Reviews:

Jazkamer & Smegma
Endless Coast
[No Fun; 2007]
Rating: 7.6

Sometimes bands take their names from highbrow sources: Bauhaus from the architectural school, Art of Noise from the Futurist manifesto, Birthday Party from the Pinter play, the Fall from Camus, Scritti Politti from Gramsci, Genesis from Sega. Sadly the stories behind the juicy lowbrow names are mostly apocryphal. They must have dirty minds in Manchester, because no, 10cc weren't christened in honor of their superior ejaculation volume, nor were the Buzzcocks a sly reference to bus-driver erections. Smegma, however, can refer to only one thing.

It was a perfectly grotesque match, the name and the band. When a cluster of (then) Los Angeles artistes banded together against the fascism we now call prog-rock, they needed something that captured their viscous, out-there brand of soundclash. They went for the Yes fan's jugular. Hence Smegma. Now considered one of the, well, seminal stars in noise rock, thanks to some hip revisionism, the band has also become one of the scene's most-wanted collaborators. Hence this record, Endless Coast, created with Norway's Jazkamer, alias John Hegre and Lasse Marhaug, who enlist here the bass-synth thuggery of No Fun's Carlos Giffoni.

Offering sanctuary from the glossy concision of verse-chorus-verse-- from all of pop's commandments and borders-- noise music can easily tip over into concept art. Jazkamer and Smegma walk this line with studied gracelessness. Taking cues from free jazz, they roam and dart, instead of adopting the sublime brutality of noise. The title "Heavy Fog" captures the mood and texture of this expertly conceived opener. A quick listen reveals 12 minutes of amorphous, foreboding haze, though a deeper study begins to grab at something like structure. All-over clatter gives way to Giffoni's waves of low-end rumble, setting the stage for the messy, wedding-cake compositions to follow.

Layer upon layer of instrumental and incidental noise seep together-- overheard clauses, cuckoo clocks, film-noir horn samples, the buzz and zap of synthesizers, a radio failing to find a frequency-- before everything settles down halfway into the track. This is the first purge. The next moment we hear a steady knock, then frenzies of drumming and wintry gales of noise as the song aggressively builds up again, before a second purge. The cacophony purifies nearly into white noise, inflected with a hum and screech of brass: off-white noise.

The tiered squall of "Heavy Fog" vanishes into the halting, stop-start logic of "White Witch". Beginning with an identical atmosphere of distorted rattling, the song draws toward silence before rebooting into a second movement, where we catch flashes of a manipulated human voice, and an exhausting, exhausted final movement, suggesting both a sputtering engine and battering ram.

The album sags only slightly after the midpoint. "Portland Swamps" adds up to little more than a simple sum of its parts: humming, a steady chug, whirls and whistles. A continuous tone unites the loose pieces, which after settling down, fade into a sewing-machine pulse and nature sounds that, poking into higher registers, recall seagulls or dolphins. Is "Stone Eater" about the Rockbiter from The Neverending Story? It's just frivolous enough. Heavy on distorted vocals, which slowly devolve into unpleasant, subhuman squirts-- like Jabba the Hutt talking in his sleep, or slowly choking to death-- there is certainly a monstrous presence here. The rest of the composition, a whiny synth twirling above rustling cymbals, stops short of resolving the question.

Deeply satisfying and enigmatically misspelled, "Carniviorous Bog" plays with the listener. Could this really be a rustic piece? The curling flutes, the songbirds trick us into entertaining the possibility. Soon technology careens in, right on cue, the sound of a peeling-out muscle car and thunderous drums shattering the peace, while a lone high note hangs like a dust cloud over the chaos. Bits of sped-up, prelingual mumbling appear and disappear. Then a fiery blaze of distortion and eerie tones ramps up the drama again, before a human voice wanders back in, faintly ethnic ululating and then what sounds like recorded newscasts. A steady cymbal rush cuts off the jabber, clearing the space for a bittersweet surf-rock coda, a groove that the Ventures could have dashed off, that dissolves into whooshing radio static, like a man into the ocean.
The psychedelic M.O. of Smegma-- the katana-sharp angles, acoustic whimsy, the Trout Mask replications, Dadaist sound-poetry-- never fades from visibility. But Endless Coast finds the laptop vandals Jazkamer and Giffoni brilliantly insinuated into the picture. To Smegma's surreal splotches and random gestures, they add a glacial, futuristic precision to the canvas, tracing and echoing the old band's manic gestures. It means that, amorphous as Endless Coast may be, the fury is always controlled and the chaos never fully surrenders its coherence.
-Roque Strew, January 08, 2008, pitchfork media

JAZKAMER & SMEGMA - ENDLESS COAST (CD by No Fun Productions)
Following last week's re-issue of two old Smegma works, here is a super new collaboration of the old men from Portland and the latest (?) craze in noise music from Norway Jazkamer, who are John Hegre and Lasse Marhaug, but here with Carlos Giffoni in their midst. Jazkamer played the westcoast in fall 2006, and stopped by the Smegma studio to record this bunch of five songs together with the extended Smegma line up. Jazkamer's moving from the real noise, via laptops to a noise metal unit, is something that doesn't show here very much. There are only faint traces of the noise and fury of Jazkamer, but it's more the playing of Smegma that prevails here. The improvised manner of them playing their instruments, blowing horns, mumbling voices, bass and drums is picked upon by Jazkamer who return the favor by making similar improvisation gestures on their instruments, most likely the guitar, bass and synthesizer. Of course, these eight people get carried away at times, and things go wild and rampant. There is a nice free jazz mood on this CD, which makes it altogether quite nice. Noise is only here for smaller bits and bops, here and there, but free loud improvisation is the main goal. Quite nice. (FdW, Vital Weekly)
Address: http://www.nofunproductions.com

