Obscureish Music Volume V

Back, back again with the first entry in the Obscureish Music column for the year 2025. Today, I'm bringing no sleep a wonderful piece of vaporwave that I've been enjoying for a few years now, Plegm Bag Splattered by Controlled Bleeding, which is over an hour of extreme harsh noise and power electronics, and to top it all of I also have Master, We Perish a sweet and short sludge metal EP by The Body. Enjoy !

m a l i b l u e :( - no sleep

Vaporwave

Drone Ambient Glitch

m a l i b l u e :('s debut album no sleep is a nice slab of ambient infused vaporwave. Over the course of forty minutes m a l i b l u e :( conjures up a chilly, sometimes slightly anxious, but mostly relaxing atmosphere. The record feels like sitting on your balcony in the middle of the night smoking a cigarette, while bittersweet thoughts fill your head. You may be sad, but you also know that not everything's so bad. Looking out over the city and its glowing lights, you can feel that you're not so alone after all. 

While the songs keep the overall atmosphere pretty consistent throughout, there is still some nice variety with fuck everything sampling some shoegaze and no choice almost fitting into a lofi hip hop playlist. Another thing that makes this release stand out among it's many peers is how well it flows, with each track superbly flowing into each other giving the record a really good sense of progression. If you're looking for a nice, easy to listen to, melancholic piece of vaporwave, be sure to check this out.

Controlled Bleeding - Phlegm Bag Splattered

Power Electronics Harsh Noise

Industrial

Controlled Bleeding are a band that have dabbled in a wide variety of genres, starting out as a power electronics, noise and industrial project, the band later released albums in genres such as industrial rock, ambient, neoclassical darkwave and even a dub record. This album features their signature power electronics and harsh noise sound from the early days, consisting of mostly unreleased, material from the recording sessions of their masterpiece Knees and Bones, released a five years earlier. Much like that record, Phlegm Bag Splattered assaults the listener with, mostly, long droning tracks that combine noise and muffled, highly distorted screams, but unlike Knees and Bones it contains none of the slower dark ambient passages, making it much more aggressive and unforgiving. This is truly chaotic, seemingly improvised early harsh noise, with the band just trying themselves out and pushing the limits of their sound. In one of the most bizarre and hilarious moments I have ever heard on a noise record a band member sings some extremely distorted opera-like vocals over what sounds like malfunctioning power tools halfway through the second track. The third and fourth tracks are both much shorter, with the first offering a brief respite from the noisy chaos with just some industrial clanging and eerie voices in the background, and the second being a short burst of glitchy electronics and screaming. After two more long tracks, both over fifteen minutes of relentless noise, the album ends with the same funny voice sample of someone interrupting the band to vent their frustration with the noise that was also used on Knees and Bones.

If you're a fan of early harsh noise and power electronics, or if you liked Knees and Bones, which is tbh pretty much the same thing, you should check this out.

The Body - Master, We Perish

Sludge Metal Noise Rock

Atmospheric Sludge Metal, Drone Metal

The Body are a two piece band from the US consisting of Lee Buford and Chip King. The band started out as a sludge/doom metal band before developing their sound in different directions, incorporating more electronic elements, particularly death industrial and power electronics on records such as I've Seen All I Need to See or I Have Fought Against It, but I Can't Any Longer.. This EP was released in 2013, a time when the band was still mostly dabbling in the sludge metal territory, with the release of their 2013 full length Christ, Redeemers just a few months later. It contains three tracks, The Ebb and Flow of Tides in a Sea of Ash, The Blessed Lay Down and Writhe in Agony and Worship. The first song is a fast and furious piece of noise rock with apokalyptic lyrics about the world turning into a sea of ash: "Forms fall into lightless void, unto hopes falling and withering away / Final rest and unmoved / Heads hang, life fails / Structures collapse / All forms cease / The ebb and flow of tides in a sea of ash". The Blessed Lay Down and Writhe in Agony begins with a single choiresque voice and some barely audible spoken word being played over a minimalistic instrumental, until Chip comes in and delivers some ear piercing screams on top of it all. As he finishes his tirade you can hear a shotgun being cocked and the song collapses in on itself with all hell breaking loose as it turns into a piece of chaotic sludge metal. Worship is the longest track on the record, clocking in at  over nine minutes and starts of with a six minute drone consisting of an indecipherable spoken word section, a steady drum beat and a swirling guitar. As the guitar becomes more and more disorientating, you are finally pulled out of it by a heavy riff with Chip on top screaming his lungs out and proclaiming: "And end to beliefs and an end to these truths". Then the EP ends with another three minute drone of muffled voices and disorientating glitches.

If you have eighteen minutes to kill and want to fill them with some of the most destructive sludge you can get your hands on, look no further than this EP.

𝑺𝑬𝑬 𝒀𝑶𝑼 𝑺𝑷𝑨𝑪𝑬 𝑪𝑶𝑾𝑩𝑶𝒀...