Pathways to Noise / Place and Time

[_TS_]

I came to it from having been a black metal head for years and looking for something harder. There's absolutely no "scene" for this where I'm from outside of my immediate circle of friends, so it was online, and eventually travelling abroad to see gigs. Discovered industrial through the connection between FA and Northern Heritage, and Genocide Organ through special interests I think. Soon after that I found Unrest Productions and I've been hooked on industrial ever since.. IFOTS, Kevlar and G.O. are huge influences on me to this day. I also think (though some may find this sacrilegeous) that having been a life long rap fan also played a part: made me appreciate hard hard loops!

[APPLE]

Being 12 or 13 and hearing Nirvana 'endless, nameless' (b-side to 'come as you are' and hidden track on some pressings of 'nervermind').

Chaotic energy, wild sound and lots of feedback. It sounded like they were actually destroying their instruments and recording it.

I was kind of right:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRJ2V2lUb5Q

[dertodesking]

I think for me it started when i was a kid, through my dad's love for prog rock. One band that would often be playing in the car and at home was King Crimson. Even though it was mostly their 80's albums that were in rotation which are more accessible some of their 70s stuff, they still had all sorts of of weird, angular noises throughout their songs. Stuff like ''Dig me'' or ''No warning'' on Three of a Perfect Pair were some pretty abstract and challenging clangy pieces.

Afterwards in my teenage years i got more and more into metal but, being a Goth kid i got introduced to Electro Industrial and Goth rock as well. Skinny Puppy, Laibach and Bauhaus really stuck with me. Bauhaus punk attitude with Daniel Ash's guitar playing made for some really intense dark and Noisy tracks. Skinny puppy's track ''Knowhere?'' was one of the heaviest electronic songs i've came across at the time. Also Laibachs super repetitive tracks of military samples at the end of the Opus Dei album mesmerized me.

Later on i kept on digging, listening to all sorts of genres and artists from Mike Patton to John Zorn to Tom Waits to Butthole Surfers all the while, discovering the New Wave of American Black Metal with Leviathan, Xasthur, Nachmystium. All of which can be pretty noisy in their own rights.

So i guess Power Electronics and Noise just made sense to me when i got introduced to it. I always enjoyed challenging, confrontational, uncomfortable music and those genres embodies these ideas perfectly to me.

So yeah, i could go on and on about this subject but its a brief overview of how i got here :)

Thanks for reading!

[Remi]

I went from making field recordings of my days with a Fisher Price boombox or playing my Bontempi keyboard through a horribly distorting karaoke machine as a very little kid to getting way into extreme metal and hardcore punk while I was in middle school, and my parents would also take me to free jazz concerts (I remember seeing my first blastbeat, or what sounded like it before I heard of death metal, at a Louis Sclavis concert.) They'd also play all kind of music at home, though mostly 70's rock like Pink Floyd, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, etc, but also tons of jazz. And then, as tastes refine or get more specific, I heard of the harsh noise stuff on Relapse (although I still don't care much about Merzbow), and the Japanese noisepunk bands from friends and mixtapes before the Internet made them trendy. During my 20's, an older punk friend I shared a lot of other extra music genre tastes with and whom I still make music with nowadays introduced me to industrial and power electronics through a mixtape (I noticed mixtapes are the best way for me to get into something and actually pay proper attention to what I'm listening to.) Around the same time, foreign trading buddies introduced me to stuff like cut-up harsh noise, South American, Euro and Japanese noisecore, etc. Add my own curiosity to the mix and checking stuff here and there to find out which kind of noise I like better or how to satisfy my need to make music on my own, and I am where I am today.

[thatonekidatshows]

I guess the real beginning of my journey into noise began with my interest in industrial music, but I was into hardcore before that. In my freshman year of high school (three years ago--I'm currently a senior), I had looked into Nine Inch Nails since I had heard the name around and alongside mention of Marilyn Manson, to whom I was listening quite a bit at the time. After also finding (and taking a liking to) Ministry, I wanted to know more about what this whole "industrial" thing was. Naturally, that led me to Throbbing Gristle and SPK. At the same time, I had also stumbled across Monte Cazazza while digging through the positive reviews in the Touch and Go zine. I was really starting to get into the genre, so I went exploring on Bandcamp, which I had previously used to find hardcore, and found my way to Deathbed Tapes and, specifically, their reissue of Distress Signals. When I first listened to it and the other stuff on Deathbed, I didn't get it. How could someone enjoy this? It's just... noise. Industrial, I could really dig; this, though? I believe that I had heard of this "noise music" before, but I didn't think anything of it or even that it really existed beyond a few eccentric Japanese guys. There was something that attracted me to Controlled Bleeding, though... I guess it was how cacophonous it sounded while still being somewhat organic. I still couldn't bear to listen to more than a few minutes of it, but it piqued my interest enough for me to add it to my Bandcamp wishlist so that I wouldn't forget about it.

