taking sides: sheer hellish miasma vs. satanstornade

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i bought 'sheer hellish miasma' because i wanted to see just how ungodly LOUD an album could be mastered and figured i'd listen to it for thirty seconds and then put it away forever ... well a week later it's still rocking my world. though i suppose this has something to do with the fact that my brain is processing it as a melvins or earth album and not a propah 'noise' album.

so, is satanstornade any good? i heard a review say something to the effect that merzbow ups the ante by going 100% digital - is that just nonsense or what? is drumm's insistence on guitar conservatism his saving grace?

― vahid (vahid), Monday, 26 May 2003 03:08 (twenty-two years ago)

It's pretty good Vahid - it's like standard Merzbow but more uptight and furious. Perhaps you just get used to ithis stuff, but I find the older Merzbow relaxing, ambient even.

It is nicely spatial. It will probably damage your hearing, but the cover recommends you listen at high volume through headphones. This has led to much confusion on the part of passengers on trains and lifts, who can clearly hear the high frequency blasting coming out of my headphones and start looking around for an accident.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Monday, 26 May 2003 05:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Uh, I don't think Sheer Hellish Miasma was done with guitars. At least, I'm too lazy to look on the sleeve, but I don't think so anyway. If it doesn't say anything (and I'm not corrected by tomorrow) I can always ask.

Also, Satanstornade is good. The only Merzbow-related thing I own.

― hstencil, Monday, 26 May 2003 05:50 (twenty-two years ago)

hstencil: s.h.m. is all sourced from guitar and accordion, believe it or not!

― vahid (vahid), Monday, 26 May 2003 05:59 (twenty-two years ago)

wait now, accordian? Shit I don't remember that at all. Of course I'm too lazy and drunk to walk over to my cd case, but whoa, that's weird. I just remember seeing Kevin a bunch of times around that period (tho not at the Sheer Hellish Miasma show) and he was playing his (now broken) suitcase synth, primarilly.

― hstencil, Monday, 26 May 2003 06:02 (twenty-two years ago)

i might need to hear that drumm record. the other things hes done i find unlistenable.
satanstornade rocks!

― gaz (gaz), Monday, 26 May 2003 09:41 (twenty-two years ago)

give me triangles over any of this (props to hstencil).

― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 26 May 2003 09:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, 'Triangles' is one of those great 'lost' recs already - is that just Drumm on his own, or w/someone else?

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Monday, 26 May 2003 11:14 (twenty-two years ago)

isn't triangles kevin w/leif elggren (sp?) - or at least that's what the cover intimates.

"sheer hellish miasma" i didn't 'get', still haven't 'got', seemed to me to be a real step backward after the first two drumm records. of course i haven't heard it in a while so my newly noised-up listening practices may be kinder towards it.

"satanstornade" is great ... but you should check that "24 hours - a day of seals" box. wow, is that a great record.

isn't this new drumm thing meant to be another wander into kevin's noisegarden?

― jon dale, Monday, 26 May 2003 12:41 (twenty-two years ago)

'sheer hellish' is grebt I think in a post- metal machine music sort of way but then again i've never heard 'triangles' or any other druum record.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 26 May 2003 12:46 (twenty-two years ago)

hstencil says (and i trust him) that triangles is just kevin, leiff provided some artwork but only that.

― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 26 May 2003 15:18 (twenty-two years ago)

"land of lurches" crushes all bow before it. (i thought "sheer hellish miasma" was pretty dull.)

― your null fame (yournullfame), Monday, 26 May 2003 15:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Toby played 'Sheer Hellish Miasma' this morning whilst I was in the shower and his housemate C was in the kitchen. Both C and I thought he was doing the vacuming. So he played it again and, well, it still sounded like vacuming. You can even hear the bits where the hoover crashes into the skirting board. Not music's finest hour IMO.

― Anna (Anna), Monday, 26 May 2003 17:54 (twenty-two years ago)

haha its not the sound of a vaccum cleaner to me. use headphones sez i.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 26 May 2003 17:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Taking sides: Dr. C's My Bloody Valentine Hoover vs. Toby's Kevin Drumm Hoover vs. Hoover Bass!

