Posts Tagged ‘Experimental’

Watch: ‘A.I. Hive Mind’ by Zu

Posted: 19 November 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Legendary Italian experimental trio Zu recently announced their return with Ferrum Sidereum (produced by Marc Urselli), a big and bold double album arriving on House of Mythology on the 9th January.

The music combines the complexity of progressive rock, the grit of industrial music, the precision of metal, the spirit and energy of punk, and the freedom of jazz. The result is a sonic journey that is as cerebral as it is visceral, defying easy categorisation while remaining unmistakably Zu.

Today they share the new single and video for ‘A.I. Hive Mind’ – about which the band comments, “Smart cities, brain computer interfaces, internet of things, singularity. This particular track addresses all of these things as well as questioning the loss of self, the idea of single consciousness and collective predictable behaviour. Perhaps the most burning question for us is: What does it mean to be human in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, simulated realities, and technological control?”

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Zu have also shared live dates in support of the new album – dates and details below.

2026 LIVE DATES

10/01/26 – Bologna, TPO – Italy
21/01/26 – Caserta, Lizard Club – Italy
23/01/26 – Palermo, Candelai – Italy
24/01/26 – Catania, Zo Culture Contemporanee – Italy
28/01/26 – Milano, Santeria – Italy
29/01/26 – Verona, Colorificio Kroen – Italy
30/01/26 – Zagreb, Mocvara – Croatia
31/01/26 – Nova Gorica, Mostovna – Slovenia
01/02/26 – Bratislava, Žalár – Slovakia
02/02/26 – Prague, Palac Akropolis – Czech Republic
05/02/26 – Berlin, Neue Zukunft – Germany
06/02/26 – Copenhagen, ALICE – Denmark
07/02/26 – Malmo, Inkonst – Sweden
09/02/26 – Bruxelles, Magasin 4 – Belgium
10/02/26 – Eeklo, N9 – Belgium
11/02/26 – Amsterdam, OCCII – Netherlands
12/02/26 – Paris, Le Chinois – France
13/02/26 – Bulle, Ebullition – Switzerland
14/02/26 – Torino, Magazzino sul Po´ – Italy

Ferrum Sidereum – Latin for ‘cosmic iron’ – draws inspiration from the mythological significance of meteoritic iron, found in artefacts like ancient Egyptian ritual objects, Tibenta ‘Phurpa’ blades, and the celestial sword of Archangel St Michael. This elemental force imbues every moment of the album’s apocalyptic sound. Whilst heavy in tone and subject matter, bassist Massimo Pupillo comments that their music also aims to "raise good energy… people would come up to us after the show and tell us that they felt alive."

The trio – Paolo Mongardi (drums, percussion), Luca T Mai (baritone saxophone, synth, keyboards) and Massimo Pupillo (electric bass, 12-string acoustic guitar) – spent a year refining this sprawling 80-minute epic through relentless rehearsals and live studio recordings in Bologna. Produced and mixed by three-time Grammy-winning engineer Marc Urselli, known for his work with Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, and Mike Patton, the album balances raw intensity with refined production tweaks and textures.

“We are very spiritually-oriented people,” says Massimo. “Machines and AI do not have spirituality. So they can mimic and they can assemble existing things, but they cannot create. That spirit is probably the most important thing that our music carries.”

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Photo credit: Marco Franzoni

