Sordo - Tactical Precision Violence

Holy fuck! This is fucking amazing! Bass-driven, hardcore-tinged powerviolence madness from the Americas! If I keep using exclaimation marks does it look like I'm shouting!? I hope so! Easy comparisons out of the way first: Man Is The Bastard, Water Torture, Prisoner 639 (or anything that grinds like a fucking beast at a low rumbling frequency). To quote a YouTube commentator: "Non stop harsh grinding savagery from start to finish". I could not have put it better myself!

AFX - Hangable Auto Bulb

 If I wanted to hear freaky English kids talking about fucking potatoes over a meltdown of electronics, up until now I'd have said that I'd have to either a.) knock up my ex a few times (aayyy lmao) or b.) hit a shitload of acid. But now, thanks to the Aphex Twin side-project / spin off AFX, I can just wap Spotify on, and away we go! Wow, technology has come so far, I think I have a tear in my eye! Progress, people, progress!

As far as AFX goes, Hangable Auto Bulb is AFX to the core. That may be just as ignorant as that time I did a review where I said Electric Wizard sounds like Electric Wizard, but literally I fail to see how you can listen to this and not know who you are hearing (unless you've never heard AFX / Twin before, of course). Anxious, blippy electronics meet mellow, almost nostalgic synth work and downright bizarre sampling, culminating in a concoction that is just simply gorgeous.

Case in point, "Every Day", taking this mixture to a new level. All hail AFX.

Cool pro tip - This is the CD version of 2 12" EPs together on one release, and I'm sure a few others, unless I'm going insane...

Data Shit - Reconstruction Deformation

Now this is really nice - imagine combining the sounds of gabba techno drum programming (but slowed down a touch) with the random ambience of early Warp Records electronic music like The Aphex Twin. It's kinda like a drum'n'bassy Venetian Snares making sweet, sweet love to Optimus Prime, at varying BPM.

"Time Is A Disease" is a beast of an opener, with moody synths and epic piano lines, before it bursts this EP open with a flurry of garbled electronica and blasting 909 beats. "At Least We Have McDonalds" is a scatterfuck of a track, incorporating elements of dubstep into an already chaotic sound. "The Ghost Of My Girlfriend's House" is as close to straight-up Snares worship Data Shit can get, before closer "Hypertrophy" is a simmering mirage of operatic samples and grindcore-grade drum programming. What more do you need?

I've tried looking up more about Data Shit but have so far been unsuccessful. You can stream and download the entire EP over on Torn Flesh Records. 

Shpongle - Museum Of Consciousness

For me, Shpongle is the perfect music for the expansion of mind, body and soul; the perfect background noise for the ingestion of opiates, fungal hallucinogenics and dimethyltryptamine. However, even though I don't sit around fires chugging bowls of ayahuasca that often, I do feel that sometimes I am halfway there, thanks to Shpongle's ethereal "psytrance" (yes, that's a real genre) and its ability to take me other worlds. 

Museum Of Consciousness is apparently the final Shpongle album. If you are familiar with the group's earlier works, then what you can expect here is more of the same - in the greatest way possible. We're talking 9, 10, 11 minute trips into twisting, turning, lush musical worlds that are dripping in gorgeous instrumentation and driven by stoned yet purposeful beat programming. We're talking flutes, lutes, harps, synths, sitars. We're talking blips, blops, bleeps; whirls and whizzes. We are talking total clarity and immersion into the Museum Of Consciousness. 

The highlights for me are the two longest tracks; "How The Jellyfish Jumped Up The Mountain" and "The Aquatic Garden Of Celestial Delights". The former is a pacy, fluid journey through an audible hallucination, whereas the latter is a lurching, plodding epic of cataclysmal chill out proportion. Things get even weirder by "The Epiphany Of Mrs. Kugla", where the Shpongolians tread into territory that can only be described as a bombastic film score. I can conjure up swooping montages of a villain's lair; a damsel in distress, or a world gone to shit. And who is here to save us? Simon Posford and Raja Ram, most definitely. 

