Canadian noise in decades past

[Scream & Writhe]

Amazing to read that, Soddy. Glad you were able to dig it up. Deserved to be enshrined in the pages of the booklet accompanying the NO 98 box. To think of Jojo and Bloor together... !

[Joie de la Blumpy]

Amazing to read that, Soddy. Glad you were able to dig it up. Deserved to be enshrined in the pages of the booklet accompanying the NO 98 box. To think of Jojo and Bloor together... !

Oh, haha, this is worth adding. Shortly after I posted that I got an irate call from Alan (I hope he won't mind my posting this, it's pretty funny imo).

So...Soddy...I heard you were badmouthing Knurl, eh?

He hadn't read it but one of his pals had, and said pal somehow translated what I'd written into a dis! (I used to get this a lot, actually. One day I'll relate the D Squad objection...at least no one ever gifted me no tin 'o turd!) He sounded pretty PO'd but gradually over the course of the call I managed to persuade him to semi-grudgingly accept that what I'd posted was in no way a dis. Far from it. Later he managed to get hold of the review, or maybe I sent him a copy, and he agreed with my assessment so all was (I believe!) well.

[Joie de la Blumpy]

O Huge Vault Of Vasoline
Nothing to not like about this Ajax Ontario mainstay.You say Phlox in Space, I say Excerpt Buxtehude. Like all your favorite non organic nonmusics dissembling in perfectly un pixilated headspace, static distorto-jabs erratically burgling in turdle-d sluffle-lurch. Stuffle-lurch. Lurching stuffles stuffling till the stuffles stuffle home. Lurch be the word. You'd think they were going places. With a name like that. And they were, before they most assuredly weren't, assuming that were(n't) were a word. (Probably!) Electrocuted electro-destaticized cats, like. There are no sleeping consorts. And. Huge fucking vaults, of fucking vasoline. vaseline. vasiline. Spelling apparently optional. Check that out mofo.

Now to audition some surf zombie atrocities.

[Joie de la Blumpy]

Y'know, I completely fergott that this, this Burlington Ont based Number None, were a (and yet another long obscured) work of Mike McAvella (aka he of the plentifully scorched Scissor, earlier mentioned). But it (Surf Zombie Atrocities, circa 1995) certainly do share plenty of them plentofitously scorched inflections (the Scissor'd sort), if somehow managing to pierce that mite piercinger, not say roughinger, mayhap raginger, as may perhaps befit the deliverings of beocord 2000 mono reel to reel, or so it says. So to say more in line with the inelegantly rendered human remains dis-gracing the cover though funnily enough the tape itself looks (if not at all sounds) like something straight outta MSNP*. Makes me (or at least the illhealthily righteous-scorchings-fixated earhole parts of me) wonder how many other mid-90s obscurities le Burlington Ont chap were responsible for. NN do share a cherished spot with O Huge Vault Of Vasiline on seminal Xcretaria comp the first, so maybe need to start mining other Xcretances fer aliasses, es, es (gettin my beocord 2000 freak on).

* now say it again with proper Ice Cube inflection**
** crazy motherfucker named joie de la blumpy / from a gang called omfg fuck my fuckin life g

[stactor]

Bands/artists:

Analystic Investivations / ai/ia/af (Montreal)
Angelicate + side projects (Fredericton/Halifax/Montreal)
Audio-Sculpture EXP. (Montreal)
Bitter Harvest (Halifax/Toronto)...
(snip)

Labels:
Alien8 (Montreal)
Batarrr (Montreal)
Bunker Records (Montreal) - also had a fantastic shop on St.Denis, later moved and shifted more in a techno/house direction, closed finally in the early-mid 90's...
(snip)

Great list! I can comment on a few of these bands/artists.

