A User-Friendly Guide to Unlistenable Music, Vol. 3
Once again, nobody asked for this.
But the deeper I get into the extreme and conceptual music rabbit hole, the more surprised I am that my eardrums haven't filed for divorce and yet I keep going. Every time I think I’ve heard the absolute limits of what music can do to my nervous system, somebody comes up with a new form of sonic torture. Sometimes it's louder or uglier. Sometimes it makes me regret the life decisions that brought me here. But what am I gonna do if I don't? Subscribe to fucking SiriusXM?
This new selection has a bit of everything: classics of sonic sadism, open challenges to you idea of what music is or should be, forms of auditory violence that will make you question whether going deaf would lead you to a more peaceful life, stuff interrogators wouldn't even play in Abu Grahib and then some. This is probably the most inaccessible selection I've put together so far and somewhere within, I feel a fleeting sense of pride. I hope you become as obsessed with it as I am.
Enjoy.
Prurient - Pleasure Ground
The only man who could go toe-to-toe with Pulse Demon and Venerology-era Merzbow in terms of sheer intensity and hostility. Mid-00's Prurient was not meant to be enjoyed. He was meant to be endured. An album like Pleasure Ground created bonds between listeners usually reserved for survivors of natural disasters. Dominick Fernow’s cruel and unusual use of high-frequency feedback put you on fight-or-flight the way a jump scare would in a horror movie, except that it lasts for eleven minutes.
Prurient is not as maximalist as other harsh noise artists. He’s writing actual songs he's delivering haunting vocal performances too and it feels personal as much as it feels threatening. On Pleasure Ground, you can also hear some of the more nuanced ambient texture that he would characterize his later material like on the song Outdoorsman Indestructible. Because that isn’t his most unlistenable record. Oh no, Pleasure Ground is his most unlistenable record I can still pretend to enjoy.
There is Black Vase and The History of AIDS if this isn’t enough for you.
Diamanda Galás - Plague Mass
Imagine sharing an apartment with a possessed opera singer who has decided to rehearse her inevitable nervous breakdown in the living room. Her voice is powerful, commanding and agitated by a form of terror that can only come from within. At the end of a thematic trilogy on the AIDS epidemic, it’s more on the minimal side at it contains mostly percussions, keyboards and Galás cursed voice. There is no rhythm. No melody. Volume fluctuates unexpectedly. It’s tragic, but not in a way you can relate to.
What’s unnerving about this record is how spare, but unpredicable it is. You never know when Diamanda Galás is going to hit your with another shrill or whisper something that’s gonna make you feel even more uncomfortable. It’s cold, alienating and yet, there's this sliver of possessed suffering that makes Plague Mass to bewildering to walk away from. You might have a hard time to understand what to feel, but you’ll be convinced Galás is meaning every second of it.
I do not know anything that's even remotely similar to it, which is a good thing for everyone within hearing distance. This is somewhat of an AIDS-heavy edition, so far.
Gnaw Their Tongues - All the Dread Magnificence of Perversity
This project is what extreme metal sounds like to someone whose entire relationship with music begins and ends with the SiriusXM presets in their cae (come to think of it, this is turning into a suspiciously SiriusXM-heavy edition). It's just one really charming Dutch guy named Mories who managed to hybridize black metal, industrial noise, orchestral music and soundtracks to A24 movies three years before the company even existed. That’s how good that guy is.
The resulting monstrosities are obviously intense, but loose in their construction. They’re not meant to impress, they’re meant to be haunting.
As a veteran of unlistenable music, I’ve grown quite fond of All the Dread Magnificence of Perversity and the experience of listening to it has become akin to taking a stroll through a haunted hayride. But if it’s your first time it’s going to sound like you’re trapped inside a film theatre projecting the worst nightmares you’ve ever had while the staff is waterboarding your with stale fountain drinks. The music is thick, gooey and slippery, with distorted bass, tortured screams and orchestral arrangements constantly crawling over each other.
Nothing settles. Nothing reveals itself. I suppose that's what makes a good haunting. You can leave whenever you want, but it doesn't necessarily mean that that experience is going to leave you.
Vomir - Proanomie
Call him a conceptual genuis. Call him a elite shitposter. Whatever your opinion of Romain Perrot is, you’re probably right. Vomir is a one-trick pony so committed to his fastball that is has remained efficient for twenty years now. He's one of the inventors of harsh noise wall, a subgenre of harsh noise that consists in monolithic blocks of static that somehow sounds like an hybrid between an Earthquake and a crowd stampeding out of a burning venue happening simultaneously.
There's no rhythm, no melody, no recognizable progression, which is by design. Perrot's ethos is "no ideas, no change, no development, no entertainment, no remorse".
Millions of people are listening to white noise to help them fall asleep, but you’re not gonna sleep to THIS white noise. It's bloating, obtrusive and obnoxious. It takes all the place inside your head up to a point where you’re unable to think anymore and that's the point. Harsh noise wall is an ultra nihilistic spin off an already nihilistic genre. It’s suppose to transport you into states of non-being. It's an experience where the music gives you absolutely nothing to engage with until your brain starts inventing things to make it bearable. But people have been coming back for more.
Full of Hell & Merzbow - Sister Fawn
I hesitated before putting Full of Hell on this list since they're one of my favorite bands, but they've graduated from the university of noise with a 4.0 GPA and decided to pursue a PhD in auditory torture. This is the least known, almost forgotten collaboration with Merzbow and there's a reason for that. It's abstract and hostile. This is the most difficult album to listen in this selection after Pleasure Ground. Part of it is the overbearing use of feedback. Part of it is the unending Litany of Desire at the end, which make you feel like a malfunctioning appliance is trying to drive you insane.
Full of Hell are mostly a metal and powerviolence band that uses noise as a fulcrum to keep their songs volatile and unpredictable, but this is not a metal record. This is straight up harsh noise and Sister Fawn is up there with the most uncompromising albums of the genre. I don't even think Dylan Walker is singing on this one. All I can hear is Dave Bland's drumming and Merzbow covering everything in electronic filth.
I assume Walker and Spencer Hazard have contributed to the proceedings, but I have no idea who does what and I don't think you will either. You're probably not even going to finis that thing because unlike me, you have self-respect. Apparently, it was originally a bonus disc included with their other collaboration (hence the name), which was much more Full of Hell-leaning. Extra punishment delivered for free. That's customer service for you.
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