Various Artists
Rippers and Creepers Vol. 1
PSR-0030

Review from Tape Hiss #32 at Foxy Digitalis

“This one is a reviewer’s nightmare! Rippers and Creepers not only features over 30 artists spanning a host of styles and locales—which right off the bat eliminates a couple of handy classification systems—but every track is mixed directly into the next, as if the nuances of each noisemonger’s style weren’t difficult enough to detect already. And to crown his caper, Pendu curator Todd Brooks has deliberately chosen an almost-unknown set of artists—a decision I wholly admire, but one which complicates this task even further.

With that, where to begin? I don’t know if Brooks is cluing us in with the title, but for a first approximation of order, let’s call the A-side “Rippers” and the B-side “Creepers.” Rippers wisely begins with the eccentric quasi-jazz of HeteroSkeleton, a choice born as much of necessity as preference, since there’s no way Brooks could maintain a consistent flow with this head-scratcher gumming up the works. The following two tracks are compatible, beyond-gutter, half-aborted punk tracks by Blastocyst and the Pukers, which move at absolutely full throttle with an admirable hostility towards purpose and form. The Rippers title makes even more sense as we enter the alley of straight noise, with four pieces of angry rumbles blurring into one another. I recognized the odd, abused saxophone of Ghost Moth gasping for air and was pleasantly surprised by the brooding quality of newcomer Kristin Calvarese’s piece, but otherwise, no matter how hard I try to distinguish the different contributors, my mind melts into the onrush. The quirky no-budget dance of Buffle briefly dethrones the noise, only to be usurped by Usurper, whose brooding, understated piece of cut-up darkness further establishes him as one of the most distinctive voices in harsh noise world. After his piece, unfortunately, I lose track of the next several artists, surfacing again to note the psychedelic bombast of Howlin’ Magic, probably the most recognizable name on the comp. Rippers eases into Creepers with the pleasant, if not distinctive, ambience of Pet Coffins.

After the white-knuckle ride of Rippers, Creepers is a bit more soothing. Family Battlesnake drapes the tape in a troubled Twilight Zone swirl, which is ably followed by a masterful proggy suite of post-Tangerine synthetic pulse from Pax Titania. Skozey Fetisch then crash lands like a malfunctioning satellite, coming off like the sound of robotic consciousness going slowly offline. Arachnid Arcade inaugurates another stretch of noise, though with a sci-fi bent in keeping with the spirit of preceding tracks. Josh Lay follows with an utterly depressing piece of fetid drift, one of my favorites on the whole comp. Next, ex-pat Mike Shiflet goes digital (I think), drumming up his inner Kevin Drumm with a deep field of flickering figures, before Sons of Bronson upsets the pacing with a disruptive piece of mutilated wankery. Women in Tragedy show up soon enough with a hallucinatory killer, followed by a winning slab of mysterious black ritual from new kids Sorc’henn. A multi-artist string-fueled fugue follows, capped by the glorious non-logic of Nonhorse. Finally, Panicsville concludes with an appropriately bizarre, flatulent piece.

So, uh…there you have it. I think all the preceding can be summarized as follows: Rippers and Creepers is not an easy listen, but there’s a lot of meat on its bones.” – by Bryan Berge from Tape Hiss #32 at Foxy Digitalis

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Review from Smooth Assailing

“rippers and creepers does a good job of gathering artists from all over the place: france, the united kingdom, spain, italy, canada, finland, belgium, portugal as well as the united states. when it comes to the u.s., there’s more than a slight bias towards the eastern states, with california being the only one west of illinois that’s represented, though it does have the most contributors, with seven, and one of those, arachnid arcade, used to be in seattle.

the idea behind this was to have artists submit a two minute long piece of music (give or take) which would either “rip” or “creep”, based on how the artist chose to define those adjectives. obviously, your rippers are going to be the blown-out instrumental jams and harsh noise tracks, while the creepers favor mood and subtlety. with that interpretation in mind, the music adheres to these idioms well, for the most part. all of the tracks are intertwined with each other, rather than having one side be devoted to a singular theme, and todd mixed everything together really well, which made it kind of a bitch to separate, but i figured it out, eventually.

