Sunday, December 30, 2007

Nocturnal Beasts


New c97 available from earth.space, concentrating (yet again) thematically on moon worship. To be more specific Nocturnal Wildlife such as Bats, Owls, Rhinos, and Tasmanian Devils. Regular edition available of 75 tapes, and a deluxe edition for the kingdom members of 25 tapes.
also a small run of 25 cdrs with artbook are available EXCLUSIVELY at:

The Gallery at Potential Life Studios
34 Elton Street [floor 01]
Rochester, NY 14607

differences will be explained in detail in the future, but the quick version is:
Regular edition features 2 side long tracks
Deluxe edition available for members of the-kingdom-of-earthspace features 4 side long tracks
cdr version features 19+ minutes of all four tracks.

REVIEW FROM PLAGUE HAUS:

Griz+zlor is the project of Philly noisemeister Paul Dever. He’s also the man behind the earthspacenoise podcast and the Earth.Space Noise Research Laboratories label. Among other things, ESN, is responsible for the Kassette Kvlt series where the creators of the works remain anonymous.Nocturnal Beasts is the latest from Griz+zlor. Two nearly hour long tracks of roaring Wall Noise on each side. This particular breed of experimental (non)music is definitely not for everyone. Wall Noise is a pariah among pariahs. To most, it may seem as nothing more than layer upon layer of static and white noise. I’ve found more than a few projects boring myself. A listen of this magnitude takes stamina that I doubted even in myself, but a good set of headphones and an hour and a half of your time will bring you subtle textures you may miss on a casual listen.From sublevel rumbles to radio crackle and fry, this is not background filler for game play or idle conversation. If William Hurt would have piped this into the isolation tank in Altered States, I have a feeling he would have evolved into an inter-dimensional being instead of the rapper he became.Normal cassette box with pro-printed jcard limited to only 75 copies and well worth the $6 price tag.

REVIEW FROM CASSETTE GODS:

The first promo addressed to Cassette Gods with the specific request that it be reviewed by me! How cool is that? I was clearly picked out of the critic roster by Griz+zlor because of my column on the Wall Noise subgenre, which this tape happily belongs to. Unfortunately, even as I wrote that column six months ago, I felt the WN phenomenon slipping out of popularity in the noise world. Culture moves so fast these days that we can feel nostalgic about things that happened last month; nothing sticks around for long before it gets mulched behind Benjamin's angel of history, and snarked at by VH1's "Best Week Ever." WN hasn't quite gone the way of Lil Jon beats and bullet-time FX shots yet, but the outlook isn't good. For this reason, this tape (unfairly) sounds a bit like a relic. "Nocturnal Beasts" is a slow c97 (dude!) whose two sides stay within a mid-heavy frequency range. Even at super loud volumes, the pieces aren't exactly harsh, they're lulling. I would sooner compare them to a bedside noise generator designed to aid sleep than to a nuclear holocaust, or some equally violent metaphor. In this respect, I would say that Griz+lor's WN material has more in common with Richard Ramirez's more subtle projects (Werewolf Jerusalem and recent Man Plug come to mind) whose static drone style is less concerned with brutality than it is with texture and atmosphere. However, Griz+zlor's sound pallet is less sophisticated than Ramirez's, less detailed; close listening reveals a shallow dynamic depth with fewer layers of individual crunch than one would hope to find. Rather than seduce a person to listen further, it encourages him/her into a trance like state; noise to be ignored, or received subconsciously while other mental tasks are performed. In this sense, it is merely a good tape, and unfortunately, considering the current uncoolness of WN, only great tapes will impress. (The excellent B-side of Forbidden Fuck's "Borderline" cassette on Callow God gets a pass simply because it is so detailed and skillfully produced that the listener cannot help but be sucked into its world.) "Nocturnal Beasts" is the type of tape that I will listen to often, but probably while reading a book, not while staring at my speakers, unable to tear myself from the sound.

