MASTER/SLAVE RELATIONSHIP - BLUE FACED LUST

Blue Faced Lust
Master/Slave Relationship
1985

Review by Joey

Genre/s: Industrial, Power Electronics, Noise
For Fans Of: Negativland, Justine & Juliette, Nervous Gender, Hunting Lodge

I was asked for this specifically, but it's also something I've wanted to review for a while anyway. Master/Slave Relationship is one of my favorite industrial projects, and Blue Faced Lust in particular is my favorite thing put out under that moniker, as well as one of my favorite industrial releases in general. So here we go.

One thing you'll notice about M/SR is the heavy BDSM influence (shocker) which shows up in different ways, namely the heavy and imposing sexual motifs. Power electronics has always been about explorations of power, and M/SR does so through the lens of a domme (i.e. an inversion of the dynamic inherent in heteronormative sex*) to a great effect. The vocals mock you, taunt you, tease you, and hang over your head. The electronics work in tandem, presenting uncomfortable soundscapes which mirror the lyrics; M/SR beautifully -- and brutally -- juxtaposes soft and hard, ambient and harsh, rhythmic and chaotic, soothing and jarring sounds in a tumultuous fashion, which makes for a turbulent and frightening listen.

Go get'em, tiger.

Tracklist:
1. Nothing To Love
2. The Dream
3. Some Dry Hopeless Mess
4. People Where They Ought To Be
5. Wait
6. Avoidance
7. Take Over
8. Blue Faced Lust
9. Nothing Happens In This World
10. Inconclusive Thoughts

YOU WANT IT...HAVE IT

*Even in BDSM, role reversal does not completely erase the structural and institutional dynamics of power, blah blah there's way too much to get into that I don't have the time/energy for, and so much has been written on this topic that you can just look it up.

Soldat Hans - Dress Rehearsal

'Dress Rehearsal'
Soldat Hans
2014

(Band Submission)

Review by Brayden Bagnall

Genre/s: Ambient, Drone, Doom Jazz, Post Metal, Doom, Post Rock
For Fans Of: Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, Heroin And Your Veins, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, Earth, Suffocate For Fucks Sake, Cult Of Luna, Kayo Dot

Imagine if you will, the downtrodden, mellow sounds of dark jazz. Now imagine those sounds building up until they become a monolithic crescendo of sludgy guitar drones and screamed vocals. Sounds like Bohren & Der Club Of Gore just met your favourite post metal band doesn't it?
Swiss band Soldat Hans are just this, an equally beautiful and soul destroying mixture of dark, ambient jazz and gigantic doom riffs. While both ends of this spectrum couldn't be further apart musically, the band transitions the two flawlessly - utilizing the lengthy track times to build the instruments up to dizzying highs before sending them crashing back down in a suitably apocalyptic manner. Dress Rehearsal strikes the perfect balance between quiet reflection and full blown emotional catharsis, albeit in the form of music.
I'm honestly blown away by the sheer size and scope of this band's music -not to mention thankful that someone's taken 'doom jazz' to it's literal extreme.  I strongly recommend clicking that link below and checking it out for yourself.

TRACKLISTING:
1. Meine Liebste; Sie zerbricht sich
2. Esthère (im bronzefarbenen Licht)
3. Zikueth! Zikueth!
4. Liefdesgrot

Bandcamp

Ohmu - Let Nothing Grieve You Beyond Measure

'Let Nothing Grieve You Beyond Measure'
Ohmu
2014

(Band Submission)

Review by Brayden Bagnall

Genre/s: Doom Metal, Drone Metal, Sludge, Ambient, Post Rock
For Fans Of: Khanate, Corrupted, Nortt, Earth, Old Man Gloom, Neurosis

