Weirdo Rippers #14

If it feels like a while since the latest edition of Weirdo Rippers that’s because it has been.

Looking back, and it’s the biggest gap from one edition to the next, which kind of tells a story over the past couple of months. The truth? Burn out is real. The first indications of i? Mustering the energy to author preambles like this. They say honesty is the best policy and, well, there it is.

Still, in the face of these things, you simply have to find a way. So with that, we’ll keep doing what we’ve been doing since the inception of this site four years ago.

One of the reasons to keep finding a way is simply because we don’t want this place to become yet another online publication that goes to wall. Yes, it continues to be on the scale it is, because anything bigger would be impossible to manage with the resources we function with.

Could things be done better? Of course, not least email communication which no doubt infuriates people (many apologies, but it’s just not possible to answer every single missive without cutting into the time it takes to produce the articles we do).

Nothing lasts forever, that much is truth. However while our readership continues to grow (and thankfully it is thanks to you!), we’ll be still here fighting against the nefarious forces that continue to reduce art to an MP3 and a JPG.

That fight starts with features like this. A feature that will always be the hallmark card for publications like this. Outsider art emerging from all parts of the world, and this latest edition has more of it.

Label Watch: Katuktu Collective

Asteroide & Fiorella16: Suni A Través del Espejo
Cruel Nature Records

Peru is home to one of the most vibrant underground scenes in the world, and two of the country’s DIY purveyors, Asteroide (consisting of brothers David and Marco Rivarola) and Fiorella16 (Jose María Málaga) combine for a series of discordant drone-rock with Suni A Través del Espejo.

With glitchy textures and an exotic dose of psychedelia, this collaboration takes us through stranger portals than most, with the echoes of noise-rock, industrial and hard-biting no-wave all weaved through this wicked patchwork.

Fans of The Dead C will rejoice the birth of this collaboration which, I for one, hope is just the start of this screaming hell storm of noise.

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Volodja Brodsky: Whispering Ln.
Hidden Harmony

The artwork tells us a lot about Estonian composer, Volodja Brodsky, whose debut long-player, Whispering Ln., is an album of reflection both in sound and emotion.

Recorded during the artist’s trip to the United States in 2018/2019, Brodsky presents a series of warped synth-based compositions that have seemingly escaped through the cracks of a church and leaked into the world of cinema.

From start to finish, Whispering Ln is a slow pulse of sound that has a funny way of tugging at the heart strings, making it one of the more emotionally intense propositions in this latest edition of WR. It’s for a certain place and time. And when you reach it, the results are rather gratifying.

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Droneroom / Corpse Pose: Droneroom / Corpse Pose
Heathen Fawn Recordings

Blake Conley teams up with Washington guitarist Stephan Blount (a.k.a. Corpse Pose) for two long-form compositions bathed in cosmic majesty.

First is droneroom’s Funeral Biscuit/Burial Cake – wandering Americana with the main ingredient being tumbleweed. The imagery, simply beautiful to the point where you just want to bottle it up. Then there’s Corpse Pose’s Perseverations in C Minor – a roaming escapade into the void, underlining the kind of places one can go in the world of guitar improvisation. 

You wouldn’t expect much else from either artist, and despite both constantly releasing new music, for those new to either endeavour, this split could well be your gateway that leads to mecca.

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Droneroom: As Long as the Sun

Fera: Psiche Liberata
Maple Death Records

Fera is the brainchild of Italian producer, Andrea De Franco, and with his latest album, Psiche Liberata, I can’t really think of an experimental release that’s covered all bases like this.

There’s so much going on to the point where you find yourself scouring your record collection with a fierce intensity. There’s the beautiful noise inspired by the likes of Flying Saucer Attack and Bowery Electric. There’s constant flirting with the dancefloor the same way Andy Stott has over the last 15 years. The list goes on, but at no point does it feel derivative. There’s an icy glaze to these tracks, giving them a cold, unique feeling.

If there’s an album that ties together a feature like this then it’s Psiche Liberata. It really is that simple. Just press play and hear it for yourself.

