In recent years I have wondered “why don’t people send me more NOISE music?”, whispering into the void for all the good it does. But then along comes Sticky Vanity (SOUNDHOLES #114) by Shin Chida.
Made out of “synth pulses” and “tape manipulation” – and in this context “pulses” are more like the pulsations of some monstrous enlarged part of the anatomy (not human anatomy) laid bare and raw so that we can better appreciate its visceral writhing. I seem to be taking cues from the cover art (as usual), but you’ve rarely heard such untamed and hairy synth playing. Most civilians attempt to disguise the voice of their new expensive toy. Shin Chida prefers to cultivate wild roars and growls from its belly, as he feeds it raw meat from the man-traps he has set up around the log cabin. Chida might not have been the most prolific of Japanese noise-demons (which bucks the trend, some might say, when digesting gargantuan back catalogues from Merzbow, Incapacitants, and Masonna) but I find he used to deal on the trading floor as Burried Machine and made a handful of bludgeoners since 2008, some of them on Rockatansky Records, and even did a split with Knurl (that respected Canadian 1990s noiseman). He seems to have eschewed violence and extreme sensory assault in favour of something more ambiguous and intriguing, which is certainly what I hear here on tracks ‘High Into Bottom’ and ‘Socked in Boots’, yet there’s no compromise in the mesmerising power and intense draw of his stark, mechanical tones. If he supported the idea of deploying robots for home use, no doubt his androids would be coated in soft vinyls and bright colours as they executed their routine tasks. This tape marks a return to show business for Chida after a hiatus of some ten years.
On the B side, Tom Karlsson is the “featured” guest for the title track. This Swedish experimenter appears to be a rather troubled fellow and used to sing in the Swedish punk band Hoist A Few. He adds uglified, wretched lyrics and vocals to the session, as if enduring torture inside a chamber of ice, while Shin Chida drums implacably on his reverbed bass synth. Whole tape is a magnificent instance of catharsis by noise; recommended. The last of four cassettes received from the Soundholes label, from 23 September 2024.