Fantastic Magic, "Witch Choir" & Thousands, "Skinless//Boneless"

I was recently sent something like 9 tapes from the mondo generous head of Abandon Ship Records, and since then my face hasn't quit melting into drippy little flesh puddles. Unfortunately, as some of you know, I got about 30 other tapes and cds all at the same time, so I've been struggling to play catch up, and will continue to do so well into next month. That said, I need to write something about this cavalcade of cassette tapes that have wound up in my possession, and so, for the next few weeks you can look forward to further installments of my Abandon Ship Records mini-reviews. In this week's update: Fantastic Magic's "Witch Choir", and Thousands' "Skinless//Boneless".

Fantastic Magic, "Witch Choir" C25

Abandon Ship Records, 2007

Described by the label as "a magical trip on a pegasus through a field of LSD" and "three young wizards journey through the island forest," Fantastic Magic's "Witch Choir" is a twenty-five minute cassette spun odyssey, glimsping all-too-briefly into a brilliant world of acoustic neo-psychedelia, free-noise skree, jazz interludes, gamelan & jugband percussion, and warped ethereal folk-singing. Did I say ethereal? Huffing this stuff is heavenly! Neither of "Witch Choir"'s sides are marked, so I've got no idea which is A or B, and that's a shame because there are some really enjoyable tunes on this tape, each full of their own magic moments. Likewise, there is no mention made of the people involved in Fantastic Magic, which is also too bad, though I assume they're probably associated with other Abandon Ship Records-related bands, maybe some members of Thousands or at least (VxPxC). In any case, my thanks go out to those anonymous 'three young wizards', because when my ears prick up to listen "Witch Choir" makes my head light as a feather. Highly Recommended!

Thousands, "Skinless//Boneless" C60
Abandon Ship Records, 2007

Thousands are an East L.A. based collective of free-improvising freaks whose mandate is melt your face and grind your body into a formless pulp. Featuring members of (VxPxC), Fantastic Ego, and countless other groups, Thousands have a few releases circulating out there, but this is there first for Abandon Ship. And what a first it is! "Skinless//Boneless" is another A-class cassette of soul-elevating//crushing neo-psychdelia from the crew at Abandon Ship Records. As if the title of the tape wasn't a dead give away, the cassette has a Skinless side and a Boneless side. The Boneless side is a formless free-jam monstrosity, and the Skinless side is a long ego-disolving dronescape. On their Myspace page, Thousands align themselves in the Double Leopards/Skaters camp of modern mind-melting psychedelia, and while that's more than cool with me, it should be pointed out that where Double Leopards and The Skaters make a point of obscuring exactly what instruments make what sound (or mimicking the sound of one instrument with another), Thousands utilize a more conventional sense of talented musicality. In other words, I clearly hear a bass, guitar, percussion, etc. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, I just thought it would be worth noting these while Thousands can drone, they can also really play their instruments. If you've got any ears left, this one's a keeper.

Nero's Day at Disneyland, "Colonists" 3" cd (EMR Records, 2007)

Nero's Day At Disneyland, Colonists 3" cd
EMR Records, 2007

To get this started, let me say that I'm pretty removed from this current Captain Ahab-led Ravesploitation thing. Not that I have anything against it, but as I never had a raver phase, or, was never really interested in any aspect of rave culture beyond its associations with Digital Hardcore, Industrial, and Ambient music, I can't really appreciate much of the somewhat sub-ironic re-interest in "nu" rave. That said, any new artist who can give Venetian Snares a hyper-speed musical run for his money has got my immediate attention, and that artist is Nero's Day At Disneyland.

Now, if I've got your attention: here's where you may be disappointed (or, where you and I differ in opinion). When I say that Nero's Day At Disneyland is growing steadily on-par with the nigh-inimitable work of Venetian Snares, I mean that in the sense of Aaron Funk's current work. That means: Pink & Green, the Hospitality E.P., and Cavalcade of Glee and Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Poms, not his earlier, harder, or more esoteric works like Songs About My Cats, Winter In the Belly of a Snake, or Winnipeg Is A Frozen Shithole. Sorry if it seems like this review is turning into a Nero's Day At Disneyland sounds just like (insert artist here) name-drop session, but it's been my opinion for a while that Venetian Snares has been light-years ahead of the competition for half a decade, and I'm very excited to see someone come out of the underground who may usurp his crooked crown.

So, what are the signatures of his sound? What differentiates our hero Nero from the ever-prolific Funk? Brevity, for one. There are eight tracks on the 3" Colonists cd-r, and, with the exception of album's closing track, "Shamu Wraith", few of them are more than two minutes in length, causing the cd to blur past in a attention-deficit stream of orchestral swelling and sweeps, mangled blasts of circuit-bent gabber beats, and cut-up noise collage. At this rate, Nero's Day at Disneyland manages to jam more ideas into a single song than virtually any beat-oriented group I could compare him to, and that includes Venetian Snares. Not only does the Colonists cd tort the cohesion and studio fine-tuning that typically would accompany a longer or more official full-length release, it announces that there's a new kid on the block: and he's the kind that lives to start fires.

Pigs In the Ground, "Tropical Delirium" C-30, (Aural Secretions, 2007)

Pigs In the Ground, Tropical Delirium C-30
Aural Secretions, 2007

At this present date, the obsessively dark, violent, and associated doom and gloom aspects of industrial and noise music have by now far exceeded and exhausted their use as thematic motifs and "inspirations," and have now dropped in the ironic abyss of self-parody. Of course, this might have (and probably has) been said before, probably many years ago, before I'd even had my first bewildering taste of noise, but I think at this point it's fair to say that while there is no subject unworthy of artistic inquiry, it's time to stop flogging that dead horse which some refer to reverently as KVLT. It has begun to stink.