Oscillator – OSC

Posted: 12 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Dret Skivor – 7th November 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Dave Procter is / has been involved in more musical projects than your mum’s had hot dinners. Having left Leeds for Sweden, not least of all on account of Brexit, he’s currently paying the UK a visit with a tour which features performances by no fewer than five of them – last night’s set in York was one of two halves, featuring the polite extreme electronica of Trowser Carrier and the whacked-out post-punk infused racket that is Loaf of Beard. So about these ‘Brexit benefits’… and the fear of taxing the rich for fear they’ll leave the country. Since they’re not paying much tax anyway, where’s the loss there? Meanwhile, we’re losing migrant workers who keep the NHS operating, who harvest crops, and flip burgers, AND we’re killing creative industries by making it harder for artists to tour here. A few years ago, there was considerable coverage given in the media about the country’s so-called ‘brain-drain’; there’s been rather less coverage given to the slow murder of the arts. The Guardian and The Independent have raised their hands in quite anguish over the killing off of arts degrees, degrees which are being targeted as not providing a route to a well-paying career, but in the main, this is happening quietly. What’s painful is that there’s so much raving about ‘small boats’, hardly anyone is noticing, and even fewer care because they’re too busy buzzing over the Oasis reunion or Taylor Swift. I’ve got no specific beef with Taylor Swift and her sonic wallpaper, but the point is that there is so much life and art and creativity beyond the mainstream. There is an extremely diverse array of subcultures, an underground that’s as big as the overground, only more diverse, eclectic, fragmented, and this is what’s suffering.

To return to topic, somehow, amidst all this activity and while in transit, Procter’s managed to launch both a new release and a new project via his Dret Skivor label, in the form of OSC, the debut – and likely one-off – album by the imaginatively titled oscillator.

The accompanying notes are unusually explanatory for a Dret release, forewarning of ‘Glitch, ambient and toy keyboard experiments. Play through decent speakers and headphones, the lows are LOW!!!’ The tracks were created during some free studio time in Copenhagen in October 2024, and, as ever, the CD run is minuscule, with just 6 copies. This, of course, is typical of the DIY cottage industry labels, particularly around noise circles. It’s not only a sign of an awareness of just how niche the work is – and it very much is that: no point doing 50 CDs or tapes when it’ll probably take a year to sell four – but also indicative of a certain pride in wilful obscurity. Just think, if the bigtime ever did beckon, those spare copies sitting under the bed may actually acquire some value. Just look at how much early Whitehouse albums go for, for example.

OSC is very much an overtly experimental work, featuring six numbered pieces – the significance of said numbers remains unclear, if there even any significance, although notably, they’re all zeros and ones, or binary – which range from a minute and twenty seconds to just over eight and a half minutes.

‘01’ is a trilling electronic organ sound skittering over long drone notes, and abruptly stops before the bouncing primitive disco of ‘10’ brings six and a half minutes of minimal techno delivered in the style of Chris and Cosey. It’s monotonous as hell, but it’s intended to be, hypnotic and trance-inducing. Zoning out isn’t only acceptable, but a desirable response. ‘100’ is seven and a half minutes of dense, wavering low-end drone, the kind which slows the heart rate and the brain waves. As the piece progresses, the rumbling oscillations become lower and slower and begin to tickle the lower intestines, while at the same time some fizzy treble troubles the eardrums. Nice? Not especially, but it’s not supposed to be. Sonically, it’s simple, but effective.

‘101’ is so low as to be barely audible: not Sunn O))) territory, so much as the point at which the sun has sunk below the horizon and the blackness takes on new dimensions of near-subliminal torture. The final track, the eight and a half minute ‘110’ is a classic example of primitive early industrial in the vein of Throbbing Gristle, with surging oscillations which crackle and fizz, a thrumming low-end pulsation. It ain’t easy, but it’s magnificent.

Procter loves his frequencies, just as he loves to be eternally droney, and at times Kraut-rocky. OSC reaches straight back to the late 70s and early 80s. OSC is unpredictable, and tends not to do the same thing twice. It’s in this context that OSC works. Embrace the experimental.

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Watch: ‘Stars In Heaven’ by Gong

Posted: 5 November 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Legendary psych outfit Gong are back today with their new single ‘Stars In Heaven’ alongside a brand new music video created by Drain Hope. The band have also teased the release of their new album which fans will see in 2026 and shared the album’s name – Bright Spirit.

“It’s such an eclectic record,” says singer and guitarist Kavus Torabi. “This is the most colourful and kaleidoscopic album so far from this incarnation of the band. There are Eastern-infused epics, long instrumental jazz-inspired sections, meditative and cosmic detours and blistering, incendiary psychedelic rock. When picking the first song to be released, it has felt as if there’s an extra weight on the choice, as if the song somehow has to represent the whole album.”

