NO-CORE blog

I was thrilled to get this latest Unicorn Hard-On tape. This is the solo project of Val Martino, who has also done time in groups like the Laundryroom Squelchers and Gang Wizard and has a collaborative record with Leslie Keffer coming out in the future.

Unicorn Hard-On largely uses these devices called Electribes, which I believe were originally intended for making techno music. Here they are put to much better use, making sounds and music which is technically “electronic” but sounds and feels much more organic. We’ve got 2 long tracks on this tape, one per side. Side A is called “secret snarls” and starts off with a slow-motion, off-kilter beat and some unidentifiable buzzes and hums. Eventually a mid-tempo funk beat sneaks up on us and the ominous buzzing becomes background to some bird-call-like lead synth sounds. This is the part of the show where the audience would start nodding in unison, then maybe tapping their toes, loosening up little by little.

Side B starts out with some serious Dr. Who sounds with a heavy pulse-beat lurking in the background. Based on the slow-build style of side A, the side B track title (“all into it”) and that lurking beat, I though for sure this was going to spontaneously drop into some heavy, rave-style dance jams but it never quite did. Instead the echoey synthesizer sounds just keep heading further and further out into deep space. I’m sure at a loud, live show this would also compel people to start grooving in rhythm but on tape here it seems to play out more as a head-trip than a body-mover. The sounds of video games, laser battles, and alien swamp creatures calling to each other continually morph throughout the track.

This comes in a nicely tactile fabric wrap with some yarn, fur, and an attached title card. Very cool.

http://www.myspace.com/unicornhardon

I’ll bet most reviews of this album will call it “schizophrenic” or use the term “genre-hopping.” Heck, you might even be able to convince those “musician” friends of yours who think Mike Patton and Zappa are genii that this is good stuff. (If they make it past the piercing feedback in the song “Masters of Science Fiction”) But it just wouldn’t be right to compare Lazy Magnet to Mr. Bungle or Naked City or other genre-hopping type musical show-offs. Those bands are largely all about saying “Hey, hey, did you know we can play death metal! Oh, hey, we can play swing too! We can play Zydeco!” Give this album a couple of listens and you’ll realize that songwriting came first for Jeremy Harris, Lazy Magnet mastermind, and then he simply tried to make every part of every song sound as great as it could.

Lazy Magnet is largely Jeremy’s solo project, who lives and makes music in Providence, RI, though here he is joined by no less than 16 guest musicians who add violins, flutes, piano, voices, trumpets, etc. So we do get a wide range of musical influences that show up here, including but not limited to: punk, noise, country, prog metal, ye-ye, folk. But there’s an underlying style that holds it all together. This is closer in spirit and sound to albums by the Melvins or even Ween than the above-mentioned groups.

Time was, an album like this would make a guy reasonably famous. I have no idea if we still live in a time like that but hopefully this at least puts Lazy Magnet on the map within the underground/weirdness scene. The full title of this album is: “He Sought For That Magic By Which All The Glory And Mystic Chivalry Were Made To Shine – or – Is Music Even Good?” I’m convinced that the first title-sentence is literally true of this album, and in so doing Lazy Magnet has proven that music IS actually still good.

By the way, the CD includes a live bonus track with a chorus of “Fighting to survive, when it’s cold outside.” I have visited the land of heating-free Providence factory-dwellers during a very cold time of year, and I can tell you that this statement is also quite literally true. So, you know, buy a copy and help a brother out. Vinyl version comes out in July I hear.

http://www.corleonerecords.com

Lazy Magnet MySpace

The Mugu Guymen are a noise-rock duo who may or may not actually be from Nigeria. (If you’re curious about the origin of the band name, see this Wikipedia article.) Here are the facts I can give you though: They use contact miked drums and drum-triggered sounds run through effects, as well as some mangled guitar and hollered vocals to create some high-energy, chaotic noise-rock.

The drums are usually either pounding out rock beats or building up to that point, and the noises are largely harsh, swirling analog sounds with laser sounds well-represented. As you might guess because of the similar methods used, this probably comes closest in sound to Mindflayer, although the Mugu Guymen sound is much more varied. You might call this psychedelic, although definitely not “nice psychedelic.” The fact that it’s improvised and the techniques in use are quite literally experimental means you get moments that were probably just as much a surprise to the band as to the listener. During one song there is a sudden surge in guitar volume and a totally evil crashing sound washes over everything. I’m guessing it was a fluke but it sounds perfect at the same time.

