Thoughts: You ever go to one of those haunted houses run by a local harvest festival? They're not the least bit scary. Actually, they're lame, but the people running it are trying their best. They're so earnest that all you can do is play along and hide your cringing. Bless their hearts!

Release info: Released on limited edition vinyl in 1988 (Maldoror / MAL666, then re-issued on CD in 1989 and 1994.

Thoughts: This is music teleported from one chamber to another, but there was a fly in the booth when the experiment took place, and now the music has evolved into an insectoid monstrosity. Don't be alarmed when you find whole fingernails peeled off in the sink.

Release info: Released on vinyl in 1981 (DOGMAT-1, Australia) and then re-issued on a remastered CD-R with bonus tracks in 2005 (Sevcom / n/a, Australia).

Thoughts: Density. That's the word I'm searching for as I stumble through the haze of my noise-induced headache. Density. There's a lot going on in this record, a lot to unpack and interpret. Half-eaten magnetic tapes, pounding machines, near-constant feedback of some kind or another. All overlaid with an insectoid static. It's like they made a record, destroyed it, and then played the record, recording what came out.

Release info: This was dubbed onto a few cassettes in 1984 and had no label and no distribution. One of those rare cassettes is worth upwards of $1000. wtf It was reissued on CD and vinyl in our boring 21st century, but those are just shameless money grabs, co-opted by The Man.

Thoughts: One thing I didn't realize about punk for a long time is that its pessimism isn't necessarily misplaced. People do indeed suck. Actually, the purveyors of punk have good instincts: it's all bullshit anyway. And they're almost right. fucking the dead, though? So that's what a Code Blue is!

Release info: Released on vinyl in 1981 (Frontier / FLP 1004, USA) and then re-issued on vinyl in 1988 (Weird System / WS033, Germany) in both normal and colored vinyl. After that there's an endless re-issuing stream of CDs, vinyl, and cassettes.

Thoughts: Aptly named band and EP. War crimes? War is a crime! This is blitzkrieg bombs dropping on your face after a barrage has already taken most of your hearing. Fucking miserable!

Release info: Released on vinyl 7" in 1983 (Dirty Rotten / DRI 183, USA), then re-issued on vinyl and CD multiple times until 2010.

And fun as all fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Just like MB.

Indeed.

Wouldn't have expected all the old school industrial from you but that **** has some of the best textures in music.

I told you the other day: everything I've said so far is a lie. Also this.

You cock sucker. At least hit this up. If Pitchfork knew about it they'd tell you it was the ultimate industrial performance that everyone curious should listen to if they only ever explored one industrial performance.

Throbbing Gristle is borderline Normie Trash for this journal. Good stuff, though. A bit too well known, though.

Check the vid. It's not normie trash.

Yeah. I did.

You must know a higher class of normie.

^this. How could my first exposure to industrial be "normie"?

I guess everyone has his entry level music.

That just makes me think you didn't get it.

Thoughts: Super lo-fi percussion, like you're hearing revelry through several meters of murky water. You might have enjoyed the party, but you're too busy drowning yourself. Maybe next time!

Release info: Released on vinyl in 1981 (Vanity / vanity 0012, Japan) and re-issued also on vinyl in 2005 (PSYCHOUT).

Thoughts: Pretty standard live punk rock, exhorting us to not give a shit and to stop being so polite.

Release info: Released on vinyl 7" in 1988 (Shredder ‎– SHRED ONE, USA).

Thoughts: When you sneer so hard it affects your pronunciation. The vocals fire like a machine gun, and I can't help but think this must be damn fine music to sk8 to and forget for a while that you're part of the money machine and cannot escape, no matter how hard you grind or how long you railside.

Release info: Released on vinyl in 1983 and colored vinyl in 1987 (BYO / BYO 003, USA). A CD with bonus tracks was released in 1997 (BYO / BYO 003CD, USA).

Check this if you want a top notch live punk album:

The Clash - From Here to Eternity

Thoughts: This is you getting packed so tightly in Styrofoam that no one remembers you, and even your dog cannot save you. Don't worry, though. The packing is so slow and torturous a process that you have plenty of time to hear your own end.

Release info: Released on vinyl in 1987 (ZSF / SH62-01) and then re-issued on CD in 1994 (Distemper / DISTEMPER 001, US). For collectors, a limited edition numbered vinyl was issued in 2015 (Menstrualrecordings / LH66, Italy).

Thoughts: This music shifts tone the way Tron vehicles change direction. This is what I would play on my headphones if I were floating through space and slowly approaching VGER because, after all, VGER is just looking for someone to love.

Release info: Released on numbered edition vinyl in 1985 (L∴S∴D∴ / LSDL-02 / LM-1511, Japan) and then re-issued again on numbered edition vinyl in 2008 (P∴C∴P∴ / PCPR-01, Germany).