REVIEW FROM ANONYMOUS NOISE REVIEWS:

Griz+zlor - Nocturnal Beasts - 2008 - Earth.Space Noise Research Laboratories
who left the Apocalypse on?!?!?!?.. this tape is long so don’t expect anything to evolve.. it’s just continuous crunch through both sides of the tape.. minimalist noise wall.. black noise???
Packaging 9 - black on black printing, nicely done with a printed tape label
Composition 0 - there is none, it never changes
Fidelity 8 - total distortion
Harshness 8 - bassy chunk
Bro-factor 5- ehhhhhhhhhhhh

*EDIT* THIS PART WAS ADDED LATER THAN I POSTED THE ORIGINAL LINK.

After reading some additional information about the intention of this tape I have added some further notes: While listening to this tape I did not get any visuals from the title “nocturnal beasts” which actually I think would be fertile ground. I may need to relisten more closely to see if the subtlties of the textures really bear this out.. which would be cool if it does. I certainly would not have gotten that there was moon worship involved but I can see that and in a way I get that staring at the moon with a David Lynchesque growl as accompaniment. I’m not even sure how I got this tape so maybe I missed out on liner notes or whatever text was used to describe it initially.


Kingdom of Earth.Space Edition case:




Kingdom of Earth.Space Edition Booklet:


Kingdom of Earth.Space Edition extra tape:

Saturday, August 4, 2007

Colosus of White Tar (Collaboration w/ Jute Gyte)

Collaborative 3" cdr from Jute Gyte's Label Jeshimoth Entertainment. Each of us laid out a base track, then the other person added their track, and the person with the base track made the final mix with a new track....

a review from Heathen Harvest:

Paul Dever (Griz+zlor) and Adam Kalmbach (Jute Gyte) collaborate in a massive head-on meteoritic collision of unstoppably brutal noise. The explosion starts right away, there’s absolutely no preamble, it just pounces on you and doesn’t let go for just over twenty minutes. It’s as if the explosives were detonated, then the very next second time was stopped and stretched out interminably so that the resultant infinity of boil and roil could be recorded. Back in the studio the furnace storm was added to and layered with screaming feedback and agonised wailing, the pitch elongated and shoved up the scale in places, and made to sound as if Nature herself was being tortured in an effort to extract her last secrets.

There’s no doubt the two tracks on this 3” CDr (it may as well be a single entity though as one runs up against the other without interruption) are uncompromisingly acidic and caustic – however it’s more than that, because if you listen carefully you will pick up the nuances and subtleties that define this as the work of a two-headed beast. Each artist began by creating a base track which the other then added to and messed with; finally it went back to the original artist for final refinement. Dever employs thick impastos of gritty coarse noise creating a solid sonic canvas; conversely Kalmbach takes a more nuanced approach, picking out the highlights with piercing screech and wail.

After having reviewed Jute Gyte’s ‘Arakan’ recently I wasn’t sure about this: but I have no hesitation in pronouncing this a very successful partnership. Dever and Kalmbach have each played to their individual strengths and produced works which complement and enhance each other. Noise, as chaotic and unstructured as many deem it, follows its own set of rules; understanding the nature of noise and its interactions means that you can work with it, manipulate it and mould it like any artist would his chosen medium. Some are better at it than others. Fortunately both these artists know how to respect and handle their material and have avoided the sin of imposition; instead they have added just enough to bring out the inherent potential in the other’s work without affecting the original material negatively.

It’s a fraught tightrope walk I would think – taking someone else’s work and bringing something of yourself to it while avoiding overwhelming it with your own personal stamp. Dever and Kalmbach have a fine sense of balance apparently, knowing when to push and when to step back to let things take their own course – this augurs well for any future collisions.

Review from Vital Weekly 612 week 5:


With Griz+Zlor (being one Paul Dever), Jute Gyte made a collaborative release of two ten minute tracks of unrelentltness noise. Here it's cut down to ten minutes, but both pieces work rather single minded, so three would have been fine too, The least of this lot. Too much Merzbow on a of-day.

here is the base track i created:

http://rapidshare.com/files/96678426/g.mp3
(right click, save target as, for windows...i don't know how you mac people do it)

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Statue 002

A C20 from Australia's Smell The Stench label, in an unknown limited edition. Covers were designed and printed by me. Some of my darkest WALL work. All derived from a statue.

