All Are Guests In The House Of The Lord
(Hospital - HOS201) CD $13.50 (Out-of-stock)
The first collaboration between Prurient and Kevin Drumm is one of the darker records in either artist’s discography. Prurient (Dominick Fernow) has toiled in the fields of noise for over a decade and has developed an increasingly dynamic output incorporating darkly arranged synths. Using source sounds of intense tonal drones supplied by Drumm, the two create a haunted atmosphere that is far removed from noise, exploring minimal junctures, using field recordings and clean, patient vocals to lead the way. Subtle electronic textures combine with near-cinematic arrangements.
Comedy
(Moikai) Used CD $8.00
“Firmly in line with monster-minimalists Tony Conrad and Phil Niblock, with extrapolations of microscopic detail familiar to fans of Bernhard Gunter and the Mego scene.”
Crowded
(Bocian) LP $21.00
“Repetitive Algae” lays down colossal drones, weird clicks and scrapes, and lots of gravel and grain over disorienting, hypnotic, churning rhythm that seems to have been created by a large steel ball bearing rolling around inside a cement mixer. High-pitched frequencies resemble demented birds squawking. Russell Haswell is credited with “spectral editing and time domain consultation.” The gargantuan hum of “Rediki” pushes right to the fore and throbs away in true speaker-threatening, sub-bass fashion, recedes and re-emerges to fill the space with brain-damaging low-end and cochlea-exploding highs. It keeps going from unstoppable intensity to unstoppable intensity, unbelievably so. A real ear-killer. Edition of 200.
I Drink Your Skin
(Hanson - HN260) CD $12.00 (Out-of-stock)
Dilloway messes with Renaissance and noise 8-track loops, Drumm spills coffee on a mini-disc. One track by each using sound sources by the other. “A major convergence of two of the most relevant midwestern freenoise artists of the day,” declares Earpeace, “Get it or you suck. You suck anyway.” Previously released on cassette by American Tapes in 2001. Edition of 500
Imperial Distortion
(Hospital - HOS134) 2xCD $16.75 (Out-of-stock)
(Hospital - HOS134) Used 3xLP $30.00
Where 2002’s Sheer Hellish Miasma took noise to a new level of near-impenetrable exactitude, Imperial Distortion is an altogether different beast. Kevin Drumm comes face to face with minimal drone music and confronts the genre by providing one of its absolute pinnacles at the forefront: movement. Drone music at its most concentrated and ably performed has build and depth. From the shadowy layers of soundtrack to ominous bell tones, from the almost ballad-esque elegance of tone and frequency as melodic portals to nowhere to the tension suggestive of anxiety that never truly dies, from lullaby ease to severity that eclipses the light, this is a work that commands intellectual and emotional commitment on the levels of the greatest works to come from this genre.
White vinyl.
Imperial Horizon
(Hospital - HOS251) Used CD $11.00 (Out-of-stock)
Imperial Horizon examines sustained tone in greater depth than Drumm's previous Hospital benchmark, Imperial Distortion, stretching out minimalism to unreached heights of serene ambience. Lulling electronic drones slowly transform over the course of the hour-plus piece, echoing both an existential terror and Zen calm. Mutations grow so quietly, only the body opens to identify this change while the mind closes. The ephemeral and seeming lightness of the tones hang with taut balance in contrast to the method in which they are overlapped and rotated with deadly weight. How wildly divergent emotions rise, hover, and fall using so little is a mystery only Drumm can solve.
Impish Tyrant
(Dagda Hammer - DAGDA001) CD $12.00 (Out-of-stock)
Remastered CD reissue of this 2004 burner, the debut release on Drumm's own label. Absolutely gnarly rectified cut-ups, up there with Sheer Hellish Miasma as one of the lofty peaks during his harsh investigation of full-bore guitar / synth / computer tactics.
