Opeth/Nile/Tiamat Vs Fudge Tunnel/Godflesh/Squarepusher. Who Pushed Boundaries Of 'Extreme Music' Further?

comus were essentially a folk group who performed a demented, pagan music that might've verged on rock in intensity (particularly in the quite mad vocals). "first utterance" has some amazing moments and is also, allegedly, a prime influence on current 93; sort of the musical equivalent of "the great god pan."

Maryanne Amacher, Sound Characters (Tzadik, TZ 7043) CD
Blowhole, A Love Extreme (Zabriskie Point, Point 3) LP
Borbetomagus stuff - getting a copy of their rec with Hugh Davies in the mail soon!
Caroliner (?)
Kevin Drumm, Sheer Hellish Miasma (Mego, 053) CD
John Duncan, Tap Internal (Touch, Touch Tone 11) CD
Harley Gaber, The Winds Rise in the North (Titanic, Ti 16-17) 2LP
Halo of Flies, Fuck the World, Fuck You (Pubic Pop Can, ppcp3) LP
Harry Pussy, s/t (Siltbreeze, no number) LP
Harry Pussy, s/t (no label, no number) LP
Russell Haswell, Live Salvage 1997->2000 (Mego, 012) CD
Paul Lytton/David Toop/Max Eastley/Paul Burwell/Annabel Nicolson/Evan Parker/Hugh Davies/Paul Lovens, Circadian Rhythm (Incus, 33) LP
Men's Recovery Project, Frank Talk about Humans (Vinyl Communications, VC70) CD
To Live and Shave in L.A., The Wigmaker in 18th Century Williamsburg (Menlo Park, MPK 7020 CD) 2CD
Xenakis (?)
Zbigniew Karkowski & Peter Rehberg, Pop: Album (Tochnit Aleph, 034) LP

This could mean a whole lot of different things.

Basically i dont see 'Extreme Music' as being Metal only, as TERRORIZER would have us believe. (not that i have a problem with TERRORIZER) Those metal bands are the only ones im familiar with. No doubt metalheads could add more.

But that album is much more extreme than Nile - who seem like pretty standard death metal fare to me - anyway. Well, with an Egyptian vibe, I suppose, but coming from the same old place.

The only reason I remember Fudge Tunnel is that once I saw the video for their cover of "Sunshine of Your Love", way back when I was in high school. I thought it was awesome, but at the time I couldn't find their stuff.

I'd think that bands like Opeth and Tiamat are not really pushing any boundaries, other than mixing prog with mediocre metal, and goth with mediocre metal respectively. In a sense, what they do does mix two genres but not really innovating in either - in that respect is Opeth an exact replica of Dream Theater, a band that was incredibly proficient and respected out of its original habitat, but in the end didn't really pushed any envelopes or had much lasting *nfluence.

But if you're talking about metal, I'd say a few developments did push the envelope:

-the Napalm Death/Beherit school of chromatic crust/grind bursts-of-chaos

-the Darkthrone/Ildjarn school of ambient/droning melodic noiseshaping

-the Suffocation/Kataklysm/Cryptopsy/Gorguts school of unrelenting hypercomplexity

Bob Snoom is certainly right that a lot of the stuff pushed as "extreme" black metal is fairly traditional in structure, especially the post-'95 generation which pursued a fusion between the "purer" and harsher earlier styles (ie, the Darkthrone/Ildjarn style mentioned above, and the chaotic Beherit approach) with older traditional rock and heavy metal, and loads of other more musically conventional genres (goth, prog, folk, classical/romanticism). While the thrust towards the musically extreme ran out of steam circa 1995 (just like Gorguts did at the time of Obscura), the current idea of playing traditionalist music with the aesthetics of extremer styles isn't very interesting (in a sense, metal is digesting, recapitulating its mad rush forward of 1985-1995 here). I'm not sure in what direction it will head once the momentum picks up again - if you take the Ildjarn route much further in stripping down more and more of the music and adding more and more noise you end up in the Merzbow school of pure noise, and the ultra-slow Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine/Khanate approach sounds far too close to "Sigur Ros with distortion" to be very viable either.

