Wrekmeister Harmonies - New Recording Session

Saturday morning listening session with a rough mix of a new Wrekmeister Harmonies composition.  This new recording, which I played synth on, features members of Indian, Bloodiest, Disappears, Come, etc.  Heavy, heavy stuff... Here is a photo of my set-up, in a little corner of Studio B at Electrical Audio:

Pre-Orders now open for Sleep Museum "Forschung" 5xCD set!

http://bloodshop.bigcartel.com/product/b-168-sleep-museum-forschung-5xcd-box-set

B!168 Sleep Museum "Forschung" Limited Edition 5xCD set

Pre-orders now available with T-Shirt size selection function. At the bottom of the webstore page you will be given the option to select a T-shirt size from Adult Small to Adult XXXL before you add the set to your shopping cart.

Pre-orders will close on (or before) AUGUST 15, 2013 (based upon availability), at which time the shirts will be printed. Anticipated to ship in early September.

A BloodShop! webstore exclusive -- This set will not be available from record stores, webstores, distros, etc.

In the works since late-2010, BloodLust! is pleased to finally make the "Forschung" set available.
 
"Forschung" is the darkest and most experimental Sleep Museum material to date. On the five CDs in this box set, Sleep Museum launches itself into the abyss, exploring questions of identity/non-identity, death, suicide, pain and despair, through a series of tracks that use intense analog synthesized music, dark ambiance, noise, and vocals, to summon the chasm inside.

The music on these five albums is most closely related to the long-form synth recordings included on each of the four previous Sleep Museum CDs on BloodLust!: "Core," "Anasthesia," "Replica," and "Home," however, Sleep Museum's Robert Anthony has ventured much further into the abyss, this time around. These are very experimental compositions and might not be for the faint of heart. Those looking for minimal-synth-by-numbers might be advised to search elsewhere!

Includes:
- B!163 Sleep Museum "Forschung 1" CD
- B!164 Sleep Museum "Forschung 2" CD
- B!165 Sleep Museum "Forschung 3" CD
- B!166 Sleep Museum "Forschung 4" CD
+
- B!167 Sleep Museum "Parra" CD (exclusive to the "Forschung" set - not sold separately!)

Five (5) professionally duplicated CDs, each packaged with single panel, double-sided inserts; color artwork; in individual jewel boxes, each with shrink-wrap.
 
Plus:
- Sleep Museum "Forschung" T-Shirt (Black 100% cotton Gildan short sleeve shirts with gray "Forschung" design printed on front)
- Sleep Museum "Forschung" Sticker
- Sleep Museum "Forschung" 1-Inch Button
- Sleep Museum "Forschung" tote bag - black cotton with silver/gray "Forschung" design printed on one side (note: tote bag holds contents of set)
 
Limited Edition of 100 sets.

USA orders shipped in Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes. International Orders shipped via First Class International Mail. All shipments include tracking.