side a starts with the weirdo sounds of heteroskeleton (which features arttu from avarus); strange vocals, intermittent sax blurts and random noises coming together in a patchworked blanket of oddball experimentation. that’s followed by two blown-out instrumental tantrums, first of which is brooklynites blastocyst with their noisy jamming that i hesitate to even call lo-fi, but i’ve gotta give the nod to la’s pukers, though. it’s a little bit easier to hear and the constant whirl of feedback with the terrific drumming does it for me. the feedback love fest continues wonderfully with oubliette’s put ‘em off in the grave, which easily wins the title of most abrasive track. i love it. ghost moth carries oubliette’s noisy drone undercurrent, but heavily sedates it and adds daniel carter’s meandering sax blurts over the top of it. this one both rips and creeps. vestigial limb continues to impress with his untitled track. i dig ray’s dynamic here between the rumbling clatter, muffled moans and high-pitched whines. atlanta’s kristin calvarese serves up a terrific, loud, humming creeper with hidden electronic screams lurking about in the background. buffle’s viscal, hmm, neither creeps nor rips, but their catchy, upbeat folk guitar and rhythmic percussion is one of the compilation’s high points. climate, by oakland’s pink canoes,brings back the stark mood with sparse instrumentation, random electronic buzzes, chiming guitar, drone and chilling ambiance. it’s more atmospheric than anything else, but does set a distinct tone. scotland’s usurper turn in a fantastic bit of lurching noise with a poke in the eye with a shitty stick. minimal and scratchy, initially, it will eventually turn into a gallop of clattering chaos that increases to a startling amplitude, before dropping back off into choked distortion. italians harshcore provide a droner with understated distorted noise in their amy winehouse; less troubled than the singer herself. fully dilated’s the big other does not exist shares its time between digital spew, a high-pitched background whine, distortion and a slow rumble. i like that they really made the most out of their two minutes. the amplified sax and clarinet duo of cincinnati’s wasteland jazz unit provides a nice high and low juxtaposition over a complimentary bed of distortion. last live, by portugal’s fish & sheep, unfortunately, sounds like it was recorded by someone who couldn’t actually get inside of the venue. the jammy free-rock chaos of it was good, though. valerio cosi’s ripper is a great piece of overpowering drone which attempts to relegate the saxoloop to a minor supporting role, but the haunting faintness of it makes ripper memorable. santa cruz, ca’s howlin’ magic urge us to “take a hit of this” with their stoned out rocker, smilesun, and then indiana’s pet coffins provide the perfect comedown music with the blissful new york.

bill kouligas’s family battle snake kicks off a fantastic side b that comes across as being more focused than the first side was. fbs’s repetitious analog synth lines, while mellow, gives rippers and creepers the catchiness than it hadn’t really shown up until this point. tallahasse’s pax titania follows bill’s synth lead and gives us the great, haunted terminal implant. in addition to being more memorable, the track sequencing for this side was absolutely flawless. successive horizontal cognizance by skozey fetisch is an exercise in near locked-groove repetitious bay area oddness. that’s followed by another san franciscan group, arachnid arcade, and their soupy distortion and whistling synth tones. it sounds like a monster eating an ice cream truck. josh lay’s bad mirror is a pleasant transitory piece of sparse layered drones which lead to someone known for sparse layered drones, mike shiflet. not so much the case this time. shiflet has a good foundation of bubbling distortion, which slowly increases in virility, and random drawn out beeps. when it seems like it’s about to get calmer, he hits us with a sheet of shrill noise. ugly, yet, a lovely surprise. kintestu’s ending cacophony proves to be the perfect segue to boston’s craniopagus, and their track blisters. high-pitch electronic screams, and distorted human ones reek havoc over a throbbing hum. i like! 2 minutes to midnight, by spain’s sons of bronson starts out deceptively with distant droning behind light static before shifting into some great waves of mutilated noise before closing out with a series of good staccato tones. ohio’s demonologists’ (one dude) rad creeping sickness is like the noisy drone of too many people talking at once, combined with more drone and low, wavy undercurrents. i really like the slight rumbling base and haunting spatial synthesizer of toronto’s women in tragedy. la chambre verte by france’s sorc’henn is beautiful, too, with its lulling sample, minimal field recordings and persistent mechanical hum. nyc’s eastern seaboard bring about a return to non-electronic instrumentation with under the red white and blue. despite having a sax, drums, upright bass and cello, this is a bit of a departure from their jazziness. the fast, steady, but not screechy, cello bowing is what wins me over. la’s vxpxc make for some nice psychedelia with their warm ambient drone, violin and vocals. californian duo saints begin with minimal droning whines before briefly transforming into warm synth, then abruptly into blown out hum before settling on blown out percussion, which beautifully eases in lanterns’ sun-soaked drum n’ clang circle. ceasar shift, from nonhorse, is a heavenly track of softly moaning (vocal?) drones and delayed analog manipulations. baltimore’s gullwing brings some unique psychedelic experimentation featuring warbling, liquid-like affections and fluttering drone. the compilation ends with panicsville’s humorous take on what rippers really are with farting sounds, a giggling female and playful music, à la nihilist youth movement. silly, yes, but i dug the way ortmann decided to go off in his own different direction, while still staying very much on topic.