Thoughts: When you pit your robot against your opponents', no matter how much you prepare, the vagaries of the factory's machinations will almost always fuck up your plan. It all begins with a bad shuffle, disorienting you, sending you off into directions you didn't anticipate, sometimes sending you straight into a hole. And once the conveyor belts start moving, who knows where your robot will end up? Smashed into spare parts? Firing lasers in the back of your opponents' robots? Spinning your wheels as you ram your head against an steel wall? Probably all of the above.

Release info: Released on limited edition vinyl in 1982 (Tic-Tac / TTL-1GR, Spain) and then on cassette in 1987 (EGK / EGK 016, Spain) and 1989 (Línea Alternativa / L.A.P. 7, Spain) before seeing CD and more vinyl releases in the 21st century.

Esplendor Geometrica is pretty dope. One time my friend and I were dropping off his old hippy mom somewhere before going to a local industrial rave thing and we were listening to them to get in the mood. She was just totally enthralled by them and now says that they're one of her favourite bands, which stands out against the super mellow stuff that she was usually drawn to. It was the album that has the baby with a black eye for the cover. The quasi-rave thing was ****ing milquetoast but that'll always stick with me.

Thoughts: A group of cowled priests stand in the shadowy cavern and chant in a solemn call-and-response with their sleeping, growling machine god. After the ceremony, alarms go off, alerting the worshipers that the god is waking, and a piano players has to lull it back to sleep.

Release info: Released on vinyl in 1983 (Le Rey / LR 101, UK).

Thoughts: This is an odd split album for me because although the bands sound similar (Code of Honor is thrashier than Sick Pleasure, though), and though on the surface their messages of destruction might be construed as the same, they are not. Code of Honor's complaint is political, and they argue from the principles of peace and honesty as they crusade against government corruption and lies. Sick Pleasure, however, is more misanthropic and nihilistic, wishing for the destruction of the human race on such a scale that the Earth will have no memory of us. It seems that someone hurt Sick Pleasure personally, whereas for Code of Honor, the message is only political.

Release info: Released on 120-gram vinyl in 1982 (Subterranean / SUB 27, USA).

Thoughts: More California punk that's pissed off about the government fucking them over.

Release info: Released on vinyl in 1982 (Nutrons / BS-001, USA).

Thoughts: The kind of music you listen to while you're flatlining, reassuring you that your life was meaningless, and so is your death.

Release info: Released on 7" vinyl in 1980 (Fresh / FRESH 5, UK).

Thoughts: Folk music in the post-human world. This is what Agent Smith listens to after a busy day of hunting down and neutralizing escaped batteries. Not that normie Chemical Brothers shit.

Release info: Released on limited edition vinyl in 1986 (Eskimo / 1202-02, Japan).

Thoughts: What the fuck is happening on the second live track? At least make the fucking effort to make your recording something we can actually hear! It must be part of the whole show where he just kept screaming "fuck you! get up here!" after every song. lol

Release info: Released on vinyl 7" in 1977 (What Records? / WHAT 01, USA), and then we got a limited edition 7" in 1980. A lot more reissues followed.

Holy shit. Just like in the movies: frat boys, beers, and cars!





(Hey, rostasi,

I can't find this anywhere. Can you help?)

Yeah. I know. I was hoping you had a better quality version, since my friend wants me to burn a CD of it for him. :)

Thoughts: I like this like I like my men: double 7 inch.

Release info: Released on numbered edition double 7" vinyl in 1980 (Illusion / IP 003, France).

Thoughts: Two people are standing in different dimension trying to opening vortexes to each other. Two very discrete, intermittent things are happening here. The Axis powers struggling to be reborn?

Release info: Released on limited edition vinyl in 1990 (RRR / RRR 050).

Thoughts: Imperial Japan, Aleister Crowley, Charles Manson, and Heinrich Himmler all on one album! Don't worry. The pretty little harpsichords and rousing brass bands make it all okay. NWW's conversation between a father and his daughter is so fucking disturbing, like they're trapped in a well together.

Release info: Released on vinyl in 1982 (Come Organisation / WDC 881021, UK).

Thoughts: lol Only one person clapped for Belinda and then nobody clapped for the Germs. Those dirty sluts! A really piss poor live album with all the trashiness you'd expect from punk. I get a kick out of the antagonistic audience. "Ah, fuck you!"

Release info: Released as a numbered edition vinyl in 1982 (Mohawk / SCALP-001, USA) before being released on cassette (and re-titled Live at the Whisky) later that same year (ROIR / A108, USA). CD and vinyl LP re-issues followed.

Thoughts: Some noise is noisier than other noise. This noise isn't as noisy as the noisy noise I've had the misfortune to subject myself to in this wonderful little listening experiment of mine.

Release info: Released on numbered edition vinyl 7" in 1994 (Aeroplane / AR15, UK).

I'll be honest your last couple weeks of entries have made you look way cooler than all that other pussy bitch **** you've talked about in the last few years.