I had to review these Fuckers because I can't pull away from them (mostly tapes, some CDrs)

 Bagman - Welcome to my Fucking Misery (Crucial Blast)

I already essentially reviewed the other one of three Bagman releases, and although my musical taste changes faster then I go through toilet paper, some things, though, can't get me out of their grasp and this SOB is one of them. PE, is harder than noise/experimental to review because it requires more comparisons, but that's also depending on my mood, so Fuck it....just disregard that bit of Bull and we'll move on. This cassette is sort of like a snuff film, or video nasty (dude's English so....) where as it's thrilling to own, tell people about, leave the case on display and watch the expressions on faces while listening to this as they range from the too interested and captivated, to the "take it or leave it" (John, because if it's not punk then it's trash)  ,or the duck and cover also known as the "WTF" crowd. Don't be alarmed thuohg, as many of these WTF ers become converts!

At first listen, again it's essentially PE...right? It's selling point, from what I understand is PE. But it also plays out like some noise thing as well and here's why:"

1) One side begins  (I just put the tape on whichever side will play as the writing, with my ancient eyes is now too small to effectively make out) with the Whitehouse era screeching static. 

I start to happily drone out here, but then picks up with some jarbled vocals that are so fucked beyond comparison that they are basically noise here,  case in point...this isn't a typical PE release either, so bring on the oddities.

2) Same song, still....

the manipulation of the vocal mess is so well done that I swear, this has to be s a one shot and or  LIVE deal and for some reason am thinking of White Widow (?). Who knows?! But there is definitely a controlled stagger toward and back away from HNW here.

3) Same song.... looking up now...

while I'm doing that it dawns on me that the way that junk metal screeches and static buzz come together here, it creates a harmony throughout- unique (wants to go into HNW territory but avoids it all  the same)

The  vocal mix scream HNW to me,  it's essentially a giant hurling cyclone of noise, but it never gets there, you know what i mean? There's a rhythm here that purveys , it sticks with you as you traverse thise, and the tones are harsh indeed,  but it plays out differently. Just looked at it, finally and it's second song, side B "Predator".

4) Like this guys other work it's apparent that he borrows a lot from the more noisey/HNW side of things on this album, but that swirling baitball that forms the  "music" on "In Bonds" , just underneath the surface of coherent spoken vocals though he further  brings that noise comparison shit into question here because this is fairly straight ahead PE. Or is it? Because it quickly switches between the two, in this one song alone (not forgetting this trend exists continuously for the entire album) so where the jarbled sonic mess is controlled...deliberate even,  it's the spoken coherent vocals here and there amidst the scribbling that shout PE and it feels PE as well. But don't take my word for that, let the audio say it loud and clear.

Point being is that like HNW in alot of ways, there's a hypnotic undertone to the songs that for llck of any other comparison right now, is sedating and tranquil. Seriously, if I had the repeat button function on this cassette deck, I'd be blissed out on this for hours

snoozing, drifting in and out of consciousness. 

I know I also drew Ramleh comparisons for the other one on here somewhere, but you really can't draw any. Each song, let alone album unfolds and teeters in and out of bizarre realms of lucidity and controlled chaos, Whatever the Hell you call it, put it, dissect it....it's UNIQUE!! There's something even more sinister to it than the traditonal "in your face" thing going on here.

Whitehouse/Sutcliffe Jugend...you know it's listening to Hell in the bottle before even opening it/ playing it, or Slogun, possibly Genocide Organ for another take on the classic and straight ahead confrontational PE formula but in this case as with many others,  even those obvius comparisons become less obvious  and THAT is dangerous because it's getting underneath the skin, between the folds, under the nails and into the veins sort of thing that.... it's about as addictive as crack. Seriously, this Bagman stuff is instantaneous and thrilling but where crack is "whack" the hypnosis effect from this leaves you blissed out as opposed to amped up. 