Lyrically it expands on the idea that the world is as you are. “If you are a cynical, defensive or suspicious person, then that’s the world you’ll inhabit,” continues Kavus. “You’ll see mean-spirited behaviour and selfishness all around you but it’s always a choice. I think perhaps some people forget that. That’s not the world I live in, nor would I want to. It’s a sad old world for sure but it’s also a beautiful one bursting with hope, possibility, wonder and magic in every single moment.”

‘Stars In Heaven’ is the first single to be released from the new album Bright Spirit which will be released in 2026 on Kscope. Bright Spirit continues the legendary Gong catalogue – an extensive and acclaimed collection of releases that has seen Gong produce over 30 studio albums during a career spanning more than 50 years, since the band was founded in 1970 by the late Daevid Allen.

Gong continue to carry the torch ignited by Daevid Allen with their UK tour alongside fellow psych legends HENGE currently underway -  

UK TOUR DATES 2025/26

GONG – UK

Nov 08 – Bedford Esquires, Bedford

Nov 14 – Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis

Nov 15 – The Boileroom, Guildford

Nov 16 – The Piper, St Leonards

Nov 25 – Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich

Nov 29 – Club 85, Hitchin

GONG & HENGE – UK

Nov 05 – The 1865, Southampton

Nov 06 – Trinity Centre, Bristol

Nov 07 – Dreamland, Margate

Nov 09 – Colchester Arts Centre, Colchester

Nov 11 – The Globe, Cardiff

Nov 12 – Exeter Phoenix, Exeter

Nov 13 – Princess Pavilion, Falmouth

Nov 19 – Crookes Social Club, Sheffield

Nov 20 – The Leeds Irish Centre Leeds

Nov 21 – Northumbria Students’ Union, Newcastle

Nov 22 – Kanteena, Lancaster

Nov 23 – St Luke’s Glasgow, Glasgow

Nov 26 – Cambridge Junction, Cambridge

Nov 27 – The Robin, Bilston

Nov 28 – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham

Nov 30 – Earth Hall, London

Mar 19 – Chalk, Brighton

Mar 20 – Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury

Mar 21 – Hangar 18, Swansea

Mar 26 – The Drill, Lincoln

Mar 27 – New Century Hall, Manchester

Mar 28 – Hangar 34, Liverpool

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Listen: ‘Gone Rogue’ by Scissorgun

Posted: 4 November 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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UK electronic outfit Scissorgun announce their album Scream If You Wanna Go Faster, out November 21 via Dimple Discs. Mixing urban electronica with fuzz and wah guitar, these trailblazers present a solid collection of songs, dances and abstract soundscapes. A must-have for Factory Records collectors, the vinyl includes seven tracks, while the digital and CD versions include three bonus tracks. Ahead of its release, they present the tracks ‘Gone Rogue’ and ‘Bad As Bingo’.

Formed in Manchester in August 2016, Scissorgun is an electronic trio comprised of Dave Clarkson (synths, rhythms, tapes, percussion), Alan Hempsall (vocals, treated guitar, samples, loops) and Adrian Ball (light show and projections). Carriers of Factory Records’ legacy.

“We always operate on instinct and improvisation is the key starting point. Some ideas become structured songs, but others remain as first recorded, with the music finding us and not vice versa. The title is a soft attempt at social comment, intended to be inferred rather than overt,” says Dave Clarkson.

Their musical scope is varied – pastoral dreams one minute and, the next, crashing swathes of noise chased down with a dub twist.

“The idea for ’Gone Rogue’ started with a busy electro bass line and, as soon as we found a good quote from a conspiracy theorist on social media, the whole thing seemed to turn into a polemic against turning your back on humanity in revulsion. We dwell on the impact of the fight for our attention on the individual and the damage done. All the while, the driving beat is pushing us on with heavy cowbells and pulsing bass. We’ll all feel better if we dance,” says Dave Clarkson.

Alan Hempsall adds, “As for ‘Bad as Bingo’, we were both overjoyed when this came out of the mincing machine. We’d been looking for something with a go-go beat to it, so this was perfect. The words flowed automatically as the best ones always do. Broad brush observations of a situation gone bad coupled with a mawkish sentimentality for what’s lost. The glitching and grinding bass line and barking dogs take on a life of their own. Suddenly it all makes sense and the initial spark revolts into structure and form.”