overall, this was a really good compilation. there wasn’t anything that i didn’t like and the tracks that didn’t make much of an impression on me were definitely in the minority. i had my reservations about the fact that all of the tracks were so short, but i rarely felt like i was getting an incomplete glimpse of something, and also, the shortness helped make it seem like the album was quickly progressing instead of dragging on endlessly, which was nice.” – by avant gardening from Smooth Assailing

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Gryn Brvs
Grail Fruit of Les Prix Chauns
PSR-0028

Review from Foxy Digitalis

“Gryn Brvs is a new name to me and this nicely packaged tape comes care of the always interesting Pendu label. This live recording from Sepetember 2006 is a disjointed, exquisite mess. Turns out that Gryn Brvs is the UK-based duo of Stuart Fernie and Ian Murphy. And if this tape of improvised fuckere is any indication, I’ll be on the lookout for future releases. There’s a lot going on here, some of it that is seemingly at odds with itself, but as a whole it works perfectly. Acoustic and almost-melodic zither action tweezes the space between piles of droning instruments. Of note is an instrument called a ‘wyrn.’ It’s handmade by Fernie and is something akin to an Irish didgeridoo. Add in a little violin, feedback, some tapes, and ramshackle percussion and you’ve got the ingredients to a pretty killer set. Limited to 50 handnumbered copies, you better act fast on this one. 8/10″ – Brad Rose from Foxy Digitalis

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Review from Cassette Gods

“Grail Fruit of Les Prix Chauns is a live recording from the UK duo of Stuart Fernie and Ian Murphy (I’ve heard the band’s name pronounced “Groin Bros.”) rummaging in the free improv bin of assorted oddities and obscure sound sources. On side one, a zither strumming harplike arpeggios emerges from vibrating background static. Also on hand is a droning acoustic instrument called a “wyrn,” a construction of Fernie’s which according to the label description is like an Irish digeridoo. Add to this a violin, thumb piano and other assorted small instruments and percussion as well as humming electronic tones and you’ve got a very textually diverse arrangement. Considering this, the sound is quite sparse with quieter acoustic sounds in the foreground shadowed by feedback-heavy bass oscillators for most of the duration. Comparisons to modern European clatter units like My Cat is an Alien wouldn’t be out of reach. Pendu Sound’s packaging is saturated in hand assembled colors and stencils with a full-color collage insert. According to the label’s web site this one is still available, so grip onwards.” – by max from Cassette Gods

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Ghost Moth / Fossils
Split
PSR-0027