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Mabe Fratti: Sentir Que No Sabes
Unheard of Hope

Since Sun 13 opened its doors, one of the regulars to walk through them has been Guatemala-born Mexico City-based cellist, Mabe Fratti. It’d feel very strange if the new music calendar year didn’t welcome a Mabe Fratti record, and she doesn’t disappoint in 2024, returning with Sentir Que No Sabes.

Fratti’s off-kilter wanderings of the past remain, but on the face of it, Sentir Que No Sabes has more of an immediacy to the ears. There’s still plenty of curiosity and gadget tinkering led by some interesting results via the vocoder, but while Fratti has scoured the frontiers of minimalism in previous releases, she’s really branching out here.

On the back of Sentir Que No Sabes, you get the sense that world of cinema awaits Fratti. These compositions, changing shape and colour such as their sheer dynamism. It may just be Fratti’s breakthrough to another sound world.

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Jeff Gburek: Eyeless: Microtonal Mandolin
Ramble Records

Following last year’s The Art of Prepared Guitar (also via Ramble Records), be-stringed Polish experimentalist, Jeff Gburek, is at it again with his latest left-field endeavour, Eyeless: Microtonal Mandolin.

It’s what it says on the tin, really. Five compositions of stringed exploration that contain Eastern inflections, evoking that kind of open-field freedom that feeds into an escapist kind of vibe.

With such a vast body of work, Gbuerk is the kind of musician that will always shift the creative boundaries. That’s just what he does and Eyeless: Microtonal Mandolin is yet another example of that.

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Zelienople: Everything is Simple

Hell on Hearth: One Hundred and Thirty
Self-released

The noise odyssey of Sean Wárs’ Hell on Hearth project continues with One Hundred and Thirty.

While there have been several releases since our last communication on all things Hell on Hearth (forgive us, it’s hard to keep up), Wárs dropped One Hundred and Thirty last week which, in part, feels inspired by his native Liverpool’s resistance against fascism in the wake of the U.K. riots which have blighted the country.

In the face of telling bigots to fuck off, in all its howling, mind-bending majesty, One Hundred and Thirty feels like a timely soundtrack to the good fight. Where noise artists are concerned, well… the Hell on Hearth remit feels like one of the most vital out there. 

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The Floating World: Impermanence
Fiadh Productions

One half of the brilliant duo, The Spectral Light, Amanda Votta has also spent the last two decades expelling doom in the world’s darkest corners as The Floating World.

Votta returns with her seventh album under The Floating World banner, Impermanence. In many ways, it’s a rounded document of the experimentalist’s sonic journey throughout the years. It’s dark, it’s abrasive and it cloaks yours dreams with black smoke.

Impermanence takes the essence of ambient composition, drone and industrial, stretching each genre to new extremes. There’s conflict. There’s violence. There’s even some peace. It paints a similar picture to the world we currently inhabit.

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Cedie Janson: Stitched Together with Magnetic Tape
Self-released

Following his excellent 2021 debut album, Thoughts on the Top Floor, Los Angeles-based Australian producer, Cedie Janson, returns with the Stitched Together with Magnetic Tape EP.

Written during the recordings of Thoughts on the Top Floor, these three pieces stand on their own two feet in what is a 14-minute journey of stirring, ghostly piano-based composition.

It’s like going through a portal that leads to the world’s underbelly, with echoes of Tim Hecker heard throughout. All told, some may mistake this for a Hecker film score! Deep in thought and rich in sound, Stitched Together with Magnetic Tape continues the underground producer’s explorations into the great unknown.

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Yammerer: ESZ

Kaboom Karavan: Fiasko!
Miasmah Recordings

Features like this are tailor-made for artists such as Kaboom Karavan. The Belgian artist goes to great lengths to frazzle the mind on his latest dispatch, Fiasko!

Perhaps there’s no better title in 2024 that best sums up an album (exclaimed marked included). So too the artwork which is among the year’s best to these eyes. Sonically, think Charles Mingus whilst being led through a haunted house and you may be in the ballpark (depending on your mood).

It’s a voyage for the freaks as much as it is for someone looking to completely get out of their own head. Fiasko! is escapism but not to blissful places, more like running and screaming towards the hills never to be seen again. And the way the world is shaking out, I could think of far worse places.