I personally love this stuff, anytime PE comes my way through contact, referral, etc it's these things, these feelings that accompany it that differentiate one artist from another. This is what truly defines apiece of work, the details. Sure in essence all pizza is the same, right? Wrong!! Same thing here and it's those details that make the pepperoni from Atrax Morgue the best pepperoni...but it's the white pizza from Subklinik that separates the two. Same when it comes to general ingredients, but even the variations, even subtle fucking ones become tasty as there is always one that prevails at one time over the other, and that comes down to what your in the mood for...I'm in the mood for Bagman. Like pizza, it's all great when done right (Costco food court pizza is incredible BTW), it just depends on what style or subtlety suits you at that vary moment.

https://crucialblast.bandcamp.com/album/welcome-to-my-fucking-misery

Vacant Brain - Brain Drain (Imploding Sounds)

Finally, I have gotten this CDr to play on my CD player (need a new one). This is one that, again, is hypnotic and sedative beginning with "Intellectual Flushing".

The drip drops of what I hear as a leaky faucet or the water having been recently shut off after the bleeding out of a carcass and subsequent washing down of the place afterward, but given the title of "Intellectual Flushing" I would say that it's more of the latter. The way the crackling static comes in as a monotonous tone/rhythm and seductively consumes you in an almost psychedelic state through the harsh beeps and well thought out timing of the whirs...

It's difficult to pick out just what/when the hypnosis occurs, but it DOES and that along with the backdrop off saws spinning and screeching and again we return to the dripping...drip...drip...

These are all together  so perfectly synchronized that I can see exactly why some have referred to this as hypnotic. But it doesn't stop there...

On to the next track "Pounding Headache", another 9-10 minute neuron tangling barrage that once again...is tranquilizing ?! The reverberation of static hiss and speaker hum/buzz wraps your consciousness up in a fuzzy whirlwind of...well (I'm having a  migraine aura now btw)....

This is absolutely blissful, very anesthetic-like. The screaming of canned vocal masses, ticking and clanking of rusty chains ...a crash and burn in here somewhere...it reads like the old "Faces of Death" films, but where random scenes are selected and choreographed alongside a powerful industrial equipment soundtrack to form this song. I thought the first track was incredible, although I am home now with a migraine in tow (Botox takes time to work so I'm currently now SOL) and what is humorously titled "Pounding Headache" ito me at least, is more like a dreamlike sensation mixing of the macabre and the tactile (industrial) and reads to my ears like a best of feature of scrap metal usage and canned gore films.

It's the texture that floats like an aura though, floats over you like a purple haze. Just hanging over you as you drift off slowly. Masterful stuff. This is some serious skill show here and just as I'm about to drift off to this myself and sleep the headache off, it switches gears into "Scraping Across Concrete" with a shorter length and harsher sound BUT even that...and "The Distaste of Virtue"  with the sonicator sounds that make me feel at ease (?). I used to use sonicators to blast stuff off things so I'm well versed in those sounds and this is reminiscent of those meditative times. That and MRI/mass spec/NMR and the sounds of the magnets, the vacuum pumps and miscellaneous other valves and stuff, it  almost puts me in a trance. 

That's what this is doing! 

It's using those familiar sounds in  "The Distaste of Virtue" that bring to mind the bliss of afternoons spent alone with instruments and just listening to the sounds. Weird? 

Perhaps, but that feeling of unavoidable seduction  through mechanically manufactured static bliss, and when layered correctly, this is where the skill comes in to play as there are infinite combinations that can be made and can range from the harsh and unlistenable, to this rhythmic pattern of ...well....bliss. I dare any one of you to not get dozed off to some degree to this. I would not drive to this!!

Your eyes will be glazed over at some point relatively quickly, and then your vehicle is operating on drunken autopilot. No Bueno. But for this album and it's purpose, Es Muy Bueno. 

