I went to a noise gig last week. Deepkiss 720 was plugging and unplugging a mountain of modified antique equipment, and the resulting sonic tsunami was mind-melting. The ceiling was crying dust onto our heads. An audience member invited to participate received a nasty electric shock. All but the most hardcore edged out of the room and observed from the street, faces pressed against the window. Someone's nose started bleeding because her piercing vibrated so violently to the bass. A guy had a seizure. An ambulance was called. My mates hated it. I won't bring them next time. I went home grinning like a fucking idiot.
Welcome to the noise. And here is a brief, tip-of-the-iceberg guide to some of the most out-there sounds out there...
THE CAST
DJ SCOTCH EGG
DJ Scotch Egg makes eardrum-raping music from a Game Boy and a megaphone turned up to 11, resulting in a sound he says is "wrong". I say it's right.
BARON BUM BLOOD
Tinnitus-inducing insanity, like being vomited on by some angry digital god. The only way to appease him is to drill holes in your brain, record it, and play the sounds to a roomful of very small children.
BLOOD STEREO
Dylan Nyoukis and Karen Constance have their fingers in all sorts of mutant sonic pies; pseudo-mystical freak-out sound-splatterists who could have been the next Sonny and Cher if they hadn't discovered the mushrooms growing in the school playing fields...
DEEPKISS 720
A dirty bomb of frequencies, farts, sparks, wires and a tension created by the possibility that at any moment the whole thing might explode, man. Don't get too near those speakers, puny mortals.
SMELL & QUIM
Mysterious, hypnotic, psychotic, erotic genius, like the most enjoyable eruption of genital warts you ever got.
Hello. Can you describe your music please?
S&
'Music' is an interesting, flattering and polite term. I don't know that I would call it music myself. It is noise.
DJSE: Mine's about being obsessed with KFC! People call it KFC-CORE.
BBB: I make 'Dentist music' - sounds that produce the same discomfort you'd expect from a trip to the dentist.
BS: Blood Stereo started a few years back, when we decided to start recording together - late-night alcohol-fuelled retarded drones and such. Lowbrow psych noise? Garbage sound? Xerox psychedelia? Throatwave?
DK720: The equipment that scares me I tend to use less. I've had things sparking out of the sockets before and the stuff I'm using at the moment can give electric shocks or short circuit if I touch the wrong leads at the same time.
Q: Why noise?
BBB: It allows me to sit in my garden in the freezing cold with a microphone and a bag of forks that I chuck at a wooden fence, how many other forms of 'music' can boast that?
Are there any characteristics to help define noise?
BS: We're both non-musicians - ain't never found that a hindrance, though. A blessing? An extra chromosome? Can't think of anything more depressing than trudging through the same old crud night after night. Missionary position, man.
What can we expect from you live?
S&
I wish I knew. We're opposed to the 'dick with the table fulla effects pedals' school of noise and prefer the 'working men's club Adam Ant' approach to the live show.
DK720: At one of my gigs, someone got punched in the face for enjoying my set, then my gear was knocked over and I was asked to stop. But when the guy swung at me I finally walked off. I accidentally smashed a window at another venue trying to get in, and during the performance cut my head and ear - but you know it's been a good gig when you wake up the next day and your head's stuck to the pillow with blood.
Q: Have you had many negative reactions?
BBB: To be honest, none whatsoever. Some hippie once said to me he loved bathing in the soundwaves. He needed a different kind of bath - the guy reeked proper.
S&
We do, oh by Hessiod, yes. God, those fucking Belgian fuckers were a pain in the cunt, they called armed police.
Q: Is provoking a reaction important, or just a side effect?
S&
Enjoying oneself is the priority, always.
Q: Just how important are the physical effects of noise?
BBB: If you can feel pain from the noise I make, then half my work is done. On my website I try to hurt the eyes with bright colours and flickering images - people with epilepsy should not go to my website unless they like a challenge.
DK720: At a recent show for some visiting American noisers, our PA was 1,200 watts of bass, 650 watts of midrange and 150-watt tweeters, a beautiful homemade dub system squeezed into a tiny basement no bigger than a living room. It was unscrewing the spotlights! Every so often they would flicker and go out and I had to screw them back in - it really added to the atmosphere.
Do you get many groupies?
BBB: Tons of them, is there any other reason to be in the noise business?
S&
Once upon a time. I was waking up with women half my age as well as really old women, and even an amputee on one occasion. The variation always fascinated me. Also, the unusual. Women these days seem obsessed with depilation and bush management and it's a real treat to come across one with sideys down the thighs, or a nice tash.
Q: Is filesharing destroying music?
DK720: Of course not. The music industry has done that.
BS: If it is, good. Let's make music history.
What are you working on at the moment?
DJSE: Scotch Hausen project, combining KFC-CORE and Karlheinz Stockhausen into classic Bach music. And also, starting new music movement with my friend! Which is about make peace with vegitalian people and non-vegitalian... so if you are interested to release your music with us please contact wrongmusic@hotmail.com.
BBB: I'm doing a remix CD, making noise artists' work even nastier than it was in the first place. For starters, I recorded it onto cassette and left the tape out in the sun for a month - that should get it nice and warped. There's also a split 7in with Rank Sinatra, and my new full-length on Audiobot recordings.
BS: Just about to drop on the HP Cycle label is the debut LP by Ceylon Mange (us two and Bill Nace from Vampire Belt) called The Maiming Path - it's a fucking blackened sloth nightmare...
DK720: Smell & Quim, Putrifier, Onomatopeia and myself hope to take our carnival of headache to the east coast of America this year.
How can we find more about your work?
DJSE: In the Tesco reduced section, and
you can get my album KFC CORE from Djscotchegg.com
BBB: Bbblood.co.uk
BS: Decaer Pinga/Chocolate Monk, Blood Stereo, Smack Music 7, Polly Shang Kuan Band etc can be found through Pinktoes.net
S&Q: freenoise.org
DK720: Harbingersound.org
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