Alan and Dave first met in 2007 when Dave’s band, Triclops, were supporting Biting Tongues at Islington Mill in Salford. Alan was in the audience and was so taken with Triclops’s performance that he wandered over to show appreciation and a friendship was struck up, bonding over a mutual weakness for early industrial, rock and modern jazz. After nine years of gig-hopping and hanging out, the timing was suddenly right for them to organise some jam sessions to see what came out.

It so happens that both of their bands were on hiatus at the time. While Dave Clarkson was in Triclops from 2000 to 2015, he was in White Cube prior to that. He since boasts an extensive catalogue of solo works.

As for Alan Hempsall, he was the vocalist for Crispy Ambulance, who was on Factory Records from 1980 to 1982, before spending five years in the mid ‘80’s playing percussion in a Brazilian Samba band. Hempsall also famously appeared on stage with Joy Division in April 1980, standing in for Ian Curtis at a show in Bury that descended into a riot.

“As with any album, we operate on instinct. Improvisation is the key starting point. At this moment, anything can and generally does come out. The bizarre accidents and serendipity that occur during this process are the parts we keep. Those moments that feel like you’re merely the vessel that the music is transmitted through,” says Alan Hempsell.

Dave Clarkson adds, “Some ideas gradually emerge into structured songs whilst others have the fortitude to remain in their original form to some extent or another. Yet no conscious decision is made. We are not in control. It is the music that finds the musicians. As the body of work is growing and developing, it seems to take on its own identity, something else we appear to have little influence on. So, there is an element of Praxis at work here, we’ll do it because we want to and think up the reasons why later.”

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Keepin’ on Buggerin’ On: John Wiesniewski in conversation with Kev Hopper

Posted: 22 October 2025 in Interviews
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Kev Hopper recently released his fourteenth solo album, titled XiX. Having started out playing bass with Stump – a band who in just five years released two albums and a bunch of EPs, attaining a cult status and critical acclaim over commercial success – his career has been defined by quirkiness and eclecticism. This is nowhere more apparent than on XiX, which got a thumbs up from us here at Aural Aggravation. Since Stump called it a day in 1988, Hopper has been keeping busy, dividing his time between music-making, both solo and with a few notable collaborations, and painting. And because a new release inevitably brings the cycle of promo, John Wiesniewski hopped on board to chat with Kev about the new album, inspiration, and his various collaborations.

JW for AA: What was the experience like recording your new album, Kev?

KH: Pretty much like all the others in that I always have a lot of track doodles and sketches on my hard disk and it usually takes a month or two to arrange them properly and get them into shape with proper intros, verses and chorus etc. I have to stop painting while I do that and put in long days.

When did you begin playing music? Did you play music from an early age?

I started playing bass in bands around ’78 at the age of 18 or 19. I didn’t take it seriously till I was in my twenties. I didn’t grow up in a musical family and didn’t like music lessons at school but loved Pop from a young age and knew I wanted to get involved eventually.

What was it like being in Stump? What kind of music did you want to create in Stump?

It was crazy. Stump was a smart band of loud hotheads and big personalities. You couldn’t relax. There were a miss-mash of different influences in the band but the main prerogative were good lyrics, interesting rhythms and wobbly, funky lines. Bread and butter drumming and bass lines were out. Writing was a four-way collaboration and followed a typical pattern of starting with the bass, then the guitar, then the drums and finally the singing.

What inspires you to paint and compose music?

I don’t believe in ‘inspiration’ – that’s a flawed concept IMO. It just comes naturally – and I advise anyone who doesn’t feel ‘inspired’ to just put random notes or (paint marks) down… and the missing content will usually prompt structure.

I feel an urge to create something most days even if it turns into an unruly mess. If I don’t create I feel useless. I’ve had this feeling all my life. If I’m honest, I am slightly less motivated than I used to be – a natural and inevitable consequence of advancing years and other concerns filling my time, I guess. I also have to remind myself that not everyone will appreciate what I do, (or indeed value it). As an artist one has to learn to live with indifference and get used to it… especially with my kind of music.

