Various – Indiscreet Stereo Test Record

The Millers High Life track has some of the noise breakdown from Merry Go Bye Bye by Mr. Bungle. It's cool to hear those sounds isolated on their own.

MILLERS HIGHER LIFE take their sound from the same places as some of the RRRtists. It's like a halfway hybrid between RUNZELSTIRN & GURGELSTØCK and the Japanese Extreme Noise folk - quiet mysterious passages of presumably found or location recordings are punctuated by sudden blasts and belches of sound. JAMES PLOTKIN proves what a few of us already knew - that if the man puts his mind to easy harmonic works he can turn out some impressive stuff. I was once hypnotised by a guitar loop he left hanging in the air at a SCORN soundcheck and wished I could have recorded that moment. Well, this may not be it, but it's a decent substitute. For someone who churns out such in-yer-face stuff as OLD and the FLUX album, it's nice to see he can caress our consciousness with this languid liquid wave music. Think FRIPP & ENO and take away the harshness. LULL rarely serve up anything under par and this tonal journey is no exception. It's evocative of foggy dark nights and lighthouses, of deserted factories with the ghost heartbeat of long dead machines. PRINCESS DRAGON-MOM is previously unknown to me. It follows much the same course as the opening track, but perhaps with it's feet more heavily in the Extreme Noise school. After LULL's soporific warmth, it wakes you up like a slap around the face. Some of the sounds remind me of THROBBING GRISTLE's "Wall Of Sound" style cacophonies. ROBIN RIMBAUD's SCANNER take us back to a more passive but quite edgy state. It's voyeuristic nature again has that TG sense of unnerving tension - as if you are listening to ghosts of the past whose intentions may or may not be innocent. He has the knowledge that the most scary sounds don't have to be comin' at you like stormtroopers kicking in the door. NAIVE takes the mood to an altogether more obviously electronic level without really changing the atmosphere. Not sure who NAIVE are but they like to bugger about with raw electrics which sizzle, rumble and squeal softly - like a VIDNA OBMANA remix of WHITEHOUSE without the ... ahem ... structure. It gains in intensity, again waking the sleeper from his slumber, making way for the more obviously structured fx-saturated sound of K.K. NULL. Here our hero is showing phase shift and flange enthusiasts like ANOTHER HEADACHE how it's really done - pitch shifting rises in regular waves while what sounds like voices moan deep within it's structure. FINAL slip into it's wake with ease, with raw throbs and sheets of bland sound blending one into another to form something bigger than the sum of it's parts. MORPHIA snatch the baton and create an atmosphere somewhere between PLOTKIN's floating drift and LULL's dark, muted tones. It dwells in the air with intent, almost revisiting the foggy darkness and lighthouse mentioned above. DELPHIUM create a kind of noisy, distorted structured rhythm which flows gently while crisp white noise like vinyl run-off gives it a distinctly lo-fi quality. MERZBOW never let us down when it comes to noise. From several fairly passive tracks we are flung into the middle of a sonic war, all hell breaking loose. Imagine that potential future reflected in the TERMINATOR films. Go back to when the machines first set themselves against humanity and imagine what an all out war would have sounded like. This is pain. This is suffering. If this sound appears naturally anywhere in the universe, you can be sure it's associated with death and destruction. UMBILICAL LIMBO follow their metallic coda to the previous track with a dark, ponderous and mysterious structure. It is probably the most 'formed' composition here and a fitting end to an intriguing album of mood and noise.
An important slice of contemporary strangeness from artists well-known & otherwise. Darkness, strangeness & drifting noisescapes, with one central theme, although the overall 'feel' of the album is constantly changing throughout.

Originally reviewed for Soft Watch.

This is an interesting compilation, at least because half of its participants are rock musicians hiding under various guises. Millers Higher Life is Trey Spruance (Mr. Bungle), Umbilical Limbo is Nicholas Bullen (Napalm Death founder), James Plotkin don't need no introduction, Princess Dragon-Mom is Warren Defever (His Name Is Alive).
Interestingly enough, their contributions are going quite well with those of more experienced avant-garde/experimental musicians like Merzbow/Scanner/Delphium.