Best Underground American Noise Act of the Noise-Punk Era (ca. 1998-2005)

i think this era extends to at least 2009/2010, ending with the last whartscape

Baltimore Wham Cityness A) owes so, so, so much to Fort Thunder and PaperRad and B) Completely went in sync with "internet music journalism"

There were/are great moments for sure, but it's its own era, come on

I'm with Whiney on this one. Obviously any number of these artists kept at it, and similar artists came up, but the depth and vitality of this particular iteration of noise-punk scene dwindled somewhere around a decade ago.

Also by vitality I mean the sheer number of acts releasing music and touring. It really was shocking the number of two-pieces putting together interesting noise records on, like Load, Narnack, 5RC, or just through sending CD-Rs to college ratio stations.

Baltimore Wham Cityness A) owes so, so, so much to Fort Thunder and PaperRad and B) Completely went in sync with "internet music journalism"

There were/are great moments for sure, but it's its own era, come on

― posts baloney - whine iverson (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, September 24, 2015 6:15 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

true, there was overlap but wham city wouldn't exist without fort thunder by their own admission

wham city was barely doing anything in the timeframe provided by the thread

i know, i meant band overlap, lots of them played whartscape & were still active when it ended, s'all i meant

Yellow Swans were west coast, that's why y'all be hating.

Black Dice most underrated band of the last ~~~x years?

moanwave

― posts baloney - whine iverson (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, September 24, 2015 2:45 PM (Yesterday)

moanwave (whiney knows this, but for the benefit of everyone else, and uh, posterity?): generally a solo project involving vocals, pedals, often a sampler, sometimes a drum machine and/or ipad is also used. the key element of moanwave is the vocals, which are run through effects, especially reverb (lots and lots of reverb), sometimes looped and layered, and rarely involving words. Mostly "oh" and "ooh" and "ah".

dronebro sometimes solo, sometimes in a group, 99% male. not every dude who makes drone music is a dronebro. The dronebro likes his shit loud and is often a big fan of doom metal. Sometimes the dronebro will refer to his music as doom metal or a similar genre, but there is rarely ever a drummer in dronebrodom, unless all the drummer is doing is cymbal swells, lots and lots of cymbal swells. Most dronebros play guitar or bass, occasionally violin or another classical string instrument. Some of them play analog synths, and the dronebrodown involves the esoteric expensive nature of the gear, rather than overdrive and distortion pedals run through huge amps or a powerful PA.

Hah hah, thanks Sarahell. Makes perfect sense.

I do not hate Yellow Swans. I was just underwhelmed by them considering the considerable love they get (i.e., I do not know many people who hold my opinion that are into this stuff). I was also really underwhelmed by Mouthus, who were east coast jammers. Two times I saw them it was a big ball of mush with no dynamics, but I mean this was just the two shows I saw. Could have been bad nights, which most of these bands had.

From a home listening pov, would take Halve Maen by Double Leopards over any other disc by ppl on this list

rocking some Kites right now

I think DRONEBRO is a SF phenomenon abedded by aughts Aquarius Records and their penchant for writing variations of "DOOOOOOOM" in their descriptions

That Kites/Prurient split disc on Load is great, prob all the Pru you need

ouch, reading moanwave, and thinking about many people I know and/or have dated in the Bay

PLEASURE GROUND is the only prurient you ever need

uh, Caroliner?

and this was actually the first band that came to mind for me

Kites was really cool live. I still play "Peace Trials".

Caroliner = 90snoise

Yeah Caroliner was inactive during this period. Grux was doing Rubber O Cement and Hans Grusels Krankenkabinet, Gregg was in full-on Neil Hamburger mode and Trey was doing Mr Bungle/Secret Chiefs. Not sure what happened to Brendan...

uh Caroliner was active during this period. Pretty sure they did at least one US tour, and I know I saw them play at least a couple local gigs.

