Uneasiest listening? Albums that pushed your limits

[papp diin]

I'd be interested to hear what hardened ears in this forum came across that made them go "Damn, that's almost too much for me".

For me, there's quite a bunch of Ramirez tapes I can't remember the exact name of that pushed my limit. But his collaboration with Grunt sticks out as the one that genuinely hurt to listen to. It really shouldn't, but there's something about the midrange on it that really fucks with me, goes into me and almost induces some sort of imaginary nausea.

[prolapsedlielack]

The recent Snuff album comes to mind. It had me wincing at certain points.

[murmur]

Great topic. Two very different albums come to mind for me. The first is Lapse’s Nothing Feels Right, which is extremely harsh in this weird mid-high frequency range that’s super punishing. The second is Blackhumour’s Monologue, which made me feel as uncomfortable as I’ve ever felt listening to music the first time I heard it. Not sure why, maybe something about the close mic’d voice and strange cuts/repetitions.

[Capers]

Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck, Rudolf Eb.er – Asshole / Snail Dilemma
The cover photo, to start with, is rather off putting (Rudolf told me what it is though, which made it a whole lot easier to look at). But then there's the sound. It's just such a theatrical cacophony that its frightening qualities, which are undeniable, are overshadowed by how ridiculous it all sounds. It's hilarious, really. But then just hopeless to put on. It's a kind of racket you just can't, CAN NOT, ignore.

[The Mysterious Creep]

Recently acquired a CD-R by a no-input mixer duo called Insects With Tits that was pretty excruciating. There's something about those extreme digital glitch frequencies that's just real hard on the ears, like little needles. Shrieking high feedback alone is something I quite enjoy, but there's a very specific timbre that makes even not exceptionally loud frequencies dig into me in a way I can't stand - a lot of badly-recorded digital noise I've noticed hits this particular sound, it's hard to describe.

[SS1535]

Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck, Rudolf Eb.er – Asshole / Snail Dilemma
The cover photo, to start with, is rather off putting (Rudolf told me what it is though, which made it a whole lot easier to look at). But then there's the sound. It's just such a theatrical cacophony that its frightening qualities, which are undeniable, are overshadowed by how ridiculous it all sounds. It's hilarious, really. But then just hopeless to put on. It's a kind of racket you just can't, CAN NOT, ignore.

What is it?

[Capers]

Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck, Rudolf Eb.er – Asshole / Snail Dilemma
The cover photo, to start with, is rather off putting (Rudolf told me what it is though, which made it a whole lot easier to look at).

What is it?

The cover photo? Someone's knee, apparently.

[khml]

Not sure if pushing limits but some of The Hafler Trio records were very difficult for me to digest. Maybe it was that I was listening at the wrong time but there always seemed to be something very ellusive, escaping the comprehension.
Can't remember which ones it were but clearly remember those hermetic fragments lumped into an hour+ long track; sometimes spectral drones, at other times strange distorted voices or barely identifiable sounds; all of them lasting either too long or just a tad too short, starting and stopping abruptly, glued together with stretches of silence.

Since then I came to appreciate plenty of H3O but that initial impression still remains.

[papp diin]

The recent Snuff album comes to mind. It had me wincing at certain points.

Still need to find a copy of that. It's been a while since a record came out with this kind of hype and discourse. The past few shows I've been to since it came out, people have been talking about it... hard to explain but in a scene this small with that much output, it accounts for something! Especially when people say that "they survived" listening to it, hah...

Another one that comes to mind is I Am Your Enemy by Halthan. Again, the lo-fi midrange really just makes you dizzy. On top of that it's just bizarre. It's really unlike any other power electronics tape I've ever heard, it feels more like a bad dream or haze from smelling the wrong chemicals. And it just feels like it never fucking ends. I love it and would like to crank it more, but it's one that I have to recover from after it's done. Flipping over to side B is a total act of masochism.

[SS1535]

Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck, Rudolf Eb.er – Asshole / Snail Dilemma
The cover photo, to start with, is rather off putting (Rudolf told me what it is though, which made it a whole lot easier to look at).

What is it?

The cover photo? Someone's knee, apparently.

Hmm... a strange looking knee for sure! I always wondered what that was, and had sort of assumed that it must be something artificial!

[Natalia]

Off of Coil's Constant Shallowness Leads to Evil, Tunnel of Goats tests me.

[adult human]

The Dave Phillips cd on Ground Fault is so filled with barely audible sections next to sudden jump scare blasts that it’s never been a listening experience I wanted to repeat. Constant volume knob twiddling.

[James Thompson]

The Dave Phillips cd on Ground Fault is so filled with barely audible sections next to sudden jump scare blasts that it’s never been a listening experience I wanted to repeat. Constant volume knob twiddling.

this type of thing is probably the toughest to listen to comfortably, in a very literal way - tracks almost designed to give you hearing damage.

interesting thread - i'm listening to asshole / snail dilemma now and yeah i can see why people find this so unpleasant (and compelling). really makes a strong counterpoint to 'noise maximalism', which i also love but often find oddly soothing. keeping things sparse and emotionally confrontational makes a track much harder to sit through, i think.