Pigs In the Ground are not a "KVLT" noise act, but on their latest release, the now out-of-print Tropical Delirium cassette, this Oakland duo of Brutal Sound FX alumni Sharkiface and Loachfillet peer beyond the veil of everyday aural perception, and stare into the beating heart of a festering, atmospheric underbelly of ero guro nansensu and post-industrial noisescapes. There are two sides to Tropical Delirium, each clocking in at just under 15 minutes. Side A features three tracks, "Tropical Delirium," "Pulsations of the Feast," and "Darkness Swelters in the Ballroom," and Side B only has one track, 15-minutes of "Smoldering Ashes." Unfortunately, as neither side of the C-30 is marked as A or B, and no audible cue to delineate one track from another (that I could hear in my first three or four listens), I can't really say anything about the tracks individually. However, taken as a whole, Tropical Delirium's four tracks evoke an atmosphere of sensuously delayed and decayed noise decadence that is as unsettling as it is alluring.

Ettrick, "Feeders of Ravens" (Not Not Fun, 2007)

Ettrick, Feeders of Ravens
Not Not Fun, 2007.


After the scorched earth attack of Sudden Arrythmic Death Vol. 2, the dual sax & drums free-death duo, Ettrick, have emerged to emaciate the maggot infested corpse of harsh jazz noise with their first full-length lp, Feeders of Ravens. Now, if you've no prior experience with Ettrick, let me break it down for you before you go and hurt yourself: bone-grinding double-kick drumming from four sets of feet, pared with face-melting saxophone freakouts that utterly S L A Y Borbetomagus, Vandermark, and Zorn's tired asses and corpse-fuck their fetid remains. With little respect to those previously mentioned, there is little I can liken Ettrick's skin-scalding sax and drums attack to, although Mick Barr's work in Orthrelm and Octis comes to mind. Feeders of Ravens eight tracks of ascetic jazz extremism all seem to be composed of free improvisations, which are each based upon some previously set parameter (say: drums and sax, sax and sax, drums and drums). However, just because it's free doesn't mean their jazz is cheap. It's clearly obvious that the deadly psychic connection shared between Jacob Felix Heule and Jay Korber is the result of relentless practicing, rather than laziness and a lack of skill passed off as avant-garde. That being said, although Ettrick's improvised death jazz is dense and incredibly varied, I find that prolonged listening can be a little overwhelming. I prefer their thunderous assaults and screeching terror when delivered in shorter, sharper bursts of acoustic violence, rather than drawn-out in L'Eng Tche styled torture sessions. Feeders of Ravens is both an incredible debut lp, and a torture garden of grand guignol jazz delights where you're the slave and Ettrick are the masters.

Owl Xounds, "Gypsy Monks On Holiday" C-30 (Curor Recordings, 2007)

Owl Xounds, "Gypsy Monks On Holiday" C-30
Curor Recordings, 2007

For those spirited heads who like their free-jazz fused with a touch of the cosmic, and their feet dipped wet with wide-open infinity, Owl Xounds' exuberant outer-space jams are as awesomely pleasing as they are wildly unpredictable. On "Gypsy Monks On Holiday," the usual Owl Xounds Exploding Galaxy duo of Adam Kriney (drums) and Gene Janas (upright bass) are joined by Mario Rechtern (saxophones, electronics) and Gene Moore (electric guitar). This high-bias tape boasts three sprawling live improvisations from two separate performances. The bombastic and wild-eyed "Sambs Samosa And The Circular Saw" and the brief attack of "We Are But Three Small Faces" were both recorded live at SUNY Purchase , NY on 2/19/7, while the organic mutant jazz "Are Those Your Graham Crackers From The Wiccan Ceremony Last Week?" was cut live one day earlier at the Flywheel in Easthampton, MA on 2/18/7. Mario Rechtern's saxophone threatens a savage mutiny on "Gypsy Monks..," but Adam Kriney is so at the top of this game on this one he's shot straight through Maslow's pyramid of needs and wants and wound up blasting somewhere through a stratosphere of technical wizardry. Keep an eye on Owl Xounds, these space-jazz cadets are headed somewhere brilliant, sparkling, and totally uncharted.

Liz Allbee/Sharon Cheslow/Weasel Walter, "Plants That Kill" (Curor Recordings, 2007)

Liz Allbee/Sharon Cheslow/Weasel Walter, Plants That Kill cd-r
Curor Recordings, 2007

A three-way collaboration between Liz Allbee, Sharon Cheslow, and Weasel Walter, or the sound of a tropical disease as it seeps through your pores, peeling away the last remaining layers of your earthly senses and leaving only a caterpillar filled brain-case behind in Peruvian nightmares? Plants That Kill is a no-wave trip spiraling deeply into endless reverbrations of Ayahuasca dreaming and inspired-by-toxins tropical death-jazz. An electric brew of poisonous improvisations whose exotic variety of tone and colour lure you inwards, just as the venom seizes your nervous system, leaving you frozen in place, sweating to the sounds of an immense Amazon Rainforest totally indifferent to your desperation and impending decomposition. Each of "Plants That Kill"'s ten tracks are named after a particular sample of fatal flora, a concept credited to Liz Allbee. The cd's sleeve art also reflects this concept, with a leafy green aesthetic that is as enticing as it is forbidding. I'm completely blown-away by the music on this disc, as each member of this trio performs in ways I'd never have expected from them, making "Plants That Kill" even more of a toxic treat. I would be in a state of total shock if this cd didn't sell-out soon, but that could just be the green talking.