I would probably love that record much more if I hadn't heard Obscura first.

BURMESE for everyone!!

eg bernard gunther / morton feldman i find more "extreme" than most death metal

oh, statements like this give me a headache.

i like prog, i like noise, i like metal - more on the stoney, sabbath-y tip, and i've had an embarrassing fling with my high school love Metallica lately, but i've never gotten into black metal

i went to the Aquarius site last night and listened to a bunch of stuff. it all seemed to lack any low end frequencies and the music sounded pretty much like normal metal with blast beats and screamy growlier vocals.

where should i start for good shit? i heard names like Emperor, Cradle of Filth, Ulver and Darkthrone thrown around a bunch. I happened to think Satyricon was pretty cool just from the clips on the site.

As for this thread: I'm not sure but...Burzum's "Filosofum". I love that disc. Is confounding audience expectation by including a very long ambient track on a black metal album considered "pushing boundaries in extreme music?" Or making vital the connection between personal ethics (however misguided)and musical statement? Music reconciled with a motivated & extreme social
agenda? That Burzum tour poster with the words "coming to a church near you".
Mainly I love the so-called "pop-metal" tracks on Filosofum though. Not really pushing the boundaries, I guess.

Death metal - downtuned sludgy guitars and blast beats and low cookie monster screams.

At least that's how it was when I listened to the stuff. Edge of Sanity was always my favorite death metal band btw.

Death metal = Cookie Monster
Black metal = Cobra Commander
Kataklysm = both

Just dug out my old Fudge Tunnel cd's. God what a great band.

I should just really have started a Fudge Tunnel thread but maybe no one else would've posted.

everyone loves fudge tunnel.

Everyone should love Fudge Tunnel

Fudge Tunnel were great. I saw 'em in 1992 or so, with Sepultura, Fear Factory and Clutch; Newport introduced three or four songs in a row with the exact same words - "This song is about the fucked-up shittiness of life" or something similar. Never heard the last studio album, Complicated Futility Of Ignorance...was always a little curious about it. Creep Diets was one of the best albums of its year, though.

I saw Fudge Tunnel in '94 with the Pain Teens. It was awesome. Newport was wearing spandex bicycle shorts.

I bought Hate Songs in E Minor brand new and wore it out pretty quickly. Didn't follow their recordings much after that...

Complicated Futility Of Ignorance was great. I remember pre-ordering that in Our Price in Hamilton.
I'm jealous of you who saw them live. I need to try and get those eps sometime.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Fudge-Tunnel-Complicated-Futility-New-Brutal-Metal_W0QQitemZ160264110994QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item160264110994

I think you can afford that (there's another link to the same item same price)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Fudge-Tunnel-Complicated-Futility-New-Brutal-Metal_W0QQitemZ160264110994QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item160264110994

there we go and there's also Creep Diets
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Fudge-Tunnel-Creep-Diets-metal-Nailbomb-Sealed_W0QQitemZ160264464889QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item160264464889

where the fuck is my Fudgetunnel t shirt?

Need to wear it tomorrow - for Summer.

I fear it's in landfill rotting and when I dig it up it won't fit my trim tummy

Fudge Tunnel were amongst the mere handful of decent brit band back then.

Way back then. Fighting the wars against the straights and Thatch

E minor HATE

Is Alex Newport in a band now or just producing stuff these days?

best thing in the music history nice 67 where the velvet underground releast the andy whorhole album .... is the foundation off sst records
whit the releases off punk rock records in 85 ....
husker du - new day rising
husker du - flip your wig
husker du - eight miles high
i simply dont think i could imagen music today if they were never releast....

He was danish and didn't speak particularly great English

So Hate Songs is most peoples fave album then? (it's not really worth doing a poll)

I prefer Creep Diets, but a couple of songs on HS are great, and their version of "Sunshine Of Your Love" is absolutely godlike.

It's a shame Complicated Futility Of Ignorance gets ignored by so many as it's a great angry fuck you sign off for a band.

