Review: Cruel Nature Mega Post

I fuckin' love Cruel Nature Records! They consistently turn-out top quality cassettes full of sometimes brain scrambling, sometimes stomach churning but always thought provoking noise/experimental music. As a label they are taking full advantage of the rise in popularity of the tape and this summer sees the release of four limited edition tapes that are all different but all pretty damned ace!

$un $keletons - WAX

$un $keletons hail from the not-so-dangerous hinterlands of Berkshire....not a place normally known for cutting edge music, but these guys take known, recognised forms of music and warp them to create something a bit special. The band are: Crinkil on sax, Krang on shahi baaja and The Breadman on guitar (Wikipedia kindly informs me that a shai baaja is a type of Indian zither...so there!) and 'WAX' is sublime. The three tracks on the tape are built on repetition, full of wonderful, haunting drones, insistent motorik rhythms and skronky sax. the music is mesmeric to the max and once it has its hooks in you it doesn't let go. 'No Gold Wax' and 'Teeny Turner' act as preludes for the monumental last track 'Gold Wax' which takes a krautrock base, overlays it with some wavering exotica and that haunting saxophone.....the last time I heard saxophone that mournful was on the second side of Bowie's 'Heroes' album....in fact, if Bowie had worked with Neu! instead of Eno on 'Heroes' then the results would be close to this. This tape is epic... there is no 'sturm und drang', no brain scrambling power electronics or skin flaying guitar histrionics, just well constructed, hypnotic grooves..brilliant stuff!



Mirrored Lips - были у меня длинные волосы, но разве они принесли мне счастье

Russia's Mirrored Lips toured the UK earlier this year, supported by blog favourites Fret!. They took time out to record an album and this is the result (the title apparently translates as "I had long hair but it didn't make me happy"). The album is a heady mix of avant garde post-punk and improv free form noodling. Tracks like 'S&V' with it's cavernous bass and agit-punk vocals and 'два года как убрали порт' with its frantic goth guitar and equally frantic vocals are both nostalgic and 'of the now' and it's not hard to see why the girls are such an explosive live act. But for me, it's when the band let loose their more experimental edge that things get really interesting: the brief 'из меня раздался голос' with its static and garbled vocals that creates a paranoid, claustrophobic atmosphere, and 'как наступит весна' which sounds, musically, like a Bauhaus/cabaret Voltaire hybrid. My absolute fave, however, is 'ледоход' - all primal, tribal drums, throbbing bass and bursts of coruscating post-punk guitar over which lay more passionate vocals (sung in Russian natch so I haven't a fuckin' clue what they are on about!)...this track will be featuring on future mixes for years to come. A real breath of fresh air.



Gidouille - Eedipal Wrecks

I was wracking my brain thinking of lots of clever psychology puns for this review, bearing in mind the play on words of the title and that the tracks are called 'Id', 'Superego' and 'Ego' and then I read the blurb about the band and this release and decided that puns would be doing it a bit of a disservice. If I may quote from the press release: "Gidouille [were formed] in mid-2014 as a noise outfit that would embody some of the principles of Alfred Jarry’s ‘pataphysics, most importantly its role as the “science of the exception”. This means that we tend to do things once and then move on." okay...got that...good, they go on to explain how this particular release came about "We wandered into a charity bookshop. It was one of those occasional charity bookshops you get in some middle class areas that make most University libraries look a touch underpowered. Kat browsed in the Psychology section. She came across a 70s paperback edition of Herbert Marcuse’s “Eros and Civilisation”. “This!” she shouted. All the rather posh Edinburghers in the shop looked round and were about to “tut” in that very Edinburgh way until they saw the look in her eye. “This might help us make sense of all the dreck that is happening in the world today!"". So, we are obviously dealing with some serious intellects here....and that shines through in the music. This is experimental music in its purest form, constructed rather than composed and disparate elements put together to form a whole that is challenging but ultimately satisfying. 'Id' has a hum of static than runs throughout it over which lay a discordant melody via what sounds suspiciously like a stylophone..throw in some crow caws, hooting owls and howling wolves and you have something that flows beautifully but is disconcerting and dread laden. 'Superego' is even more abstract with sporadic beats and disembodied sounds while 'Ego' sounds like a fucked-up sci-fi noir movie soundtrack with oscillating drones and smoky saxophone. This is true experimental noise...as I said, challenging and not exactly 'easy listening' but there is a beauty in its construction and the intelligence behind it is obvious.



Woven Skull - His Cattle Are Pets And He Goes With The Moon

Now this.....this is something special! Woven Skull hail from the beautiful Emerald Isle and with 'His Cattle Are Pets And He Goes With The Moon' they have built on their former recordings to produce something epic and ambitious. Over just the two tracks, 'I' and 'II', they weave bucolic, abstract psychedelia into strange but beguiling patterns that worm their way into your subconsciousness. The music is full of wyrd drones and seemingly dissonent squeaks and squawks but it forms into a wonderful whole. The clever instrumentation helps build tension and then knock it back down, keeping the entire half an hour an evershifting affair that can disorientate and bewitch. It's less a movie score, more the soundtrack to one's internal monologue. A truly exquisite tape....unfortunately I believe it is sold out but the digital version is available.



All of the above can be sourced via the Cruel Nature Bandcamp page here...both the physical products and the digital versions. Cruel Nature continue to go from strength to strength and long may that continue.