A little while later (a few months?), I would listen to Erector 'cause I'd heard the name "Whitehouse" alongside mention of Throbbing Gristle and read somewhere that it was one of the "great industrial albums." Of course, it was pretty jarring to listen to when I was expecting something with beats and samples, but I stuck with it. Eventually, I listened to more and grew to really enjoy them. I also returned to Controlled Bleeding with my newfound understanding and slight appreciation, and I loved it! Both Whitehouse and Controlled Bleeding are still now among my favorite noise artists. My recollection of how my view of noise music turned from a skeptical curiosity to genuine enjoyment after that is kinda fuzzy, but I would say that I have been listening to noise seriously for a couple years now. (Woah! I thought it had maybe been a year, but I'm seeing noise albums added to my Discogs wantlist as early as 2020!)

At this point, I'm beginning to venture into producing my own noise music. I hope to start and cultivate a scene (if there isn't already one) in Western Massachusetts next year when I attend UMass Amherst. :D

[Buried_slag_debris]

Think this one for me (my path into noise) is in multiple layers or events. I feel like some I didn’t realize were happening at the time - and are easier to piece together now that I am older. I grew up in a small steel/coal mining city in Cape Breton - Sydney. Pre internet - was hard to stumble upon these things. I always wonder how this would have mapped out if I grew up in a larger city.

Here are few moments that I can think of:

A Reason for Living/Diatribe: Grade nine I got the VHS with a bonus CS sound track for Santa Cruz’s A Reason For Living - which had some tracks from Diatribe. Think this must have been one of my earlier introductions to more diy or underground industrial. Think that and Pailhead were my first recordings that I had that used samples, Diatribe being much less produced at the time. Sounded a bit more warped. I soon after tracked down their cassette Therapy on 819 Productions - via money order and a written letter. Pre internet hunting was tough in those days haha. The first cassette still holds up ok, though I would not venture any further than Nothing. Think the main dude went on to do big time act production.

Skinny Puppy tapes from Columbia House - they were quite different to me then say Nine Inch Nails, or Ministry at the time. Definitely heard some interesting ways of creating sound that I hadn’t thought about.

95: In 95 one of the members of Phÿcus was living back in Sydney (I think the original members started the project in Sydney). Bill Boudreau/Abominog was helping out a local coffee house once a week that hosted a variety of theatre, poetry and performance art. I met Bill there and hit it off with him. We traded cassettes. I made him a shitty industrial mix of the best I could come up with. I know some tracks from the Diatribe Therapy tape were on there. He made me a Phÿcus “Raw” tape of rarities, live recordings, etc. - which I still have. That was my first time hearing more raw industrial, using metal, etc. He performed one night at this coffee house solo - playing “Destroy the Earth” from Brainmower just using metal garbage cans. It definitely had an impact on me - and remember it very well - first time I saw someone play live without instruments - loud and raw. Other members from Phÿcus later that year came to play in June. I think Brian and Bill together but they were short a guitar player. Bill asked if I could fill in and make noise with my bass. I was still a teen then - kind of shitting my pants and agreed. Had a few phone calls with Bill where he wanted to teach me how to blow fire balls on stage with them. In the end I did not play, as another member made it in from Newfoundland. Bill gave me a guest pass and a CD for being on standby. Went to the show - which was a game changer. They blew fireballs, fire alarms went off, and the place had to be evacuated - then somehow they got the alarms off - and the show continued. Found out just a few weeks ago that Bill passed away this past February. I only knew him for a few months when I was very young - and had hoped to cross paths with him again. He and Phÿcus definitely had an impression on me and my path to noise.

