Disquiet

Following up yesterday’s introduction to the Noisejihad Live! netlabel, here’s another recommendation. In brief, don’t be scared off by the site’s thus far longest and largest track, a nearly hour-long opus by Danny Kreutzfeldt. His entry appears on the label’s second release, dated February 19, 2005, and shares its virtual space with the group Ryfylke. The track starts off quiet, and takes its time before breaking that spell. First comes a thick layer of moist haze, then reflected beats that bring to mind dub, though only by association. This is much more the echo of a dank cave than of a Caribbean sound system. The only arguably weak moment is a brief section where the sound is evidently sourced from heavy breathing, which contributes a literal blemish to an otherwise ambiguous whole. The closing section sounds more like dawn than dusk, coming to life with a bright, creaking spaciousness — the image of the sun rising registers with a music that came of age in the clubs, not the concert hall. Check it out at noisejihad.dk/netlabel. (Kreutzfeldt was mentioned in a previous Downstream entry, for his soundscape contribution to the Stadtgruenlabel’s Janus [here]).

To paraphrase Pavement, “Music scene is crazy/ Netlabels start up each and every day/ I saw another one just the other day/ A special new netlabel.” Yes, there’s a new netlabel, and it’s something of an instant favorite. Noisejihad Live!, at noisejihad.dk/netlabel, posts live recordings of noise acts (no surprise there), and it’s already released three sets this year: Massaccesi and Pol Mod Pol; Ryfylke and Danny KreutzFeldt; and Mag Necro and Ultimate Combat Noise. The tracks are lengthy and sizable (one is nearly an hour, at 50 megabytes), and it’ll take a while to work through ‘em, but it doesn’t hurt to start off with the most recent: Kyoto, Japan-based Mag Necro‘s half-hour guitar performance, a suffering soundscape of improvisatory edgework. Drenched in gloom, it’s a fine example of the axiom that the difference between noise and ambient music is often just a matter of where you set the volume level.