Review from Smooth Assailing

“ghost moth is a brooklyn three-piece consisting of daniel carter (other dimensions in music, test!), robbie mcdonald (old ghost, skulking) as well as todd brooks (abuse report, feral comb, mialessot). this is the first release that i’ve heard from ghost moth and i’m really impressed. there’s a great, but surprisingly rare marriage between somewhat traditional sounding jazz instrumentation, minimal electronics and prepared guitar. for me, the key component to their success was carter’s playing. where skronking away on a saxophone with disregard for the beauty of the instrument has become trite in experimental / noise music, the fact that what he’s doing, while it certainly falls under the catch-all prefix of “free-”, still sounds lovely. i’m enamored by the nonchalant swagger of the trumpet in contrast with the minimalist electronic clatter and oscillations. nothing here is over the top at all; daniel’s playing is soothingly slow, brooks’ guitar playing is extremely light, aided by delay and purely complimentary, the electronics, while not pretty sounding, are more like a muddied clamor at their noisiest, and never cast a shadow over everything else. it’s definitely one of those cases that proves the less is more adage. they’re joined by another trio, fossils, from ontario, canada. that group’s made up of: david payne (offensive orange, sick feedbag (with sick llama)), scott johnson (bottom feeder, hunting rituals, the lonely flight, slo-fi spirit wave, thoughts on air) and jeremy buchan (nope, just fossils). payne also heads up the middle james co. label. ah, fossils side. bleak! maybe it’s because (the appropriately titled) symbols of decay was recorded on friday the 13th. maybe it’s because they recorded it live to a boombox, giving it a terrific scuzzy low fidelity that enhances their understated approach. maybe both? this side kills, that much i do know. during part one (of three), decay comes across as an inverse to industrial society and its future. to the best of my ears’ knowledge, it sounds like they’ll also (very sparingly) use a guitar and trumpet and both groups used a similarly subtle approach to electronics. execution-wise, these two sides are far apart. there ain’t nothin’ pretty about the filth that fossils are making. the emphasis isn’t on the musical instruments as much as it is on tense noise. when the trumpet is played it’s as an added layer of sound; slow, drawn out noise. there’s certainly nothing traditionally musical about it, but it works well. the beginning of part two manages to get a bit creepier as the noise becomes slightly more confrontational, sporadically coming and going in banshee-like howls. there’s also a few more things happening this time with some junk percussion, random guitar chords, occasional squeals of feedback, muddled tapes and manipulation and a welcomed spell of repetitious noise later on. the final piece will revert back to the first’s minimalism. the base is an alternately squeaky and rustling commotion, while the background consists of a deep, ascending burbling tone and buzzing vocal drones. so, yeah, i’m totally digging this cassette”. – by avant gardening from Smooth Assailing

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Review from Cassette Gods

Even in New York, a town with a history of musical cross-pollination, Ghost Moth is an anomaly. Posed with the unique freedoms and restrictions of machine-produced noise and acoustic improvisation, the group has stubbornly refused to do anything but teeter on the fence between the two. Daniel Carter’s reeds, flute and trumpet will likely never be run through effects processing, and Todd and Robbie’s guitar and electronics will just as likely never be anything but. Despite all contradictions and in spite of the members’ numerous other obligations, Ghost Moth has somehow kept running full-steam for almost two years. If you haven’t checked out this platypus of a group’s unique sound, this murky 40 minute split with Fossils (a.k.a the “Middle-James-of-the-Month Club,” almost as difficult to define) is an appropriate introduction. Includes full-color collaged insert. – by max from Cassette Gods

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Abuse Report
El Diablo Esta En Casa
PSR-0026