Ohmu are a band from Stockholm, Sweden who were described to me via email as a 'drone/doom/postrock thing'. Upon listening I was greeted by a fifteen minute long track of ambient post-rock, with no signs of any of this drone/doom action I was promised. On track number two however, Ohmu stayed true to their promise, sucker punching me with absolutely bowel rupturing walls of gnarled fuzz,  springing out at me from the rank depths from which they were surely conjured. Much like Japan's resident sloth metal band Corrupted, Ohmu play at oppressively slow speeds - letting each note ring out until they feedback, just before crushing it with yet another monolithic chord. Fuck, this is slow and miserable enough to count as funeral doom in my book - yet it has much more flavour than your average one-man-gloom-machine - most evident in the post rock sections.
Vocally, Let Nothing Grieve You Beyond Measure is pretty diverse - death growls are met with DSBM-esque howls, spoken word, throaty screams and clean singing, which again elevates Ohm against most other, straight-forward drone/doom bands. Thrown together, these elements make for a pretty bleak and terrifying listen, even more so when juxtaposed with the ambient, melancholic sections.

TRACKLISTING:
1. Karilemin
2. Skyfall Pt. 1
3. Skyfall Pt. 2
4. Gills

Download

!FUCKED BY NOISE'S BEST OF 2014! - Brayden's Picks (Part 2: LPs)

This is part two of my 2K14 round up and it's all about the LPs. Again I've just been flooded with awesome music, and I guarantee there's stuff I've missed. Otherwise the rest is here -with youtube/bandcamp links to help you catch up on what you've missed. Before I start though I'd like to mention a few albums that might've been on here:

Swans - To Be Kind: Yeah it was good. Yeah it was kinda AOTY. But everyone else has it on their list so shhhh
Endon - Mama: I'm absolutely sure this would've made top 10 - had I been able to find a copy and listen to it
Trap Them - Blissfucker: A very good chance this would've been on the list too - had it not been a huge fucking let down and arguably the most disappointing album of the year
Triac - Full Length: This would've had a guaranteed spot on the list - but it hasn't been released, and doesn't look like it will be for some time. Alas

All that out of the way, here's the stuff that did make the cut:

LPs:

'Prayer For Terrene'
Idylls

Idylls had been one of my favourite Australian bands ever since I first saw them live opening for Punch on their Australian tour. Their debut album, Farewell All Joy was math-y hardcore done right but FUCK after listening to this it can't even hold a candle to this. Prayers For Terrene saw Idylls pushing every element of their sound to the breaking point. The grindcore influence is much more prominent, but so is the noise rock elements. There's more nods to classic Australian punk (see the Venom P. Stinger cover), there's a saxophone and there's just layers upon layers of sound to wade through. Idylls were pretty hard to classify before, but now they've reached dizzying new heights of ambiguity and dissonance. All I can say is that Australia hasn't had a band this intense, loud or crazy before - and I doubt it ever will again. Actual AOTY for sure. Hands down. No competition. Nup. None whatsoever.

'Primitive And Deadly'
Earth

Considering it was an album I wasn't excited about at all, Earth's Primitive And Deadly was probably the most pleasant surprise of 2014. Having barely listened to their previous releases, I was still surprised by the inclusion of vocals and a much more psychedelic rock driven sound. That's not to say that Earth aren't as bone shatteringly loud or heavy as the days of yore - because there's plenty of that too.  Each of the five tracks on this are repetitive, trance inducing journeys into luscious guitar tones and spaced out riffs. In fact I can safely say that 'From The Zodiacal Light' was my favourite track of 2K14, and Rabia Shaheen Qazi's hazy, chilled out vocal delivery has been stuck in my head for a fair portion of this year. They've been around for years, but Primitive And Deadly proves that Earth are still one of stoner/drone metal's biggest players.

'Estuary English'
Consumer Electronics

Estuary English has the distinction of being the most venomous, vile collection of recordings I heard all year. Consumer Electronicss (Phillip Best especially) have only gotten angrier and more focused as they've aged, both musically (term used VERY loosely here) and lyrically. Phillip Best's vocals drip with malice, sarcasm and wit as he forces every last syllable out his foam covered mouth. He spits, sputters and screams every known expletive in the English language over broken synth pulses, drum machine beats and shrill blasts of feedback. All this ferocity is channeled into vulgar attacks at modern culture and politics. It's spoken word meets Throbbing Gristle on amphetamine - and it's super good.

