[LISTEN] AGENCY | SELF TITLED DEBUT

Producer, IOD label-sub and one half of Berlin’s Operant, Agency will release his debut, self-titled EP on Instruments Of Discipline on November 11, 2019. 

The EP is a club-aimed release, martial rhythms, granular feedback, vocal chants and primal-scream therapy extractions are wound together with heavy kicks, the track titles form a small piece of prose, a vision lifted from a Boschian nightmare.

Eternity is but an instant | An interview with Thomas Martin Ekelund of Trepaneringsritualen

"We stare into the radiant light, and stumble blind and mad into the moonless night. We bow not our heads, nor do we ask for mercy. 

The world is agony. 

This is a journey of pain, ecstasy, and death. We do not seek companionship, because this prison of flesh is a solipsism. We straddle the balancing point between light and darkness, love and hate, life and death. We hide our countenance to reveal the hidden face of god. 

We hang ourself from trees and crosses. We bleed and suffer. All in roaring silence.

Eternity is but an instant."

Firstly, I wanted to talk about your latest work with Nordvargr this year. The collaboration seems almost both instinctual and inevitable. Listening to the music you feel a mutual animalistic dichotomy between the two of you, almost a push and pulling of motion and energy. Can you explain this collaboration and how it felt creating this project together? 

Definitely. Fairly natural, it should have been much weirder. Because I have listened to Nordvargr for say 20 years but all of the sudden we are very working together. Instead it came together very naturally.

   

Often at your live shows you start with a sack tied over your head, a somewhat faceless force coming out of the smoke and dark. Does this signify a sort of metamorphosis of your essence coming forth or serve as a cathartic measure that in part couples the intensity of the music?

Yeah I guess. The reason I started using it was to hint at the hanged man, at the sacrifice. But yes, I guess it dissolves me a bit so I can concentrate on TRP and behind the mask there is so freedom.



Ritual is very important to you musically, personally and in the realm of performance. You’ve talked about the importance of not only sound but smell and vision as a part of a TRP performance. What is it you want the audience to take away from one of ‘rituals’?

I guess it depends on where they start. Are they already converts? Have they had any experiences of total annihilation of the ego and submitting to forces beyond themselves? If they haven't before then I want them to experience tearing down their protective barriers and shit...to experience this fully like I do.

Reason, inhibitions, let down your guard. Be overwhelmed. The state of just letting go.

Photo by Kim Sølve

The ongoing journey of TRP is one of spirals and manifestations both tribal and cerebral. What is different about TRP now versus the birth of TRP?

I know on one hand I understand a lot more and on one hand a lot less. It seemed easier to understand more at the beginning of TRP. There was a spark to get it out.Whereas now it seems harder to understand what I'm doing and why. The more it comes out the purpose is lost which is hard to deal with. Every new path create more paths. Each question creates more questions. 

Whilst there is this feral animalistic, almost primal nature about TRP there is still machinery involved which pulls us back into the realm of reality again even jarringly. What is your relationship with the machines and tools you use to create your music and is there an element of self betrayal in needing that aspect of modernity or are you comfortable with their uncomfortable alliance? 

Some of the tools are quite powerful, like spiritually. But in relation to modern machines etc I don’t think about it too much. Not much thought at all really. Obviously if I could I would use nothing. Put two rocks and bang them but no, I don't think too much about what we are using to make our music. It's the end result that's most important not what we used to make it. 

In July you will be embarking on your first ever Australian tour. What can fans expect? And do you, yourself have any expectations?

First off its amazing to go to other side of country. Ritualistically I'm not sure. It's like therapy and overpowering. I've never been to the southern hemisphere before so that is amazing to get to do that. It will be sweating and dirty for sure. 

Beside working with Nordvargr this year, is there anything you're working on with trp now? 

I'm working on 2 eps at the moment and a more ritualistic ep which should be out September/October. I'm also working on our next song based album (the last one took 4 years so we have some time ha) plus other collaborations all around in the works.

Trepaneringsritualen will embark on their debut Australian tour this July and it's bound to be an unmissable performance. 

ALL DATES: 

JULY 12, THE DEN, PERTH

JULY 13, CROWBAR, SYDNEY

JULY 14 THE TOTE, MELBOURNE

JULY 16 THE OLD BAR, MELBOURNE

But you'll find me here 👇

The T × R × P curse descends on the Southern Hemisphere, courtesy of UMACollective and ALT Events.

https://trepaneringsritualen.bandcamp.com

https://www.instagram.com/t__r__p__/

https://www.facebook.com/Trepaneringsritualen/

[LISTEN] COAL // Insect Human

Coal’s self-titled debut is a crushing rejection of the hive-mind colony of your scene, your values and your reality, not an escape, not a distraction, but a true-vision of the world in all its grotesque, hate-filled glory. Listeners will step away from this record as from a Coal show, cleansed, purged and altered. 