Royal Trux Twin Infinitives - rough crude recordings. I feel like this was one of my first challenging release I bought as a teen. I still remember one of my close friends caving in the back seat of my car with this tape haha.

Fugazi's Red Medicine - the intro of side a - with the blown out sound in the beginning I felt like I rewinded and played just that part often enough. Had a lot of energy at the time when it came out. I relate some of my early feelings of hearing harsher noise to this. Sounds funny - but it did have an impact. As well as the instrumental with the clarinet (Version I think?). I feel like this album is set quite apart from the others - IMO.

Halifax/Sam the Record Man/Art School 1999–2007: Moved to Halifax late 97. Working at the record store and going to art school at the same time - huge influence on discovering new experimental sounds, noise, free jazz. Here are a few honourable mentions:

Merzbow Venereology CD on Release Entertainment. This was the first Merzbow I bought - it came in dirt cheap from a STRM that closed down and got liquidated into our store. It was much harsher then some of the other things I was listening to. Felt like lots of Merzcar jokes were being cracked at the time in the store.

The Atavistic reissues of FMP and their Unheard Music Series. I picked up a lot of these - hugely influential. I think I started with Manfred Schoof European Echoes before moving on to Brötzmann, Bennink, Globe Unity Orchestra, Sun Ra, etc, etc.

Wrote to Ben of Load records then for promo copies, posters, descriptions, etc. This is where I first got into Prurient (Black Vase), Kites, Forcefield, Metalux, Yellow Swans, Nautical Almanac, etc. etc.

At the record store we were able to get Hanson, Troubleman, etc. I started to carry these titles in the store in Halifax. Outside of the store I started ordering from Phil (Troniks), Ron / RRR, Eclipse, Hospital, and any small label I could get info on. I started following the Troniks/Chondritic forum, as well as the Hanson/American tapes forum. This is where I got most of my info for smaller labels.

Other honourable mentions:
Man Is The Bastard Noise / Locust split Our Earth's Blood Pt 2
Wolf Eyes ‎Burned Mind
No longer forgotten music blogspot. Lots of rare gems to check on this site - I think it is still running?
Nautical Almanac Live in Toronto - Fall 07 - still one of the best shows I saw.

[ForcedWhimsey]

About 18 or so. Was already into weird and noisy elements in music I already listened to. The Velvets, Metal Machine Music, etc. Shopped at The Record Collector, staffed by Davin and Warren from Princess Dragonmom/Time Stereo. And Warren's 4AD Band His Name is Alive soon replaced The Pixies as my favorite band. Eventually came across the legendary comp Journey into Pain. I was like "What is THIS?". After that I got into Japanoise and the local Detroit scene. But unfortunately I never warmed up to mail order and my noise purchases would just be what I happened to run into at local shops and the occasional live show of bands I recognized from the little of what I knew. That being said, in the 90's I saw live shows by MSBR, Govt. Alpha, Wolf Eyes and associated acts, Skin Crime, Emil Beaulieau, The Haters, and lots of Time Stereo projects. I totally missed most of the 2000's boom due to career and personal life and whatnot. I would still go to see the local projects I already knew. Noise Camp almost every year. A few years ago I finally got on board with Bandcamp and Instagram and basically noise networking and have been trying to catch up and while I'm sad I missed out on so much I'm having fun catching up.

[murmur]

One early exposure to weirdo music that I’ve never heard brought up in a noise context but certainly was a big deal personally is Revolution 9 by the Beatles. That track was absolutely hypnotizing for me as a small kid

[Boarnoise]

Numetal to metalcore to noise rock to grindcore to electronic grind/shitcore/MySpace shit to break core to harsh noise. 2006 is really when it clicked for me. Going down the rabbit hole of MySpace days. Discovering Evil Robot Ted, then straight to Eat Your Makeup and Roxanne Jean Polise.

Looking back obviously it would have been great discovering Merzbow,Macro,The Haters, Emil Beaulieau etc etc. right off the bat. BUT…I think having a somewhat non traditional way of discovering noise has really shaped my absolute love for noise. And living in Iowa my whole life haha.

