Skip to content

Freak Animal

Grunt * Myth Of Blood (cd 2015)

Discogs.comI have known the name of this long-running, Finnish power electronics for a long time. Mikko Aspa has been making earcracking noise for over two decades. The reason that I never really listened to Grunt is that this is (or I expected it to be) not my kind of noise.

Recently I heard a really great track, an aggressive power electronics wall-of-noise with extreme vocals. I liked the track and tried to listen to a few more tracks. Apparently I thought to like them enough to buy an album.

Well, my older assessment is true: Grunt does not make my kind of noise. It is unstructured, has a lot of high frequencies and (to me) lacks atmosphere (caused by the lack of structure). Too typical noise terrorism for me. I like the more (death) industrial type tracks better, but overall this is not the kind of noise I enjoy playing.

The artwork is nice though.

Links: Grunt, Freak Animal Records

v/a * Hour Of The Wolf (cd 2013)

Four long tracks of four artists under their given names. Kristian Olsson opens. I know Olsson best from Survival Unit and I also know his projects Blood ov thee Christ and Heid, but Discogs also has projects listed that I never heard of. Olsson presents something that is best described as “ambient noise”, but with most stress on the ambient part. His track is a bit monotous, but moody and quite alright.
Next up is Martin Bladh of IRM and Skin Area. I love the music of both projects and Bladh also contributed the most interesting track of the four. The style we are familiar with: ambient noise with highly distorted vocals. This is only in a part of his track though. The rest is more ritualistic so to way. The outburst is the only really noisy part on what I thought would be a total noise release.
More ambient things get with Kevin Tompson who is active in Sutcliffe Jugend and used by be a part of Whitehouse. He has more active projects according to Discogs. Also here the sound is quite soft, experimental and mostly ambient.
On Joel Danielsson Discogs has no further information and a Google search makes him see more of a visual artist. In any case, following most of the rest of the music, his track is weird ambient with a noisy touch.
I expected more extreme sounds so perhaps I should recommend this to people who like dark ambient. You should not be afraid of some dirty, noisy touches though.
Link: Freak Animal Records

Ex.Order * The Law Of Heresy (1997/2010)

This 1997 tape has been rereleased on cd twice by the label Industrial Recollections. It was the first full-length of Ex.Order (on tape) after two split 7″s. “The Law Of Heresy” contains what I call “ambient noise”, long stretched noise-sounds and not as extreme as projects such as Genocide Organ. The early release is not as dark as the later material that I love Ex.Order for, but the samples and distorted vocals are already present. As the labelname suggests Industrial Recollections (a sublabel of Freak Animal) rereleases industrial and noise classics and this Ex.Order release definately deserves a place among these classics. Some ten years ago when I reviewed “War Within Breath” which contains material of “The Law Of Heresy”, I did not like the ‘wall of sound’ kind of noise too much, nowadays I love Ex.Order for their structured and atmospheric extremism and I am glad to have this early material in my collection.
Link: Industrial Recollections