QuantumNoise — on hiatus for the time being — was a web-radio program I hosted every Monday, 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. (eastern), on killer Asheville Free Media.

This evening’s program is truly a special one. My good pal John Cellura — owner of Cleveland’s Bent Crayon, far and away the best specialty record store for underground sounds in all of the United States – joins me in-studio to play jams and chat about all kinds of stuff. Together, we unleash a fairly schizoid set.

Cellura and I open with a piece from Jonas Broberg’s Kling Klang Salad cassette, a bizarre slice of DIY electronics originally released on Konduktör Rekords back in 1985. After that come two creepily punishing tracks courtesy of Failing Lights (a.k.a. Mike Connelly of Hair Police / Wolf Eyes) and the Bristol, U.K. duo Emptyset, respectively. Released last spring on the Subtext imprint, Emptyset’s Demiurge album is an absolutely brutal marriage of neo-dubstep bass wallop and hyper-minimal rhythmic noise.

Towards the end of the evening, we shift from electronic beats to hard-raging rockers. These include new cuts each from The Men (the toast of the Sacred Bones scene) and Baltimore art-punks Ed Shrader’s Music Beat (who put on one hell of a live show). We then close out with some dirty-ass Aussie punk by way of Fungus Brains (Load Records having recently reissued their 1983 full-length Ron Pistos Real World) and Sick Things. Both groups, by the way, were co-founded by legendary guitarist Mick Turner, who would go onto to form the Dirty Three.

Here’s the playlist for 08.01.2011.

QuantumNoise — on hiatus for the time being — was a web-radio program I hosted every Monday, 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. (eastern), on killer Asheville Free Media.

On this week’s show we phone up Mark Morgan, ace guitarist for noise-rock explorers Sightings, as well as one half of power-done outfit Key Of Shame (the other being Pat “Decimus” Murano). The dude is, in my opinion, one of the most important six-stringers of the last 35 years. Combining elements No Wave maximalism, psychedelia, classic industrial, fire music and shoegaze, he has forged an utterly unique sonic language, one that violently expands the boundaries of feedback and distortion and how they relate to rock-action propulsion. Spin named Morgan one of their 100 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time, and that’s dead on the mark.

In addition to a fat stack of jams from his myriad projects, I play a few of Morgan’s personal favorites, including tracks from Steaming Coils, Chain Gang and Emptyset.

Here’s the playlist for 07.25.2011.

QuantumNoise — on hiatus for the time being — was a web-radio program I hosted every Monday, 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. (eastern), on killer Asheville Free Media.

A little unfinished business tonight. Last week I interviewed John Fell Ryan of Excepter. We played a stack of jams he selected, but we didn’t get to all of them. Thus, I devote a little time to mop-up operations. These include tracks from Washed Out and Salem.

Outside of that the show is mind-deep in dark (techno) matter : Tropic Of Cancer, Sandwell District, Function and Anworth Kirk’s excellent Avonwaith LP (pictured above). Down with the Modern Love scene, Kirk doesn’t create mutant grooves, more like side-long suites constructed from heavily manipulated library-music samples. They’re dense, subtle, uneasy and at times macabre. I hear echoes of the early Residents, from Meet The Residents to Eskimo zone. But I also detect a kind of electronic Occultism, modern technology running smack dab into homespun, folksy, archaic, rural England. Daphne Oram would be proud for sure.

Nearing the end of tonight’s program I spin a double shot of Sun-Ra: “Legend,” from The Solar-Myth Approach (Vol 1) LP, and “The Antique Blacks (Mike Huckaby Reel-To-Reel Edit).” This latter piece is taken from The Mike Huckaby Reel-To-Reel Edits Vol. 1. This twelve-inch is phenomenal. Rather than radically rework the material, the producer performs some minor nipping and tucking so that the tracks’ natural rhythmic propulsion is allowed to move to the forefront.

Here’s the playlist for 07.18.2011.

QuantumNoise — on hiatus for the time being — was a web-radio program I hosted every Monday, 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. (eastern), on killer Asheville Free Media.

