Bad Kharma/Lasse Marhaug/Grunt: Scandinavian Noise Manifesto
CD - Jazzassin/Bonbon/Freak Animal, Norway/Sweden/Finland - 1998
Reviews:
Lasse Marhaug/Bad Kharma/Grunt: Scandinavian Noise Manifesto
The disk so stuffed with clamor and clangor that it took three labels -
Jazzassin (Sweden), Bonbon (Norway) and Freak Animal (Finland) - to get it
out to the masses. Three creative emissaries from the Scandinavian
underground, bringing us scenes from a maul, from the seventh (clubbed) seal
and from a room with a view to a kill. But are we ready for the untold
terrors of crispy stoneground wheat wafers?
Glow-lamps? childs' play! Metal, water, stones, salt, a CAT scanner, a
bible? Yawn. But you have to admire Bad Kharma's accomplishment - creating
23 minutes of absorbingly textured activity using nothing but Wasa crackers!
Yes, the Swedish crispbread - here "smashed, grated, chewed, crumbled,
fx'ed, played on turntables" and even "thrown across the room." Probably
with a triumphant, "Ha! Top this one, Nakajima!" You're unlikely to find
yourself thinking "A ha! Crackers!" at too many points. Ronnie Sundin is
restless and inventive enough that you're far more likely to envision:
fuming volcanic vents, poetically gentle rain pittering and pattering down
the shutters, closely miked seltzer water and leaf-munching caterpillars,
hungry bone-crunching ogres, rush-hour traffic, millitary-band radio
tappings, ionospheric repartee, dead-station electrical snow, shellings
heard from a welcome distance - and scouring atomic blasts experienced from
within less-healthful proximity. But don't allow such "penguin on a purple
iceberg" insinuations to alter your own impressions. Quite ingenious and
very, very amusing.
Off to Norway for a little standard noise-sport with Lasse Marhaug. He slaps
Incapacitants in the karaoke deck and a fresh tape in the recorder during a
show in Trondheim (feral outbursts: Kim X-Mazz), settles into Merzbow's
autopilot-mode with fairly bracing results ("Polar Circles"), takes the
'voice and violence' raree on the road - earning Marhaug that coveted
Throbbing Gristle merit badge at a Bergen performance - and finally douses a
reel of "Himmel og Helvete" with molten - almost mellifluously magmatic -
feedback. Not a bad show at all.
The seven tracks by Grunt are far more troubling. Mikko Aspa's title
implications - "Domestic Violence," "Family Life" and "Innocence Kills" -
mingle with the Ingmar Bergman-does-Tobe Hooper killing-floor ambience and
unnatural abattoir stillness of early Lustmord to chill you to the very
marrow. The dull clang of meathooks and the tendrils of anguished screams
are just too audible amid the grainy 8mm hiss. Far too "audio verité" for
comfort. Imagine piping the audio (not sound) track of "Henry: Portrait of a
Serial Killer" through your headphones - for its entertainment value! If
Grunt's aim is to rattle, then these macabre vignettes of post- massacre
crimesites are all too successful. What began with a chuckle ends with a
shiver. Despite he enclosed snapshots (an axe, a noose, etc), Aspa is
apparently NOT exploiting tragedy. His music expresses his sincere concerns
about the "Finnish Syndrome," confronting those social problems which face
his native land - the domestic terrors of alcoholism, spousal abuse, incest
and their reprehensible kin - through sound. Fair enough, perhaps even
admirable - but the results scrape too close to the bone for listening
purposes. I think I prefer to have my noise delivered without a
"philosophy." Pass me those Wasa crackers, please. Yep, that's more my
speed.
(Gil Gershman, Motion)
Lasse Marhaug/Bad Kharma/Grunt: Scandinavian Noise Manifesto
Comes in one of those flimsy box packages, with lots of printed cards and
booklets inside, polar bears, strange photos and such - an introduction/liner
note (printed in English) by Toshiji Mikawa of the Incapacitants. BAD KHARMA,
LASSE MARHAUG and GRUNT collaborate. Bad Kharma do a 26 minute piece with
several different sounding sections, using sounds recorded from a regional snack
cracker called "Wasa" ....yes, thats right, a snack cracker. Let no one say that
the noise scene is too serious....this track alone should make up for at least
ten years of tied-up japanese girls and serial killer tributes. Thing about it
is, the track is pretty damn good, harsh like Merzbow in one place, slower and
softer in the next. Very listenable actually. Lasse Marhaug has four of his own
tracks, the first being a live piece from Trondheim; harsh with frantic voices
smashed and corroded in the background. Some other are vertiable storms of
overload textures, slowly evolving and changing like a sonic wind. Grunt seem to
be the most powerful here, with a harrowing attack of power-electronics themed
on problems he sees in his country; alchoholism, incest, child-abuse, suicide -
spread out over seven tracks with titles like "Family Life", "Inbred Community"
and "Innocence Kills". All set to a nearly vocal-less backdrop of deep, low-end
noise and pounding industrial sounds. The pieces are very well-made, dark and
angry without being bothersome in that way some political noise projects can be.
And it holds the attention, maybe too much so, for by the end of the Grunt
tracks, the listener has had the last shred of hope squeezed from him. Not your
typical noise compilation, a standout.
(Manifold) |