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Kuma: I Grew Up in Spectral Places
Frosti

Springing to our attention with his excellent 2021 release, Hounds and Echo in Conjunction (Waxing Crescent Records), the producer returns for his third long-player via Frosti with I Grew Up in Spectral Places.

As the title suggests, this is a series of ambient-based drone compositions inspired by ghosts. However, it sees Kuma taking his work to slightly uncomfortable places. It’s something you could see Alan Sparhawk tinkering with later down the line.

Like the above-noted Volodja Brodsky’s Whispering Ln., there’s an elusive, hymnal-like undercurrent that runs through I Grew Up in Spectral Places. It’s not something that cleanses your mind, but actually distorts it in what is another fine release from the Vancouver producer.

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Language Field: Fluctuations EP
Astra Solaria Recordings

Language Field is the alias of London-based producer, Paul Cheshire. Following his Waxing Crescent release earlier this year in At Odds, he returns with the Fluctuations EP.

Basically, if Venetian Snares ever wanted to roll through the seam of late night warehouse techno, it’d probably sound like something Cheshire has produced here. A collage of sounds that fluctuate between blissed-out come-down sonics and warm gusts through the warehouse during a late-night crusade on the dance floor.

It all results in Fluctuations, which is something akin to floating in the ether. A chemical dream that feeds on the ups and downs of life. Cheshire stirs something up in the conscious with these recordings, and I can’t wait for more of it.

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Zakè: Dolere

Missing Scenes: Who Is This For?
Varia Records

Under the Missing Scenes moniker, Portland producer, Robert Hunter, makes beautiful washes of sound. It’s that simple, really.

Having sparked the senses over the last couple of years with his Moon series releases, Hunter returns with Who Is This For? An album that is steeped in melancholy with soundscapes that evoke the kind of emotional response that has you retreating to dark rooms.

In all its slow-motion beauty, there’s a multi-faceted aspect to Who Is This For? As much as it’s a dark record, it also absorbs it, with flickers of hope emerging towards its conclusion. It’s a worthy addition to a discography that should be reaching far more people in the experimental sound world.

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Patrick R. Pärk: Nihilistic Fever Dreams
Cruel Nature Records

Under his plethora of creative guises, American gadget wrangler, Patrick R. Pärk returns under his own name for the suitably titled Nihilistic Fever Dreams.

Pärk is one of the premiere genre straddlers across the experimental landscape, and on Nihilistic Fever Dreams he ties it all together with something stridently cohesive.

There’s everything here. The acid freaks of krautrock. The sci-fi nerds. The beardos and metal heads. Even the average joes. Nihilistic Fever Dreams has something for everyone in what is a voyage that no one should miss.

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Who Cares: Simple Lines of Enquiry
Self-released

Who Cares is the classical avant-garde act consisting of violinist Laura Reid (one half of Osmanthus) and flutist, Jiajia Li.

On their latest release EP, Simple Lines of Enquiry, the Calgary duo take the works of composers from different background and generations, reworking these pieces with new arrangements and instrumentation that reveals something both past and present.

The minimalism on Simple Lines of Enquiry really scratches below the surface of the emotional well. It’s an examination both musically and spiritually, and for those who like their sounds beyond the conventional realm, Who Cares is the ticket to a different world.

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Xeeland: Water
Self-released

Xeeland is the new project of Netherlands-based lifer, Jason Stoll (JAAW, Sex Swing and founder of God Unknown Records), and last month he released the debut LP, Water.

This is one of those Kranky homage records that remains in the ‘must keep’ pile. From the opening piece, Seatime, Water is like the extended play of Radiohead’s Tree Fingers. It’s just untethered bliss that hits in all the right places.

Those familiar with the Bathysphere label may have found their new love with Water. An album that functions across a spiritual plane the swallows up all your worries. It’s not a bad place to be for a half an hour or so, and here’s hoping this is just the start of Stoll’s latest journey.

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Previous Weirdo Rippers features:

#13
#12
#11
#10
#9
#8
#7
#6
#5
#4
#3
#2
#1