This week’s show is an awesome one. I’m beyond proud to interview John Fell Ryan of the fabulous Excepter. I’ve been a big fan for a long time now. In fact, Ryan himself might even say I was more of an obsessed stalker at one point in my turbulent life. Since coming together in the 2001-02 zone, the group has cut a singular path through a style of free-improv electronics that contains elements of industrial, hip-hop, psychedelia, fusion and electronica. To these ears, a huge bulk of modern underground weirdness — neo-Kosmische musik, chillwave, witch-house, hauntology, et al. — owes it existence to Excepter (as well as its fellow New Yorkers Animal Collective, Sightings, the Black Dice extended family, Gang Gang Dance, No-Neck Blues Band, Telepathe and a few others).

In addition to chatting with Ryan via telephone, I spin a stack of tracks he handpicked. These include several sneak previews of Excepter’s forthcoming album Streams 02, as well as some of his personal faves: The Fall, Lee “Scratch” Perry, C Cat Trance, Chris & Cosey and more.

Here’s the playlist for 07.11.2011.

More on Excepter:

My review of the group’s 2005 album Throne for the SF Weekly.

A sprawling essay I penned for Dusted back in 2004 on the band’s debut album KA.

QuantumNoise — on hiatus for the time being — was a web-radio program I hosted every Monday, 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. (eastern), on killer Asheville Free Media.

Ah, Independence Day. Wave upon wave of fireworks whiz through the nighttime sky as tonight’s installment of QuantumNoise kicks off. Those listeners wondering where the electronic funk has disappeared to over the last few weeks will be happy to know I spin a bunch this evening, including hard tracks from Q.N. faves Delta Funktionen, Mike Dehnert, Cosmin TRG, Rolando and Mark E. If you haven’t heard Mark E’s new full length, Stone Breaker, on Spectral Sound, definitely track down a copy. It’s a lot of fun. The track I play, “Belvide Beat,” has one of the most propulsive basslines of 2011 — very post-punk.

For those of you who have very much enjoyed all the drone, noise and underground rock I’ve been spinning the last few weeks, no worries. I open the program with a wonderful triple shot:

(1) Jean-Luc Ponty’s progressive-electronics classic “Echoes Of The Future.” This song is from the album Upon The Wings Of Music; sadly, nothing else on the record sounds even remotely like it.

(2) A synth-laced prog number from the band (from) the sky, Tom Hohmann’s new project. For the uninitiated, Hohmann was co-founder of the mighty USA Is A Monster. (from) the sky takes The Monster’s later sound and filters it through shamanic New Age weirdness. So cool.

(3) Didier Bonin’s “Son Of The Sun,” a piece that can be found on L’air lumière, an album from the early 1980s I know next-to-nothing about. I also know jack about Bonin save the fact that he’s a talented French musician who was deeply inspired by Popul Vuh. Great track for sure.

I want to mention two other highlights: Dva Damas’ “Time Dilation,” a Goth-stained psychobilly number (sort of) from the group’s killer ten-inch on Downwards; and Vatican Shadow’s “Archbishop 911.” I’ve never been a big Prurient guy, Dominick Fernow’s other project, but I really dig his work under the Vatican Shadow moniker, which specializes in dubby, minimal industro-electronics.

Here’s the playlist for 07.04.2011.

QuantumNoise — on hiatus for the time being — was a web-radio program I hosted every Monday, 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. (eastern), on killer Asheville Free Media.

Tonight’s show is one of my most succinct and focused in terms of merging two of the bigger loves in my life: industrialized noise-rock and industrialized hard techno. The former includes tracks from Sightings, one of my all-time favorite bands; Sodom, Birthday Party-inspired freaks from Japan; Six Finger Satellite, a group’s that’s as pivotal as Chrome when it comes to the electro-rock interface; and Storm Bugs, a wonderful DIY tape project from the U.K. that I first heard on the massively influential bootleg compilation I Hate The Pop Group.

