Cranj Randy's Shandy Box, Detloff

When drifting off into a day dream your thoughts become increasingly less concrete and more fluid. The valve is released on your stream of consciousness, and you find yourself drifting along it’s ephemeral bank. Detloff’s album Cranj Randy’s Shandy Box, is the auditory equivalent  of that state when you’re just barely awake enough to know you’re asleep. Ten tracks of sublime experimental ambiences gradually plod along leaving an imprint on the listener that is trepidatious, intoxicating, and vaguely nostalgic.

The synthesizer work on this album is wonderfully diverse and textured; and the use of guitar, bass, and trumpet serves as a grounding counterpoint to the otherwise otherworldly  soundscapes. There are also many tracks on here that really groove. Take for example the lumbering bass and lo-fi drums of the opening track “Now&Later”; the perfect psychedelic dance anthem for a sluggish sleep deprived delirium. 

Other highlights include the ghostly trumpet swells and synthesizer melancholia of “Shandy Box”, which conjures visions of lonesome puddle drenched alleyways on a dreary night. This sensation of isolation and anxiousness is pervasive throughout the album; Detloff  takes you to a dream world where danger is never seen, but feels as if it’s hiding beneath every stone. One of the few respites from this is my favorite track, “Hyper Cube”. With it’s shimmering, reassuring tone and whimsical melody, it sounds like part of a soundtrack for a retro video game.

Cranj Randy’s Shandy Box is a fantastic auditory adventure that leads you on a meandering hour long trail of dreamscapes. It is available on their bandcamp page as a free download and for purchase on cassette which has some lovely floral album art. I highly recommend you buy a copy, pop on some headphones, and open up the shandy box.  

Fucking Punctuation, Unconventional Seagulls

Nog Records is a particularly awesome DIY noise label out of Allentown PA with a staggering amount of releases; Unconventional Seagulls is personally one of my favorites. Released January 2014 on CDr, this is a rather unique collaboration between Pory Nog of Seagulls Fucking Seagulls and Dan Wasko of Unconventional Punctuation. Each track the two switch off between using a bass and contact mic, and operating a pedalboard. The result is just under an hour of unapologetically harsh noise with absurd and irreverent titles.

While exceedingly abrasive when taken at face value, this album actually contains some lovely flourishes of a-melodic frequencies and a meticulous patchwork of tones. Thick walls of noise open up as a varying assemblage of textures subtly intensify and recede at a meditative pace. From long sweeps of hurricane like flange distortion to jittery clicks and squeaks resembling a cluster of moist insects milling about some kind of electronic cesspool. Emerging from all this comes the occasional swell of deceptively harmonious tones that only stay briefly enough to make you question if you actually heard them. Anyone who has ever done noisy stuff with the Boss pitch shifter will also immediately recognize the haunting alien cries it makes as it tires to make sense of the atonal mess you feed into it.

Each time I listen to this album I find something that I had not noticed previously, and it’s abrupt ending leaves me eagerly awaiting more. Get a hand painted pink copy of this from Nog Records. When I first received this I was (and still am) unsure if I could safely put it into my laptop without pink shrapnel chewing away the optical drive, but all of Nog’s releases are also available as free downloads. Check them out, if you like what you hear spend a couple bucks to get a physical copy.

Fortitude in Wintarmanoth, C. Lavender

Since neither myself or K has had a functioning camera for awhile now, and rather than letting this blog be neglected and forgotten, I thought I would attempt to review some music. I can’t say that I have ever reviewed anything before, and I’m not sure I have either the knowledge or authority to do so, but if you want my opinion here it is.

I recently ordered a smattering of tapes, CDs, and records; Fortitude in Wintarmanoth by C. Lavender happened to be the first to be thrust through my mail slot. It was released on Ecstatic Peace in 2013 in an edition of 100 cassettes. I don’t know if people usually review music that isn’t new, but it’s new to me and exceptionally good. 

The album contains three tracks which, in fitting with the title, were recorded in January of 2012, 2011, and 2010. Perhaps it’s not the correct month to be listening to this, but considering the inescapable winter we’ve had it’s still quite fitting. This album succeeds in its offering of atmosphere over mere amplitude; in fact for something so noisy it’s surprising quiet. The first track Opening the Gates gradually creeps out of a silent void growing in both volume and depth. I feel like I’m listening to the reverberation of winds through a thick dark forest, or the inner recesses of a cave. The second track Letting Them In has a similar ambience to it, but even more menacing. A horn like synth growls viciously over a scraping, clanging bass. It grows until reaching a climax with an almost wolf like howling that is intense and terrific.

I use such analogies not to sound poetic, or rather not only to sound poetic, but to really emphasize the mood created by this album. On one hand it can be taken as a product of the bleakness of the winter; cold, dead, and isolating. There is however also an aural sensation of the fertility of nature; a certain lushness that is perhaps not of winter, but meant to give one strength to get through winter.

The last track “You Can Never Go Home” seems a little out of place as it doesn’t have quite the same tone or quality as the first two, but is still a good listen. This is a really solid album; I highly recommend it if you like things that are noisy, dark, and atmospheric. Order a cassette while you can; it has cool artwork and quality packaging. The case is green, neat! If you don’t like physical things you can buy a digital copy of it instead. 

dK05//Jasper Phantom, David Sutton, IVDB & Veiled (2012)

Again, sorry about the delay. Recorded on 23 February at The Alamo, finally, another all noise show:

dK05//Jasper Phantom:




David Sutton:




IVDB:





Veiled:

Phantom Selector, Lazy Magnet, Jenny Haniver, & Noise Nomads @ The Wormhole (2012)

The first all-noise show in New Brunswick in nearly a year, it may have been the shortest in recent memory, but goddammit, it didn't matter.

First up, we've got JP's floating head and just a hand as the lights go out for this entire set by

Phantom Selector:



and next up, from Providence RI, 
Lazy Magnet:




I know you see this next video and think, damn, another King Darves video? Yes. Yes it is. It's King Darves, playing as Jenny Haniver and letting the noise flow through him:




And we finish this off with a set by Noise Nomads, out from Western Mass. to play a set haunted by technical difficulties and solved by percussive maintenance. In simpler words, amp shits out, hits amp to fix it. Hell yeah.

Neo-Slowjisms (2011)

Here's a very special Valentines Day performance from Neo Slowjisms, a band formed moments before this set featuring myself and K. The name came from a mishearing of words and then a concept was developed for what kind of experience we wanted to give the audience: imagine using these to jerk it.






The carrot pretty much says it all.

Anyway we were going to write some lyrics but the pen we had didn't work and we were writting on a wet bar napkin. So this is what happened.

Intro//First Post

After 5+ years of filming various noise/punk shows in New Brunswick and related areas, I figured I might as well start a blog posting some of the better sets I've accumulated over the years. At first, I started by recording friends' bands during high school and as they started playing out in New Brunswick basements, it was only natural that I would keep recording them there. As I made more friends and started attending more shows, I carried my video camera with me at all times. Since then, I've managed to collect 50+ hours of footage from live shows all over New Brunswick and a few cities where I just happened to be.

I have to thank Trevor Pennsylvania of the Human Adult Band/ dihd records (dihd.net) for introducing me to many of the bands featured on this blog from outside of the New Brunswick area.

Along with the videos, I will try to include as much information about the bands and shows as I can remember, but forgive me if some descriptions are incomplete, some of these are over 5 years old and several of the bands have either broken up or changed their styles entirely. A majority of the videos I will be posting are from my own YouTube channel, although at times I will be posting from other friends' sources.

Thank you, I hope you enjoy.