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How did you come to collaborate with Ticklish and Prescott?

Ticklish was a merger of friends I knew from the experimental and free-improv scene in London and was a very electronic, improvisational, abstract collaboration which involved minimal preparation beforehand. We would identify ‘sound areas’ and have a rough idea of how we would transition through them in a live set. Prescott was totally different in that I wrote all the music then rehearsed it with the band. It was very influenced by the ‘Canterbury’ Prog sound and minimalism. There wasn’t much room for improvisation in that format.

6. Any favourite albums among the many that you played on?

I don’t have favourites as they’re all stages in musical development, however I can unfortunately identify the weaker recordings or the albums that didn’t hang together well. Fortunately there are not too many of them (IMO!)

How would you describe your music? Any favourite bands? Any artists who inspire you?

I’m often asked how I would describe my music and I wish I could say something like ‘blues’ or ‘Funk’ or ‘Indie Rock’ and have done with it. The truth is it’s a very personal, hybrid musical style where odd sounds meet melodic content. It has a strong electronic element and uses influences from the avant garde as well as Pop and Jazz. That’s where I see myself: somewhere in the exciting middle of those two things.

There are so many bands I like. Too many to list. Here are some things I’ve enjoyed lately:

Daniel Landois – Goodbye to Language
Ichiko Aoba – Windswept Adan
Cathal Coughlan -Rancho Tetrahedron

Oval – Romantiq

Arch Garrison – the bitter lay
Christobal Tapia De Veer – Utopia Soundtrack
Pino Palladino – That wasn’t a Dream

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Any future plans and projects, Kev?

I am writing songs for my old friend, singer, Kelsey Michael for an album next year and there’s a plan to re-issue my Kevlington bass album on vinyl also on Dimple Discs. My motto is ‘keep buggerin’ on’.

XiX is out now.

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Watch: ‘Golgotha’ by ZU

Posted: 14 October 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Legendary Italian experimental trio Zu returns with Ferrum Sidereum (produced by Marc Urselli), a big and bold double album arriving on House of Mythology on the 9th January.

Ferrum Sidereum – Latin for ‘cosmic iron’ – draws inspiration from the mythological significance of meteoritic iron, found in artefacts like ancient Egyptian ritual objects, Tibenta  “Phurpa” blades, and the celestial sword of Archangel St Michael. This elemental force imbues every moment of the album’s apocalyptic sound. Whilst heavy in tone and subject matter, bassist Massimo Pupillo comments that their music also aims to "raise good energy… people would come up to us after the show and tell us that they felt alive."

The music combines the complexity of progressive rock, the grit of industrial music, the precision of metal, the spirit and energy of punk, and the freedom of jazz. The result is a sonic journey that is as cerebral as it is visceral, defying easy categorisation while remaining unmistakably Zu.

Today they share the track "Golgotha", about which Massimo says; “Once upon a time, the stars spoke to men, but now cosmic destiny brings a silence. Silence in which lies what men say to the stars. Man radiates atmospheres and is in continuity with the cosmos. These are atmospheres of colour and atmospheres of sound.  What we radiate is colour and sound. And the cosmos listens.  The return of what it incessantly gives to the earth.”

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The trio – Paolo Mongardi (drums, percussion), Luca T Mai (baritone saxophone, synth, keyboards) and Massimo Pupillo (electric bass, 12-string acoustic guitar) – spent a year refining this sprawling 80-minute epic through relentless rehearsals and live studio recordings in Bologna. Produced and mixed by three-time Grammy-winning engineer Marc Urselli, known for his work with Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, and Mike Patton, the album balances raw intensity with refined production tweaks and textures.

“We are very spiritually-oriented people,” says Massimo. “Machines and AI do not have spirituality. So they can mimic and they can assemble existing things, but they cannot create. That spirit is probably the most important thing that our music carries.”

Set for release in January 2026, Ferrum Sidereum is Zu’s biggest and boldest statement yet that challenges all conventional boundaries. Uncompromising, innovative, fiercely original.