Jazkamer & Smegma - Endless Coast [No Fun Productions - 2007]

Endless Coast brings together two very different and distinct noise worlds into a on mass collaboration. We have the da da, jazz, improvised rock, aged dialogue and corrupted easy listening noise vibes of USA's Smegma, whom lock their sound into Norway’s Jazkamer’s more atmospheric and often guitar based take on noise.
Recorded in Smegma’s homebase in Portland with Carlos Giffoni guest staring as a Jazkammer member playing Bass and electronics. On the whole it comes off as a effective mix of the two sound worlds ,feeling like a edgy and bizarre tour around an abounded nightime funhouse. Smegma's surreal sound elements, strange voices and genral sinister silliness seemly surfacing like bizarre items out off grey ominous seas of Jazkammer guitar/ noise craft and Giffoni bass playing and ringing electronic pluses. Certainly one of the highlights here is the first track Heavey Fog, which marries together doomy punked bass, guitar pick and scratch, with sour folds of electronics, handfuls of tacky and bizarre sound elements like cook-coo clocks & dada singing, ect. Before towards the end going into a strange and almost ritual freefall with battering drums, discordant sax and guitar sneer.

An effective collaboration between these two noise forces that conjures up something quite bizarre and different. As usual with No Fun the Cd’s packaged in a nice sturdy cardboard gatefold with black and white drawings by Smegma Member Ju Suk Reet Meate. (Roger Batty, www.musiquemachine.com)

Jazkamer / Smegma | Endless Coast
Geniale waanzin.
CD, No Fun

Dr. ID, Ju Suk Reet Meate, Conroy, Oblivia en Burned Mind zijn al meer dan dertig jaar mee verantwoordelijk voor het kruim van de experimentele muziek. Smegma heeft zijn wortels in de Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS) uit de jaren zeventig en maakt nog steeds met de vreemdste instrumenten een merkwaardige mix van geluiden.
Dat Smegma eveneens van experimentele noise houdt, gaven ze een paar jaar al te kennen met The Beast, het resultaat van een samenwerking met Wolf Eyes. Toen het Noorse noise/metalduo Jazkamer met Carlos Giffoni in 2006 door Noord-Amerika trok, hielden ze halt in de studio van Smegma waar ze een sessie opnamen. Het feit dat Giffoni bij die gelegenheid even deel uitmaakte van Jazkamer is er naar alle waarschijnlijkheid verantwoordelijk voor dat Endless Coast op Giffoni’s eigen No Fun Productions verschijnt.
Fluitjes, vervormde stemmen, trompetten, telefoongeluiden en allerhande huishoudelijk gerei vormen het instrumentarium waarmee Smegma interessante luisterstukken vervaardigd. Jazkamer voegt daarbij, waar zinvol, subtiele noise en lichte metalriffs toe om zo de muziek een meer dreigende basis mee te geven. Toch blijft de Noorse inbreng in de regel tot een minimum beperkt, zodat Endless Coast veel meer bij Smegma’s reguliere oeuvre aansluit.
En als er op ‘Carniviorous Bog’ tussen de instrumentale chaos plots een surfriff het voortouw neemt, wordt het echt helemaal fantastisch. Smegma bewijst met Endless Coast dat ze nog steeds innovatief zijn en in dat statement worden ze gesteund door Jazkamer. (tekst: Hans van der Linden, www.kindamuzik.net)

Jazkamer & Smegma - Endless Coast (No Fun Productions)

They've been around for over ten years, so Jazzkammer (or, on this release, Jazkamer) aren't exactly the young Turks of noise, yet it's hard not to consider this summit with Portland, Oregon stalwarts Smegma as an intermingling of young and old, and, relatively, I suppose it is. Smegma, who commenced their assault on music in 1973, have experienced a resurgence in activity as of late, as their stature as some of weird music's hallowed elders has brought pilgrims to Portland to pay homage to, and record with, the Smegma crew. On a recent American jaunt,Lasse Marhaug and John Hegre stopped by Smegma studios, with adjunct Jazkamer member Carlos Giffoni in tow, to record a session with Ju Suk Reet Meate and crew. The result is Endless Coast, a disc that finds Smegma's distinctive aesthetic ruling the day.

Jazkamer have always been a flexible group, not tied to any one sound or approach, but their contribution to Endless Coast remains surprising. The vibe is decidedly tipped in Smegma's favor, with improvised streams of acoustic and electric instruments engaged in a mix of sparse, damaged psychedelia and a queasy vein of alien free jazz. Endless Coast is thirty-five minutes of ominous simmer; the music hints at something most foul, but rarely bubbles over in the chaos that one might expect. Crescendos come and go quickly (excepting the finale of "Heavy fog," perhaps), but they're swallowed amongst the murky haze of the music. Only when "Carnivorous Bog" erupts in a small bit of mutant surf does the disc feel as though it has truly come to an apex. The ramshackle approach that has always been Smegma's is taken heartily; ideas explored and paths taken are abandoned at a moment's notice, and ingredients too numerous to list are combined at random to create a monster of ever-shifting proportions. Whereas others make noise in stunning waves of sheer sonic assault, Smegma have always done so with a more handmade brand of black musical magic, and Endless Coast , and be it a deference to their elders, or simply getting caught up in the spirit of the session, Jazkamer is under the Smegma spell. (fakejazz.com)