http://bloodshop.bigcartel.com/product/b-168-sleep-museum-forschung-5xcd-box-set

Mark Solotroff with Wrekmeister Harmonies Friday July 12

Come  
Brother JT  
Wrekmeister Harmonies

Friday July 12, 2013 
9:00 PM  

Empty Bottle
1035 N. Western Ave.
Chicago, IL 60622
773-276-3600

$15.00

The dark and dissonant blues-rock band COME formed in Boston, Massachusetts in 1990 and proceeded to terrorize the noisy rock underground throughout the decade. Led by singer/guitarist THALIA ZEDEK and guitarist CHRIS BROKAW, also the drummer for Codeine, COME included a pair of Athens, GA refugees in bassist SEAN O'BRIEN, formerly of KILKENNY CATS, and drummer ARTHUR JOHNSON. The band released a single on Sub Pop before signing to Matador and releasing their superbly atmospheric album 11:11 in 1992. Throughout the 90s COME released critically claimed LPs, EPS and singles on Matador, opened for seminal alt-rock bands like NIRVANA, SONIC YOUTH, SUGAR and DINOSAUR JR, and were consistently on the brink of commercial fame, ultimately never achieving the widespread recognition that many felt they deserved. It's an honor and a privilege to welcome to our stage tonight. BROTHER JT is JOHN TERLESKY, a grown-up rocker who got started in the late 80s as garage-pop ravers THE ORIGINAL SINS, a band who released numerous records throughout the decade, ultimately dissolving by the end of the decade. During his time in that band, TERLESKY adopted the BROTHER JT alter-ego as a way to express his more experimental/psych-minded interests. Throughout the decade he released albums on Twisted Village, Siltbreeze, Drag City, and others and toured with numerous damaged-pop acts such as ROYAL TRUX, BARDO POND, SMOG and BLONDE REDHEAD. Of late, BROTHER JT has been self-releasing CDs accompanied by books filled with drawings and writings, but this year's LP, The Svelteness of Boogietude, was released on none other than Thrill Jockey and it's well worth your ear-time. J.R. ROBINSON is a Chicago-based sound artist who works under the name WREKMEISTER HARMONIES to explore the darkest corners of minimalistic synth, drone, and ambient music, combined with visual projections he creates. His Thrill Jockey debut, You've Always Meant So Much To Me was released on June 11th. The recording is an album-length composition spread over two sides of vinyl, featuring some of Chicago's most infamous minds in the metal and experimental worlds, including SANFORD PARKER, BRUCE LAMONT (YAKUZA, BLOODEIST), JEF WHITEHEAD aka WREST (LEVIATHAN), MARK SOLOTROFF (ANATOMY OF HABIT), JAIME FENNELLY (MIND OVER MIRRORS), FRED LONBERG-HOLM, and more.

Tickets: http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=3492864

Facebook invite: https://www.facebook.com/events/114928335367623/

Crucial Blast on BLOODYMINDED "PHASES : THREE" 3x7" box set

BLOODYMINDED "PHASES : THREE" 3x7" box set
An odd art-object from the Chicago power electronics outfit Bloodyminded, Phases Three is a sturdy black box that holds three extremely short 7" records which contain live recordings and processed recordings from the band that were culled from a 2006 basement performance in Saint Louis, Missouri, accompanied by a double sided insert sheet that contains liner notes, and a hand-numbered card. According to the band, this was assembled to capture the shock-assault experience of witnessing Bloodyminded live, which I can certainly buy; the live tracks are as punishing as harsh electronics get, frequently hitting extreme frequencies that drill right through my nerve centers. The audio presentatiopn borders on the spartan, though; each of the three 7"s (which are nicely housed in silk-screened inner sleeves and are pressed on white vinyl) only has about two minutes of music on each side, on average, with the whole set clocking in at just shy of twelve minutes. So, ok, I wouldn't recommend this box set to someone who might just be beginning to investigate Bloodyminded's brand of brute electronics (for you folks, I'd recommend their stunningly violent 2006 album Magnetism) but for hardcore fans, this is pretty cool. The first a-side and the final b-side of the set each feature tracks that were created using live recordings as source material; "Phases : Three (Part One)" opens it up with a savage short outpouring of brutally strangled feedback, maniacal howls, and deep bass belch and squealing feedback vomit, and "Phases : Three (Part Two)" ends with unintelligible screams and ranting in a morass of murky feedback attacks that finally erupts into a squall of malfunctioning amplifier overload and bass ejaculate. In between 'em, you get the live tracks, which includes "Girlfriend Attempts To Explain Schizophrenic Episode By Revealing Childhood Sexual Abuse", a queasy orgy of crazed screaming and roiling high-pitched feedback, total caveman electro-blunt violence; the brain-drilling feedback assaults of "Shotgun Held To Face By Severely Crosseyed Addict While Attempting To Physically Remove Girlfriend From Known Drug House" and "Visiting An Ex-Girlfriend In The Hospital - Psychiatric Ward - 24-Hour Observation - Suicide Watch"; and the pall of doom that sets in among the air raid sirens, gasping horror and vicious fluctuating feedback waves on "Visiting An Ex-Girlfriend In The Hospital - Aids Ward".
Man, nobody can title a song like Bloodyminded.
Released in an edition of three hundred copies, this collection is raw synthesizer agony and destructive power electronics of the harshest order, certainly not for timid ears © CRUCIAL BLAST

