Huge awesome experimental music compilation put together by the folks at The Chestnut Tree radio show. Yes, Distant Trains is on this one too. So are like 50+ other sound artists worth checking out. Neon Lushell is one of them. And, since I’ve mentioned them a few times, Marax is too. Free download, go here now.
Neon Lushell by way of (o)+HERS? Yes please, I’ll take it. A meeting of two formidable forces in sonic squalor: (o)+thers take tracks from Neon Lushell’s upcoming Modern Purveyors Of Filth And Degradation CD and give them the kind of noised-out, screwed-up, slowed-down treatment they’re known for applying to truckloads of well-known rock and pop tunes or anything else they can get their hands on. The result is a denser and more beat-oriented stew than the relatively minimalist originals, yet every bit as freaky and filthy. Stream below, buy a disc or download for free here.
Cheezy as it may be, I’d kinda hoped Workerbee Records would have this thing out in time for Halloween. This is great creep-out music so it would have been seasonally appropriate.
Neon Lushell is a duo of Ira Rat and Switchblade Cheetah lead singer and poet Brian Pitt. Ira backs up Pitt’s disturbing imagery with fittingly disturbing sounds, a mix of bad-trip-hop and cold ambient nausea that smells like a dank old basement with bloodstained granite walls.
Pitt’s performances are phoned-in — literally: he submits his vocal tracks via voice-mail from Tallahassee, Florida. Ira edits these into the final creations in Ames, Iowa, making the most of the distant, disconnected feel with which this process endows Pitt’s varied contributions of aggressive rapping, distracted crooning, madman raving, spoken-word storytelling, and stream-of-consciousness.
Although “Leave Me Alone” and “Sammy’s Rap” build their dark atmospheres around groovy beats, the rest of the album is rhythmically impressionistic, a series of mixtures of floating processed sounds that blur the distinctions between “real” instruments and abstract synthesized ones, even when something recognizable as, say, a mandolin or an acoustic guitar appears, and stubbornly refuse to completely cohere, leaving the listener helplessly adrift. “Everybody Died, I Survived” backs a dreamlike ghost story about a shipwreck with throbbing electronic bass sounds that will threaten to blow your speakers. Various Workerbee figures make guest appearances, including Thunder Bunny on “Grave Bells,” where an wince-worthy abrasive metallic scrape grows to dominate the mix.
Even if you’re already into the experimental/noise music milieu, Modern Purveyors of Filth and Degradation probably sounds like nothing else in your collection, and is likely to be one of the more unsettling sonic trips you will take.
NOTE: the following bandcamp player is for a 5-song advance promo version of the album; the full enchilada is expected to come out on CD like Real Soon Now. Get in contact with Ed and see about pre-ordering.