'Celestite'
Wolves In The Throne Room

Go figure, it takes Wolves In The Throne Room to stop playing black metal for me too reeeeeally enjoy them. Like, don't get me wrong - their black metal stuff is great - but Celestite just takes their, uh, celestial soundscapes to brand new highs. How? Well by ditching the metal, the instruments (for the most part) and milking the nicest, spaciest sounds out of synths as possible. Celestite sits somewhere between Sunn's more quiet output and Tangerine Dream - transcendental ambient music that's as lush as it is melodramatic. If you ever wanted to hear a black metal band scoring a sci-fi film without any blast beats, screaming or tremolo riffs this would be your best bet.



'Privacy'
Raspberry Bulbs

 I slept on Raspberry Bulbs previous LP, Deformed Worship in 2013. It promptly became one of my most played albums in 2014.
Then this album was announced.
Unsurprisingly, RB have continued to flesh out their unique combination of post-punk, noise rock and blackened punk - with longer more complex songs and many more ideas present within this album. Privacy has the band moving further away from their 'blackened' influences, and instead sees a much more refined, thought out direction. The inclusion of eerie, weird industrial tracks between every other track on the album is a pleasant surprise too - showing that the band can not only write brilliant punk songs but showcase a diversity of musical styles and their influences.

'Bestial Burden'
Pharmakon

Abandon featured in last year's top 10 list, and unsurprisingly Pharmakons' 2014 LP, Bestial Burden, is in this one.
New York death industrial musician, Margaret Chardiet, used a near death experience and operation as the inspiration to create the six tracks on this album. Utilizing stark synthesizer textures, samples and apocalyptic percussion, Chardiet's lyrics tackle the fragility of the human body and her health issues - in the noisiest way possible. The meticulous structure and presentation of Pharmakon's previous work remains - more so than before - and incorporates a wider range of vocal styles, samples and sounds. Bestial Burden is a much more diverse collection of tracks than Abandon, but still retains the harsh, uncompromising ethos of the project.



'Full Of Hell And Merzbow'
Full Of Hell/Merzbow

Full Of Hell have come along way since the breakdowns and hardcore riffs on Roots Of Earth..., veering almost directly into grindcore territory. From the very start of their collaboration, the potent combination of Masami Akita's volatile harsh noise and Full Of Hell's salvo of blast beats, riffs and savage vocals grip you by the throat and do not let go. The second disc features Merzbow's contributions in much more detail, with Full Of Hell providing wonderfully unhinged instrumental support - akin to one of their live performances - making for one hell of an uncomfortable, yet hypnotising experience.  This is a band who've gone from wearing their influences very heavily on their sleaves to craving their own niche into the genre AND collaborating with arguably the most important contemporary harsh noise artist in the process.

'Mental Hygiene'
Internal Rot

Internal Rot are a three piece grindcore band from Melbourne Australia, consisting of members from Roskopp, Agents Of Abhorrence and Super Fun Happy Slide. Now if that pedigree hasn't got you salivating all over your keyboard, the music will. Imagine shameless Excruciating Terror worship, but played with the speed and intensity of Insect Warfare - but with more groove. It's primitive grind cobbled together with an unhealthy amount of catchy thrashy riffs, more mosh parts than you can shake a fist too and absolutely filthy, raw vocals. Mental Hygiene is the best grind release to come from Australia since Earth.Water.Sun by AoA. Easily.

'Negative Ecstasy'
The Lowest Form

I've sung praises for this band on two occasions on this blog, and I'll be damned if I don't make it three. Negative Ecstasy is rabid, aggressive hardcore taken to its most illogical extreme. This album's a deadly duel between guitar feedback and buzzsaw riffs, with a madman barking over the top and the drums demolishing anything that happens to be in the path. No did it well last year, but the award for UKHC's craziest, gnarliest release definitely goes to The Lowest Form this year.