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Monday, 26 May 2003 18:19 (twenty-two years ago)

i bought 'sheer hellish miasma' because i wanted to see just how ungodly LOUD an album could be mastered and figured i'd listen to it for thirty seconds and then put it away forever ...

try importing any track from it into a digital editor to look at the waveforms... it's completely insane. it's a wonder it actually sounds like anything when you play it, the waveform is just a series of clipped rectangles. weirdly overrated record, though not a bad one.

― jl, Monday, 26 May 2003 20:50 (twenty-two years ago)

i wanna see some sides taking from people (other than jon dale) who've got both.

anna your logic is spurious. all music from down the hallway sounds like housework when you're in the shower. (gamelan = someone doing dishes, street rap = someone sweeping the floor, dub = neighbor mowing the lawn, etc...)

― vahid (vahid), Monday, 26 May 2003 21:20 (twenty-two years ago)

lol vahid. a new thread for what things sound like from the shower?

― gaz (gaz), Monday, 26 May 2003 23:51 (twenty-two years ago)

a quote that i found today that i want to put here:

"...in the grips of his first Ecstasy experience, Robin Woodfield suddenly realises why house music is so called: 'Because you just want to live in it.'"

― vahid (vahid), Tuesday, 27 May 2003 01:02 (twenty-two years ago)

was it all the big billboards everywhere saying KEVIN DRUMM! SHEER HELLISH MIASMA! that made you decide it was "overrated?"

jeez you people fucking bug me.

― hstencil, Tuesday, 27 May 2003 03:38 (twenty-two years ago)

on the mego s/d thread it is called:

"fantastic stuff"
"arguably the strong[est] Kevin Drumm release"
"brilliant"

over here it's rated:

"much better than Metal Machine Music"
"beautiful drones"

and then here some guy from chicago says:

"Please buy Kevin Drumm's Sheer Hellish Miasma on Mego. Your neighbors will thank you for it"

soooo not one negative criticism until this thread... maybe it's weirdly overrated here?

― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 27 May 2003 04:52 (twenty-two years ago)

(let's not forget its position in Pitchfork's top 40 of 2002, placing right behind eminem)

― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 27 May 2003 05:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Sheer Hellish Miasma is great - but Land of Lurches destroys all! Definitely in the top 10 for teh first half of 2003. Drumm rulz

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Tuesday, 27 May 2003 05:43 (twenty-two years ago)

oh no! i didn't acquiesce enough! i'm not genuflecting!

actually threw "sheer hellish miasma" on last night and had to admit ... the cat's got 'something'. still unsure of whether it's THAT great, but yeah, color me surprised that i vaguely enjoyed the thing this time 'round - after a stack of listens around purchase time, i was just 'what da?'

yo toth, tell us more about 'land of lurches'!

― jon dale, Tuesday, 27 May 2003 07:18 (twenty-two years ago)

I gots to remember to call my record guy in Chicago today to order me Land of Lurches. Thanks for the reminder.

― hstencil, Tuesday, 27 May 2003 13:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Land of Lurches just came out on Hanson (get the LP version - it's screened just like Wolf Eyes' Dread and has one of the coolest covers ever) - it's more all-out-noise attack than SHM, less droney and sedate, more catastrophic and HUGE - heviosity, my friends.

Also, if you're really lucky, you can still get the amazing cassette collab he did with Aaron Dilloway of Wolf Eyes called I Drink Your Skin on American Tapes. Totally criminal that there's probabaly less than 100 of those.

To reiterate, Drumm rulz

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Tuesday, 27 May 2003 16:35 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah I hate anyone using the word 'overrated' too. hate me.

I enjoyed his self-titled perdition plastics disc. Need to check out 'land of lurches' I guess. forgive the following pointless comment, I just wish all these albums didn't cost all this money.

― jl, Tuesday, 27 May 2003 17:19 (twenty-two years ago)

eight months pass...

Saw 'triangles' in a second hand shop, picked up and its easily THE find of 2004. Kevin does a lot on this record- got keith rowe-ish ambience, eno-ish ambience, folk-and-piano loving-ness, glitch/fucked-up electronica, vaccum cleaner beauty and all of it majestically put together, nothing awkward about it.

I quite like to get more stuff on the Moikai label, so much of stuff from chicago (1990s) disappoints or annoys but this is the deal.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 09:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Julio, only 3 of the Moikai releases could be considered "Chicago 1990s."

― hstencil, Tuesday, 3 February 2004 09:06 (twenty-two years ago)

heh, ok. must. check. catalogue.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 09:12 (twenty-two years ago)

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