NO-CORE blog

Hey. I have a blog. That means I get to do one of those goofy “best of 2011″ lists! Okay, so this is pretty much a list of every album I got in 2011, but all of these rule. More caveats: They are in no particular order. I’m sure there’s other good stuff I didn’t hear, but I’m pretty confident if I listened to anyone else’s best-of list, these would still come out on top. **UPDATE: now with links, several are free downloads**

Meager Sunlight/Skeleton Warrior split 12″

I’ve definitely listened to this record repeatedly the most times this year, just flipping and flipping it. One side dark synth jams that could have literally been major radio hits in 1988. Other side mutant synth jams part DEVO, part Oingo Boingo, part bizarro.
Get it from Hot Releases or More Records.

Unicorn Hard-On/Container split 12″

Unicorn Hard-On’s track “Persian Cats” is just about song of the year and makes this split worth it alone. the other UHO track is great too and Container does “minimal techno” or maybe “fake techno” AKA the genre that noise became in 2011.
Also from More Records and Hot Releases.

AIDS Wolf “Ma vie banale avant-garde”

Epic abstract harsh guitar tracks. Still torch-carriers of the no wave bad vibes.
Get it from Lovepump (free download by mailing SASE).

Mincemeat or Tenspeed “Games of Chance”

Best Mincemeat or Tenspeed album? More headbanging noise but freakier sounds and tighter changes. Davey (dude behind this project) calls this “fake techno” too but uh… this would definitely still be half on the noise side of the fence.
Get it from Harshnice.

White Suns “Waking in the Reservoir”

Ah, a refreshing blast of negative noise-grind-dirge to wash yourself clean from all that reverbey indie-hippie nonsense.
Get it from ugExplode.

Dead Rider “The Raw Dents”

Slick and skilled and unsettling and really kinda OFF in a weird way – all at the same time.
Get it from Tizona.

Gay Beast “To Smithereens”

As good as their last one “second wave” but this seems to have been overlooked by most people, maybe because the band split up before it came out and weren’t able to support & promote it. Compositionally ambitious prog/no wave.
Get it from Skin Graft.

Black Pus “Primordial Pus”

Rocking drum-n-noise numbers. Kind of unhinged and spontaneous compared to the Black Pus 4 album, but with more blood sweat and tears.
Get it from Load Records.

Dick Neff “Dunce Slap”

Okay, apologies to Black Pus, but I think Dick Neff one-upped him at the one-drummer-noise-band thing. Lance (dude behind this project) calls this “fake metal” and it is heavy. Triggered synth tones fight each other as he drums like a maniac and everybody wins! The heaviest metal band that’s neither metal nor band.
Get it from Lance himself, I guess whenever you see him somewhere.

Mutwawa “Mayan Mutations”

Totally ruling merger of beats, noise, samples with a sci-fi/conspiracy theme. Sinister and tense and mind-blowing awesome.
Download it free from Free Music Archive.

Skoal Kodiak “Kryptonym Bodliak”

This is like what I was hoping !!! would sound like, but didn’t. Post-apocalyptic funk played by mutants and malfunctioning robots.
Get it from Load Records.

Dog Leather “Greezy Man and Stinky Man”

So this album did seem kind of short and half the tracks felt a little like filler, but the meat of it was still great even if it’s really sort of an EP. It’s probably too much to hope that this heralds a return of the goofball pseudo-music noise bands – last heard from around the time when we had Danse Asshole, Meerk Puffy, Wolf Eyes’ first album on Bulb… But I can dream!
Get it from Ehse Records (free download available).

Satanized “Technical Virginity”

Pretty much no one else touching this caliber of complex, skilled, aggressive music today  (outside of metal).
Get it from Skin Graft.

Doomsday Student “A Jumper’s Handbook”

Most of the Arab on Radar crew reunite and make what’s basically more Arab on Radar music. Nary a disco beat in sight, just atonality, dissonance, shrill shrieky guitars and voices. Yeah, it’s been done, but it was done by most of these same guys and I kind of wish there were more people making this music so welcome back boys.
Get it from Anchor Brain.

Men’s Room tape

Like HEALTH in an AmRep world or something. Way, way blown out and effected-into-oblivion guitars with rock drums and unintelligible vocals. Sounds kind of like garage rock pushed into the red until it becomes industrial noise.
Download it free from Bandcamp.

last second entry: Bloodhuff tape

Just grabbed this tape literally yesterday! Some Providence noise girls doing something sort of like punk rock. Every once in a while something like this convinces me that maybe punk rock is still a good idea. The sound is pretty subterranean and the vocals are almost strangely prominent but the weirdness of the sound only helps. Urgent and weird and spooky. Hard to say if something I only listened to once yesterday has earned its place on a “best of” list, but I’ve got a hunch this is better than that Iceage album everyone raves about but I still haven’t heard.
Get it from Price Tapes (free download available).

I know, there aren’t a ton of reviews here and already I’m writing about another release from Mincemeat or Tenspeed. I’m trying to be a bit more current though with these writings and I want to say something about this 12” release before absolutely everyone’s talking about it.

Mincemeat or Tenspeed (yes, that’s one band name) is Davey, a one-man table-top-of-pedals dude who makes noise that you could maybe actually dance to. Despite more than a decade of feedback-loop noise dudes, somehow none of them had yet hit upon the magic formula MMOTS uses to make his slamming, high-speed rhythmic noise jams. Or maybe they did and then they thought “Fuck this, this almost sounds like music!” Indeed it does. This doesn’t really fit in at all with the whole “serious noise artist” crowd, but it’s an excellent representation of what’s been brewing in Philadelphia’s low-brow party-noise scene.

I just saw a Mincemeat or Tenspeed show the other night and let me tell you, his skills with manipulating these sounds have become razor-sharp. This is evidenced on this new record too, which has 4 long-ish tracks. Most follow the MMOTS formula of starting with a simple, almost relaxing rhythmic sound. Track 3, “Root Furz” almost sounds like it starts with some kind of electronic banjo fiddling. Then out of nowhere some crushing distortion kicks in and we’re straight into headbanging territory. The rhythm shifts, slips and slides but keeps pulsing away. The last track is a bit more subdued, starting with some grainy electronic noises and building up to what sounds almost like distorted bagpipes playing a sad tune of escalating intensity.

This is a killer release from a real innovator who is finding new methods for making new kinds of music. Nice silkscreened art on the record sleeve too! Co-released by Big Monies Tapes, Malleable Records, and Deathbombarc.

http://www.myspace.com/mincemeatortenspeed

http://malleablerecs.com
http://deathbombarc.com
http://www.myspace.com/bigmoniestapes

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