- Bitter Harvest (Halifax/Toronto). Bitter Harvest is the project of former Phycus drummer Scott MacKay, a.k.a.Scott Righteous. He's still making music as Bitter Harvest and under a few other names, he is originally from Halifax and still lives in Toronto. I see him once a week or so.
- Crawl/Child + side projects (Pontypool, ON). Pontypool...birthplace of Crawl/Child AND ground zero for a language-based zombie virus! How great is that! Crawl/Child was one of my favorite bands to see live in Toronto back in the day. No idea where Howard and Brad have gone.
- W.A. Davidson/Songs of the New Erotics (Toronto). That's me! Except you spelled my name wrong, it's Davison not Davidson. Happens all the time. Yeah, I'm still alive and busier than ever. I took a break from Songs of the New Erotics for awhile but brought it back in 2022 with a digital album on Bandcamp. And I have a bunch of other projects as well, both solo and various groups. I've also been pretty active in free improvisation since the late 90s. Still devoted to experimental weirdness of all sorts!
- Dust That Collects. This is the solo project of Ron McFarlan based in Toronto. I see Ron frequently and we occasionally jam together but he hasn't released any DTC music in decades. He's retired from his job now so, maybe, he'll get back to making music. Or not.
- Electro Static Cat / Empirical Sleeping Consort (Toronto). Oh, yes! Another favorite outfit from Toronto. Strangely, I never met them in person. Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't they later become Legion Of Green Men? I might be wrong about that.
- The Infant Cycle (Hamilton, ON). Yes, this is Hamilton-based Jim DeJong who used to run the Doomsday Transmissions label and now operates The Ceiling. Still going strong! I see him occasionally and we put out a Bandcamp album in 2020 from our Wax Infant collaborative project.
- Mindsculpture/Chronic Remorse/Unit 731, etc (Kitchener, ON). Jared Davison, Jim DeJong, Neb Rakic, Adam Thornton, Paul Verma...great little scene in Kitchener in the 90s! Mind Skelp-cher were another favorite Ontario band of mine and one I had fairly close ties with. Jim I've already mentioned I'm still in touch with. It's been a few years but Jared and I are still sort of in touch and I'm pretty sure he's still making music/noise (note that he is also a "Davison" not "Davidson"...no relation, though, as far as we know). The rest of these guys I have no idea where they are.
- The Nihilist Spasm Band (obviously) (London, ON). The grandfathers of noise! Still going, though the years may be catching up with them. Last time I saw them was at an outdoor show at Yonge Dundas Square in Toronto last year and the group was down to a quartet (Art Pratten, John Clement, John Boyle, and Aya Onishi). Bill Exley wasn't able to make that show and his resounding voice was sorely missed. Hopefully, that was just a temporary thing and he will return as the frontman.
- Orphx (Dundas, ON). Rich Oddie and Christie Sealey, Xcreteria label and all that. I had fairly close ties with them back in the Xcreteria days but haven't spoken to either of them in a few years. Orphx is obviously still a thing and fairly well-known in the electronic music scene.
- Phycus (Halifax/Ottawa/Montreal). God, what do I say about Phycus? I could probably write a book about the project! The early origins of the band are in Sydney, NS but it officially got going in the late 80s in Halifax. Strangely, I was living there at the time but knew nothing about them. I only discovered the band via a very scrappy cassette called "Tree" which I picked up at Track Records in Halifax shortly before I left for Toronto. I was, however, friends with Phycus drummer Scott Righteous (see Bitter Harvest above) since we were classmates in Steve Tittle's experimental music course at Dalhousie University in 88/89. When Scott and I both (independent of each other) relocated to Toronto in 1989, we reconnected and it was only another year or so before Brian Damage came to Toronto and I got recruited into Phycus (under the name Bill Satan). I became a fairly prominent member of the group over the following decade as well as being heavily involved in Neoist activities with both Phycus and Istvan Kantor/Monty Cantsin. Brian is still in Montreal and still active in music. Much of the Phycus back catalogue has been made available on Bandcamp.
- Songs of the New Erotics (Hamilton, ON). Already talked a bit about my SOTNE project. Curious about Hamilton being listed here instead of Toronto.

On to the labels:

- Chimik Communications (Montreal). Chimik released one of my all-time favorite compilations "Cadavres Exquis". Love that tape! Who was behind Chimik remains a mystery to me. If anyone can fill me in I'd love to hear it!
- Disembraining Songs (Toronto). That was/is the label I started in the mid-90s, mostly just to release my own material. Still going. I also ran the Anathema label in the early 90s and a tape label called Rembrandt X-Ray (with my friend Greg Denton) in Truro, NS in the 80s.
- Doomsday Transmissions (Kitchener, ON). As mentioned, run by Jim DeJong.
- DOVe Inc (Toronto). Run by Gerry Belanger. Last I heard, Gerry is a K-Pop DJ/promoter.
- Freedom in a Vacuum (Toronto). Yeah, a legend! Rob Olver did so much for the scene. I was best man at his somewhat ill-fated wedding (story for another day).
- Neoist Machine Group/Musicus Phycus/Total Zero (Halifax/Ottawa/Montreal). Brian Damage!

That's all for now. - William

[keraunograph]

Thanks for that post, William, and for correcting the record in a few places, sorry about the misinformation - old age, failing memory!