Hate Songs was a huge influence on my taste as a youngin', but the song 'Grey' on Creep Diets is one of my favorite FT songs. never really got into much else off that album though.

I saw them a few times, maybe even saw them headline once or twice, and they never failed to be awesome. Alex was just so unassuming, you almost couldn't believe the noise they generated.

My own favourite Fudge Tunnel related story: buying Swans Are Dead and TG's Grief pseudo-bootleg in a Shinjuku record shop from a young kid in a faded Hate Songs shirt (the one that just had HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE in big letters on it), for him to do the traditional Japanese bow/deference thing. Just seemed so incongruous.

Hang on, it was in Shibuya.

This is such a weird thread! I kinda like it, but it is

1st thread revival ever where no one attempts to answer the original posters question. I'm not sure I've ever heard Tiamat anyway.

I like Tiamat, or I did long ago when I last made any pretence of keeping up with metal, but they didn't strike me as particularly "extreme". Probably why I liked 'em, as I've never particularly been into Opeth or Nile.

Would I ruin it if I talked about the thread topic? Bought Zero Tolerance mag for a while, mainly cz a friend was writing for it but hey, it's nice to read about genres you don't normally make time for, and was always a little pissed off at "extreme music" splattered all over the cover. But it's just a genre umbrella term, and I'm sure they're as tired of hearing that it's shortsighted, inaccurate and self-congratulatory as I got in the IDM days. And at least ZT and Terrorizer have their token nods to non-metal followers of the "extreme" (occasional live reviews for British Murder Boys or whoever).

Have not thought about Fudge Tunnel in an age but I liked CFoI long ago; must dig it out again. Remember wanting the Nailbomb album but never got round to it: worth it?

I never bought the Nailbomb stuff either. As for Zero tolerance, I've never bought that either. Terrorizer is good enough for what i like, but I know the metalheads who think terrorizer is a mainstream metal mag like it, and I think that's enough to put me off!

This is kinda like with that Rocka Rolla magazine tho - I'd rather read Terrorizer and run the gauntlet of a few interviews with Primula power metal bands or whatever, knowing that pretty much everything is gonna be written to a reasonably high standard, than ZT which stays in the boundaries of quote-unquote 'acceptable' metal but is just not very interesting to read

I like Rocka-A-Rolla for the bands they cover more than ANY of the mags, but I know what you mean about the standard of writing.

Terrorizer is covering more Rock-A-Rolla type bands now since Joe Stannard tookover as editor though. It's the most I've enjoyed Terrorizer in years. Harvey Milk and The Heads are in this months issue.
Terrorizer is doing what Kerrang should in covering these bands. Kerrang don't even cover Isis, Sunn o))), Boris, Harvey Milk,Earth and all the bands people think are "hip". They cant be that hip if they don't get covered in the big selling mag.
Sometimes users of DFFD forum and ILM forget that what we think of as big and hip isnt even heard of in the real world.

BTW did you guys see the Kerrang Awards Nomination?
http://blog.kerrangawards.com/2008/2008/07/and_the_nominees_are.html

Terrorizer is better written (I really need to buy a copy again some time, I really like Joe Stannard's Plan B writing and I gather he's drafted a few other Plan B writers in) and covers a more interesting range of music, but ZT had a few interesting ideas (e.g. I liked that there were columns about making music - has Terrorizer done this? - though I guess "how to play teh generic diminished-scale spooky widdly solo, growl and/or wail like yr favourite extreme metal growlers and wailers, mic up drums for recording blast beats" etc etc doesn't put off people like me from grumbing about "how extreme is it to play the same generic diminished etc etc, really?").

Still my friend doesn't write for ZT any more AND I am only a blastbeat-fearing indie kid who can't get served in Oxford's Number One Rock Pub (if it hasn't been demolished yet), so a) I haven't read it for at least a year and b) you can all be as rude as you like.

How is ZT for coverage of Doom & "drone" bands?