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Photo credit: Marco Franzoni

VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Watch ‘Ranine Copper’ by Deep Cross

Posted: 13 October 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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It’s been two years since Deep Cross delivered Royal Water, and now they return with the enigmatically-titled Scaffolded Dawn.

As the accompanying notes outline, ‘Utilizing treated vocal drones, tape, modular synth and an array of found sounds, on the new album, Deep Cross delivers seven tracks of heavy Devotional Electronics. Blistering and crude yet ecstatic and sacred, Scaffolded Dawn focuses on transition points where tempers blur beyond ideas of convention. In each track discomfort, overcoming, decay, lure, attraction and beauty inhabit an axis of equal reign where multitudes thrive.’

As a taster for Scaffolded Dawn, they’ve landed a video for the track ‘Ranine Copper’. With hints of The Walking Dead, it’s suspenseful, disturbing, and very, very dark.

We love dark here at Aural Aggravation, so we are immensely proud to premiere this video. Brace yourselves.

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William Covert – Dream Vessel

Posted: 9 October 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Coup Sur Coup – 17th October 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Few drummers receive much recognition, unless they’re the backbone of bands who are household names (people know Ringo Starr, Keith Moon, Dave Grohl, Mike Joyce, Lars Ulrich), or have otherwise featured prominently in a specific musical milieu (Martin Atkins and Paul Ferguson come to mind). Their contributions are overlooked and underappreciated, and in the main, there’s a tendency to only notice exceptional drummers, or poor ones. It’s not the job of a drummer to grab attention, but to hold everything together at the back. Consequently, you might be forgiven for being unfamiliar with William Covert, whose career is defined more than 15 years of drumming in math rock, post-rock, and post-hardcore bands (Space Blood, Droughts, and Rust Ring).

As the narrative goes, ‘Covert began experimenting with live-looped synths alongside acoustic and electronic drums. This experimentation birthed two full-length solo albums characterized by post-rock and krautrock-inspired synth loops and melodies, all performed solo with loop pedals and sequencers.’ Dream Vessel was born out of a desire to pursue a different approach and a different direction, and indeed, the first part of this latest offering was a collaborative, group effort, with Nate Schenck on bass and Jack McKevitt on guitar, while we learn that ‘the other half was performed entirely solo, diving deep into cinematic ambient soundscapes, dreamy Frippertronic-influenced guitars, modular synth, and free-jazz drumming filtered through a post-industrial lens.’ Nothing if not varied, then.

The album’s five tracks span thirty-eight minutes, and it’s very much an exploratory experience. ‘Brotherhood of Sleep’ eases the listener in gently, with a slow, strolling bass and reverby guitars. It’s an expansive and spacious instrumental work, rich in texture and atmosphere – a shade proggy, a little bit jazzy, unfurling at a sedate pace. ‘Trancers’ fades in, and offers similar vibes, but it’s both more spacious, and more groove-led. The guitars bend and echo that bit further, and as the track progresses, so the pace and urgency build, along with the density of the guitars, which warp and stretch more with every bar. It may not hit the extremity of My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, but the guitars do sound as if they’re melting by the midpoint, before the track locks into a muscular, driving groove that’s a world away from where it began. There’s an appeal that’s not easy to pin down when it comes to compositions which begin in one place and end up entirely in another, while it’s not entirely clear how they’ve transported the listener from A to B. The experience isn’t completely unlike making an absent-minded walk somewhere, when you haven’t been paying attention, and arrive with minimal recollection of the journey- although the difference is that the walk is usually via a familiar route that requires little to no concentration or engagement, whereas a song that swerves and switches involves an element of brain-scrambling along the way.

‘Dream Void’ is a centrepiece in every way: The third track, right in the middle, it’s over nine minutes in duration and a towering monolith of abstract drone. It’s immense, cinematic, widescreen, gentle. Around the mid-point, the drums arrive, and they’re busy, but backed off in the mix, and we’re led down a path to a place where frenetic percussion contrasts with chords which hover and hum for an eternity. Slow-picked guitar brings further texture to the mellow but brooding post-rock soundscape of ‘C-Beams’, which pushes toward nine minutes, as the album ventures into evermore experimental territory. As present as the drums are, they don’t provide rhythm, but bursts of percussion, swells of cymbal and wild batteries of rolling, roiling whomps.