'Totem'
White Suns

Since 2008, New York band White Suns have been one of the most obtuse hardcore bands - splitting their time between freeform noise rock, sludgy dirges and experimental, avant-garde tracks. On Totem, they seem to be channeling the frantic, desperate energy of Drive Like Jehu coupled with the intensity of Drunkdriver. Wailing guitars are broken up by crackling oscillators and droning feedback, with sporadic drumming and unpredictable twists and turns. It's the most straightforward and accomplished album the band has released thus far,  but it retains the same impact and brunt of previous releases.



Honorable Mentions:
Fejhed - Self Titled
Vomir​/​Poète Maudit - Split
Ben Frost - A U R O R A
Gridlink - Longhena
Six Brew Bantha - Intravenously Commodified 
Rort - Warpath
Perspex Flesh - Self Titled
Mob Rules - Nothing Left
Thou - Heathen
Indian - From All Purity
The Body - I Shall Die Here
Scott Walker + Sunn O))) - Soused
Conan - Blood Eagle
Sesso Violento - Molestador
Arizmenda - Stillborn In The Temple Of Venus
Shellac - Dude Incredible
Ted Danson With Wolves - WWTDWWD

Dishonorable Mentions
Code Orange - I Am Kids King
Code Orange - I Am Kids King

Code Orange - I Am Kids King

Code Orange - I Am Kids King

Code Orange - I Am Kids King

Mutter - Trashed Body

'Trashed Body'
Mutter
2014

(Band Submission)

Genre/s: Atmospheric Black Metal, DSBM, Experimental Black Metal, Ambient
For Fans Of: Mamaleek, Wolves In The Throne Room, Locrian, Jesu, Pink City

Black metal is no stranger to synthesizers and guitar-less tracks - but to extend that beyond a single ambient track on an album and to foreground the synth as the main instrument in the band is something else. Enter Mutter, a Western Massachusetts project that does just this.
On Trashed Body, the synthesizer is used to created lush drones and harsh oscillating burst of sound layered on top of each other to create an all encompassing wall of sound. Utilizing a drum machine as the means of percussion, Mutter switches between a more traditional black metal drum sound and a heavily distorted, electronic drum sound that borders on EBM or industrial. Combined with the washed out vocals, this thing just pummels you with this constant barrage of stark, experimental black metal and frost ambiance.

TRACKLISTING:
1. Hell Is Your Body
2. Mud Wasp
3. A Stranger In Your House
4. Spore Breather
5. Dry Cum

Bandcamp

Funeral Parlor Double Post

'Axis Flowers' and 'Split With Waves Crashing Piano Chords'
Funeral Parlor/Waves Crashing Piano Chords
2014

Review by Brayden Bagnall

Genre/s: Synth Pop, Darkwave, Ambient, Noise, Power Electronics
For Fans Of: Croatian Amor, Prurient, Christian Cosmos, Lust For Youth, Whitehouse

Josh Doughty (whom I've interview previously on the blog here) is the man behind downer synth outfit, Funeral Parlor.
Funeral Parlor mixes airy synth and subtle, ambient noise to create sad, melancholic music with a heavy focus on atmospherics, both airy and bleak.
Axis Flowers is a fully realized evolution of Funeral Parlor's previous work, with its four tracks delivering a much more pop-oriented vibe, whilst still remaining true to its dark, depressing roots. Vocals are used sparsely, from Access Flower's opening monologue, to the pained scream in Morning Due and melt into the mix as an eerie companion to the synth and background ambiance.
Funeral Parlor's split with one man feedback tantrum Waves Crashing Piano Chords, on the other hand sees the haunting synth melodies juxtaposed with blistering power electronics on a split 7".
Side A presents two live tracks from Waves Crashing Piano Chords, I Hope I Get AIDS which then leads into ...Or Is It Me. The recording really captures the ferocity and full brunt of the microphone feedback, essentially frog marching you into the live performance and forcing your head right up against an amplifier.
Side B is a single Funeral Parlor track, Sway Away. Recorded in the same session as Axis Flowers, its despondent atmosphere and rising tides of synth and background static may not posses the sheer brute force of WCPC's side, but certainly make up for it by leaving you emotionally drained and just a tad bit sad.
Both releases are available for your listening pleasure below, both via bandcamp (where you can find a multitude of other Funeral Parlor releases available as well) and download. While you're at it, hit up Dumpster Noise Records to nab yourself a Funeral Parlor tee, and other related noise project tapes. Also keep an eye out for the physical release of the WCPC split (due November) on the H8-Track Stereo site.

