Anything On Your Mind?
Well, it is not apparent from the publishing schedule, but I had myself a little break there. I pushed a month and a half or so ahead in posts, and have spent that time not writing for the site. It’s part of the reason the new releases have been a little behind the times in those articles. I did this because I was going to have some travel, and I wanted to get far enough ahead to make sure I could keep the twice-weekly schedule. Consistency is important, after all! I mean, the time when I published literally every single day for more than two years was the key to establishing my core audience of…hmm…
Anyway, it’s now solidly the autumn, and I’m actually writing this in said season. Last blog post, I talked about autumn being noise rock territory, so I thought I’d go ahead and investigate the noise rock tag on Bandcamp! Why not!
Tag Sale!
The last one of these was more than two months ago, which seems like a reasonable amount of time for things to change up on the charts. I guess we’ll find out. For those who missed that article and don’t feel like clicking through, Tag Sale is where I look at the tags on Bandcamp and see if there are any records that I’m curious about and want to check out. It’s some combination of looking at album covers, band names, and just random poking. Is it productive? Ehhhh. But it’s the closest I get to digging through bins these days.
Noise Rock
If I could only listen to one genre for the rest of my life, would it be noise rock? I’m not sure, honestly. Probably not. It’s a pretty narrow genre. But I’d have to at least consider it. It’s been with me for quite a while now, given my encounter with Big Black in high school, and I’d for sure miss it.
What makes noise rock, anyway? I’m probably not up for a taxonomic exercise right now (EDITOR JOSH: clearly you are, dummy), but for me, beyond the distortion and, er, noise, it’s the bass that might best distinguish the genre from other heavy music. Not only should it be present, loud, and distorted, but it needs to occupy space in the mix. There’s a frequent sound you hear with these bands with the bass front and center and the guitar(s) playing some trebly riff that is sonically pretty far away. The rhythm and melody (“melody”?) are playing off each other, but they’re not interfering with each other. The Jesus Lizard, of course, did a lot of this, such as the masterful “Monkey Trick”, which is a perfect song.
In a lot of other heavy music, the bass isn’t often driving the song. It might be just adding weight to the riffs, it might not really be around, it might be doing some fretless fusion thing, but there’s often not really space in the songs for it to be prominent. Noise rock will often lay out and let the rhythm section just go, and the bass is just really important to a lot of this stuff.
The other thing I’d highlight is that the tempo of noise rock is usually pretty measured compared to a lot of metal, hardcore, or other loud guitar genres. Noise rock bands can rip it (again, I’ll look to the Jesus Lizard and “Rope”), but that’s not the default mode. The drums are often pretty elaborate and interesting in these bands, but they aren’t playing at breakneck speed.
Anyway, these are a couple of the big markers that I look for that helps distinguish this stuff from other heavy genres. There are more, for sure, but they’re two of the keys for me. So let’s have a look at the noise rock tag on Bandcamp and see what we see. Well, what we see is a lot of Chat Pile. To be expected, I guess. Dinosaur Jr.? Not noise rock! That Rhododendron record is really good, but I’ve got it (and it was there last time we looked at this tag). Djunah? Not noise rock either to my ears. This is going great so far.
All right, here’s a band I know nothing about, never heard of them. i26connector doesn’t look like noise rock, but let’s have a listen. Aaand, that’s pretty clearly indie rock. Well, how about Gurriers? Nope. Lesse, Cherubs, sure, but I have that record. A couple of JG Thirwell soundtracks - great, but not noise rock. Zeni Geva? Hell yeah, brother, but also not noise rock. Noisy, sure. But that’s not the same. I’ve already got that Foreign Body record. Let’s have a click into Vylet Pony. Well, uh, not for me and very obviously not noise rock. Or no wave, which it also claims in the tags.
