Anamnesis is a ‘rarities’ collection from Mick Harris’
genre-spanning project Scorn. It’s actually a bizarre cross-section of the
sounds that Scorn had made up until the late 90s; encompassing the early Nik
Bullen material, the loud beatwork of the Logghi Barhogghi era
and the minimalistic, bass heavy electronic beats that would come later.
It’s all a bit of a mess, to be honest. It’s like this CD
can’t decide if it’s a b-sides collection, a remix album or a super cool
round-up of unheard stuff. It’s great though, if like me, you’ve rinsed all
life out of nearly every Scorn record and want to hear some long lost material
from the vaults. There are some quality beats and vibes on here, especially the
more minimalist stuff. When lined up back to back with the older stuff you
kinda realise how much of a snoozer Nik Bullen is with his vocals (and this is
coming from someone who loves Vae Solis). The track here from that era sounds
like Godflesh withering in the final stages of a long battle with AIDS.
Not a bad CD overall but definitely not the
place to start with Scorn. There is some phenomenal material out there linked
to this project.
Lull is another Mick Harris project, one I believe that he
worked on between Scorn releases back in the day. Lull takes pages from the
book of Lustmord; extremely minimal yet puzzlingly fulfilling compositions of
sound, often devoid of any noticeable instrumentation, pummelling you instead
with lulling ambience (no pun intended) and claustrophobic barrages of
atmosphere. Moments then, is the stifling ambient soundscape of choice for
those with a short attention span. Instead of the usually lengthy tracks that
come hand in hand with this sort of thing, Moments splits these aural passages
into 99, er, moments, I guess.
Some last mere seconds, and without a single one of them
reaching three minutes, you’d be forgiven for mistaking this to be a short
release, but alas it is not. Each piece of the puzzle falls together create an
entire whole, something which can be a bit of an issue if you burn this into
.mp3 format or download it off the internet – those little millisecond gaps
between songs will absolutely ruin this listening experience for you.
It’s hard to believe but each of the 99 tracks here are
different. It’s like an ever-changing aural landscape, that whilst being as
flat as Holland, does vary greatly in weather and atmospheric pressure.
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.
What better way to see in the new year than with some head-pounding Scorn music? Stealth is probably one of my favourite Scorn records and it is the record that I recommend to people that are new to Mick's work and who are familiar with the concept of dubstep. Stealth is very similar to the album that followed it (Refuse; Start Fires), but unlike Refuse and its exploration of the one-dimensional sound by using real drumming, Stealth sticks to the straight and narrow floor-shaking bass and mind-shattering drum programming that Scorn is so damned good at.
There simply isn't a bad song on this record; each song is as stonking as the last. For all the slowed down, repetitive as fuck "dubstep" accompanied by eery atmospheres you really need look no further. And considering I got this for £6 and it's a double LP I literally consider it the steal of 2012. Hours of scouring Discogs has finally paid off! Ha ha! So welcome back to Lines In Wax, I hope you had a good new year. Let's start the new year with some pure and positive music; turn this all the way up and feel the vibe! This has the Ohm Resistance logo on the back but the record was put on by Ad Noiseam and Jarring Effects.
Sadly, Yozza (released in the arse-end of 2011) was to be the last thing that Mick Harris would put out under the Scorn moniker after 20 long years of pushing the boundaries of underground electronic music. Looking back now, it is hard to believe how far ahead of the times Scorn was; playing something that was the blueprints for the dubstep sound years before any silly cunt with a fucking Adidas cap decided it should be a genre. Oh, the injustice! But never mind, because in the right circles Mr. Harris is known for being a true innovator and leader in music, from his involvement in birthing Napalm Death and the grindcore genre right through to his ambient, experimental, noise and prolific collaborative efforts with over 9000 different artists, producers and musicians. Holy mother of fuck! You can head over to the man's own website to try and get your head around his discography. Best of luck!
Yozza opens with what seems like real drumming (a theme explored on the previous record Refuse; Start Fires), mixing dirty and distorted bass with the usual anxious soundscapes and devastating lows. If I can be so bold I will suggest that side B is superior; opener "Shake Hands" is Scorn at it's best, and "Name's Not Down, Not Coming In" will warble your intestines to muck, in a good way. Cut on a 12", the songs are phat as fuck and the mix is huge. Although this is a great EP, this isn't the way I imagined Scorn to go out, but it's not my fucking band and I don't make the decisions so I'll shut up. I will miss Scorn, but at least the music will live on his in records (not to mention the 160 other projects Mick has on the go). I'm just glad I managed to catch him live in 2011. What a fluke! Out on Ohm Resistance.
