Obscureish Music Volume IV

One more time before the year ends I am back with another installment of Obscureish Music. This time i brought lot's of noisy obnoxious stuff to finish the year on, and also one more chill, but still noisy record. White Blues is one of Merzbows more underrated EPs, although it has become more easily accessible with the recent Flare Gun + White Blues compilation Flare Blues, Will by Hunting Lodge is an industrial record with early power electronics and death industrial influences and Impermanences third record Open Your Heart Means Ready to Be Hurt. Sadness Struck as if it was Lightning. is a wonderfully relaxing, yet sad, piece of ambient noise wall. Enjoy!

 Merzbow - White Blues

Noise
Harsh Noise 

Merzbow aka. Masami Akita needs little introduction, at least for those on familiar with the noise sub genre of music, as he was one of the first, together with the Incapitants, to make what is now known as harsh noise. As of today, the 23rd of December 2024, Merzbow has released an insane amount of 467 records, numerous EPs live albums, singles etc. White Blues is one such single, released in July of 1994, a year that also saw the release of one of Merzbows most well known and beloved records, Venereology. I first became aware of the existence of this EP when I bought the 2021 compilation Flare Blues which contains both this EP as well as the record Flare Gun, also released in 1994, and an extra track titled Deathmetal. Both songs here are considerably less harsh then other releases from this time period but are super chaotic and frantic, the first song Crazy Daisy starts of with some pretty standard distortion before working in a really cool guitar loop, kind of reminiscent of something Kazumoto Endo would do on While You Were Out, giving the song a rhythm and a somewhat psychedelic quality. The second track titled Fighting for Madge / Delta Blues / Episode Six starts of with something that sounds like a looped synth sample layered under a lot of distortion before going into a really psychedelic guitar solo which progressively gets more drowned in increasingly harsh distortion until the song ends on what sounds like someone banging on a snare drum at insane speed.

Hunting Lodge - Will

Industrial

Noise Power Electronics Death Industrial

Like being stuck in a dark forest at night, the air is cold and you can barely see more than two metres ahead. Everything around you feels alien and dangerous. You try to look up at the stars, but all you can see are the branches of the trees; in the far distance you can hear the muffled voices of people talking, but you're not sure if it's just your imagination. As you move further into the forest, you find strange signs carved into the trees along the path you're following. Some time later, you discover an empty house, the once-white walls overgrown with plants and the door barely hanging on its hinges. Inside you discover an operating table and a variety of human clothing but there seems to be no one here. Will you continue forward or try to find a way out?

Impermanence - Open Your Heart Means Ready to Be Hurt. Sadness Struck as if it was Lightning.

Ambient Noise Wall Field Recordings

When I first discovered Impermanences third record Open Your Heart Means Ready to Be Hurt. Sadness Struck as if it was Lightning. I was quite excited to listen to it. I was still getting into this whole wall noise stuff and this records aesthetic immediately spoke to me the beautiful evocative album art along with a title that some might call pretentious but to me quite clearly and bluntly describes the emotions conveyed on this record. The first of the two walls on the record is a simple combination of rain recordings with some crunchy noise layered on top of it like sitting in the rain at a bus station completely zoned out. The second wall takes things in a slightly noisier direction, with the crunchy noise being pushed to the forefront and a pulsating bass in the background, this one feels more like running through the rain with the raindrops hitting your headphones and your heart beating loudly as you are running out of breath.

𝑺𝑬𝑬 𝒀𝑶𝑼 𝑺𝑷𝑨𝑪𝑬 𝑪𝑶𝑾𝑩𝑶𝒀...