The people you are mentioning Al, were members of Faxed Head. Different band.

ouch, reading moanwave, and thinking about many people I know and/or have dated in the Bay

― Dominique, Friday, September 25, 2015 8:52 AM (5 hours ago)

hahaha, i was gonna tell Whiney to ask geeta about her former roommate's music, which is "classic" moanwave

Did she live with Best Coast?

lol she lived with an ex-gf of Dominique

I vote for Faxed head

Dronebro is definitely not just an SF thing, there's a bunch of Portland dronebros. They are all over the country. A couple months back I saw a rarity -- a drumset dronebro who just did paradiddles for 20 minutes to a dronebro effect.

Gasp, though -- "Drome Triler of Puzzle Zoo People" is THE classic album of this period

this album is weird, schizophrenic, but oddly beautiful

SIGHTINGS

worth mentioning-
needlegun
dj dog dick
narwhalz (of sound)
teeth mountain
grasslung
wzt hearts

― flappy bird, Thursday, September 24, 2015 4:31 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

BMORE ZOO

i find it hard to jam to recordings of this a lot of this shit. just too brutal for almost any conceivable listening context. i put on a hair police bootleg on the way to work the other day and it hurt so much (on earbuds) i had to turn it off. but def some of the rawest live sets of all time. fat worm of error were like the closest to the ideal of the weirdest captain beefheart jams. i still think about that set all the time, there was so much space in between everything, everyone careful not to make their weird squiggly sound at exactly the same time. i opened for wolf eyes once, they were playing some dumbass festival that made them sign a contract saying they wouldn't play any other shows in town within 3 months so they were the secret headliners. they were such fucking pros. i saw sightings once, i actually like their records and their set was impressive but it gave me a headache. love reading whiney's heartfelt descriptions of this scene. i think this scene and the diy sleeping on couches circuit still exists though.

needle gun was sexy as hell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKlpzSYhr0M

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

good poll; i somehow missed the Yellow Swans during this era, i'll have to check them out.

what is it people like about wolf eyes?

They've heard of them.

Shocked this poll got as many votes as it did. Could an Anthony Braxton fan contingent have pushed Wolf Eyes over the top? Thought Prurient would be higher, but maybe the ILX metal community didn't notice this poll. (Prurient's made some decent inroads into metal-land lately; his last album was on Profound Lore.)

Def worth analyzing the, like, 35 votes

Pretty easy to say "what is it people like about _______" for any of these bands. A highly variable and "not for everyone" list of bands. Wolf Eyes sure were fun to see live in a small room, especially during the Dilloway days, but I mean your fun may not be mine. As far as setting a mood though they were pretty masterful at it.

Def worth analyzing the, like, 35 votes

64. Again, a surprisingly high number.

shocked to see Yellow Swans in second when I didn't even remember to vote for them D:

also I would've expected Hair Police to place higher, if only because their name

Mouthus deserved more than 0

Yellow Swans are/were terrible band, and truly terrible people as well. Yikes ILM.

please describe what makes them terrible people.

One of the members was caught stealing from a business that I was associated with and the way he handled himself throughout the entire episode was pretty... terrible! But even worse: their music.

also I would've expected Hair Police to place higher, if only because their name

― Songs from a One Room House in an Uninteresting Location (bernard snowy), Wednesday, October 21, 2015 12:08 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, also they were awesome. I expected them to be one of the "tied for second place" acts.

Also for the grumbling about Wolf Eyes winning just for being the most famous act here, it's worth saying that they made really good records and absolutely slayed live. They deserved any success they got, even if you're annoyed by there being "one noise band everyone's heard of."

Also, yeah Wolf Eyes won easily, but the voting for this poll is pretty damn diffuse! It's not as though there was a lack of love for the less famous bands, they split 53 votes among them!

as in he shoplifted a razor from Walgreens or ?

lol at "Yikes ILM." Sorry for not knowing about the crimes and personal flaws of obscure Portland noise band Yellow Swans!