TRACKLISTING:

Axis Flowers
1. Access Flowers
2. Morning Dew
3. Mourning Due
4. Axis Flowers
Bandcamp

Split With WCPC
1. I Hope I Get AIDS/...Or Is It Me? (WCPC)
2. Sway Away (Funeral Parlor)
Bandcamp
Download

FUCKED BY NEWCASTLE: Hutz - Greatest Hutz Vol. 1

'Greatest Hutz Vol. 1'
Hutz
2012

Review by Jerry Kahale

Genre/s: Ambient, Drone, Electronic, Hip Hop, Experimental
For Fans Of: Tim Hecker, Gas, Brian Eno, Stars Of The Lid, OFWGKTA,12 Oz Mouse

Yo. So i've been AWOL for the past six or so months because its kind of hard to write reviews when you dont have a computer. Here is a review i started ages ago but never finished till now.

Just like how it first grabbed my attention when I was given this cassette in a tape trade with my pal Max who runs White House Records (The Sufferjets, The Nugs, Whitney Houston's Crypt) I can say that the album cover itself has immobilized your mouse wheel from scrolling down in a state of disarray. A paper mache mask of Milhouse in a pink shirt beside a well-crafted rubber mask of Homer Simpson? What is this absurdity?

As it turns out its not even the weirdest thing about it, this is a soundtrack for an obscure webseries called Hommer Simpson (not a typo). Curiosity got the best of me and I can't be ever more thankful because its truly an amazing piece of morbid dadaist comedy. It is pretty much The Simpsons given the 12 Oz Mouse and Dumbland treatment, even more so the former because it starts out the same way with crudely drawn animation with wafer thin plots seemingly give way to a contrived and deliberately confusing conspiracy story but this is with characters you've come to know and love put through the ringer and warped, wrecked and molested in true black comedy scenarios. It even has its own in-show series called Seinbleuth, a crossover of Seinfeld and Arrested Development that also descends into chaos and a plethora of Australian television references of last decade (kinda like another aussie absurd animation called The Big Lez Show). It starts as crap animation but as the series progresses it goes beyond parody and becomes self spiteful art.

The soundtrack for this series is just as weird.. It starts off conventional enough with an extended jam of a "Live From News" theme but then listening to it in one go is a weird ordeal in itself because most of the songs consists of all the collected music from one episode. So here you are listening to lounge music, cheesy but epic hip hop to butchered up versions of original Simpsons songs and then there are the songs that cannot even be described without your brain going to a blithering mess (Homm Grimm) but without realizing it a mood swing comes about and it transforms into these minimal swells to wondrous and lush drones that gradually wash into each other. All of a sudden it doesn't feel like you are listening to a soundtrack from an absurd black comedy animation anymore. Going into "Hommer Simpson 5" it really starts to become haunting but between the drones there are these little moments that are truly unique; a lone gradual electronic beat pulsating in and out, harmonious strings and piano crescendoing up to a pinnacle and really dark moments of crying children and maniacal laughter cutting through static and phasing with some intense industrial drums and synths. 

There are too many of these unique moments to mention here because what makes this release stand out from other ambient releases is that it seldoms stays on the one theme for a long period of time because its all based on a webseries, so you can say its a soundtrack that likes to toy with you. Enjoying these sombre and deep soundscapes? Fuck you take this destroyed version of the Stonecutters song. Even if you don't end up watching the series its still a truly unique release thats there for the kind of music fan that likes it when artists and albums don't pay by the rules.

