Today, in what will be the first of a regular series, we’re keeping things straightforward and no-nonsense by letting you know what we’ve been listening to lately. One of my favorite things about the group of people getting Very Friendly off the ground is how disparate our individual taste can be. There’s plenty of overlap, of course, but we all have areas of expertise that no one else can really claim. This week it’s just me (Maggie) with an update, so we’re talking noise yet again! (Rest assured, future installments will be much more varied.)
The last month has been, to put it mildly, tragic for the international harsh noise community. Two towering figures passed away within two weeks of each other at far too young an age — Poland’s Dawid Kowalski, who performed as Purgist, and New York state’s James Cooke, who performed as Ahlzagailzehguh and was an early progenitor of the cut-up style.
It is always with great sadness that we engage with an artist’s work after their death. But in a scene as niche as harsh noise, it is also the greatest celebration of their lives and the defiant spirit of their work.
Purgist’s 2022 release for the great California label Oxen, Heartsink, is the emotionally resonant jewel in the crown of his discography, full of melodic drones and searing noise and featuring a spoken word performance from Death Squad’s MK9 on the final track. It's beautiful, heartbreaking stuff. The label is sold out of copies, but it can still be obtained from Skeleton Dust in Ohio, a store we admire very much.
Ahlzagailzehguh’s discography numbers among those most important to me of late. His cut-up experiments are absolute hellfire, like all the worst thoughts in your head erupting at once. There are many releases in his oeuvre one could point to as the best, but to my mind 2009’s Refuse and Control is just about as good as harsh noise gets. It really just needs to be heard to be understood — preferably on vinyl and as loud as possible, if you can get your hands on it. Maybe someday I will host a listening party for those who can’t.
Still active is Italy’s Gabriele Giuliani, whose terrific project Dead Body Love still terrifies to this day. Recently, Chondritic Sound (who will be written about in a future Labels We Love) and Germany’s Total Black teamed up to reissue three releases from Giuliani’s dark ambient project Drift — Earthquake, Exile and The Beyond.
“Dark ambient” feels like it doesn’t quite get at how dark these releases actually are. I’ve been listening to them since they dropped, usually accompanied by a suitably scary novel, and they are pitch black tonally. The liner notes from Lussuria’s Jim Mroz point out two key elements that make Drift so compelling: the exceptionally long reverb tails and the absolute unidentifiability of the sound sources. They may as well have been dredged from hell itself. All three are great, but 1995’s Earthquake is my personal favorite of the bunch, particularly the 14 minute looping bell of “Scarecrows.”
That’s all for now. Tune in for future editions!