Where Scum put grindcore on the map for most people, From Enslavement to Obliteration took the whole genre to new depths of mental speed and heavyness. I read once, I think in Terrorizer magazine, FETO being described as the bastard of a younger brother to Scum. Scum may have started it all, but FETO perfected the blueprint. To be honest, it just rips your fucking head off.
I got this picture disc as a gift one Christmas a few years back and I was very, very surprised to see it. I had never heard of a picture disc version before, let alone in full colour, and I feared that a family member had spent a lot of money on a bootleg. Nevertheless, some quick research revealed that this pressing is indeed genuine (and rather rare); Earache pressed a bunch of these up in 1990, just after the initial gatefold run. I find the full colour artwork rather bizarre, even to this day, being so used to seeing the original purple'n'white. Dig from Earache also uploaded the original full colour version of Scum to his blog Ask Earache, even though it was never used in any (legitimate) pressing of Scum. You'd be very surprised at how different it looks.
Unfortunately my copy is a bit crackly, and opener "Evolved as One" skips a bit. Picture discs aren't exactly known for their excellent sound quality but other than the signs of wear it sounds really, really good. Better than the fucking CD, anyway! It is definitely a collectors item though, I think most fans would be better off settling for the dynamic represses of new or the original FETO pressing on black wax with the bonus 7" (which I am still looking to obtain). If Earache had ever pressed Scum with the same full colour picture together with this it would make for some fantastic wall art.
I always used to think that FETO's one flaw was that it couldn't stand up to the music of today for sheer impact, but as I've matured and realised that loudness isn't everything (also having the bastard on vinyl helped - so much better!), FETO has come full circle for me as something to listen to and enjoy often. After all, it is a blistering whirlwind of a record. It is also mental to think that this line up of Napalm Death lasted for so little time - who knows if they would have gone on to make more powerful things than FETO? It is sad to see how back in the day Napalm Death chewed up and spat out it's members, but some of the bands created in it's wake are equally or more so breathtaking (Godflesh, Cathedral, Scorn and Carcass to name a few).
As far as dubstep goes I'm still pretty inexperienced, but as my musical tastes somehow mutate drastically I find myself listening more and more to this genre. Scorn for me were the in-road into this electronic genre I would have maybe never touched otherwise, despite the fact a lot of types of dubstep (or gorestep) mimmic the structure and heaviness of metal music. This double 12" by Ohm Resistance however, does not strike any resemblance to the psuedo-dub-metal that Scorn once shat out many moons ago.
I have heard this style of music described as both darkstep and dungeon dubstep; and I can see how the slow, clanking, echoic and vividly dark vibe lends itself excellently to these well deserved tags. A lot of Mick Harris' later Scorn stuff tends to blend together, but Refuse; Start Fires stands out from the later offerings by incorporating a real drumming performance alongside the usual ear-drum piercing sampled snares and bass hits. This adds a strange dynamic to the otherwise rather clinical and menacing Scorn sound that hasn't been seen since the days of Colossus when Harris performed drums himself.
My one criticism is that if you are actively listening then the songs can drag on a bit too long at times and can be a bit repetative, but if your listening as background music (which I often do with Scorn due to its eery but chilled out nature), you won't notice. Refuse seems void of typical 'drops' as it were but still gets heavy now and then with nizzling bass and the odd bangin' fuckin' wup wups, if you get my drift, yo.
Here we have Agoraphobic Nosebleed's 2009 split with The Endless Blockade, which was released on a 1000 copy press by Relapse Records. 500 were made on blue, and 500 were made on black. Strangely enough, there doesn't seem to be the usual 100 clear pressed on this Relapse release.
Agoraphobic Nosebleed's material sounds like a carry-on in the vein of their "Agorapocalypse" tracks. There isn't any hateful Randall vocals to be heard here, but Katherine Katz and Richard Johnson sure as hell make up for that. The grind is blisteringly fast and the final track is harrowing as fuck. Short, but sweet.
The Endless Blockade starts off almost with a doomy feel, before heading full throttle into endless grind terror (no pun intended) melded dangerously with snarling electronic passages and over laps. According to info on the sleeve, vocals on this release were done by a Mick Harris; whether this is the Mick Harris of Napalm Death / Scorn /Lull fame, I do not know.
There has been no repress and prices are generally high for such a modern grind 7", glad I nabbed this on the Bones Brigade stall at Hellfest when I did (it was sold out then, I believe).