This thing is longer than 4 DMT trips. Think about that before you press play. 

DJ Senator - The Bassline / Roll Down Bass

Excuse my carpet.

This is a sticky-labelled 12" that I bought 2nd hand when I was experimenting with scratching back in the day (lol). I'd gotten a Ministry of Sound deck for Christmas and I needed some 90s-to-the-max shit to scratch and test pitch correction / matching on. As expected, I failed triumphantly at this shit and gave it up pretty quickly, although I did find it fun to scratch random records now and then, something which I have given up entirely since I've gained a serious respect for the vinyl medium.

The music on this 12" isn't particularly challenging or interesting in any way (both songs are based around THAT d'n'b beat - you know what I'm talking about), and if it wasn't for the school disco female vocals, the tracks could be ambiguously played at either 33 or 45 for a myraid of different atmospheres and effects. At 33, and devoid of vocals, it isn't a million miles away from Gyral / Stairway era Scorn. 

For some reason I can't bring myself to throw this away, although it has absolutely no value whatsoever. There is no Youtube available for this, so instead I'll offer you this useless tidbit of information: this was released on a Earache sub-label called Sub Bass Records in the early 90s when Earache was trying desperately to break into the d'n'b and rave scenes. Drastic.

Snuffgrinder - Snuffholic

Ever since I decided to include CDs on Lines In Wax about a year and a half ago I have looked forward to reviewing this album. It's purely one of the most unique things I have ever heard, and every time I scanned my shelf for something to listen to whilst at work, Snuffholic would catch my eye, but every single time I'd think to myself "hmmm, maybe next time". Well, finally that "next time" came around and I took this crazy little fuck out to the car with me for 7 hours of raining hell. I'm not sure if it made my shift better or worse! Ha ha!

 

Snuffgrinder is a very unique project with a very unique sound. I guess it falls under the usually-horrendous "gabba-grind" genre, but without the usual ghastly pitfalls of that particular sound. The best (and most alienating) way I can probably describe Snuffgrinder to the uninitiated is to imagine Libido Airbag crossed with Aphex Twin and a DJ in a fetish swingers club or something....Ha ha! Yeah, that's about right. There aren't really "tunes" here as such, any synths or instruments are very mininal, as are the sparse vocal performances, the entire thing is driven by a pile-driving drum machine barrage of pain, death and anguish. Swans' Holy Money-era nail gun experiments ain't got shit on this motherfucker! Some of the drum hits sound like fucking gun shots, I'll just put it that way.

This album isn't very long, but when you think of it as 14 tracks of pummelling drum programming, it's plenty long enough; it's enough to give anyone a permanent fucking headache, in the best way possible, of course. I'm not sure of the rarity of this release as I got it through a trade years ago, but it was put out on Apathic View Records back in 2006. 

 

Some facts to finish up on: Snuffgrinder is/are from Poland, and when he/she/they talk of snuff, they are talking about tobacco, not snuff films (so readeth thy booklet: "SGR has nothing to do with a crap called 'snuff movies'. It's all about tobacco."). Also, QNZ - the guy who runs Rotten Roll Rex - guests vocals on track 2. Check out some Snuffgrinder carnage in the link below!

 

Scorn - Logghi Barhogghi

This album was the final recording that Mick did with any connections to Earache. The album itself was produced and "marketed" by Earache Records, but released by Mick's own label, Scorn Recordings. Logghi Barhogghi is only the second Scorn album after the departure of Nik Bullen, and still sounds a bit bare and unsteady on it's feet, just like it's predecessor, Gyral. Although, unlike Gyral, LB is much more straight forward and was a definite sign of what was to come with Scorn from this point on. The name Logghi Barhogghi came from when Mick Harris over-heard an American tourist trying to pronounce the town Loughborough; that's fecking highlarious!