[Residual / RT]

Grunge & Alt. rock in the 90s, then indie and noise rock and hardcore / different punk subgenres and finallyy sludge via EHG with small detours into hip hop and electronic music, all of which led me to search for more intense and obscure stuff which led me to japanoise & industrial in the early 2000's. After that I dug deeper and got into all sorts of noise adjacent stuff thanks to the internet. Early 2000s was a good time because record stores were still alive and kicking but you also had the internet, file sharing and a bit later mp3 blogs.

[D345]

what do you think, do we have a "pathway" (as in gateway drug) or do we just simply enjoy the extremely distorted sound? I think this has just been my "destiny" to listen to noise. Oh fuck how horrible that sounds
BUT I found my way into early industrial and from there to noise from probably two sources: Laibach and Nick Cave. First heard Laibach when I was like 12 (tanz mit laibach!) and when I started to listen to Nick Cave couple years later, I found out that Blixa Bargeld has this other band. Also The Birthday Party was very exciting because it was so noisy and "free jazz" at some points.
https://youtu.be/UhecfKyKxfU
https://youtu.be/iCC5azUUERE

Before that I had been listening metal music, but couldn't listen to it for years because the most extreme post-punk bands felt so much extreme than extreme metal (bad seeds at its noisiest, the birthday party, SWANS(!). Metal music felt like it's childrens music. It still is, but nowadays I can enjoy my occasional Iron Maiden with open heart.
Earlier into childhood, I think the first "noise" that I have heard must have been Sunn O))). I learned a lot of music from my older brother. And then there was mikseri.net, where was its own obscure scene. It was (and still is) like finnish souncloud before soundcloud. [owt kri] must have been the second "noise" act I heard after Sunn O))). I was in primary school at that point. That's why when I first played with Kenneth of [owt kri] years later he felt like a rockstar to me, hah.
Good ol Ministry was also my favourite then. And before that Rammstein. Where did it all start? When I first heard Amerika by Rammstein when I was like 9 years old? 2005 was the year. Maybe that was my original gateway into industrial and from there to noise? Am I just fucked in the head? Or was it maybe soon after that when my brother started to listen to Dimmu Borgir et cetera and I heard Emperors Wrath of The Tyrant (of course the demo version!) that was downloaded from Limewire? It must have been that. That fucking scream. Or Ismo Alanko, who is the reason I found out about Nick Cave. And the overall sound of s/t album of Sielun Veljet
https://youtu.be/ePpy2EeyoHg
https://youtu.be/u2Omuh-q2Qg

but what was the first proper noise I heard? I have no idea, I don't remember. Could have been Metal Machine Music (VU must have been the greatest gateway drug!) or kaukana väijyy ystäviä by M.A. Numminen. Probably not that. I just started to make guitar noise without really listening to any proper noise (like merzbow or things like that) back then when I was 16. This is a long pathway. Screaming feedback is only thing I care about.
https://youtu.be/qBpDNRlFMS0
https://youtu.be/kWHVHi7jLbo

Kuolleet Intiaanit - 4D Käärmeet: Ramadan yö
https://youtu.be/OV6_QEoA0IY
very influential track for my works

[D345]

Being 12 or 13 and hearing Nirvana 'endless, nameless' (b-side to 'come as you are' and hidden track on some pressings of 'nervermind').

Chaotic energy, wild sound and lots of feedback. It sounded like they were actually destroying their instruments and recording it.

I was kind of right:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRJ2V2lUb5Q

this is important song!
https://youtu.be/ZAezJNTYxwQ
I think this Peel Session version is the best version

[Tinnitustimulus]

A few things around when I was 13/14:

Saw Radiohead play a buchla? modular on saturday night live performing Idioteque. was way more esoteric at the time and knew there had to be weirder shit out there. Got obsessed with Aphex Twin.

I bought AMG Electronica Guide that had a noise section. It was 2002 and I was puzzled of what "merzbow" and "zoviet;france" would sound like and tried to imagine it as I had no immediate access.

Manage to download tracks from EN's "kollaps" on kazaa

Found brainwashed webzine after looking for wagon christ from mtv amp techno show had a cool video. Run into Throbbing Gristle, NWW, c93, VVM, Viennese Aktionism etc. !!! interview in there, of all things leads me to Whitehouse's mp3 dot com page...

