Goddamnit I fucking love this song, and not only because the album cover looks like someone doing lurid things to a windmill (but that helps).
This is the full audio gamut. Bass, treble, all of the things; wall-to-wall noise until it isn’t.
It hits you every fucking where and I am always here for it.
Part thirteen of an array of CD mixes I made for my wife over a long number of years! Read more about it here!
I know this is a CGA-ish eyesore. (CGA? An old-school limited computer display spectrum.) I got way too carried away but I think it has a certain charm, even if it gives me a bit of a migraine.
Included is the back and front and an alternate cover — which is even more of a visual headache! — because that’s a thing I used to do for some reason. Also, the initial template, which is far friendlier to one’s senses.
…or not.
There’s a lot of repetition here. A lot of the same tracks from a few prior volumes. I’m gonna chalk that up to a bipolar manic episode because that tracks.
(And yes, I still have a few ‘tape suitcases’ exactly like this, full of second or third or fifth-generation ripped audio works.)
Highlights! EXOCET’s South End [Colombian Connection] is powernoise perfection, all gristle and meaty beats. THE BPA and Toe Jam is so exuberant and ebullient, although 80% of that is instilled solely by David Byrne’s lilt. THE LONG BLONDES’ I’m Going to Hell from their under-heard album ‘Couples’ which features the following:
I didn’t want to risk the chance of someone finding out /
Now I’m going to hell, so I may as well make it worth my while
Yeah, that’s my lifelong anthem.
Yes, I spent a stupid amount of time on all of these works, and that time is not reflected in the end-product!
(Artist / Album / Song):
A companion piece to INTERRUPT PT. 1, if you will. (Read more about the reasoning behind these mixes here!)
Pretty sure the photo came from a garagesaling expedition of ours and this wringer probably cost $5 and I regret not buying it. I’ll note? I do love the texture.
I also really love this mix. I will always go to bat for THE LONG BLONDES and ‘Big Infatuation’ is absolutely one of my favorites. BALKAN BEAT BOX? So energetic. (Not sure if they’re still around, but I loved seeing ’em live as goddamn did they pop and bop.) THE VIOLETS was a criminally underrated post-punk band that released one album and that was it and it was not enough, at least not for me.
Also, as someone who has seen SLIM CESSNA’S AUTO CLUB live? They really fucking know how to roll with flubs:
She’s a dancer!
She dances fine!
I don’t remember my next line!
So … uh, enjoy!
Track listing (Artist / Album / Song):
I’ve briefly mentioned seeing ATARI TEENAGE RIOT and Alec Empire.
“My warriors! You have done well!”
I love their first album DELETE YOURSELF!. I really do. It’s all hard-hitting gritty hardcore and hip-hop beats and brutal samples and whip-worthy anthems.
“If we don’t turn it on, nobody else will!!”
However, I fucking love their second album 60 SECOND WIPE OUT, solely because of ATARI TEENAGE RIOT II, a revision, a revisitation, of their prior ATARI TEENAGE RIOT anthem.
The first version is a fucking banger, carefully crafted with hardcore pacing and fist-pumping lyricism.
“Stop the riot?!! FUCK YOU!!!”
The second version? It (d)evolves into absolute sheer fucking noise. It is absolutely wild and I can’t help but revel in it.
“But that doesn’t stop me!! WHAT DO YOU WANT?!!!”
This is all about progressive noise artist Nic Endo. She’s the driving force here; she fucking escalates aural matters that were already far too heightened. She’s unbridled and drives the track into MERZBOW territory and holy hell is it amazing.
“What did you say?”
I saw them on the 60 Second Wipe Out Tour so many years ago and I was elated to have Nic Endo fucking melt my ears! For all intents and purposes, I met my wife there. (We’d met a few hours prior to the show, but at the show proper? That’s when I feel I met her.)
“What did you say?!”
Despite not knowing each other at all, we both pushed ourselves to the front of the crowd and were spit on by Alec Empire and we locked eyes during this song and, well, ultimately that was that.
“WHAT DID YOU SAY?!!”
Pretty fucking dumb, but what’s youth if you aren’t dumb and willing to have fun?
I digress, but the rest is all ancillary I suppose!
“ATARI TEENAGE RIOT!!!!!!!!!!”
While NINE INCH NAILS is best known for the soulful teen electronic angst of PRETTY HATE MACHINE and the the metal-influenced BROKEN and then the very pop-industrial THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL — sadly, causing so many frat bros to play CLOSER at their parties — FIXED is my favorite from Oscar-winner Trent Reznor.
“Give it to me; I’ll throw it away…”
FIXED is ‘Halo 6’ — the sixth NINE INCH NAILS effort from Reznor — an labeling affectation I actually appreciate despite the fact that it means very little apart from noting the years that passed in my life.
“WISH THERE WAS SOMETHING REAL! IN THIS WORLD FULL OF YOU! THIS WORLD FULL OF YOU! THIS WORLD FULL OF YOU!” [DISHWASHER SOUNDS]
FIXED is a remix EP. A very long remix EP, comparatively given the length of some of the remixes, but a remix EP nonetheless. It is longer than BROKEN, the EP it is remixing.
“AHHHHH HA HA HA!”
This EP is 100% chaotic staccato mind-bending propulsion. It is unrelenting, especially the efforts from COIL (R.I.P.) and J.G. Thirwell. It’s 40 minutes of wall-to-wall noise and aural abuse and I can’t get enough of it. It’s my absolute favorite of the Halos, and I do not care who knows it, and I’m saddened that it’s one of the most over-looked of his oeuvre. (Thirwell’s WISH is a very particularly protracted and exceptional work.)
“I am so dirty …on the inside. (I want you to throw me away.)”
Also, come on, Thirwell — almost certainly drunkenly — renamed one of the songs ‘Fist Fuck’. That’s one hell of a swing. (How many other Academy Award winners would even admit to a song labeled that?)
[An endless array of percussion, then…] “I’m drowning! Let me out of here!”
I know I’m flying my full teen goth flags here, but fuck it. This album holds up; it’s far more experimental now than then, which is a strange remark, but electro music has sadly become relatively regressive since then.
If you haven’t heard it before — of if you haven’t heard it in over twenty years — and you like really fucking noisy eccentric over-emotional works, you owe it to yourself to queue it up however way you can.
“$##!!#$!@#!!!!!!!!!%^!#$Q&!$%@&&&@#$^#@$~!” […then droning whines]
Yeah, it’s a masterpiece of a clusterfuck. Despite edging very close to MERZBOW levels of noise, it still manages to be hooky and emotional and goddamn fun while also encapsulating the perverse nature that is NINE INCH NAILS. In other words: the perfect remix EP which apparently is a lost art nowadays.
![WINTERKÄLTE – Global Deforestation [Amazon Rainforest]](https://mediaclature.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/winterkalte-drum-n-noise.jpg)