I guess we keep clicking? Unrest from Blurred City Lights is more industrial than it is anything else. Towards Happiness from Feldup is…theater kid music? Start Laughing from Circuit Circuit is mathcore. All of this genre quibbling from me is probably tiring, but I guess it is maybe pointing me towards a couple things. One, there just aren’t that many noise rock bands working out there and I apparently know about most of them. Two, Bandcamp tags are a huge mess. I know this, of course, but still. Third, that doesn’t make any of these records bad (I didn’t listen to any of them for that long), but I’m just trying to hunt up some stuff from one of my favorite genres.
Onward! The Planets from Ivan the Tolerable! Good band name! But:
Middlesbrough multi-instrumentalist Oli Heffernan returns under his Ivan The Tolerable moniker with his most conceptually ambitious project to date: a complete, ground-up reimagining of Gustav Holst’s iconic 1918 suite The Planets, completely overhauled for the anxiety and isolation of 2026.
Come on, man! Sigh. Dead Neanderthals, got it. Porcelain? Yup, pre-ordered. Health? Industrial. Backflip Soundtrack by Spring Breeding? This is…I don’t know what this is. All right, maybe we’ve got one here:
It doesn’t sound super noise rock to me, but it instead kind of sounds like Melvins in a particular mode. Sort of “The Talking Horse” (although, you know, with only one drummer). Anyway, I had fun checking it out, and it’s an Amphetamine Reptile release (with artwork from Hazelmeyer!) so let’s do it.
Great, let’s resume. No Dancing Allowed from Huremic? Well, I’m intrigued enough to wishlist it to check out more in-depth later, but not noise rock. Great Falls? Good reminder to pre-order the next record. Shearling, USA Nails, more Chat Pile, I just want to find something else that I don’t know about. Oh! What have we here?
I don’t know this band, but I’ve enjoyed the first couple tracks, and I’m not going to quibble about definitions any more. Bought that! Let’s scroll some more. Daydream Nation? All right! I think we’re done here. Good work today!
Five Random Songs
Yes, it’s the “classic” five random songs format. It’s been told before on this blog many times, but basically, on an old forum, people would post the last five songs their shuffle pulled up. I liked it, so I made it into a blog. And now, here we are.
“Cool Your Jets”, Man or Astro-Man?
This is the closer to Intravenous Television Continuum, their fourth record, and it kind of serves more as an outro than as a proper song. Good start to our playlist! Sometimes I really wonder if I should give myself just a little bit of control around the playlist.
“8 Bit Blues (Chicago to LA to NY)”, Kid Koala
One of the things that really makes a DJ truly great is their ability to marry sounds together that might not totally make sense. To be able to take disparate things and find the connection and then juxtapose them in a way that creates something new. Kid Koala is one of the best, and this record is a great example. Largely assembled from old blues recordings, it’s pretty striking stuff, retaining plenty of character of the original recordings while still being something recognizably new. Impressive stuff.
“Never Gonna Give You Up”, The Black Keys
I’m gonna be catty here: …and now, for a way to take old records and not make something new!
“Irradiated Self”, Ectovoid
Via the unstoppable Wolf Rambatz, Ectovoid is playing death metal and with that excellent drumming, this record just hits right. It’ll probably show up on my year-end roundup.
“An Archer in the Emptiness”, Inter Arma
Inter Arma are one of the best metal bands going, and 2016’s Paradise Gallows is a career highlight in a career filled with highlights, a restless record that tries on many styles but does it all well.
Josh, What Are You Doing Here?
I’m just writing about music. A structure like this blog helps me get my thoughts out, and it’s a way for me to explore my own music collection through various lenses. My sincere hope is that some folks out there find some new music they love. That’s all I’m up to. Sincere thanks to everybody who sends me feedback, with news that they’ve found a new favorite especially fun for me. There’s no monetization, no metrics, no ads, no promos, no nothing. Just some static web pages, some links, and my scribbling. If you want to support it, just shoot me a note! Thanks for reading.
Some Better Places To Learn About Music
Check these folks out, you’ll learn more for sure. In no particular order: To The Teeth, Wolf’s Week/Plague Rages, The Devil’s Mouth, Burning Ambulance, Lamniformes Cuneiform, Hex Records, See/Saw, Starkweather, Treble Magazine, The Quietus, Stereogum.