I don't think I really appreciated everything until I find an used OHM Early Electronic Gurus Boxset at Borders at 16. It was a sea change in my life, nothing quite sounded the same to me after listening to that all the way through. It removes whatever I preconceived notions I had and I can really start to enjoy listening to Merzbow and others. Same Borders has WIRE magazine and announces Nautical Almanac are going to play just an hour away from my parents house, so I go.

[Residual / RT]

I wonder if there are any 2nd generation noise artists who like heard Merzbow for the first time as a toddler.

[Thomas_B]

I wonder if there are any 2nd generation noise artists who like heard Merzbow for the first time as a toddler.

I doubt it. I’ve tried to get my kids into noise, but I gave up when it became obvious they couldn’t care less. As toddlers, they’ll happily fart around with my gear, but once they’re in school and around other kids, they couldn’t be less interested in what dad is listening to. When I was growing up, I loathed my dad for his music, lol. I have terrible memories of hearing ABBA play on a loop in the car during weekend getaways - come to think of it, this probably has something to do with me being a noise fanatic nowadays! Maybe it’s the total opposite: expose your kids to noise and they gravitate towards pop or classical; expose your kids to pop, and they gravitate towards noise - at least, that’s how I think it worked out for me.

[Molena]

i guess in some ways i wanted to hear noise before i knew what noise was, probably most people could say that but i liked the weird sounds i would hear in messing around with records and scraping the needle across my folks collection (much to their annoyance). my first taste of noise as it could be determined now came in my teenage years going to record fares in northern england where there was always a few guys selling 'video nasty's' (texas chainsaw massacre, i spit on your grave etc) who also sold tapes and records of stuff usually in blank or minimal packaging that was the likes of whitehouse and ramleh (as well as lawnmower death!) which at first i didn't really understand that well but it was way more interesting than my iron maiden records so i began to pay more attention. after hearing what the late 80's/early 90's alternative bands had to offer i got into more discordant music and bought a bass and shitty amp which me and a friend would make tapes of us making feedback and jamming things into the strings at top volume. it was at this time that i started messing with cassettes by twisting them and scrunching the tape part to make weird sounds but none of this really went anywhere. it wasn't until moving to leeds in the late 90's that i found people who where playing noise live and using instruments in a none traditional way, smell and quim, bongaleero's, ceramic hobs, skullflower, termite club etc and i realized that playing live was a possibility as until then i did not have the guts to really do it. it wasn't until a line up of Grunt, Cloama, Slogun, Sickness, Control played in leeds and then sex tourist and grunt a few months later that i saw that other people made and also liked the sounds which i was trying to make and at extreme volume i might add. this let me see that things where possible and i started helping out at shows with sound and stuff which gave me more insight and also access to lots of amazing shows like prurient, emil beauliu, jessica rylan, culver, 16 bitch pile up, carlos giffoni, matthew bower as well as local's ashtray navigations. upon realizing that no one was going to put a show on for me i decided to start organizing and it was then that i played my first shows. its always been my belief that usually no one will do it for you so its better and easier to do it yourself and then have some sort of control over the situation which is why i chose to put on so many shows in vancouver.

[Tinnitustimulus]

I wonder if there are any 2nd generation noise artists who like heard Merzbow for the first time as a toddler.

Total Mom/Better Flesh is the only example I'm aware of this, besides maybe Aaron Dilloway's kid.

[holy ghost]

I wonder if there are any 2nd generation noise artists who like heard Merzbow for the first time as a toddler.

Total Mom/Better Flesh is the only example I'm aware of this, besides maybe Aaron Dilloway's kid.

Okay I can't remember the name of the project but there's a noisecore/harsh noise project from somewhere in South America that's a guy and his son. I'm pretty sure it's ANARCHO VOMIT NOISE.

They did a split lathe with Sedem Minut Strachu & Spacegrinder and I'm pretty sure when we traded the guy told me he was in the project with his dad....

