Aural Aggravation

clang records – clang015 – 4^th December 2015

James Wells

Having received a Danish release in the summer of 2014, Frank Benkho’s exploratory electronic EP, ‘The Revelation According to…’ gets a full global release via Denmark’s clang records. Which is cool – unlike the cover art. It’s just not… representative. Or very good. And while nothing suggests ego like the artist including their name in an album’s title (take Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D’Arby, for example), Frank Benkho ostensibly offers little of himself or his ego on this four-track EP, instead concentrating his energies on the creation of textured atmospherics.

The EP is laid out in four chapters, although stringing any kind of narrative from the tracks in – or out of – sequence isn’t something that seems like much of an option.

Low, hypnotic pulsing synths undulate beneath spaced-out howls and solar winds on ‘The Trumpets of the Puma’. ‘Under the sands of Pisagua’ is darkly sonorous, building to a shimmering psychedelic drone and culminating in as shredding crescendo of noise. The final chapter, ‘Removing Televisions’ transitions through a succession of movements, undulating analogue eddies and multiple sonic  threads intertwine, their different time signatures running against one another disorientating.

Think Throbbing Gristle in collaboration with Suicide, and you’ve got some sense of what The Revelation According to Frank Benkho sounds like. It’s a revelation, alright.

https://clanglabel.bandcamp.com/album/the-revelation-according-to-frank-benkho

Christopher Nosnibor

As beautiful bursts of reverb-heavy psychedelic-hued cascades of shoegaze dream-pop in the vein of ‘Nowhere’-era Ride go, Escape II; by Melbourne-based Bloodhounds On My Trail is hard to beat.

‘Jolly’ may fail to live up to its title, but is a shimmering cascade of guitars which taper into diffusing contrails as the sound disperses to nothing is a glorious and elegant sunburst for the ears. Meanwhile, ‘Old Fools’ perfectly blends lead guitar lines that soar and chime in soft-focus against a heavy mesh of trebly overdriven noise, the vocals floating in the background and serving almost as another instrument as they drift in a cathedral of reverb.

The six-minute ‘She’s in My Plans’ is a beautifully dreamy meanderer which has an underlying emotional pull that’s hard to pinpoint and all the more powerful and emotive for it.

The Ummagma remix of ‘Jolly’ wraps things up nicely, the Cocteau Twins meets I Like Trains guitar chimes wrapped in layers of cotton wool and cloud-like synth.

Steeped in the 90s sound as it may be, but Escape II is a magnificently realised set, and features some outstandingly atmospheric songs that pitch the calm and the storm together in the most effortless fashion.

http://moonsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/escape-ii

Fuzzkill Records – 19^th December 2015

James Wells

“I am just emailing to ask if you would be interested in reviewing ‘Rainbow Yawn’ the new EP by Breakfast MUFF?” asks the email from the label, and forwarded by my editor.

Of course I am. The band is called Breakfast MUFF, for a start. Oh, and their record – sorry, cassette – is being released by Fuzzkill records. So, while there’s likely a most apposite SuperFuzz BigMUFF reference-cum-gag to be made there, the label and band name serve as recommendations in themselves, and what’s more, Breakfast MUFF – a three-piece glitter-trash punk band from Glasgow – describe themselves as, ‘Like Hole, but funnier’. Of course, much as I love Hole (at least the first couple of albums, the later stuff, not so much), ‘funny’ isn’t a word I, or anyone else is likely to associate with them. Consequently, I’m sold on Breakfast MUFF (note the shouting capitals of ‘MUFF’ there, too) before I even hear the music. The audacity and attitude is in your face from the outset.

And it so happens that, as you’d perhaps expect, the songs are scuzzy, lo-fi punky grunge-pop, like Shonen Knife if they’d come from Glasgow and had recorded their songs on a 4-track in one of their parents’ garages. Spiky, abrasive but bouncy and fun, overproduction isn’t an accusation you could level at this lot. But that’s precisely what makes them cool.

http://breakfastmuff.bandcamp.com/

Smith Research – SRV 21

Christopher Nosnibor

This limited release – one of just 100 pressed – isn’t for sale, according to the Ceramic Hobs’ Facebook page: ‘The distribution of this recording is very special. It is not available for sale. No enquiries regarding it will receive a reply. Attempts to exchange money for it will result in your death. This is not a joke. You will be contacted individually at our discretion. We will watch eBay and discogs resales very closely. Attempts to sell what you received for free will also result in your death. Again, after thirty years, do you think we’re joking? We ask recipients kindly not share scans or photographs online of their individually made artwork in order to maintain the clandestine integrity of this operation.’