TRACKLISTING:
1. Live From News (Extended Mix)
2. Hommer Simpson 3 Suite
3. Cletus And Glick - Thuggin' In Springfield
4. Homm Grumm
5. Hommer Simpson 4 Suite
6. Hommer Simpson 5 Suite
7. Seinbleuth 2 Suite
8. Hommer Simpson 6 Suite
9. Cletus And Glick - The Lard Lad Hustle
10. Marge Karaoke - Sanitarium (Welcome Home)
11. Hommer Fixes Dulk (Hommer 6 Deleted Scene)

Download

Interview with Kyle from E.V.A and his very cool ambient electronic project. This project will take you to space and drag you into a black hole


Q: Who are you and what do you do?

A: My name is Kyle Kozlowski, I am a multi-instrumental musician from New Jersey. I have been making Experimental Electronic music under the name E.V.A (Extra-Vehicular Activity) for over a year now. Before that, I was in a rock band called K.D and The Damn Kids, an Experimental Improvised Jazz band called

Hum Of The Monoliths and when I was 15,

i played drums for a Metal band called Eternal Sin. I have been making noise since I was a child using various everyday items like buckets and pans, eventually upgrading to drums when I was 12 or 13 and moving up to Bass, Guitar, Piano, etc. I have been involved with local music for 6 years and am currently booking shows in NB for all of the artists I meet. Besides music, I am an avid gamer and vinyl collector and spend most of my time quoting Tim and Eric and making weird noises with my mouth. Oh, and I love Dogs more than most human beings.

Q: What are your musical influences?

A: Boards of Canada, B12, Frank Zappa, Tool, Brian Eno, AFX, Orbital, Mogwai,

Casey and His Brother, Sun Ra, Skip Spence, Solo Andata,

Roy Buchanan,  Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Mooncake, 90's Television shows and anything nostalgic.

Q: How do you feel about the current state of music?

A: As a listener, I think music is at its finest point. There is complete and total freedom to listen to any style of music or noise being made all around the world. Especially with the rise of independent musicians through Bandcamp and Soundcloud, If you want to listen to music that makes you hate, love, or feel anything at all, you can find it on the internet. If it wasn't for Soundcloud and Youtube, I do not think I would be the musician I am today.  As a musician though, I think its one of the hardest things to be now a days. You deal with rejection and self criticism on a daily basis. Sometimes it feels like your projecting a rainbow for people and all they want to see is money. I think its more important for the musician in this current age to be self employed and release music for free, or even a buck or two. Get a shitty part time job, save your money, and release records and movies instead if charging people $10 to $15 for digital. Be a true artist and push yourself beyond your music rather than simply trying to get in the music industry by charging people to simply listen to your music.

Q: What are your goals in life?

A: To play music for humans and animals around the world, convince the education system to support music and art as much as they support English and math, buy an acre or two of land and let it run as a dog rescue, learn to hunt, survive off the grid and die somewhere in the middle of the woods. Also, to convert churches into concert venues instead of religious gatherings

Q: How do you plan on achieving them?

A: Simply by shutting the fuck up and doing it.

Q: How do you feel about drugs in music and drug culture in music, especially in  electronic music?

What other people do is their own buisness. I do not think that you need drugs to enjoy music or become more creative, it just makes it easier for some. I have written some riffs while I was tipsy or high that I winded up keeping, but mostly destructive to the creative process. As for concert goers and fans of musicians, It really depends on the setting, for example, if its an EDM festival than I understand why people are on drugs because its one giant party with music, and not a concert. If your going to a concert, you should respect your favorite band or artist your about to see and try to have fun on your own, maybe smoke a j and have a beer, but try to be sober enough that you can actually enjoy music in its truest form rather than filtered through your drunk or hallucinating brain. For me, I only smoke weed and drink. I have done shrooms twice in my life, firsg time was great, second time I called my mother and thought I was a ghost. Being that I play electronic music currently, I have had multiple people assume that im constanly on acid while im playing music. I do not like the fact that people assume that making anything psychedelic or trippy sounding means I had to of taken acid to create it. It makes it sound like what I did means nothing when I had to work hard to create that sound. Everyone assumed Jimmi Hendrix was high and tripping his whole life, when in fact he was sober during most of his recording sessions, and I always felt bad for him in a way that he would probably hated most of his fans for relating him towards drugs more than his creativity and imagination. With or without drugs, anyone can still be creative in a psychedelic way without using hard drug

Q: Do you think the earth can sustain the human population for the next 100 years?