The more concise, feedback-strewn ‘Throttle’ marks a change in aspect, a roar of noise, a wail of feedback, and positively wild, before ‘Come True’ closes the set with some Kraftwerkian bubbling synth and undulating bass, paired with a rolling beat. It’s all nicely done. And this is true of the album as a whole.

Dream Vessel is gentle, overall, but not without edge, or variety, and certainly not without dynamic. Here, ‘interesting’ and ‘unusual’ are not dismissive shrugs with a hint of condescension: Dream Vessel brings together a host of ideas and traverses a succession of soundscapes , never staying still for a second.

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Zero Swann – Benefactor

Posted: 8 October 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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17th October 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

From the very outset, this is not easy on the ear. Sometimes, something leaps out about an album in the opening minutes, and here it’s the production – or lack of. The title track heralds the arrival of Benefactor, the first album by Washington D.C. improvisational psychedelic outfit Zero Swann in two years. And it’s a swampy, reverby, dingy mess. It’s integral to the experience, but it’s also likely to be a deterrent for some – but screw them, it’s their loss, right?

Although straddling heavy psychedelic and the dramatic gothic style, it’s the sludgy, feedback-riven outtakes of The Jesus And Mary Chains’s Barbed Wire Kisses which first come to mind when listening to this.

Benefactor is the follow up to 2023’s Amon Zonaris, which, at the time, was a one-off collaborative release with Scott “Wino” Weinrich. This time around, bandleader and Saccharine Underground label curator Jeremy Moore is flying solo, handling guitars, fretless bass, drums and noise assault. And there’s no shortage of the noise assault on this punishing no-wave behemoth. As they tell it, ‘From the noise rock / no wave snarl of Ritual Tension and early Sonic Youth, to the shoegaze sounds of My Bloody Valentine, to doom and free jazz chaos over a backdrop of pure lo-fi abrasion, Moore’s latest outing is a true crosspollination of styles’. It is, and what’s more, many of those styles are melted together to form a dark, disturbing sonic sludge.

‘Grave Wax Horticulture’ is a skull-splitting mesh of noise, equal parts The Jesus and Mary Chain and Christian Death. It’s theatrically gothy, in the vein of The Horrors, but primitively noisy – which is a fair summary of the album as a whole. It’s experimental, overloading in its racketaciousness – and while is a psychedelic album, it’s a full-on assault album, too, which draws parallels with Head of David’s first album, LP, and simply summarises a noise ethos which eschews convention in every sense.

Moore’s commanding baritone brings a sense of drama, not to mention a certain theatricality to the chaotic, palpating grind, and there’s an edge to his delivery which is both world-weary and tense, a voice emerging from the desolation of a society collapsing, a world in flames. This is surely the sound of the apocalypse, the sound of everything ending. Everything is overloading, murky, blown-out, blasted with distortion and reverb, resulting in a discordant thunderous attack which fires in all directions at once. It’s a primal roar reverberating from buildings collapsed to rubble, a brain-bleeding blitzkrieg of ruinous proportions, as mechanised drum sounds fire like machine guns and missile explosions, cutting through the wildest, densest racket. The absence of overt structures only compounds the sense of things falling apart. It’s the sound of unravelling, of societal threads pulling apart in real-time, a descent into mayhem, anarchy, barbarity.

‘Anagrams for Agnosia’ is perhaps jazz, but jazz in the loosest sense: it’s exploratory, experimental, freeform, but more than anything, it’s the sound of fracture, or fragmentation, instruments churning and burning, and pulling in different directions like splinters of an object in the wake of a detonation. As the screams die down, there is the thud of a panicked heartbeat, before the final track, ‘Phaneron’ obliterates with a squalling wall of howling guitar, stuttering drums and raw, ruinous noise.

Benefactor is an album without let-up, which provides no breathing space, and is thoroughly relentless in its intensity from beginning to end. Recommended, but approach with caution, and a stiff drink. It sounds like the cover looks.