I’d just performed a selection of Rage Monologues as one of Sue Fox’s support acts at her book launch for The Viceral Tear, when a guy – who had previously ventured a question to the author about the connection between her publisher, Oneiros Books, and Creation Books.

Despite their credentials as ultra-avant-gardists, Ceramic Hobs demonstrate their ongoing non-conformity after some 30 years in existence with a pair of songs which are short, corresponding with the low-down, dirty lo-fi gritty punk rock they epitomise. And like the best punk rock, it’s not clean, pretty or overly concerned with melody or slick production values, favouring attitude – and even more attitude – over technique. And of course, it’s confrontational. 50 Shades of everything is all the rage (perhaps apart from my ’50 Shades of Shit’ e-book edition of This Book s Fucking Stupid), and while the dismal prose of EL James’ Twilight knock-off ‘mummyporn’ novels have spawned countless parodies and a lame softcore movie while supposedly spicing up the sex lives of middle England by introducing a dash of light simulation bondage, Ceramic Hobs with their connection to the industrial / power electronics scene were always more Sade than any pulp lit you’d find being marketed and available to purchase on the shelves of your local Tesco, ‘50 Shades of Snuff’

And so it is they serve up two slices of expletive-filled barrage of gnarliness. It’s like The Anti-Nowhere League covering GG Allin. Or maybe the other way round. And yes, it’s ace.

As for the flipside, what’s to say about DiscoMental’s take on ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’? A well-covered song, originally recorded by the Jackson 5 in 1971 and again by Michael Jackson alone in 1988 and by Gloria Gaynor in 1974, it also provided The Communards with one of their biggest hits in 1987. Popular it may be, but the truth is, it’s a fucking awful song. Needless to say, this version certainly won’t be a hit. It’s also utterly deranged, and while barely listenable, is far superior to any other version. A thumping rhythm produced by a primitive drum machine, simply programmed, pounds away to accompany gruff echo-drenched vocals. And that’s it The simplicity is its genius.

Since this record isn’t for sale, I shan’t recommend it, but if you happen to be offered a copy, take it.

Black Meringue – 24th October 2015

James Wells

I’m not one to sit on the fence, but despite having listened to this a fair few times – singly and on a loop – I can’t decide if this is an example of gutsy, gritty electro-rock crossover with some genuine nuts, or it it’s some of the biggest bilge I’ve heard in ages. Holohan is cool, for sure. So it comes down to this: is he cool because he doesn’t give a fuck, or is it all a hipsterish affectation, a genre mashup that evinces the sound of a head disappearing up the owner’s sphincter? That he describes himself as ‘a Dylan fanatic with a drum machine’ doesn’t really help swing things either way.

Much as I’m struggling to decide, I’m not sure how much I care: ‘New Wave’ is built on a solid groove that melds electronica to a pumping 90s industrial-inspired beat with some grainy overtones, while Holohan sneers and snarls what I take to be a distain for fashion in a tone that says fuck you , and you, and you. And he does it all in two and a half minutes, and with a big swagger. Hell yeah. That’s rock ‘n’ roll alright.

Niall James Holohan Online

Spiritwo – Mesumamim

13^th November 2015

James Wells

What makes the world of music exciting is its infinite diversity. Yes, believe it or not, there’s more than the endless mass-produced slop of Radio 1, etc. and similarly, there’s more to ‘world’ and ‘crossover’ than Jools Holland. Thank fuck.

Spiritwo have already supported Martin Rev, UK Decay and Punishment of Luxury as well as Savages, Knifeworld and Naive New Beaters, and that’s recommendation enough for me. But, if you need any more convincing, this release is pitched as ‘Spaghetti Western Urban Melodrama’, and it’s a glorious hybrid which evokes many spirits but subscribes to no particular genre.

‘Mesumamim’ means “On Drugs” in Hebrew, and the track takes this as an extended metaphor for the zombies of large urban spaces (taking London as its inspiration). Weaving a hypnotic rhythm, it forges a landscape that zig-zags between the interior and exterior worlds and creates a space somewhere in between to magnificent effect.

Spiritwo Online