[FrenziedDestruction]

i had a fisher price lion king tape recorder as a kid that had a built in microphone, i enjoyed blowing into it to make "thunderstorm noises", was also a big fan of hitting pots and pans together which im sure generated a very relaxing ambience for the family.

as a young teenager got into creating sound collages with whatever terribly basic sound recording program my parents computer had, things like pasting the clacking of old keyboard keys together over and over, mostly out of boredom and curiosity.

got into punk rock and learning about genres of music online by just clicking on anything that had a cool name on wikipedia or mp3.com. (kind of like bandcamp, had paid stuff and free stuff)

then i downloaded a harsh noise track off of mp3.com because the genre had a "extreme" sounding name, played it and cursed my dial up connection; surely it was not supposed to sound like this? must have gotten corrupted on the download.
i downloaded it probably another 3 times before i realized "hey, i think thats what this is SUPPOSED to sound like?"
it was too abstract for me at the time what with the lack of a drunk guy yelling about the government in it or the lack of conventional musical markings.

continued on my exploration of punk and adjacent genres until i read about soulseek on the profane existence messageboard eventually discovering grindcore and kept looking for faster heavier and noisier bands until someone on soulseek recommended masonna.
i was rather hesitant to listen as something described as "experimental music" as that seemed too artsy-woo-woo - but of course i ended up loving it.
devoured anything i could find online and started posting on the blue forum and the black forum, buying what tapes and cds i could afford.

eventually i even got over my initial dislike of art thanks to noise and enjoyed reading about dada and related movements.

started using audacity to manipulate clips recorded from movies (explosions, car crashes, whatever had a interesting sound) and around the same time created a bass n drum grind duo with one of my friends (sadly no recordings remain as we pretty much just had our recordings on myspace and old computers. we did manage to play live several times but frequently got booted off the stage, most comically at a open mic at a christian music festival)

also decided to buy some pedals, cheap synths and contact mics. put together a few tracks for myspace, some standard harsh noise, some my attempt at trying to capture the quick cut magic of masonna but most were a fusion of noise and grind with the pedal noise taking the place of where the guitar would be, drums were either badly recorded with a low quality microphone or fruity loops / fl studio as it is now known (it was the 2000s we all used fruity loops for myspace/internet grind)

met a french kid around my age on soulseek who said his friend had a label and could put out a split between us - i almost couldn't believe my luck! and his friend came through and put out our tape as one of the very early releases of the french label "underground pollution".
went on hiatus due to adverse life events but was in a position to get back into it around 2020 and put out my first full length in 2022, which more or less brings us to now.

[CONDEMN]

I lived in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania for middle school and high school in the 90s and didn't really have peers into anything extreme.
Mail order was the only way to get anything interesting. The noise stuff that really interested me first came from DHR recordings. EC8OR and Alec Empire were early gateways. Then Relapse released Merzbow and the East vs West comp that blew my mind. From there it was always just gravitating towards the noisiest of anything I could find. Before that I loved Wax Trax stuff, the noiser side of Amphetamine Reptile and an early Zeni Geva record flipped my world.

[Thomas_B]

At a fairly early age, like grades 6-8, I was into Canadian indie music, particularly stuff happening on Canada’s east coast, especially Eric’s Trip and related Elevator To Hell, but also bands from Toronto associated with the label Squirtgun Records, and Hamilton’s Sonic Unyon label. I really got into the aforementioned Elevator, who were getting progressively more psychedelic. I was also getting more and more into drugs, particularly LSD, so I kind of dived into psychedelic music. Had a spell of interest in the Dead and other jam bands. I remember picking up a couple Angus MacLise reissues on Siltbreeze, the Parson Sound comp on Subliminal Sounds, both in the early 2000s, and that stuff stunned me. My friends at the time were into punk and metal, some were into Sublime, but basically no one really understood my musical interests. I caught wind of Acid Mothers Temple via a copy of The Wire on a magazine stand somewhere. The Wire is pretty useless to me nowadays, but back then, it played a huge role in introducing me to all kinds of other experimental music. The reviews were my favourite, the ‘outer limits’ section especially. Tower Recordings, No Neck Blues Band, Jewelled Antler Collective, all that “New Weird America” stuff stole my attention for a while. Through work, I befriended someone who eventually started up the label Beniffer Editions, and the group Gastric Female Reflex. They released a lot of great stuff and put on a lot of shows in Toronto through the mid to late aughts. I even had a tape on Beniffer under the name Thom Brush, consisting of out-of-tune guitar, field recordings, primitive feedback loops, radio, organ drones etc. It was all recorded on a Sony walkman, and edited on a cheap boombox. Knurl was also playing frequently in Toronto at this time. This is when I really started getting into proper noise. I’ve been buying noise and listening to noise ever since, mainly via mail-order . It’s only in the last couple of years that I have again ventured out to shows, and resumed making my own noise.