Domina Oriens


Bcard cdr given away free with the purchase of BOTH kassette kvlt III and kassette kvlt IV, i think the final tally ended up being 33 total. Oddly enough it ends up being 5 minutes of my most brutal material at this point.

First Show


A few odds and ends, on top is the Flyer from the first show(designed by Jeremy of Comrades-In-Arms, Diana Behlke) and Below is a poster from me Commemorating my first show in an edition of 30.
Also sometime during this period, i contributed a track to 2013 records junk noise compilation,
This is Pure Noise! The idea was to record amplified junk, objects, whatever without use of effects. I recorded about 20 various machines around the print shop i work at to make this track as brutal as i could.




Untitled

With the same history as Endless Void(10 originally, 15 later with "2nd edition" appearing below the esnrl #) made available for my first show. ALL WALL!

Endless Void

Originally available in an edition of 10, for my first show performing as the griz+zlor, another 15 were made with the words second edition appearing below endless void. All Wall!

Ouroboros Personal Edition


A "Personal Edition" Release, essentially a one-of-a-kind commission piece. All audio is available only with this boxset, and as a matter of fact the only thing i might have a copy of is the cdr. I definately don't have the cassette(a C30) or the reel to reel(featuring 3 Hours of material!). Packaged in a painted and junked up cookie tin.

Temujin


A 3" cdr with two shorter tracks paying homage to Ghengis Khan. Available in an edition of 40, here is a review from bloodties webzine. It also happens to be the first(and hopefully last) standard packaging. It came in a 3" slimeline jewel case with a simple double sided cardstock cover. A BRUTAL turning point for me.

Statue 001


First of the Statue series(of which all source sounds are derived from a statue), available in an edition of 25. Thick at times, and full of movement, but still a natural movement for what is to come.

Hydrogen


Meant to be an ongoing series, but currently in hibernation(or reworking to be exact). One long harsh track, featuring pedal abuse, utilizing metal junk contact mic'd inside a cookie tin, tape loops and slowed down lp's as source sounds. Certainly a taste to come of it's Harsh predecessors...

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Romance











An early c10, 2 tracks of harshnoise, spraypainted cassette, housed in hollowed out romance novels, all are different. Avaiable in an edition of 30 and the first 20 came with a bonus bcard cdr "Lust"

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Blashyrkh Sound Holocaust - Stratagem Tapes








Compilation focusing on Black Noise(a crossover of noise and black metal). I actually submitted two tracks, both of which were recorded from across the room and through a fan. Ultra lo-fi...


Track List:

SIDE ONE

1. NXFXTEX - Det Onde Morke

2. DUBH – To Return

3. BLACK VOMIT – Crush Your Day

4. SINPULARCTOS - Bi-polar Disorder (edit)

5. DEADHORSEYFUCK - KLN_noise rmxxx

6. LYCANTHROPIAN CARNAGE - Bloodied Forest Floor

7. XEDH – Abismo

8. RAPE RACK – Black Toke

9. GRIZ+ZLOR – Winter’s Twilight

10. BEIGE EFFLUENT – festivals of Light

SIDE TWO

1. FILTHY TURD – Grimm Love

2. INVADER – Alive in Dark Matter

3: KJERTEL – Bonn

4. OF THE LION – Nviear

5. HIKING BLOD – Landet og Elektrik

6. KESSEL - Black Tides

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Limited Edition 7" Bootleggg



My first release (sort of) 40 copies, 2 tracks, spraypainted cdr.

Not the harsh noise i'm making today but it was the best of my early years, 2 tracks ripped from a cassette bearing the same name(minus bootleggg, of course) that was issued in an edition of 1. dual feedback loops, droning bass, slowed down records and tape loops.