick of staying in one place for the length of each track. This is very effective for parts IV and V, which are quite long and amount to some 15 minutes of puzzling drone, a watery outboard motor followed by a mad malfunctioning helicopter swooping around at night. Come to think of it, this cut might represent the Count in his bat form. The general aesthetic extends to the four painted images of Dracula used as artworks, which are somehow both slightly goofy and also weirdly alarming. An atmospheric blast…one to save for your next trip to Whitby for the Dracula Experience!
All the above from 28 September 2022; tune in to part two of this post for more.