I was also involved in Phycus occasionally from early 1989 until around 2000 (my last appearances were on the split 7" with Vita-Verbum-Lux and the Megachannel Extraterrestrial Array CDr) - but there were a lot of people I didn't meet, you included! I still run into Brian every few years, we've known each other since 1988. Could never really commit to more frequent involvement though as we didn't really have much in common musically speaking. We did do a whole bunch of one-off single track things, most (fortunately!) never released. Was also friendly with Scott Righteous and James Bain though haven't seen them in ages.

Can confirm that Electro Static Cat/Empirical Sleeping Consort did become Legion of Green Men - Gerry from DOVe mentioned this to me around the time LOGM did their EP for the Luddite series (for which I had already contributed Luddite44).

Curious about Chimik too, been meaning to ask around, expect the Of Tanz Victims people might know.

[Happiness, forever]

That's all for now. - William

Hi William.
Whatever happened to SIX HEADS?? fantastic band.

Kindly,
William

[stactor]

Thanks for that post, William, and for correcting the record in a few places, sorry about the misinformation - old age, failing memory!

I was also involved in Phycus occasionally from early 1989 until around 2000 (my last appearances were on the split 7" with Vita-Verbum-Lux and the Megachannel Extraterrestrial Array CDr) - but there were a lot of people I didn't meet, you included! I still run into Brian every few years, we've known each other since 1988. Could never really commit to more frequent involvement though as we didn't really have much in common musically speaking. We did do a whole bunch of one-off single track things, most (fortunately!) never released. Was also friendly with Scott Righteous and James Bain though haven't seen them in ages.

Can confirm that Electro Static Cat/Empirical Sleeping Consort did become Legion of Green Men - Gerry from DOVe mentioned this to me around the time LOGM did their EP for the Luddite series (for which I had already contributed Luddite44).

Curious about Chimik too, been meaning to ask around, expect the Of Tanz Victims people might know.

Yeah, I guess you were part of the Montreal version of Phycus and we never really met. Send me an email when you get a chance as I’d like to know more about Keraunograph and other projects. Thanks for confirming that bit about LOGM...yeah, old age, failing memory, etc.

[stactor]

That's all for now. - William

Hi William.
Whatever happened to SIX HEADS?? fantastic band.

Kindly,
William

Hello Mr. Rage! Nice to hear from you! And thanks.Six Heads is a project I am particularly proud of.Sadly, it is no more. Blew apart for personal reasons around 2015 after 15 years of being a pretty well oiled machine. That’s the way it goes sometimes. We reformed briefly in 2019 at the request of Seymour Glass, to open for Glands Of External Secretion when they played Toronto. We put out a tape around the same time. It was like picking up exactly where we left off and we may have continued but then the pandemic happened...Anyway, yeah, it’s pretty much done.

[Happiness, forever]

A wonderful band then for the ages to discover. I hope they do. Now to find and acquire that tape.

Nice to see you here, too!
Welcome, Welcome Everybody!!
🙂

[stactor]

A wonderful band then for the ages to discover. I hope they do. Now to find and acquire that tape.

Nice to see you here, too!
Welcome, Welcome Everybody!!
🙂

Thanks William. Send me an email and I will see if I have any more of those tapes (not sure). It is a split with Urban Refuse Group (material from the 90s. U.R.G. eventually turned into Six Heads).

[stactor]

Just looking through some old tapes here and came across a couple by The Art Effects. I remember their tapes being around in Toronto in the late 80s/early 90s, and obviously I picked up a couple of them, but I cannot tell you much about who The Art Effects actually were. Never met them, and IIRC no one I knew talked about them much. They are listed on Discogs, however, so not totally obscure.

[stactor]

Also need to mention Kevin Paisley who ran the Mutant Cactus label out of Guelph, Ontario in the mid to late 90s. Put out some great tapes. His solo project was Static insect.

[stactor]

Also want to add Émilie Mouchous's project Gmackrr to the list of cool Montreal-based noise projects of the 2000s.

[Scream & Writhe]

Also want to add Émilie Mouchous's project Gmackrr to the list of cool Montreal-based noise projects of the 2000s.

She's still paying, I think under her own name. Recently appeared at one of the Midfield events.

[stactor]

Also want to add Émilie Mouchous's project Gmackrr to the list of cool Montreal-based noise projects of the 2000s.

She's still paying, I think under her own name. Recently appeared at one of the Midfield events.

Yeah, I got curious about her a short while ago, wondering what she's up to, etc. and did some googling. Good to see she's still active and doing interesting sound art, although less in a "noise" context, I think (could be wrong about that). Not familiar with the "Midfield events".