This tape is full of those kinds of moments. It must be some combination of genius, dumb luck, and smart track editing. There are 4 tracks on side 1, which are all pretty hard-hitting, then one long track on side 2 which gives you some slightly more low-key moments in between the cacophonous moments and also provides more evidence for the “genius” assessment since it’s consistently awesome. Some really funny stereo things happen on side 2 also which might make you wonder if your tape deck is chewing up your tape. If you hear something like that, don’t take a chance, make sure your tape is okay! You’ll want to give this one some repeat listens.

http://myspace.com/muguguymen
http://www.soundsfromthepocket.com/catalog.htm

Here’s the set-up. Craig Comstock is the one-man-band This Is My Condition. He plays guitar and drums and sings, all at once. I’m not talking about playing a bass drum strapped on his back, I mean he plays a full drum kit and plays a guitar, balanced across the snare and floor tom, with his drum sticks, as he plays. And honestly, if you just listened, you would never believe what was happening, which I suppose is why this is a DVD and not a CD.

So that sounds like an interesting gimmick, right? But how does it sound? This will rock your face off. Serious. At the risk of going on and on about all the bands I saw play at the INC in Miami, This Is My Condition stirred up the fiercest mosh action there, complete with dudes stage-diving off his kick drum! (because he was playing on the floor, see?) Unfortunately, this DVD documents some shows with more sedate audiences, but This Is My Condition still gets them moving.

Because the guitar is being played with drum sticks, it mostly sounds like noisy finger-tapping (again, a bit like Lightning Bolt) or noisy slide guitar, rather bluesy even at times. At times the guitar is sampled and looped, but usually this is just so that a second guitar part can be played over the top. And in between all the high-energy stuff, there are just enough quieter tension-building songs (that really work!) to make the rock really hit you. The footage is clear and steady, with some relatively non-distracting effects here and there, and the sound is good. At times the camera microphone is overblown, but it still sounds great. It’s pretty captivating to watch this music being made, but the music is also good enough on its own that I wish it came with a CD of just the audio.

Comes in a nice recycled-LP sleeve, on Sounds From The Pocket.

http://www.thisismycondition.com/
http://www.myspace.com/thisismycondition
http://soundsfromthepocket.com/catalog.htm

Everyone loves Sonic Youth, right? Or at least , everyone loves Sonic Youth at some stage of their evolution. You already own all their records, or at least, you own all their records up to a certain point where you lost track. So do you need this one?

The subtitle of this album is somewhat misleading. “B-sides and rarities” suggests that there is going to be some stuff dug up from across SY’s long career. And aren’t all the b-sides compiled on some other release by now? Well, that’s not really what we have here. This is basically a bunch of jams recorded in more recent years that didn’t have anywhere else to go but were too good to just throw away.

If you enjoyed Sonic Youth’s last few records (“Rather Ripped,” “Sonic Nurse,” “Murray Street”) then you will be really happy to get this record, which is essentially the outtakes. Improvised jams and songs that didn’t quite make it. I’m pretty stoked about this because I think those are some of SY’s best releases since (insert favorite old-school SY album here). If you did lose track of what they were doing X albums back, I’d recommend at least checking in again.

There are a couple of tracks I could live without. “Campfire” is some kind of ambient electronic track from a compilation and sounds to me like it’s just filling space here. There’s also a new, extended “Diamond Sea,” the already rather long track from the end of “Washing Machine.” Since we already got some 15 minutes worth of the very same recording on that album, I would rather have gotten more totally unheard material here.

But I’m pretty happy because the bulk of this is blissful, breezily dissonant and eezily rockin’ Sonic Jams. Good tour driving music, drinking coffee on the porch late Sunday morning music. (Or maybe oil-painting in your over-priced “East Williamsburg” loft to the track “Fauxhemians?”)

Do It Big are my favorite new noise band. In my mind, this is how it’s supposed to be done. DIB are an all-girl band who crouch in a circle around a handful of drums, various microphones, toys, amps, guitars, bent electronics, and anything else they can get their hands on. Then they pound out some kind of slumber party drum circle girl-noise music that feels like an intimate ritual.