From start to finish, LB is a stripped-back affair of clanking percussion and heavy beats. The moody synths and unusual atmospheres are held right back. LB is all about the beat! On the first few listens through, this took some getting used to. I thought this was a remix album or some sort of experimental spin-off project, but this is a fully-canon Scorn album, despite it's very basic approach. Some tracks are stompers; heavy programmed percussion looped over and over until your brain just can't take it no more, other songs are a bit more laid back; some even barely audible, with just a purring bass line and ticking beat. Every now and then the phatter-than-your-mudda bass lines come in, scarily pre-dating all this dubstep stuff by well over a decade. That's fucking incredible!

I will say though the basic beats make this record a great buy for rappers to practice / freestyle / write tunes to. However, for most folk this Scorn album is definitely going to remain a challenging listen, and sadly will more than likely remain unknown to the festering masses. But, despite its awkwardness, LB is so goddamn far ahead of it's time it's literally frightening.

Aphex Twin - Richard D James Album

The first thing that I notice about this Warp repressing of Aphex Twin's classic record is that it is not a double album. That's not a problem, I just assumed that it would be on double wax. The vinyl is heavy, though! I don't know how heavy exactly, but it weighs a fecking ton (slight over-statement) and is very difficult to get out of the sleeve. When the needle slides onto the wax though, the perfect clarity and depth can be appreciated. Does heavy vinyl really make that difference? Bloody heck!

Most folks have seen the videos for "Come To Daddy" and "Windowlicker" but there is so much more to Aphex Twin that those two songs, and this album does a fantastic job of proving that; showcasing a smorgasbord of electronic sounds and puzzling samples assorted into ticking beats and lush synths. Whatever the vibe of a particular track, the electronics remain endlessly busy and ensure that there is always something interesting going on. Every time I listen to this I pick out something else that I missed the time before. The amount of time that went into making these "songs" must have been absolutely staggering.

This album has been considered a classic a thousand times over by now, so anything I can say will really do it any justice; ya'll need to load up on some mind-altering substances and appreciate the madness/genius for yourselves. And the best way to do that is get the poxy thing on vinyl, right? Reissued by Warp Records in 2012, but you can still get your hands on the original if you're that way inclined, just expect to pay a lot more for a copy.

Adrenalin Junkies - Outcry

As I am sure many of you are aware, Earache Records went through a puzzling phase in the 90s, signing all sorts of rave, dance, gabba and electronic music to the label. One such short-lived act was Adrenalin Junkies. There isn't much to say about this bog-standard dance record, other than I got it for next to nothing one day when I was buying a whole bunch of shit from Earache. I'm not even sure if this is collectable to fans of the genre this is associated with, but if anyone wants it just give me a shout as I am willing to sell / trade this as it is of no value to me whatsoever.

 

Venetian Snares - Winnipeg is a Frozen Shithole Part 2

Initially, I was puzzled to why the WIAFS album was split into 2 parts on vinyl. I could live with it, but it annoyed me nonetheless. When I espied part 2 for cheap on Discogs, I snapped it up. Little did I know until this arrived (go me for researching properly) that these two volumes are just two tracks a piece; one on each side. Man that sucks! I guess it was an easy way to release four singles off the record for DJ consumption, or something. But shit guys, call it something else, will ya!

The tracks here are "Winnipeg Die Die Die Fuckers Die" and "Winnipeg as Mandatory Scat Feed"; excellent tracks in their own right but not the half an album that I was expecting. The tracks on this record seem more gabba orientated than anything. Well, when I say gabba orientated I mean that it's the usual Venetian Snares mindfuck affair with the addition of some phat, distorted 909 kick drums. Bitch please, this is hard work!

Nevertheless, I am a sucker for aural punishment and I enjoy this release, short as it is. This seems to be out on the efforts of Bang A Rang (an imprint of Peace Off records), and I'm pleased to say has full artwork printed, unlike the Planet Mu pressings of most Venetian Snares stuff. If you've never heard Snares, here is probably a good place to start.