After initial flirtations with the project being a ‘live electronic act’ proved unsatisfying, Anthony Arcana & Oliver Kohlenberg chose to morph the project into something unbound: hoarse-barked, one-line lyrics, mutant chainsaw guitar feedback and drums that sound like a nightmare, Kronenberg trash-compactor collide to form their own world. Coal’s sound is a blurred vision of influences, fusing elements of post-metal, hip-hop, black-metal, American hardcore, sludge, doom, jungle and trap into something that feels cathartic, potent, whole and unique.

credits

Releases May 1, 2019 on Instruments of Discipline 

All songs written by Coal 
Mastered at Dadub

Swamp Booking & Instruments of Discipline presents:

Operant & Coal 4eva €€€ Tour!!!!!!

DATES:

1/5 - Tape - Aarhus, DK

2/5 - Mayhem - Copenhagen, DK

Operant/Schacke/Iron Sight/Tårne Spirer/Coal

4/5 - Urban Spree - Berlin, DE

7/5 - Hradec Kralove, CZ

MENU: Operant [aus/it] + COAL [aus/it]

8/5 - Brno, CZ

☻U R N A☻: Operant◙Coal◙V0nt

9/5 - Chmury - Warsaw, PL

10/5 - Lodz, PL OPERANT.COAL.SKROTTEN.FRYC.SKOK.URBAN INDUSTRIAL TECHNO

11/5 - Wroclaw, PL

Operant x COAL x Elektropunkz x Chaotic Cult

12/5 - FUGA -Bratislava, SK

13/5 - Kset -Zagreb, HR

14/5 - Budapest, HK

Operant [d] x Coal [d] x UEUM

15/5 - Kubik - Trnava, SK

16/5 - Kosice, SK

Operant [DE] / Coal [DE] / Zintaer [SK]

17/5 - Linz, AT

Operant, Rosa Nebel, COAL, V0nt

18/5 - Underdogs - Prague, CZ

19/5 - Dresden, DE

Operant & Coal

[WATCH] Kollaps // 'Fleshflower'

Australian post-industrialists KOLLAPS are a three piece creating a unique brand of primitive noise "intended for degenerates and outsiders". The bands' distinctive primordial tones are created using appropriated waste materials like scrap metal, raw plastics and steel plates combined with blistering percussion, bass and vocals. This is no empty "industrial" gesture, for the band this process of creation facilitates the literal use of postmodern society against itself.| 

Mechanical Christ, the bands' sophomore release, is a conceptual continuation of its predecessor Sibling Lovers. This release sees Kollaps further their exploration of the inherent societal sickness of our times, one that manifests itself in the debasement of individual morality. Themes of exploitation, vengeance, drug addiction, paranoia and slave labour are part of a dissonant, inverted morality play. Testament to the bands' evolving conceptual depth are the overarching themes of love, life and death that offer a sense of shared experience in the discomfort of the universal human experience. Known for their violent and nihilistic stage performances, this recording encapsulates with harsher clarity the visceral confrontation that is Kollaps' live act. 

Mechanical Christ was recorded and mixed over a two-month period at Aviary Studios by Mike Deslandes, and mastered by James Plotkin/Plotkinworks. A journey into the desperation and lack of resolve that is both the crux of modern social ills and at the very heart of the human condition.

https://kollaps-noise.bandcamp.com/

Puce Mary // The Drought

Building from a reputation of arresting live performances and critically acclaimed releases Puce Mary breaks new ground with The Drought, evolving from the tropes of industrial and power electronics to forge a complex story of adapting to new realities. Remnants of noise still exist, sustaining the penetrative viscerality offered on previous records, however The Drought demonstrates an intention to expand on the vocabulary of confrontational music and into a grander narrative defined by technical and emotional growth. 

Bringing together introspective examination with literary frameworks by writers such as Charles Baudelaire and Jean Genet, Puce Mary’s compositions manifest an ongoing power struggle within the self towards preservation. The traumatised body serves as a dry landscape of which obscured memories and escape mechanisms fold reality into fiction, making sense of desire, loss and control. The Drought presents both danger and opportunity; through rebuilding a creative practice centred on first person narrative and a deliberate collage of field recordings and sound sources Puce Mary injects an acute urgency across the album seeking resilience. 

“To Possess Is To Be In Control” makes use of lyrical repetition as an ambiguity of two selves, or a divided self, attempting to consume one another, while “Red Desert,” named after Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1964 film, portrays the individual subsumed by surrounding environmental forces. The seven-minute epic “The Size of Our Desires” acts as the emotional tipping point of the record; amongst the ominous drone and dense feedback flutters almost-beatific melodies, while the lyrics reveal a romantic call to be swept up in the midst of an increasingly uninhabitable world.

Rather than escape, The Drought dramatises a metamorphosis in which vulnerability is confronted through regeneration. Noise and aggression no longer act as an affront to react against but part of a ‘corporeal architecture’ where space, harmony and lyricism surface from the harsh tropes of industrial music. The Drought chronologises a transformation through a psychological famine, new ways of coping akin to plant survival in a desert – to live without drying out.