Kevin Drumm
(Thin Wrist - TWLA) 2xLP $25.00 (Out-of-stock)
The elusive, fragmented and subtle tabletop guitar experiments on Drumm’s eponymous debut (released on CD by Perdition Plastics in 1997 and reissued on CD by the same label in 2009) straddle analogue noise and fractured Erstwhile-esque minimalism. The first six tracks feel like a surgical operation, or a vivisection of Drumm's instrument, an isolating of each conceivable component, draining its every sonority and splaying it across forty minutes of clinical abstraction. After six tracks of shadowy activity, a final seventeen-minute piece brings the album to an intense, droning conclusion, laying down strips of noisy signal interference that buzz and crackle as a single, continuous surge. Thin Wrist’s expanded 180-gram vinyl edition adds an entire side of previously unreleased music recorded during the same time as the original album. Digital download card included.
Kitchen
(Bocian) LP $21.00
Two untitled pieces, thirty-four minutes, recorded in 1996, recycled and finalized in 2012 using Carmen accordion, Big Muff, Traynor Ts-15, Shure Sm-57, computer assistance, and Radio Shack PZM. Side one slowly opens a kitchen door. Smooth, equilibrious and loopy fractions of sound surpass the requirements ambient music is bound to meet. Side two departs from the kitchen and heads straight to the slaughterhouse. Incomparably louder and uncompromising, too refined for an industrial-related noise piece, but outweighing any experimental canon that might be followed. Clear vinyl. Edition of 350
Land Of Lurches
(Hanson) Used LP $30.00 (Out-of-stock)
Ugly behemoth-core freak-out from 2003 by the Chicago sound proctologist. Two twenty-minute tracks of diuretic hailstorm delivered in the spirit of heavy metal with maximum power, maximum volume, and maximum nerve bake. Like having your body ripped apart by rabid animals before a screaming, sellout crowd of frenzied onlookers. Edition of 500
Necro Acoustic
(Pica Disk - PICA017) 5xCD $37.50 (Out-of-stock)
Lights Out (new album recorded 2006-2008); Malaise (reissue of limited-edition double-cassette [Hospital Productions, 2009]); Decrepit (previously unreleased material from 1998-1999, plus tracks from split LP with 2673 [Kitty Play, 2005] and the LP on Dilemma, 2008); No Edit (new album of prepared guitar material recorded in 2009); and Organ (first-time release of the 55-minute version of this track [believed for years to have been lost, recently discovered] previously released in edited form on Comedy [Moikai, 2000]). Solid box with gold print, individual CD-wallets and 24-page booklet.
Purge
(Ideal - 105) CD $10.00 (Out-of-stock)
Reissue of instantly sold-out cassette (Ideal 2007) that guarantees exhaustion. Powerful and dynamic noise built with travelling frequencies, rich with details, very little hope.
Tannenbaum
(Hospital - HOS371) 2xCD $20.00 (Out-of-stock)
Malignant electronic ambient music by a true master whose subtle, roving drones keep the pace with Hitchcockian tension, while details of a story emerge and recede, and sequences are lost in the clatter of long chambers of isolation adorned with the trimmings of pagan beauties. Edition of 500.
KEVIN DRUMM / MICHAEL ESPOSITO
The Icy Echoer
(Fragment Factory - FRAG16) 7-inch $13.50 (Out-of-stock)
Experimental artist and researcher of EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) Michael Esposito has worked with Leif Elggren, CM von Hausswolff, Bryan Lewis Saunders and others. Forming the basis of this collaboration with guitarist Kevin Drumm are EVPs from St. John - St. Joseph cemetery in Hammond, Illinois, reputed to be one of the most haunted places in America. Edition of 300
Untitled
(Nihilist - NIHIL63) LP $22.50 (Out-of-stock) (Out-of-print)
Mania-inducing, heavy waves of suffocating bass frequencies with ripping and tearing, hissing and speaker destroying hellstorm. Recorded in Chicago in 2005. Cover art by Alex Decarli.
KEVIN DRUMM / JÉRÔME NOETINGER / ROBERT PIOTROWICZ
Wrestling
(Bocian - BR04) 7-inch $10.00 (Out-of-stock)
A devastating electronic maelstrom recorded at Musica Genera Festival in Szczecin, Poland in May 2005. Two slabs of furious, improvised noise by a trio of giants.