As for the techno jams, the big standout is Tommy Four Seven’s  “CH4,” off his new album for the CLR imprint, Primate. Although I speak of purity rarely, the German producer’s brand of dark, menacing techno is most certainly as pure as it comes. But it’s also rather subtle in terms of texture, atmosphere and space. As writer James Glazebrook points-out in his review for Resident Advisor, “Primate throws away the traditional techno toolkit, rejecting generic drum sounds like snares and kicks and refusing synthesisers altogether. It relies instead on field recordings of suitably metallic sounds — underground trains rolling over tracks, crunched-up foil — treated beyond recognition. The results are a distorted hybrid of the pummelling schranz of Tommy’s label manager Chris Liebing and the blank minimalism of Richie Hawtin’s Plastikman output.”

Equally intense is “Apparition,” a track from Orphx’s latest twelve-inch, the Traces EP (Sonic Groove). A good portion of the duo’s output falls under what is called rhythmic noise, but hell, it’s all techno to these damaged ears. Orphx, much like Tommy Four Seven, is concerned with using quality sound sources. This helps explain why their dystopian vibes never devolve into rivithead-n-leather silliness.

Here’s the playlist for 06.20.2011.

QuantumNoise — on hiatus for the time being — was a web-radio program I hosted every Monday, 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. (eastern), on killer Asheville Free Media.

QuantumNoise has been in the loner zone for most of 2011. Between-song chatting has taken a back seat to tons and tons of jams. It’s been fun, but I’m tinkering with the style in the coming months. Listeners should expect more guests, exclusive interviews and the sound of my voice yapping about music every now and then. I suppose it’s time for me to pull back from the continuous playlist / mix approach and inject my music journalism and criticism into the show.

On today’s installment of QuantumNoise I’m excited to have two special guests: Asheville sound artists Liz Lang, a.k.a. Auracene of Secret Orange Star Studio, and John Brinker, a multi-faceted musician who has explored drone, free improv, techno, dubstep and more under a host of guises, including Lifestyle Interiors (who released the Nyquist twelve-inch on the 240 Volts imprint).

Lang and Brinker stop by to discuss 8 Channel Seance. Taking place Saturday, June 18, from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., the event is an opportunity for “Asheville’s finest electronic musicians [to] tackle a 12-speaker, 8-channel system with original compositions taking advantage of the possibilities of 3D sound design.” In addition to Lang and Brinker, 8 Channel Seance includes contributions from Kimathir, Elisa Faires, Lux Vestra, Aetherael and Miss Interpret. One of the coolest aspects about the happening / performance is its locale: the Scottish Rite Cathedral in Asheville’s Mount Hermon Masonic Lodge.

In addition ot chatting, the pair play a bunch of music, a nice mixture of drone, ambient, industrial and avant-garde classical. The one piece that really, truly sticks out for me is English composer Jonathan Harvey’s “Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco,” which appeared on several compilation albums in the 1980. If you’re a fan of early computer manipulation of sound recordings, then Harvey’s work is right up your alley.

Here’s the playlist for 06.13.2011.

QuantumNoise — on hiatus for the time being — was a web-radio program I hosted every Monday, 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. (eastern), on killer Asheville Free Media.

Tonight’s show is my least techno-driven in quite some time. I suppose the dominance of noise-rock and industrial is a cacophonous hangover from last week’s tribute to the singular Mikey Wild.

Pictured above is the disconcerting cover to the Forced Nostalgia label’s recently released split twelve-inch featuring Cicciolina Holocaust and Sermonizer. I spun a track from the former, “In Tempore Non Suspecto,” a potently minimal piece of industrial hypno-groovery that doesn’t feel far removed from the Basic Channel and Sandwell District zones. This is impressive, considering Cicciolina Holocaust were an Albanian duo active in the mid 1980s. If you’re a fan of obscuro, DIY sound experimentation from the post-punk era, then definitely check out Forced Nostalgia’s excellent archival work. QuantumNoise ventures even further out with a piece from Laser Temple Of Bon Matin’s epic Bullet In2 Mesmer’s Brain! album, released on Bulb Records in 1998. I believe this sprawling slab of lo-fi noise ecstasy to be one of the most psychedelic records ever created. Though Temple of Bon Matin should be placed alongside The Dead C, Pelt and Jim Shepard as a few of the most accomplished third-eye warriors of the 1990s, this music is way more visceral and unhinged. It’s not drone necessarily, more like neo-Sun Ra chaos stew. Then again, even that doesn’t explain the intricate recording processes band leader and percussionist Ed Wilcox used to generate all the decayed layers of sound comprising the album. Please, do yourself a favor and track down a (hard) copy. Another older track I play is Ground-Zero’s “Revolutionary Pekinese Opera Ver.1.50.” This is from the seven-inch of the same title, which Gentle Giant Records dropped in 1996. This release is notable for a couple reasons: (1) it’s spazzy, media-soaked eruption is hellishly awesome, and (2) it was a major gateway into Japanese noise for me. Thanks, Tom and Brent!

