NOISE YOU SHOULD HEAR (2025)
I wanna do my part to help promote all the amazing artists creating forms of noise art, so I decided to make this page to shout out various things I hear throughout the year. I'll be sure to update this list as often as I can whenever I hear something I think deserves special mention.
Kevin Drumm was one of the noise artists that inspired me to get involved in the scene many years ago. His special blends of drone and ambient frequencies with overwhelming walls of dense noise are always so rich with detail and find countless ways to comingle and awkwardly shuffle into each other throughout the recordings, creating really strangely peaceful situations despite the unpleasant screeching and rumbling noise. No where is that more true than this sequel to arguably his most beloved album. This behemoth of a record from Erstwhile Records is just seriously one of those humbling reminders that there are some people out there who know way more than you about to craft something. It's the kind of stuff you can really end up looking to often for inspiration and reinvention as an artist. The more kinetic aspects of the tracks are often buried so deeply in the snow you almost start wondering if you're merely hallucinating them. There's so many brilliant touches and deviations throughout that make the pieces feel even more gargantuan in size than they already did, causing an interesting transformation from a violent aural assault to something more resigned and overwhelmed. I'm so glad Jon got this put out on Erstwhile, it's really cool to see one of my favorite labels ever stand behind a noise wall record as crazy as this one. I really hope it ropes Drumm some new fans, he's truly spectacular as an artist and his live set with Jason Lescalleet, my first proper noise show, will always remain one of my fondest memories.
Hannah is a friend of mine, so I'm always ecstatic when I see her putting out yet another masterpiece under her "pinniped" alias. She's one of the greatest artists I've had the pleasure of working with on several occasions, and her ability to always leave such an impression on anything she touches, especially considering how fragile and minute her sound often is. This collaboration with snowhowling is truly something special, capturing such an elliptical scene that at least to my ears brings imagery of wooden bridges covered in snow overlooking an icy river that hasn't fully frozen yet but is congested with large blocks of ice, far off street lamps glowing faintly in the dead of night, and vague shapes of animals, be they seals or some other creatures, observing you from across the long valley. Absolutely blissful stuff, but with a very palimpsestuous impression of some underlying danger.
Thanks to Przemo from Gates of Hypnos for alerting me to this one. This is exactly my kind of wintery frigid noise wall. It feels like a bunch of horror VHS tape scenes of storms and rain beating on windows kept in a state of perpetual kinetic energy, stuttering on awkwardly sized CRT televisions. This record is a really agonizing listen, since the frequencies have a strange ability to cause synesthetic reactions in me and make me really feel freezing and stiff, and the tracks despite being pretty typical noise wall lengths all feel truly endless, in part due to the slowly recurrent howling winds throughout all seem to give the illusion of progress and dilate the space ever further. Really fantastic stuff, cannot wait to hear more from this project.
Really drowsy and creepy wall. Deep rumbles with nice crumbling edges to them, instead of the pure resonance some walls approach these textures with. There's a nice crumpling sound overlaying the whole thing, like vibrating tin foil over a speaker. It's really a shame this one is so short because I would happily listen to it for a full hour, if not more. The kind of wall that reminds me I need to start taking my record equipment outside and getting some fun textures from nature.
Another one from Olion!!! Sickening texture here. Equal parts wet, cold, organic, and necrotic. Feels like a total unsheathing of the human form and a transcendence through degeneration and decomposition. These noise walls could seriously go on at least twice as long and I'd be so ecstatic. I love how subtle the shifts in one of the layers on this one is. It's like sandpaper stuck to a shoe walking through mud. Insane recording, everyone should try this.
Entrancing work by Poland's noise master Sado Rituals. I decided to put this one on tonight after feeling too worn out to properly exercise, and now I can't help but get lost in this piece. It has a very intimidating sinking feeling, like escape is always just out of reach. Deep earthy rumbles are complimented by the inclusion of some strange whirring layers that create little aimless songs that wander mindlessly throughout the desert of the noise, along with some deep, deep rumbles that offer a 'shape' to the sound, creating an enclosure that reminds me a lot of the image on the album cover. Very long and round sound, just like the hollowed out husk of a fuselage. The title really is spot on, as this piece feels like a regretful reflection on the fact that everything is getting worse, and will only ever be getting worse.