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Misery Bacon – Turning in the widening gyre

Posted: 4 October 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Dret Skivor – 3rd October 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

This is proving to be a particularly good week in the world of noise, what with Foldhead’s Paris Braille and this being released on the same day. There’s more information given about this release than most to slip out from Swedish underground label Dret Skivor – in that there is actually some. We learn that the work was ‘Recorded and assembled on residency at Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts, Leveld AIR and Gallery ASK, Norway 2025’, and that the ‘Album and song titles taken from / inspired by WB Yeats ‘The Second Coming’’. We also learn that Misery Bacon is the vehicle of Bergen’s Luke Drozd. It’s not clear if this is one of those monikers that’s amusing because translation, or if it’s a case of humour that doesn’t translate geographically, like Die Toten Hosen. I’m sure dead trousers are a massive wheeze in Germany, but here it’s vaguely surreal but mostly a bit odd. Then again, ‘Misery bacon’ makes me think of all the moaning gammons we have here in the UK, red-faced and chuntering into their Carling about ‘immagrunts’ and how everything’s ‘bloody woke’ nowadays.

It contains two longform pieces, each filling a side of the cassette release – of which there are just six copies – ‘Every finger double crossed as things fall apart’, and ‘Shambling onwards in the shadows of indignant birds’, and neither literary allusions or social commentary are apparent in the work itself.

‘Every finger double crossed as things fall apart’ starts with some sampled dialogue and an array of pops, clicks, whirrs and glops, a swampy collage of seemingly random elements layered across one another. It’s atmospheric, but also difficult to get a handle on any idea of where it’s headed, if there’s any theme or concept that connects the diverse sources. But soon, serrated drones and distortion build to a sustained whorl of noise atop a quivering bass judder. Five minutes in, and it’s an all-out assault worthy of Merzbow or Kevin Drumm. It’s noise, and it’s harsh, but it’s an ever-shifting, seething mass of tinnitus-inducing tones and textures, at time fizzing and crackling in such a way as to give the impression that the sound is actually inside your own head, rather than reaching the brain from an external source. There’s a niggling crackle of static that sounds like there might be a problem withy your equipment. This is most pronounced and unsettling during a quieter spell of jangling metal which sounds like a light metallic object being rattled against a metal fence, or the clattering of cutlery. It’s a piece that slides and slithers hither and thither, and sits well against Throbbing Gristle’s most experimental, abstract works. Towards the end, it does feel like it could be the soundtrack to the collapse of everything. Listening to it while the US government is in shutdown, Israel seemingly continues to level Gaza despite a supposed ceasefire, hundreds of people are arrested in London and other cities for protesting against genocide, and Russia continues to expand its campaign of interference across Europe, it’s hard to feel much positivity.

On a personal level, the present feels overwhelming. The world is at war. The world is on fire, and at the same time that we have drought, we have flooding. But instead of coming together collectively to address this global crisis, as a species, we’d rather bomb the fuck out of one another. And with shootings, mass knife attacks and all manner of savagery taking place daily, it really does feel as if humanity has descended into a spiral of insanity and self-destruction. And there are really no words to articulate the panic and anguish of all of this. Music and literature may provide a certain comfort and distraction, but it’s in sound alone – more specifically, sense-shattering noise – that I find something which articulates the experience of living in these torturous times.

And so it is that ‘Shambling onwards in the shadows of indignant birds’ returns to the sampled dialogue which opens ‘Every finger double crossed as things fall apart’, before plunging into a mess of static cackles and hiss. It’s a Bladerunner world of rust and robotics gone wrong. It’s murky and it’s unsettling. A blast like the roar of a jet engine momentarily hampers the hearing, and we sit, dazed, in the comparative quiet of crackles and pops. There’s a mid-track lull, which feels uncomfortable as whistles of feedback and laser bleeps criss-cross before collapsing into a broken wall of noise on noise.

Turning in the widening gyre is harsh, heavy, bursting with uncomfortable frequencies. The final minutes are nothing short of punishing. And yet, at the same time, that punishment offers vital release. This is where you get to let go. At last.

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