Review from Auxiliary Out

“So I’ve been sitting on a pretty killer cache of analog goods from Pendu Sound for a long while now, and it is way past high time I get to talking about them. For those unfamiliar, Pendu Sound is the music arm of the larger Pendu Org which triples as a gallery and bookshop in addition to being a label. So that’s intensely awesome. Abuse Report, the author of this tape, features Todd Brooks, who runs the label, writes for Foxy D and plays in Ghost Moth as well, Cassette Gods scribe Max Gudmunson who also plays a part in K.P. and Matt Folden who I know nothing about. I don’t really know too much about this c40 either. Though it sounds like the trio rolls in the electronics department, with probably some guitar in there somewhere too. They have a noise drone thing going that’s vaguely sinister but not really harsh or intentionally ominous sounding. It doesn’t feel like Abuse Report is trying to scare me, like some bands do, and I like that they don’t. There’s slurred vocals against a fuzzy bog of sustaining tones and synth sputters. It reminds me a little of the way Family Underground does things but with much less emphasis on guitar. Some of the best parts of the tape are when things break down a bit and there’s a simple echoing rhythm repeating against a few cascading swells of fuzz. To go back to the sinister-ism point, the first side on here is like “leisurely sinister”, the dudes manage to sound slightly off-kilter and menacing without even trying. Whenever I listen to this tape it makes me miss drone trios and quartets, well “miss” probably isn’t the right word because there’s still a fair amount around but, as much as I love duos and solo acts, it’s great to hear 3 or 4 people totally locking into the same imagination and weaving together a piece music like on this tape. There’s just something about having more people that adds another dimension, a kind of looseness that sounds tight anyway. Or maybe put more accurately it is even when a band sounds tight there’s still a looseness, where all the pieces float magically into place. Anyway, this tangent has lead me to the first sides second track “Outer”, though if you weren’t paying attention it may seem like a sidelong track. There is a clearer sounding drum thing going on, still echoey and distorted but you can tell they’re drums (or at least I think I can tell they’re drums). The track’s a pretty short one, it builds to a glistening, if slight, crescendo before dropping out. “Exo” takes up the entirety of the B-side and it has a more extended feel to it. The guys create a fuller, more “drone” sound I guess is how you would describe it. It has got an odd pseudo-propulsion to it which I think is the result of dirty loops buried way way down. The first good chunk of the track is lead by hi-pitched sounds, probably from a guitar or synthesizer, but by the end the tracks gets pretty heavy and monolithic. The track despite its twenty minute length actually feels like it’s over pretty quick. It’s one of those that you discover more when you listen with headphones, lots of buried layers to excavate. Pendu has a couple of killer LPs worthy of your attention as well (a newish Talibam! one and a comp called Getting out the Glue), but since this tape is only limited to 25 copies (eek!) I figured I better get the word out on this one first so you can snap it up before it’s too late. El Diablo Está en Casa is available from Pendu and has a color-printed 3-panel fold out and a black tape with a silver Abuse Report logo drawn on. Definitely worth checking out if you were into the 3 man drone/noise sound. czech out this interview with Mr. Brooks about Pendu” – Auxillary Out

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Various Artists
Getting Rid of the Glue
PSR-0016

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Mialessot w/Daniel Carter and Old Ghost
What If?
PSR-0013

Review from Wire (The Wire 276 February 2007)

“Interesting live trio date with guitarist Mialessot, knob twister Old Ghost and the great alto of Daniel Carter. Danny is a bit buried under layers of noise, but you can hear his horn poking through in spots and his placement inside the context of this lo-fi huzz extravaganza is really quite bracing.”

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Various Artists
The 49th Parallel
(Disillusion Records/Lake Eerie Hi-Fi)

Review from HEARTATTACK #16 (November 1997)

“Twelve bands (six from the U .S., six ‘from Canaduh) contributing fifty some-odd minutes of music and noise . Among those taking part : Tho Ko Losi, MK-Ultra, Submission Hold ; Three Studies for a Crucifixion, Swallowing Shit, Resin, Still Life. .. STILL LIFE?! What the FUCK? Mostly full of fast, rahrahrahrahRAHHHHH hardcore political shit, and they throw an eleven-minute emo song in there! Weird . In any case, I found the Eliot Rosewater song and maybe the Submission Hold ditty to be the most intriguing, but to tell the truth, the music didn’t nearly turn me on as much as the paper bag wrapper (circa early 90′s Heroin 7″) or the messages included in the accompanying booklet . This has never been my thing and 1 still don’t dig it but 1 suppose you know what to expect from many of the bands on here, so go do what you feel is right .” DO ($6 from Disillusion/16520 S . Tamiami Tr. #18-283/Fort Myers, FL 33908) – Heartattack Magazine

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