[luciferjonez]

I've always been a sound junkie but as far as noise, seeing Missing Foundation live in NYC sparked my interest along with Scraping Fetus off the wheel, Merzbow, etc...

[ChicagoAnimal]

There is a significantly longer, more detailed, originating in my junior high years story that I am greatly abridging for the board's sake.

I was into noise from a very, very early age. I was jamming Merzbow by the 7th grade and remember listening to "Pulse Demon" after a junior high graduation after pounding a few beers for the first time.

[Skipping from 2007 to 2013]

I moved to Minneapolis in 2013 from Chicago (where I now live again) to transfer to the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. Initially, I intended to start playing in hardcore bands when I got to the Cities. I didn't really know anything about the scene there at all but hoped it would be a good place to land. Lucky enough, the Cities actually had one of the best DIY music scenes at that time that I've ever encountered still to this day. I was more of a guitar nut in those times, but had very little experience actually playing with others. My strength was home-recording, basically.

Again, keeping the story short - I met a person outside my apartment one day and began to chat about what we were doing that night. They said they were making noise, I told them I was making something like "fried loner psych rock." Eventually, they became a friend of mine and took me to my first few local noise shows. Just before that, I had started hanging with other college kids and going to weird basement rock shows and eventually some hardcore gigs. I quickly became friends with the noise crew and it all went downhill from there.

I started playing pretty frequently. I had a solo project and a duo, a collaborated with a few of the older cats frequently. Started non-stop listening to stuff - everything from older Minneapolis HN to Swedish tape noise to more academic sound art. It literally became a rock for me in a very weird time in my life and a way that I processed reality.

At that time, Minneapolis had a pretty wild noise, industrial, and adjacent-genre scene that I think many participating/enjoying, such as myself, took for granted. We had a handful of DIY venues, good small to mid-size venues, a reoccurring monthly series (Tourniquet Noise), and a large group of people involved. People were characters, in my honest opinion. Freaks to nerds to whatever - so many kinds of people lingering and coming in and out. I cannot stress how many shows were happening, how high quality a lot of the seasoned acts were, how the range of sounds were so wide, and the infrastructure for this kind of music was uniquely strong. Not like other cities in the Midwest or the rest of America, something was very different in Minneapolis at the time. I account this to Minneapolis being a pretty large metropolitan area in a fairly out-of-the-way area of the country, both tour-wise or generally speaking. You cultivate yourself and others in seclusion. Minneapolis-St. Paul has a very specific culture, too.

Eventually, toured the States, toured Europe, did a bunch of tapes, etc. I'm not as active right now making noise and have been listening to less lately, but these years were so golden and so much fun. I moved back to Chicago in 2017(I think?). People have drifted off since then, people have died, venues have closed, priorities changed, Minneapolis-St. Paul is being gentrified (much like much of the country) but I still think the Cities represent exactly the kind of place where good noise scenes can emerge and exist on their own terms, in ways that a city like Chicago never could.

A short list of active projects during that time that were either noise or noise-adjacent:
Gnawed
Indian Burial Ground/Black Lotus/other SVH projects
Dolores Dewberry
Spicoli
Anthony Amelang
Burning (fka Prostate)
Wince
Baculum
Cock ESP
Permanent Waves
Salts
Crepuscular
Trigger Alert
Body Carve/Ligature Impression
Transitional Species
Weakwick
Ice Volt
Scaphe
Cokskar
Juhyo
Dead Actress
Shitgod

Believe it or not, there was MORE. I'm forgetting some, I'm sure. I'm leaving others out because I don't want to write a huge list in this thread, maybe in a much needed Minneapolis Noise thread.


Edit - Additionally, by listening and making less noise, I do not mean that I am "over" noise or it was a silly scene that passed. I am currently OBSESSED with Jamaican music and the plethora of regional street rap that I literally don't have time to listen to as much noise as I used to in those days.

[New Forces]

You were in MPLS in a nice window of time. I moved just before that and I've always been bummed to miss that Tourniquet era.

[housepig]

Just got an email yesterday asking Juhyo to play one of four dates this summer that are booked for Tourniquet (and hopefully more if these go well). Feels like there's some fresh folks coming in to add some energy to the scene, I'm stoked for it.