uSSSy

Love the cover.

Mostly instrumental post-noise rock agitation from Russia; Appealingly spare, frantic and occasionally rather catchy. Songs range from the short and sweet (below) to extended feedback drones. Related bands include I Am Above on the Left & Kruzer Ken.

wild moustaches

УСЫ

ZK Samplers : Slice Of Reality

Collecting early releases from ZK records (who put out lots of great 90's Japanese underground stuff), this comp was came out in 2001 and contains some goodies.

Too eclectic for me to sum up with any sort of accuracy, I'll just say there's some pretty interesting stuff on here(check tags for genres).

1.BLUE THINKING : 痛郎 (itaro)
2.BO BO 67 : Surfers Of Romantica
3.Sodomie : 有 (yu)
4.3-120792 : Yellow Cab
5.BONE BREAKING MOTHER FUCKER : SUNSHINE SUPER SCUM
6.CHINESE KING LOBSTER : MONDO BONGO JAPAN
7.ピピコー娘[CASTLE OF ILLUSION] : KOREAN BUDDHIST GOD)
8.Senorita : THEマニラ帰り (Manila Kaeri / Return from Manila)
9.Cauliflower : Elki Bran
10.OZONE HOLE : 高円寺百景 (Koenji Hyakei)
11.Hide And Seek : RUFFIANS
12.Crawl to me : COALTAR OF THE DEEPERS
13.DOLPH KILLER :　HOUSE SIDe
14.WIDE OPEN ：DADO
15.KNIFE :　CONVEX LEVEL
16.Crawl to me(Unreleased Version) : COALTAR OF THE DEEPERS
17.GODS ECHO DUB : Surfers Of Romantica
18.BREATH : 痛郎 (itaro)


SLICE OF REALITY

Ultraphallus : Lungville

I don't usually do cut and pasting on my blog. Most of the time I try to give my own descriptions and impressions of a band, incoherent or inaccurate though they may be. Here I would like to make an exception. From the band's site:

Band’s name ULTRAPHALLUS is a homage and the real name given to Michael Jackson’s father, Joe Jackson, who raped and educated his children hardly…Joe Jackson is the Ultimate Father…For All, he IS the Ultraphallus. & : The group is a hypnotic noise-rock inspired by expressionism of black and white movies from the debut of the last century and influenced by the negativity of human behaviour. The ULTRAPHALLUS cult is motived by a visceral theory about masculine contamination.

So there you have it. I'm really not sure quite how serious they are, but the music is excellent in any case.

LUNGVILLE

Thema Eleven : Choose Your Beast

Thema Eleven are from the Czech Republic, and their sound is rooted in crust but also incorporates elements of sludge and 'post-hardcore' (neo-crust? shit...I don't know...) by which I mean that their songs on occasion featured extended instrumental sections and do not necessarily conform to standard verse-chorus-verse stuff (and if you've got some more satisfactory term sure and let me know)- elements of their sound & dynamics remind me of Lvmen, an excellent Czech band that I'm quite fond of, though Thema Eleven are more vocal-heavy.




Dark and moody stuff with a nice mix of heavy walls of sound, at times pretty instrumentation, good loud-soft dynamics & vocals which are more anguished than enraged. The tracks are punctuated with creepy spoken-word samples that help to set the tone: very bleak but occasionally beautiful stuff.

Their follow-up to this, The Great Misanthrope, is as good if not better, and they've also made a plethora of split & compilation appearances.

CHOOSE YOUR BEAST

Cable : Gutter Queen

Great (r.i.p.) band which you probably know if you're here. This was their second release and came out on Hydrahead.

The cover image captures the sound. Hard-living, hard-luck noisy as fuck rock with raw-throat whiskey-soaked misanthrope vocals.

Later stuff is even better.

Gutter Queen (99)