Ben McOsker got into the business of running a label on a whim and now, after more than ten years of operation, Load Records has become one of the preeminent names in noise music. By signing acts like Lightning Bolt, Sightings and Noxagt, McOsker has expanded the notions of noise and helped bring numerous Providence bands to the ears of discerning listeners. The label’s fall releases include a new record from Sightings and Burmese. Stylus asked Ben to pick a few tracks or albums that he’d been enjoying lately and he responded with a number of possibilities. As such, we’ll be posting another post early in the new year with even more tracks for your listening pleasure…
The German late 70’s/early 80’s scene was an odd bird if there ever was one. A truly local scene not really paid any mind by most of the planet. Synth damage, sheet metal on stage, robot sex, they had it all. Tribally equipped and broken drum machines, wafer thin guitar vibrations, and echo chamber ‘verb ping pong like psy-ops speakers in Falluja neighborhoods blasting Nü Metal from beer bong equipped Special Forces dune buggies.
The link above takes you to their LP debut on the deadly consistent ZickZack label. Vinyl-On-Demand.com has reissued some of their other stuff, I’d recommend checking out “Das Typische Ding”. All of their records are available for download for FREE at their website.
While they have some of the anti-art baggage that the Throbbing Gristle terminal carousel spins with, this one spins in a decidedly less militaristic direction. Not so much terrorists as engaging pranksters. Not wank in the least, though.
Proof positive that major cultural innovation almost never comes from the big cities. As a matter of fact Brooklyn, San Francisco and Chicago seem to cough nothing up but hairballs lately.
[visit Die Tödliche Doris’s website here]
Crude– Slapper, [Inner City Guitar Perspectives]
Something about the 80’s/90’s Xpressway scene was timeless. Crude is Matt Middleton. He plays too many instruments to really list here shortly (saxophone, clarinet, guitar, drums, synthesiser, bass, vocals as a start though), but the dude can write songs. Sounds like a fax from another planet re: the subject of Cuban detention facility management. A true outsider classic in the vein of Skip Spence’s “Oar”, Swell Maps “Jane from Occupied Europe”, and Roy Harper’s “Folkjokeopus”. I come back to this album again and again, most of the time forgetting it’s mostly just a one man band.
[read a bio on Middleton here, buy Crude material here]
Metalucifer– Heavy Metal Chainsaw, [Heavy Metal Chainsaw]
While this does not bring the spectacle of having Iron Maiden over the house for pizza pillows, it does summon up the ghost of power metal of days past. Of course it’s ridiculous and never fails to bring a smile to my face. This is the kind of music that people lifted weights to in Japanese medium security prison yards in, say, 1985. Really combines some of the punk energy that made destructo units like G.I.S.M., Gasmask, and LSD the wrecking balls they were, with some of the party magic of the parking lot scenes of countless B-level metal shows throughout the years. Whippets and bong hits!
[buy Heavy Metal Chainsaw here]
Shitmat– On A Ragga Shit, [Killababylonkutz]
I am a sucker for the current dancehall scene (Ward 21, Elephant Man etc.). My girlfriend hates it though. Shitmat combines some of the fuckery that The Bug brings with slammin’ mushmouth booty beaters. Its not like I’m rockin’ noise jams 24-7. A gentleman must put on the smoking jacket and enjoy some of the people movin’ power of booty music with “informed sensibilities”. Another one I can’t help but smile when I listen to.
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By: Stylus Staff Published on: November 22, 2004 |