They get stuff in there now and again - I recall there being a decent feature on power electronics a while back. I don't read it every month though so wouldn't want to rip on it even if I ever thought it was terrible, which I didn't. Also

I really like Joe Stannard's Plan B writing and I gather he's drafted a few other Plan B writers in

^^^me = one of these, which I only mention in the unlikely event anyone cares enough to think this is anonymous snark

I don't even know your real name.

Oh btw Kreation Records are re-releasing Godflesh - Streetcleaner on vinyl this year.

Hey, so, anyone wanna give me a quick brief on Fudge Tunnel? I had a pal who tried to get me into both them and Tad back in the mid '90s, and so I've kinda conflated them in my head (I ended up really liking Tad, and I think just kinda letting that overwhelm Fudge Tunnel at the time).

that Kerrang list is fucking depressing, is what

Holy crap - that list...my brain is burning...

how is squarepusher "extreme"? his whole schtick for years has just been ripping off early junglists like dillinja and lenny de ice.

J0hn and Phil otm. Did you read the comments?

how is squarepusher "extreme"? his whole schtick for years has just been ripping off early junglists like dillinja and lenny de ice.

First mention of Squarepusher in this thread outside of the thread title! What can it mean

that Kerrang list is fucking depressing, is what

-- J0hn D., Monday, July 28, 2008 8:09 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

god I hate Mindless Self Indulgence

their street team or whatever got to all the stoners in high school and they never shut up about them again

i don't even consider kerrang a metal mag. i like terrorizer! no matter who is editing it. i just like their regular features and reviews.

how is squarepusher "extreme"? his whole schtick for years has just been ripping off early junglists like dillinja and lenny de ice.

First mention of Squarepusher in this thread outside of the thread title! What can it mean

It might mean someone answers the original posters question about JG Thirwell & Godflesh finally?

or not

As far as I know (and I interviewed Thirlwell a couple of months ago for a Wire Invisible Jukebox, during which we talked about his days as the go-to rock/metal remix guy) he's never worked with Broadrick in any capacity.

There's a complete list of everybody Thirlwell has done remixes for here, by the way.

My own favourite Fudge Tunnel related story: buying Swans Are Dead and TG's Grief pseudo-bootleg in a Shinjuku record shop from a young kid in a faded Hate Songs shirt (the one that just had HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE in big letters on it), for him to do the traditional Japanese bow/deference thing. Just seemed so incongruous.

Class

^ always do this. Unprepared rubbish. Made me laugh that post ^^

Been listening to Tiamat's Wildhoney, my favorite song is "The Ar", was a little dismayed to see the word "aryan" in the lyrics but I think it's an anti-Nazi song and I cant find anything through a search engine to the contrary.

not sure this helps

CoC: Concerning the lyrics on _Wildhoney_, I'm still rather puzzled by the lyrics to the song "The AR" -- they're very cryptic and strange lyrics.

JE: The AR is the original pentagram from the Sumerian tradition. It's the five-pointed star, where one point is heading upwards, like a symbol of man, you know, like the Da Vinci sign? So it was pretty much about that symbol -- I was very much into symbols at that time, and how very strong they could be for people.

CoC: Was the fact that you mentioned the aryan race in this song related to the strength of symbols developed by the third Reich, I mean the way in which they literally defied their army and the war?

JE: Not at all, actually. Of course, I've been asked this question before, I knew I would be asked this before I decided to use the lyrics. The thing is that the AR was the original pentagram, and it was also short for the sign of the aryan race. The symbol was called like this by the people who lived some 5000 years ago in the place now called Iraq. I didn't want to censor myself, because I knew that this could be understood wrongly, now, in this century, but I thought "that's not what I'm writing about, so even if people get it wrong, I'd better explain it and stand for it". I didn't want to change it, and now, I'm stealing the chance to explain this to your readers.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SqXYL7wzOwkJ:www.chroniclesofchaos.com/articles.aspx%3Fid%3D1-246+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=pt

Thanks, but I'm more confused now.

That scans a bit like people that cite the swastika as a Native American symbol. Like, it's easy enough to avoid using, you know?

just looked up treblinka (their original band name) and found out it was a polish concentration camp