A: Yes, In my own opinion,  I think the earth has its own way of balancing things out. Even though ill be dead by then and I wont really care whats going on in that existence, Id like to think the earth will have its own way of controlling the human population or humanity somehow changes as a whole and quits screwing around with politics and money.

Q: Tell me your thoughts on the current state of movies in America? DO you like them? Do you hate them?

A: I honestly like them in any genre except Horror. Sci Fi and Horror where my favorite genres growing up, Horror being most of what I watched when I was a child. I have seen almost every horror film, even foreign ones from Japan and Italy. For the past 15 years, there has not been a single good horror film thats true to the genre. Most of them are Slasher/Gibblets and Gore movies or Paranormal Thrillers yet none of them are horrifying to look at. You never feel desperate for the characters and none of the villains are even close to being disturbing or intimidating. Its a shame that there aren't more movies like Carpenter's Halloween or Barker's Rawhead Rex. Don't get me wrong though, I loved 80's and 90's Slash and Gore flicks, just when its over the top disturbing and using lots of bubble gum and corn syrup make up effects.

Q: What is the music scene in New Jersey like?

A: Pretty alive but narrowed down to maybe 2 or 4 genres, like Heavy Rock/Hardcore/Punk/Acoustic. There is alot of great bands around here, you just get sick of eating the same sound every night. The cool part about playing a different and almost unheard of style of music around here is there are other just like me, trying to contribute something completley different than the norm. New Brunswick actually has a pretty lengthy history with noise musicians and bands. We have had a few noise acts come through here like Hatchers, who have been playing out of NYC for over 10 years and played tons of basement punk shows here during that time. My main goal for this year and next year is to bring more diversity to the shows around here and help build a stronger musical community with all different types of genres in one show rather than keeping them seperated and isolated in their own genre settings.

How did you come up with the name for your project?

A:  Before I wanted to be a musician, I wanted to be an Astronaut. I watched alot of Discovery channel shows and documentaries on astronomy and space travel when I was a kid and I remember watching a program on astronaut engineers who repair the outside of space shuttles after the reach space and before they return to earth. Some where tethered to an oxygen cord and others would fly around in jet packs. Obviously sounds like fun and looked beautiful so I wanted to do that but I was young and you want to be everything when your a kid. So later in life, after i had decided to become a musician, I went to school in NY for audio engineering at the Institute of Audio Research. I took a few classes on MIDI and Synthesizers and I had this super cool tutor (Connor Martin) who hooked me up with alot of plug ins and tips for using Reason and Logic. As I was learning all of this, I would take it all back home and apply it to my own creativity. One of the first tracks I made was called E.V.A and it just stuck with me. From there, I came up with the concept of E.V.A being a musical sequencer for astronauts to listen to as they forfill there duties in outer space, reparing space crafts and upgrading satellites, and completley seperating myself from it, as if I where the engineer aboard this space craft.

Q: What bands are you currently listening too?

A: Plaid, Tim Buckley, Gordon Lightfoot, Solo Andata, MPHIAT, Monoliths, My Bloody Valentine, Source Direct, Prodigy, Sting.

Any last words you want to say?

First off, Thank you for interviewing me. This is a first for me as I normally don't like to talk a out what I do, but this experience as certainly opened my shell a little wider. Im sure my family is not aware of this side of me so of your reading this, I dont apologize as this is who I am and I think youll love me regardless of who I have become. For all the musicians and artists out there, whether you make music or write books,  keep doing what you are doing. Stick to it, dedicate your whole life to it, learn from it, and harness it as if it where your own superpower. If you just keep calling yourself what you think you are, you will eventually become it.