Vacant Brain - Mind Behind Bars (Imploding Sounds)

And so it begins, the sordid sounds of bovine slaughter, but it' the static mass of hissing and pissing sonic vibrations here that really takes hold of me. "Slaughtering of the Mind" takes shape through bovine squeeling that distorts itself into pure static mayhem here, no animals were harmed, in fact I think that it safe to say that it's calling the human a "pig" amd much in the spirit of Pink Floyd's Animals it's pretty assertive and dare I say spot on in that assertion too.

"Slaughtering of the Mind" is a ten minute assault on your senses, but requires more internal resilience then physical as the meaning behind the buzz of objects here is the butcher shop/slaughterhouse vibe of the saw blades spinning and grinding thorugh flesh and the shril peaks of tools indicating contact with bone. 

"Concrete Slab of Meat" which is a yet again a cyclic buzzfest that has that all too familiar sedative quality. I'm not sure what it's completely entailing, i.e. what is actually in or generating the droning electrical attacks here, but once again through sound manipulation we are taken on a Hellish hitch hike to and through an Abbatoir. 

But then we tke things to a more cerebral sort of context with more upfront walls of static and monsterous humanoid vocal assaults that render this one more of a science fiction epic of drugged out states and being electrocuted (electric shock therapy comes to mind) so this is some scary shit here on "Riot at the Portal of Knowledge". Then suddenly things broaden,  a twisted turn into a sort of dark hop industrial beat to which the spoken word is truly haunting and lunging back and forth, incoherently once more in a vindictive "Bwoooooooaaaahhhh thing.

But, again, it's the varied sound, the details that reveal themselves not only in this song alone, but through the entire album and that shows up with some serious chops. I mean, these guys KNOW what they're doing, and this isn't to be taken lightly either. 

This entire album is exactly as stated, it's the soundtrack to being a prisoner of your own mind, and it's as thrilling as it is disturbing... it really does come across as a soundtrack for a psychological thriller  (in this case think of parts of The Cell) as told through the inner workings of the mind. Fucked up, for starters doesn't even adequately describe it.

Vacant Brain is where a good set of headphones, no interruptions, and a comfy place to lay down or sit will go a long way when trying to really get the sound. You cannot just listen to it, you have to somewhat be absorbed into it.

Coach Campa and Tim Burkland - One Week form Last year (Imploding Sounds)

This one here is my Jam!! 100% what I look for in a recording, it's a sort of free jazz feel but the instruments are noise elements: sonic squiggles and squirks atop a well drummed rhythm (oil drum perhaps ) and I'm guessing metal pipe judging from the echo and clanks; along with the further added electronic sounds of hissing, a couple of welding torches making sparks...

Okay, so the entire thing is a cohesive blurb of noise genius. 

The track titles are amusing as Hell too, like "Grandchildren Lawyers" or the "Oh my God (It''s God)", so somewhere these guys channeled my humor.

The entire album from start to finish is a hybrid, a lovechild between the industrial tool ensemble (where there should be horns but aren't) and audible junk effects amidst a well crafted drum rhythm (hollow, metallic... 50 gallon drum ?) that Sun Ra would truly be proud of. 

If this is any indication of the ether where Jazz and noise/PE/Industrial are collide, straight for a head on collision; then prepare yourselves for that shock ad awe because this is hands down, one of the best done true "Jazz" albeit free jazz mash ups that I've ever come across. It lacks the free for all experimental touches thus leaving you in a state of relative listenability, but...I don't even know where to go with this.

 Absolutely Incredible stuff!! Begs the question as to whether this is noise or jazz. 

Sounds and feels strangely like Jazz to me.

Seriously though, where the Hell do these people come up with this stuff? Man!!! Brilliant doesn't even scratch the surface here.

That's it for my random write up, as Nurtec and headache buzz are taking effect now. 

I really have to investigate this label out fuirther, but you can do so yourselves here, and the content is fairly expansive: 

https://implodingsounds.bandcamp.com/music