Art Breaker
(Smalltown Supersound) Used CD $6.00
John Hegre and Lasse Marhaug, joined by Iver Sandoy, deliver fun, fun, fun grindcore. It’s just mad. Almost like a more ferocious Napalm Death with a Merzbow fixation. From 2006
Chestnut Thornback Tar
(Pica Disk - PIC018) CD $14.00
The May edition of Jazkamer's 2010 monthly CD-series mixes harsh noise, drone, and rock, with assistance from associates Nils Are Drønen and Jean-Philippe Gross. The album begins and ends with two massive tracks, with a slew of short little sketches in between.
Cover By Hair Stylistics
(Pica Disk - PICA021) CD $14.00
On the July edition of Jazkamer's 2010 monthly CD-series, Iver Sandøy joins Hegre and Marhaug for some improvised noisecore. Fans of short bursts of blastbeat drumming backed by screaming vocals and heavily distorted guitar might recall Jazkamer's Art Breaker album (Smalltown Superjazzz 2008), with fifty-nine songs in mere seventeen minutes; Cover by Hair Stylistics ups the ante with 129 songs in twenty minutes. The artwork is by Japanese actor, author and composer Masaya Nakahara (Hair Stylistics, Suicidal 10CC and Violent Onsen Geisha). That's him on the front cover drawing the artwork used on the inside of the cover.
Failed State of Mind
(Pica Disk - PICA024) CD $14.00
The October edition of Jazkamer's 2010 monthly CD-series is their 25th studio album. A mellow and easy-on-the-ears recording the likes of which have not been heard since Panic (Bottrop-Boy 2006). Nine tracks, a drifting tapestry of droning guitars, distant location recordings and tasteful percussion, are woven together in a seamless stream of subtlety and abstraction. Melody is hinted at, but never achieved, buried beneath layers of sound. With clarity Jazkamer shifts between different swaths and bandwidths of noise: a pinball machine, a child's electronic toy, a rasping insect, a fax, or simply the abstract whir of sonic information are all caught up in an articulate but pressured streamline. Argentinian sound-wizard Anla Courtis of Reynols contributes guitar to two tracks.
Matthew 28:17
(Pica Disk - PICA022) CD $14.00
The August edition is the first in Jazkamer's 2010 monthly CD series by the core duo of Lasse Marhaug and John Hegre. This reduction does little to lighten the sonic density; their thick haze of dopey fuzz-guitars and droning organ recalls an earlier Jazkamer album The Sound of Music ([OHM] 2002). Here Hegre and Marhaug mingle astronomy and religion, a duality and conflict of science and spirituality they express as Dionysian ecstasy via primitive psychedelic noise. Cover art by Yasutoshi Yoshida (Government Alpha).
Metal Music Machine 2
(Pica Disk - PICA026) CD $14.00 (Out-of-stock)
The November edition of Jazkamer's monthly series of CDs and the sequel to their 2006 album, recorded with the same line-up in the same studio, continues the group’s exploration of metal’s deep dark fjords – from ’80s German thrash to ultraslow doom and classic ’70s heavy metal. The original album was something of a surprise hit for the band, live incarnations of which swayed more in the direction of noise meltdown, but Metal Music Machine 2 is more metal than the first with absolutely no noise or electronic elements audible. As a sign of respect for the memory of Ronnie James Dio, Metal Music Machine 2 is completely instrumental.
Monroe Doctrine
(Pica Disk - PICA016) CD $14.00
The March edition of Jazkamer's 2010 monthly CD series. Free-form funk-noise.
Musica Non Grata
(Pica Disk - PICA015) CD $14.00
The February edition of Jazkamer's 2010 monthly CD-series, Musica Non Grata is a feedback-fest. Locked inside Duper Studios in Bergen with guitars and analogue synths and an arsenal of amps, Hegre, Gross and Marhaug explore feedback timbres recorded on an analogue 24-track two-inch tape-machine. The three slow-moving tracks are long-form meditations on feedback that are bliss for a select few and hell for most. February is not an easy month.
Peanuts
(Pica Disk - PICA023) CD $14.00
The September edition of Jazkamer's 2010 monthly CD-series, a carefully constructed mixture of transparent sound-surfaces mixture, location recordings and percussion, can be seen as a continuation of Timex (Rune Grammofon 2000) and Pancakes (Smalltown Supersound 2002). Peanuts is not a noise record, nor is it ambient, but it might work well as very detailed background music. Cover photographs by Valeria Picerno.
Self Portrait
(Pica Disk - PICA017) CD $14.00
The April edition of Jazkamer's 2010 monthly CD series. The first all-acoustic Jazkamer record.
Solitary Nail
(Pica Disk - PICA014) CD $14.00
The January edition of Jazkamer's 2010 monthly CD series. A trio recording of Jean-Philippe Gross, John Hegre and Lasse Marhaug. Studio live-electronics recorded to analog tape at Duper Studios in Bergen. Edited and post-produced by Gross. A dense tapestry of perfect electronic happiness. CD in digipak cover.
The Young Person's Guide To Jazkamer
(Pica Disk - PICA027) 4xCD $30.00
The final release in Jazkamer's monthly 2010 series is a 4CD Box-set. CD1: Wind On Wednesday (their first album from 1998, previously unreleased). CD2: sixteen tracks selected from various compilations released between 2000 and 2007. CD3: first-time-on-CD versions of the Turntable Surface Fireball 2 LP (Smalltown Supersound 2001), Knitter seven-inch (Tonschacht 2002), and the Jazkamer sides of split LPs with Opec and Sandbleistift (Reverse Recordings 2005 and Licht-Ung 2007, respectively). CD4: live recordings from 2002 and 2010, and rarities. Includes sixteen-page History of Jazkamer booklet and twenty-page booklet of photos.
Tomorrow No One Will Be Safe
(PacRec) Used CD $4.00
“Jazzkammer’s ‘Requiem for Officer Bobby Barker’ begins nearly silent, with small, creaking sounds that evoke the minimalism of AMM. As the pair gradually distributes metallic clangs, morse-code-like blips, and filtered static, their swelling mix becomes like a wordless shortwave radio conversation. That the piece ends with a noisy maelstrom might be predictable, but it’s the way Jazzkammer gets there — building noise through patient, organic construction — that’s the surprise. Stelzer follows with the stranger ‘Last Night at BLD’ which doesn’t build so much as shoot all over the place without any obvious meshing or melding. Springy twangs, warping scratches, and the sound of tape rolling over playheads all create a cartoon soundtrack without the music. On the collaborative, album-ending title track, Stelzer’s tape warps chime in immediately, tempered by Jazzkammer’s low guitar rumbles and electronic slashes. Loops of noise provide rhythm here and there, but the main attraction is the connective tissue that the three use to string their noises into arcs.” From 2004
We Want Epic Drama
(Pica Disk - PICA020) CD $14.00
The June edition of Jazkamer's 2010 monthly CD-series. Jazkamer performed as a big band from 2006 to 2008, with two drummers (Iver Sandøy and Nils Are Drønen), multiple guitarists (Lasse Marhaug, John Hegre, and Jørgen Træen), and electronics (Jean Phillipe Gross). They were often billed as the metal version of Jazkamer, but precious little metal is audible here (especially compared to their Metal Music Machine album [Smalltown Supernoise 2006]). We Want Epic Drama bears more resemblance to the Mass Projection work of Masayuki Takayanagi than any death metal bands. Two long tracks, recorded live to 24-track tape, no overdubs.