Other cuts I should briefly mention: M. Geddes Gengras’ “Comfort Station,” The Fabulous Sandra Electronics’ “We Will Do Our Best!,” and Tolerance’s absolutely timeless “Tiez Rekcuz.”

Here’s the playlist for 06.06.2011.

QuantumNoise — on hiatus for the time being — was a web-radio program I hosted every Monday, 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. (eastern), on killer Asheville Free Media.

On tonight’s installment of QuantumNoise I pay tribute to Philadelphia punk icon, artist and all-around miscreant Mikey Wild, who sadly passed away two days ago (Wednesday, May 25th) from cancer. Wild was, well, wild. Having released the I Hate New York 7″ with The Mess and the I Was Punk B4 U Were Punk CD (on Bulb Records) with The Lanterns, he dedicated his life to unleashing a grimy-ass brand of lo-fi rock-madness; think Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments as fronted by one Jeffrey Dahmer. Not only that, his story is the thing of urban myth and gutter-level freakery: hanging with Lou Reed, rampant drug abuse, setting shit on fire, pornography, etc. Beneath it all, however, Wild was one cool and totally sweet dude. For those craving more I suggest reading my sprawling profile on Wild, I Was Punk B4 U Were Punk: The Story of thee Mikey Wild – A.K.A. The Father of Philly Punk Rock: Weird Scenes From Inside the Sports Collectibles Shop, which ran in Jeff Bale’s awesome Hit List zine back in 2000.

In keeping with the Mikey Wild aesthetic, I also drop a slew of complementary outsider-rock, including cuts from The Parasites Of The Western World, Billy Synth and The Turn Ups, The Twinkeyz and the inexplicably odd and aggressive Sad Sack (Heinous bitch! Wicked witch!). Closing out the show I return to more familiar terrain: modern electro-jammery (SSPS, No UFO’s), techno (Karl O’Connor, Peter Sutton, Jeff Mills, STL) and Krautrock (Roedelius).

Here’s the playlist for 05.27.2011.

Photograph by Faye Murman.

QuantumNoise — on hiatus for the time being — was a web-radio program I hosted every Monday, 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. (eastern), on killer Asheville Free Media.

I kick off tonight’s show with a cut from one of my favorite RZA productions, the score for Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai. This version, as opposed to the fraud released domestically, could be purchased only in Japan back when the movie came-out in 1999. My roommate at the time — the one and only Andrew Brown, who now fronts the killer band Skimask! — was kind enough to return from vacation with a copy, a wonderful gift. After RZA I explore a stretch of hard psychedelic funk, including jams from the mighty Funkadelic and the imposing Iron Knowledge, a rare group whom I learned about via the Chains And Black Exhaust compilation the Memphix label released several years ago. Several tracks later, in keeping with the funk more or less, I drop a new cut from Gang Gang Dance (“MindKilla”) and a double-shot of my wife’s all-time favorite rapper, San Francisco’s Andre Nickatina. All of it gelled, somehow.

During the show’s second half, I shift into hard-techno and post-dubstep weirdness mode: a pair of tracks from Andy Stott’s Passed Me By double twelve-inch, both of which sound like blow-torched bass  music (all melted and warped); Shutter’s ferocious and pulverizing 12″ on the Hem imprint; and the title track from SCB’s (that’s Scuba) Hard Boiled VIP twelve-inch.

Towards the tail end of the program I feature a track from Cicciolina Holocaust, an Albanian duo that released prescient minimal-industrial groove work — home-taped stuff — in the mid 1980s. Luckily for us the Forced Nostalgia label recently reissued some of their music on a split LP that also features Sermonizer. Track it down for sure.

Here’s the playlist for 05.20.2011.