Disquiet

Another volume in the classic noise audio-journal Tellus (volume 13, “Power Electronics,” from 1986) has gone up for free download at ubu.com — 17 tracks of aggravated textures and general sonic investigatory work. Highlights include the richly squelchy opening of “Clotage” by Controlled Bleeding, who eventually shift into vaguely Hendrix-oid feedback (MP3), a vibrant torture scenario (“Gamma-Titan”) from Merzbow (MP3), haunting glossolalia (“The Sirens”) from Mitch Corber (MP3), and a bracing cut’n'paste take on Janet Jackson (“How to Kill”) from the collection’s editor, Joseph Nechvatal (MP3). Among the other participants in volume 13 of Tellus were Rhys Chatham, Psyclones and Le Syndicat, just to name a few. I owned most of these early Tellus cassettes (and, later, CDs), and it’s great to hear the music without the inherent tape hiss. It’s also great to have the songs available as individual tracks, since the amorphous sounds can bleed into one another. More background on the series at continuo.wordpress.com. Tellus dates from a time (the 1980s) when artistic use of these such mass-market media as LPs and tapes seemed inherently subversive, even anarchic, and the series’s catalog ranks up there with the Giorno Poetry Systems releases, the ROIR archive and other early remnants of commercially distributed audio experimentation.

By Marc Weidenbaum