Deep Sea Mining Syndicate – 001
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Sunday, March 9, 2025
Merzbow + Hexa - 2018 - Achromatic LP
Dais Records – 118
Merzbow goes beak-to-tail with Jamie Stewart (Xiu Xiu) and Lawrence English’s HEXA duo, producing each other’s sides to find a noisy black hole at the centre of their putative styles. Don’t miss the whooping ace, ‘Merzhex, Pt.4’!
“The esoteric noise duo known as HEXA is the sonic union of Xiu Xiu’s focal point Jamie Stewart and sonic provocateur Lawrence English. Forged out of a mutual interest in exotic birds and the decaying charms of the post-industrial age, their collaboration explores the physicality of sound and its abilities to infiltrate and occupy the body. Their collaborative work has been described as being possessed by cascading low frequency pulses and tectonic plates of sound, suspended in cavernous cathedral-like spaces.
Legendary noise artist Merzbow needs no introduction, given his prolific output and notorious experiments within the realm of human endurance and audible extremes. While Merzbow has remained a solemn figure within the canon of noise, and he is no stranger to the members of HEXA. Jamie Stewart and Merzbow worked together as a duet on a collaborative Merzxiu LP in 2015. On the other side of the spectrum, Lawrence English has curated numerous concerts for Merzbow across his native Australia.
A partnership of these three artists was born out of the collective goal of framing their work against particular sonic and visual architectures. HEXA’s initial utilization of this idea, Factory Photographs, was a commissioned piece to soundtrack the photography of film maker David Lynch. HEXA approached Merzbow with the idea of a collaboration that sought to collide their particular approach to physical sonics against Merzbow’s resoundingly ontological noise practice.
The result of this collision turned into a full length album, aptly titled Achromatic. Focus laid on the severe reverberation of relative noises, brandishing extreme frequencies familiar only to Merzbow and coupled by HEXA’s brutalist pulsation. Each side of the album is produced and mixed by the other, making their audio interpretation of Achromatic a sort of reverse exquisite corpse. A true snapshot afterthought from the decay of the modern age.”
“The esoteric noise duo known as HEXA is the sonic union of Xiu Xiu’s focal point Jamie Stewart and sonic provocateur Lawrence English. Forged out of a mutual interest in exotic birds and the decaying charms of the post-industrial age, their collaboration explores the physicality of sound and its abilities to infiltrate and occupy the body. Their collaborative work has been described as being possessed by cascading low frequency pulses and tectonic plates of sound, suspended in cavernous cathedral-like spaces.
Legendary noise artist Merzbow needs no introduction, given his prolific output and notorious experiments within the realm of human endurance and audible extremes. While Merzbow has remained a solemn figure within the canon of noise, and he is no stranger to the members of HEXA. Jamie Stewart and Merzbow worked together as a duet on a collaborative Merzxiu LP in 2015. On the other side of the spectrum, Lawrence English has curated numerous concerts for Merzbow across his native Australia.
A partnership of these three artists was born out of the collective goal of framing their work against particular sonic and visual architectures. HEXA’s initial utilization of this idea, Factory Photographs, was a commissioned piece to soundtrack the photography of film maker David Lynch. HEXA approached Merzbow with the idea of a collaboration that sought to collide their particular approach to physical sonics against Merzbow’s resoundingly ontological noise practice.
The result of this collision turned into a full length album, aptly titled Achromatic. Focus laid on the severe reverberation of relative noises, brandishing extreme frequencies familiar only to Merzbow and coupled by HEXA’s brutalist pulsation. Each side of the album is produced and mixed by the other, making their audio interpretation of Achromatic a sort of reverse exquisite corpse. A true snapshot afterthought from the decay of the modern age.”
Tuesday, March 4, 2025
The Manhattan Love Suicides - 2025 - ST 2xCD
Next Phase : Normal Records – NPN36
Indiepop fans too young to have observed the boom/bust cycles of indiepop, this was from the mid-00s heyday of Magic Marker records while all the dummies still talked about "electroclash" and "post-rock."