The album is mastered by Rashad Becker, featuring cover art by Torbjørn Rødland. 

https://puce-mary.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/pucemarypucemary/

Australia's Bonnie Mercer unleashes aural carnage on new retrospective "Mystic Decade"

'Mystic Decade' is a 10 year retrospective; a collection of recordings made between the years 2007 - 2017 by Bonnie Mercer. All tracks (except the last & most recently recorded, 'Eat Guitars') have appeared previously on compilations in Australia, North America and Europe.  Based in Melbourne, Australia, guitarist Bonnie Mercer continues to explore the unknown worlds of unrestrained feedback, hallucinatory white noise and hypnotically evolving sonic guitar experiments. 

The album is a sonic journey through a black hole of aural carnage and mind manipulation which cleverly weaves a hypnotic web of sound. Mystic takes you on a trip through grimy feedback and dark alley ways of the mind all unknown. Bonnie's sound is uncompromising,  harsh, raw, an audible chimera of an experience not easily forgotten. 

Bonnie's evolution as a key experimental guitarist and indeed a visceral one has never been more highlighted than on this retrospective where you can audibly not only feel and vicariously experience  the evolution of her use white noise and hypnotics penetrate you.

[ "The idea for 'Mystic Decade' came about earlier this year when I realised that it had been ten years since I had started playing solo. Playing solo is a constant emotional roller coaster for me, it is truly full of ups and downs and I am often too hard on myself...but at the same time, it is most definitely one of the most rewarding things I do. I have been given so many wonderful opportunities - supported some of my favourite bands, met amazing new friends, toured around the world, and collaborated with so many talented musicians.

Compiling the 10 year retrospective for 'Mystic Decade' largely a process of self-reflection - looking back at some of those achievements and all of the music I have created over that time. It was a way of acknowledging a significant period of time in my life and making the conscious decision to keep pushing forward...recognising all of the insecurities that have haunted me along the way, embracing all the things I love about playing music, and making the decision to stop being so hard on myself - the start of a new decade." - Bonnie Mercer ]

http://www.bonniemercer.com/

https://www.facebook.com/bonniemercermusic

https://bonniemercer.bandcamp.com/

http://www.psychichysteria.com/

EVENT : YNH x Rebecca Cleal - An Exhibition of Screenprinted Photography

You’re Not Human will present a unique

exhibition featuring a series of new works by

photographer and print-maker Rebecca Cleal on

Saturday 8th October at The Old Coroners Court,

Bristol, 7-10pm.

—

The culmination of a 3 year collaborative

relationship between Rebecca Cleal & You’re Not

Human, this exhibition of screen printed

photography celebrates the darker side of

Bristol’s music scene.

Whilst You’re Not Human are well known for their

heavy and uncompromising contribution to the

live music landscape of Bristol, it’s Rebecca’s

photographic documentation of the events that

has given a distinct sense of shape and presence

to the scene outside the performances

themselves.

The exhibition will serve as both a reflection

upon and celebration of the music scene itself.

Presented against a backdrop of noise (Silver

Waves) will be 14 new editions, each image

carefully selected from Rebecca’s canon of work

and reproduced using screen print techniques

developed over the past two years at the artist’s

print studio.

This is the first exhibition to arise from the

collaboration between Rebecca and You’re Not

Human, and is set to be an event that ties

together art, music, and performance

documentation in a resounding new way.

Rebecca Cleal is a photographer and print-maker,

her work focusing largely on music photography

and video, and more recently on the underground

music scene in Bristol. Rebecca's photographs

have featured on magazine and album covers, as

well as music websites and blogs, and she is

regularly commissioned for her press and

photo-documentary work.

As print-maker, Rebecca works predominantly in

screen print, developing new works and

techniques at her 11 year running print studio,

White Duck Screen Print.

—

Screen prints will be available to buy in strictly

limited editions at the show on the 8th, and

online from October 10th.

Editions measure 50cm x 70cm, and will be

priced at £125 unframed.

All editions will be signed, numbered, stamped,

and blind-embossed by the artist.

A 70 page book by Rebecca Cleal will also be

available at the event. Carefully curated to

accompany the show, this book will contain 32

double-page photographs that Rebecca has

captured at You’re Not Human shows.

The book is published by White Duck Editions,

will be available in a first edition of 100, and

priced at £15.

Pre-orders for the book can be made at

www.whiteduckeditions.net.

-----------------------------

Also, noise from...

Silver Waves (Howling Owl / Portals Editions)
https://vimeo.com/170773202

The Old Coroners Court and Morgue, Bristol
Backfields, Stokes Croft
Saturday October 8th 2016
7pm - 10pm

Free Entry
18+

Rebecca Cleal: http://rebeccaclealjournal.tumblr.com/
White Duck Screen Print: http://www.whiteduckscreenprint.co.uk/
You're Not Human: http://www.ynhagency.com/