Crucial Blast on The Fortieth Day "IV" CD

The Fortieth Day "IV" CD
More post-apocalyptic industrial crush from the duo of Isidro Reyes and Mark Solotroff, both members of the confrontational Chicago power-electronics group Bloodyminded. As The Fortieth Day, the two musicians engage in a much heavier, more droneological machinedeath assault using synthesizer, drum machine, bass and guitar to sculpt massive rhythmic noisescapes, and over the past decade they've been cranking out some supremely crushing mechablast on short run cassettes on Solotroff's Bloodlust! label. This material has gradually been getting reissued on disc, including the 2007 release IV that features two half-hour long tracks of apocalyptic industrial drone. The first of these slowly enters amid crackling electricity and looped drones, leading to abstract guitar figures looping around grinding machine noise and wheezing engine-roar that builds into an ominous, heavy black throb. More of these dissonant guitar loops are introduced as clanking drum machines circle around heavily distorted synth drones and sputtering low-end feedback, and at times this gets so blown-out that it feels like the speakers are about to shred apart. The machinecrush is constantly evolving as the duo cranks up the distortion, turning these layered loops and rumbling engine drones into massive walls of rhythmic factory throb that almost resembles an incredibly distorted dronerock band off of the old HeadDirt label buried under a mountain of tape hiss and growling electronic noise, backed by tinny, skittering drum machine rhythms. The other track is a lot less propulsive, though. By this point, the duo are burning everything down with controlled feedback, fractured melodies, waves of machine grind, layered drones and effects pedal abuse that results in a hallucinatory machine-noise soundscape, with none of that percussive pounding showing up until almost ten minutes in, the deformed clatter of the drum machine crawling beneath creepy distorted keyboard melodies and sheets of shrill feedback.
I've really been digging all of these Fortieth Day reissues, each one a punishing chunk of hypnotic industrial dread. © CRUCIAL BLAST

Crucial Blast on M.O. (Mauthausen Orchestra) "Where Are We Going" CD

M.O. (Mauthausen Orchestra) "Where Are We Going" CD
For the 2008 album Where Are We Going, Italian power electronics pioneer Pierpaolo Zoppo shortened his Mauthausen Orchestra name down to M.O., but the black pulsating electronics that he is known for are still in full force. It is more subdued than the tumorous throbbing horror of such classic Mauthausen Orchestra recordings as Necrofellatio and Murderfuck, and dispenses with the explicit images of hardcore sex and extreme violence that made his early albums so notorious, but this is still an unsettling listen, it just takes it's time digging in under your skin. Released by Bloodlust! in a nice digipack package, Where Are We Going is a series of controlled, minimal meditations using extreme distortion that strive to capture the essence of a futile existence, and when I crank this to a sufficiently damaging volume level, it achieves a kind of sonic brain-death through a mixture of abrasive drones and blown-out melodious keyboard dissonance. I'm reminded of Bianchi's recent organ-drone experiments, but Zoppo goes for a much more abrasive aural assault. Such as on the opening track "Intimate Pulsation", which starts as a minimal noisy drone, but evolves into steady streams of over modulated digital distortion that build into a thick multi-layered roar of sputtering, crackling noise. "Sometime Happen" is a much more dramatic piece, a seething mass of ultra-distorted drones and keyboard clusters with extreme blown-out melodies and atonal notes forming within the wall of roiling distorted noise. The densely layered melodic chaos again reminds me not only of Bianchi, but also of some of Prurient's extreme synth pieces. More of these extremely distorted synthclusters form the nucleus of "When Suffering Becomes Show", but it later morphs into a swarming metallic buzz and fluttering keyboard notes, and ends up resembling an experimental electronic score for a 70s science fiction film. The shorter track "Confusion" is almost kosimiche with it's clusters of murky mid-range keys and whooshing tones bathed in speaker crackle, and "Not Allowable" creates a disorienting effect with phased organ drones that stretch endlessly outward. Altogether, these distorted synthdrones burn their way into your grey matter nicely. © CRUCIAL BLAST