[John Cagefight]

Robert Ashley - Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon

I remember describing Asshole/Snail Dilemma to a local college DJ in the early 00s. He asked me if I had heard Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon. I had not, but he was right. File in the same section. A timeless classic of the disturbed variety.

[k.p.g]

Krokodil Enema's Victims tape on Reanimated Miscarriage comes to mind. The B Side is absolutely vile. A Side is some killer junk noise though!

[papp diin]

What is it?

The cover photo? Someone's knee, apparently.

Hmm... a strange looking knee for sure! I always wondered what that was, and had sort of assumed that it must be something artificial!

I'm guessing microscopic photography.

[SS1535]

The cover photo? Someone's knee, apparently.

Hmm... a strange looking knee for sure! I always wondered what that was, and had sort of assumed that it must be something artificial!

I'm guessing microscopic photography.

Perhaps. I would be interested to hear more specific details.

[Scream & Writhe]

Hmm... a strange looking knee for sure! I always wondered what that was, and had sort of assumed that it must be something artificial!

I'm guessing microscopic photography.

Perhaps. I would be interested to hear more specific details.

Have you ever played with the skin on a knee?

[leuksi]

Electricfunreal by Grateful Däd is a record I can't listen through on one sitting. Something in the sounds of circuit bent animal toys just make me feel nauseous and uneasy. The whole record sounds like something between a fever dream and a bad trip.

[Scream & Writhe]

An album I've always found to be just a bit too much at times is Bastard Noise's side of The Red List split with The Endless Blockade. Every element is just on full blast from start to finish with little room to breathe. Wood's guttural vocals and "four steel girders" at full charge, Nelson's Trogotronics firing on all cylinders, progressive metal drumming from Danny Walker. It all adds up to Phil Spector wall-of-sound on a noise & metal level and I find it quite fatiguing. Perhaps not uneasy, but definitely relentless.

[The Mysterious Creep]

Electricfunreal by Grateful Däd is a record I can't listen through on one sitting. Something in the sounds of circuit bent animal toys just make me feel nauseous and uneasy. The whole record sounds like something between a fever dream and a bad trip.

That sounds wild as shit, is it online anywhere?

[leuksi]

Electricfunreal by Grateful Däd is a record I can't listen through on one sitting. Something in the sounds of circuit bent animal toys just make me feel nauseous and uneasy. The whole record sounds like something between a fever dream and a bad trip.

That sounds wild as shit, is it online anywhere?

Some of the songs on that album and songs from other releases are on his Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/grateful-d-d
Just to be clear, this isn't exactly a noise album as in it's harsh in sound, more like avant garde or something. I might be alone with how this album makes me feel, the way this guy uses his setup consisting mostly of circuit bent toys just sounds fucked in a bad-ish way to me, but for some reason I still like it, even tho I hate it.

[DIODE SNORTER]

Not noise but Folkways Records' 1964 LP Speech After Removal Of The Larynx is impossible to get through for me. Absolutely stomach-churning. Listen to only if you have no gag reflex:


I also remember this track literally hurting my ears at the time but it doesn't sound that bad to me now:


Good topic!

[Bubble-Congeries]

I enjoy the punishing aspects of noise and extreme volume, though any of it becomes too much after long enough. Once I can feel my hearing becoming unfocused, I usually have to turn it down and take a break because everything is starting to turn into ear-fatigued mush and my head is subtly beginning to hurt. Tauromachine (Merzbow), Gallon Gravy (Painjerk), Asset Without Liability (Incaps) and Thighmaster (Moozzhead) are some of my go-to choices for car noise self abuse, yet they all have this effect when listening at high volumes for extended periods. After about 30 minutes or so (sometimes less), I actually can't take the unrelenting sonic pressure anymore and have to turn it down, at which point all the sound is disconcertingly muffled and quiet. But it's so addictive!

On the opposite end of the spectrum, in terms of my high sensitivity to gore and death and decay, a lot of old industrial with very unsanitary, medicalized atmospheres tend to make me squirm. I guess TG's Hamburgy Lady and SPK's Leichenschrei album are what I always think of first, because it's the stuff I heard first as an adolescent, and the uncanny sounds always disturbed me and made me feel unclean, like physically dirty, from listening to them, which was uncomfortable but also very impressive. Premature Ejaculation often hit that spot for me as well.

Any kind of piercing or low-frequency sounds that directly interfere with my concentration or sense of balance gets an A+ from me!

PS: Anything with a crying baby gets an F (but also mad respect)!

[Thomas_B]

I find human coughing/retching/gagging sounds to be very unpleasant, so any noise where those sounds appear instantly becomes challenging for me. Someone else mentioned the Dave Phillips disc on Ground Fault. Although I consider it a masterpiece in noise, I agree it’s a difficult listen. It’s one of those albums that’s always in the back of my mind, prodding me to dust it off and give it a spin again, except I’m rarely in the mood for its wild dynamics / deathly silence to sudden and absolute jarring harshness. Luxury by Deflag Haemorrhage/Haien Kontra is also unsettling, for a couple reasons - similarly to the Dave Phillips disc there’s plenty of silence interspersed alongside the wild percussion and stabbing electronics, but in addition to that, one track includes a heinous recording of dogs being abused in a laboratory which is about as uneasy as these things get.