Some might ask why I’ve already used the word “girl” twice in this review? Why does gender have to matter, huh? And why am I calling them “girls” instead of “women?” Well, in this case there’s a reason. Do It Big are seriously all about being girls. Mixed into the noise you get cheerleading chants, baton twirling, pom-poms, pattycake songs, and at one show I saw, even frantic whispering of secrets into one another’s ears! (not shared with the audience) They even have a sort of lead vocalist who sings in a really surprisingly strong and soulful voice. That’s right, real singing! Not screaming or growling or mumbling, and no effects to hide behind. (maybe a little reverb) In the context of everything else, it feels like the kind of made-up songs that every girl recorded on her home tape recorder back in the 80’s, dreaming of becoming the next Debby Gibson.

So I’ve gone on and on about Do It Big the band and their music, but how about this recording? Well, unfortunately this is not as good as seeing them live. It would be challenging to capture the mix of amplified and natural sounds they play and this recording has a bit of an uneven mix and seems a little less powerful than it should. We wind up with a drums and vocals focused recording here, which still sounds cool but I wish I could hear more of the stuff. I’d still highly recommend it but I wish I’d also gotten that live cassette they were selling. On this CD you get what would basically be 2 live performances here, 2 long tracks.

This is on band member (also of Taiwan Deth) Angela’s Vanishing Records and comes in a silkscreened digipak case.

http://www.myspace.com/dibxxx

Alright, the first thing is, this CDR says right on the back of it that “No synthesizers, samplers, sequencers, drum machines, computers, or musical instruments were used to make this recording.” What was used then? Just a big table of effects pedals. Okay, we’ve seen and heard that set-up a dozen times before but I’ve never seen it sound like this. For lack of a better word, it’s amazing how musical this sounds.

I’ve seen Mincemeat or Tenspeed live and it’s just one guy head-banging and slapping pedals and somehow telepathically beaming this insane music out of his brain and through the speakers at deafening volume. Totally rhythmic loops and blasts and even occasionally some subtle, peaceful chiming or bird-like sounds. It really sounds at times like Lightning Bolt’s bass finger-tapping. This noise gets people dancing, I’ve seen it happen! You could even drive around playing it on your car stereo on a sunny day.

This is also a very music-like album in that it is a sensible full album length with a very sensible 10 song-like tracks. Perfect if you suffer from musical attention deficit (like myself at times) or if you’re not into waiting through the first 30 minutes of that noise record for it to start getting good. My only complaint is that this seems to be recorded direct and lacks the sonic blast and low-end boom that MMOTS has pumping out of a good P.A. Just hit the bass-boost and turn your stereo up to get the proper experience.

This is a self-released CDR, but MMOTS now also has a split LP with Drums Like Machine Guns out on Badmaster Records and a new full-blown LP coming out any second now.

http://www.myspace.com/mincemeatortenspeed

I love this record! Alright, I don’t love it yet, and in fact find it a bit of an exhausting listen and don’t always finish it. But then I keep finding myself wanting to listen again and enjoying it more each time. An addictive acquired taste! I had the same kind of experience way back when with Big Black’s “Songs About Fucking” which seemed pretty sonically extreme to me at the time.

Cousins of Reggae is a duo from Montreal, one of whom is Blake Hargreaves, a guy who keeps busy in the underground noise scene and is also half of the excellent noise duo Dreamcatcher. This is basically a guitar and drums thing, but a seriously dense and blown out cacophony of drums and guitar, and a whole bunch of sounds that come from sources unknown. There are even unintelligible vocals in the mix. I’d say this falls somewhere between Royal Trux’s “Twin Infinitives” and the noisiest Harry Pussy stuff.

I think what keeps me coming back to this is that there seems to be some deep logic underlying all the squall, but it’s hard to decipher. Now and then you get a definite guitar riff of the caveman/early Royal Trux type or an almost math-rocky rhythm, but any coherent music usually disappears into the sonic blizzard. I feel like if I keep staring, a master plan is going to pop out at me like those 3-D fractal posters. How much of this is really planned and practiced, how much is just free improv, and how much is a figment of my imagination? Cousins of Reggae definitely blur those lines, but that’s what makes this album so much fun. And it’s one hellacious racket.

CDR on “Our Mouth” Records

http://ourmouthrecords.com/catalogue.html

http://www.myspace.com/cousinsofreggae