-Zack

Bandcamp!

Interview with Foot And Mouth Disease

Interview by By Zach Dion

Foot And Mouth Disease is a dark ambient/power electronics project out of  Rochester, New York. Lead primarily by Lawrence J. Patti, and joined by David Voekl, FAMD's noise delivers unsettling atmosphere through synth and noisy electronics. 

FBN: How did you get into noise?

Lawrence:  Well my main inspiration was originally Patti Smith, who wasn't a noise artist but opened up the possibilities of music for me.  The first I heard of noise music was early Cabaret Voltaire, which happened when I heard their later new-wave/disco semi-hit "Just Fascination" and was seeking out the album that was on.  I wound up with an earlier album called Red Mecca that had some vivid artwork but wouldn't say what the tracks were.  When I played it I was in for a shock -- it wasn't music as most people would expect, it was noisy and quite odd, but the more I listened to it the more I liked it.  Later I would find out about Throbbing Gristle and Whitehouse

FBN: And what prompted you form Foot and Mouth Disease?

Lawrence: Foot and Mouth Disease started while I was also in a project with local artist and poet Greg Lattanzio, originally called Nihilistic Ambience but later changing the name to the Little School.  I was originally doing recordings before then with a Casio SK-1 and a cheap breadbox-sized two-track tape recorder -- those recordings were lost anyways.  Around 1996 I bought a Fostex four-track second hand from Michell Album who was doing a noise project called Law in Fort Bend, Indiana.  I got that mailed to me and I found a cheap Korg Poly 800 synth at Sound Source.  So at the time I thought of a name and just at the moment I found a book about skin diseases at a garage sale, found a funny picture of a guy who had Foot and Mouth Disease and there was the name, which would be household for awhile years later...  Basically I just thought it would be great if there was something like Throbbing Gristle in Rochester and also I found out there was a Buffalo/Syracuse noise band called 666 Noise Volt Battery or something and was unimpressed by one of their tapes.  I thought even I could do better than that, so that prompted me to start FAMD.

FBN: In your opinion how is the current state of noise?

Lawrence: I'm not sure about noise's future.  Noisy ideas have been used in modern pop music since 1983 with Shannon's smash-hit "Let the Music Play" (which I always found more irritating than noise usually is...)  I don't think it's likely noise will become mainstream but weirder things have happened anyways.  As long as it holds interest I'm sure there will always be noise acts.

FBN: Again, in your opinion where is noise’s place in the extreme underground scene?

Lawrence: Hmm I always thought noise WAS the extreme underground scene, unless maybe you're talking about Heavy Metal...

FBN: Is there a place in the mainstream music scene for noise?

Lawrence: Again mainstream music has always picked up on noise since the 80s, and I think that will be a given -- not saying it's become mainstream or that all mainstream music is that way (obviously) but there's lots of smart people in the genre who want to add that special spice to their layer cake, so to speak...

FBN: What artist are you listing to today and is there any artist that you feel need more attention?

Lawrence: I'm trying to think of any current noise acts I've been listening to.  Mostly it's been local acts, especially Waves Crashing Piano Chords and Swallowing Bile.  Iron Fist of the Sun put out a couple of good albums lately, and William Bennett's current project Cut Hands has always been interesting...

FBN: What is the future of Foot and Mouth Disease?

Lawrence: FAMD has lately been dormant due to lack of requests for shows or recorded material.  My current Dark Ambient project Spaghettiman is still going to this day, mostly because it's stuff I do on my computer.  Right now I'm mostly focusing on a "rock" project with Larry Feldman (ex-Nod) -- I'm not sure how it would evolve or if there will be noisier elements brought to it, but stay tuned anyways...

While Foot And Mouth Disease don't have their own bandcamp, you can listen and download several of their releases at the links below. Here's hoping we can hear some new tunes in the future.

Split w/ Beard Without A Mustache 

Split w/ Svartvit

Split w/ Ginger Cortes

Split w/ Ground Zero Mosque