Sunburned Hand of the Man are a loose Boston-based collective whose work has sprawled across multiple genres, including free improv, noise, folk, drone, and psychedelic jams. Founded in 1997 out of the ashes of art-rock trio Shit Spangled Banner, they became part of a scene that specialized in indulgence and reveled in long builds, endless […]
Tag: noise music
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The Body kick off 2021 with the their heaviest, noisiest, and bleakest record yet
Categorizing the doomsday sonic bludgeon wielded by Providence duo the Body over their two-decade reign of terror isn’t an easy task. Guitarist and screamer Chip King and drummer Lee Buford slice and dice doom, sludge, noise, and avant-metal into a monolithic, nails-on-chalkboard wall of sound. Buford’s hip-hop-mangled thumping and pounding and King’s six-feet-under caterwaul could […]
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White Suns merge harsh noise experiments and punk rhythms on The Lower Way
Over the past dozen years, White Suns have created a perfect marriage of folding-table harsh noise and streamlined punk, and the New York trio’s latest full-length, The Lower Way (their first for Decoherence Records), asserts their hybrid style more strongly than ever. By layering assaultive electronics, circuit-bent synths, atonal prepared guitars, fried stomp boxes, musique […]
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Prolific Japanese artists Boris and Merzbow bid farewell to 2020 together
I tried to tally up the total number of releases by noise wizard Masami Akita, better known as Merzbow, and polymorphous metal trio Boris before I started writing about their new joint album, but it proved to be a fool’s errand. These Japanese artists are among the most prolific musicians in modern history, and their […]
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Merzbow’s four-decade-plus reign of sonic terror continues with Screaming Dove
Japanese sound artist Masami Akita has been revolutionizing noise with his project Merzbow since 1979—he’s put out somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 albums, singles, and live recordings under that name, but who’s counting? Akita has bounced between electronics, tape manipulations, and scrap metal and contact mikes, both in his solo work and his collaborations […]
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Noise-punk “supergroup” Brandy kills it on The Gift of Repetition
A few years ago Matthew Hord, who fronts Chicago-based noise-punk mainstays Running (and played alongside yours truly in a handful of local bands over the years), moved to New York City and linked up with guitarist Jordan Lovelace and drummer Peter Buxton, both of whom had played a similar style of jumpy, blown-out garage rock […]
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On May You Be Held, Sumac are a beast of free improvisation, noise, and metal
There’s a lot of room in the vast and aesthetically diverse landscape of metal, but one powerhouse trio occupies its own sound-deconstructing universe: Sumac. The heady metal-centric music that guitarist and vocalist Aaron Turner (Isis, Old Man Gloom), bassist Brian Cook (Russian Circles), and drummer Nick Yacyshyn (Baptists) churn out is such a left-field beast […]
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The harsh noise of Evicshen’s Hair Birth will leave your head spinning
Massachusetts-based sound artist and instrument maker Victoria Shen, who performs as Evicshen, makes music that rattles your brain. Her debut LP, Hair Birth (American Dreams), is a master class in explosive cacophony driven by blaring modular synthesizers. This isn’t just unregulated noise: Shen puts thought into her songcraft, and it’s immediately apparent right from the […]
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Spend quality time in quarantine with your new favorite Chicago albums
Close your eyes and picture yourself at your favorite local venue while listening to these new releases.
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Melkbelly’s juxtaposition of weird and pretty keeps getting more perplexing
Chicago four-piece Melkbelly are best known for playing what you might call noise pop. Though they employ guitarists with a knack for wiry, minor-key interplay, a drummer who pays homage to Brian Chippendale, and a singer who can flip the switch in an instant from sweet Kim Deal croons to blood-curdling screams, they also inject […]
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Fire-Toolz makes extreme easy-listening music for rabid cartoon fish
Chicago sound artist, multi-instrumentalist, and noise weirdo Angel Marcloid creates meticulously teetering collages out of vivisected bits of various incongruous genres under several different monikers. She’s already put out two albums this year: March’s Bubble Universe! (Hausu Mountain), where she appears as Nonlocal Forecast, has a gently frothy ambience that verges on jazzy fusion before […]
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Helltrap Nightmare wishes Chicago a fond, freaky farewell
The weirdo-comedy staples perform a sold-out show before heading west.