This is the debut album by The Manhattan Love Suicides. Recorded with a genuinely rough n' raw approach in an attempt to capture the ramshackle nature of the handful of live gigs that the band had performed, up to that point.
Full-to-bursting with pop melodies lurking underneath the fuzz, the album was originally released in late 2006 on CD by Magic Marker Records in the U.S, and then shortly after, in early 2007, on limited edition vinyl by Squirrel Records in the UK.
Long out of print and much sought after in its vinyl edition, and not quite so easy to locate on CD these days, either...this is where Next Phase : Normal Records comes to the rescue...well, at least for the CD fans out there, anyway.
Back out on digital and limited edition double disc with several bonus tracks, this new edition also includes a very rare earlier mix of the entire album, which while not differing all that much from the final version, is definitely essential listening for fans of the band - mostly because the one and only cassette where this particular mix of the album resides was thought to be completely lost, until its recent re-discovery in the summer of 2024. The whole sonic package features fantastic fresh artwork construction by Jon Aldersea/Goldphone Creative Media and re-mastering by Pete B at The Glass Factory.
For those of you who experienced the scruffy noise-pop of The Manhattan Love Suicides' debut when it first appeared, as well as anyone who is yet to discover the sonic delights of this lo-fi 14-track fuzz-fest - it's time again to dress it in black, stick your head in the speakers and immerse yourself in the sound of this short-lived 4-piece who had a mind for the melodic and a desire for the chaotic.
Eyeless In Gaza - 2022 - Skeletal Framework (The Cherry Red Recordings 1981-1986) 5xCD
The second Eyeless in Gaza album, Caught in Flux was released in September 1981 to some highly positive reviews in the British music press.[19] The original pressing included a bonus five track EP (The Eyes Of Beautiful Losers).
Eyeless in Gaza would release two further EPs in 1981, Invisibility and Others. By the end of the year, they had completed their third album, Pale Hands I Loved So Well, which was released by the Norwegian label Uniton in 1982: in contrast to previous works it was (as described by Dave Henderson in Sounds) an album of "short but effective soundtracks; not for films but for everyday life." it received less pośitive reviews by other critics. Despite this productivity on record, during this period the duo would also perform numerous songs in live concerts which were never released on records.[22] In 1982, Bates would release his first full-release solo album on 10 inch vinyl, Letters Written.
1982's Drumming the Beating Heart (released, like the first two albums, on Cherry Red) saw Eyeless in Gaza refining their sound and attracting broader coverage. In a mixed critical response, one critic compared the band to "a more harrowing version of OMD". A single from the album - the electro-soul influenced "Veil Like Calm" was issued in October 1982. In the same year the band recorded The Home Produce/Country Bizarre, a split album with Lol Coxhill released on limited edition cassette via the Tago Mago label.
1983-1987: shift towards pop
By the time of the "New Risen" single (released in May 1983) and its parent album Rust Red September (July 1983), Eyeless in Gaza had become concerned that their initial uncompromising stance had "alienated a lot of people" and had begun to make concessions towards a more pop-oriented direction. Bates would begin to adopt a gentler singing style as part of this, and physical aspects of his earlier singing style was another reason for this. More of this new approach was evident on the 1984 EP Sun Bursts In, which brought comparisons to contemporary pop optimist Howard Jones (as well as an unlikely Single of the Week accolade from Joe Leeway of Thompson Twins).[citation needed]
For their 1985 single "Welcome Now" the band employed Aztec Camera's drummer Dave Ruffy: this song would in turn appear on the final album of the band's early years, 1986's Back from the Rains, for which former Sinatras/In Embrace drummer Joby Palmer was recruited, as was Bates' longtime girlfriend Elizabeth S. (who served as backing singer). In the same year, the band acquired a manager for the first time and toured with Depeche Mode., but in spite of this opportunity and the band's embracing of the option of a pop career, no major label deal emerged.
Released August 26, 2022
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