03.20

Unsurprisingly, March has turned into a super-productive month for me – where it was shaping up to be that way already, it was also given the added push of a global pandemic causing enforced lock-down and social seclusion. That is the kind of environment my noise has always thrived under and this has been no exception. The increased creative productivity of people in general at this time has been a boon of inspiration – as has the emergence of livestream performance being much more widely taken up. I’ve been toying with the idea of my own livestream for noise/sound but as yet it’s one among many in the nebulous-planning stage.

The end of February and beginning of March saw a resurrection of Dog Milk – a collective formed at its core by myself and Rosie King. Dog Milk is both our alias dedicated exclusively to our collaborations as a duo and the umbrella under which all ‘collective activities’ take place. We take on multiple aliases as solo projects under this umbrella as well as inviting friends to do the same. One such new solo alias of mine has been Metal Machine Rodent – which saw me tackle amplified metal and harsh noise areas I’d been meaning to approach for a while now. Rosie King has recently resurrected the Melodramatic Piss Baby alias as well as breathing new life to Hand Reared Lambs and Fruit Baby. All of this amalgamates around the central resurgence of Dog Milk itself, with its fourth incarnation “A New Dog”.

My blackened noise alias Roadside Dead has not only undergone it’s overhaul but has also proven to be prolific off the bat – with its resurrection release “A Hymn to the Abyssal Plains” being shortly followed by a split release with the amazing A Dying Hermit in the Woods entitled “Beyond Stygian Darkness” – in which the blackened noise meets walled noise sound-palette of the former release is expanded into drone and dark ambient realms. I intend to expand this even further still to encompass field recording and dungeon synth as time progresses. I have a third release entitled “Bottomless Depths” almost ready as well – and the project has been invited to appear on a very special label – I cannot say more than that for the time being but needless to say it is something to seriously look forward to!

I have also had the pleasure of welcoming a great new addition to the SSN Technologies platform – FATAL DREAM ERROR with their vaporwall release Yellow Diamond Codes. I have also commissioned three new artworks from Creamy Deluxe to use for an upcoming three-part series on the netlabel – you can view these artworks already at the artist’s Instagram. The series is entirely a solo project of mine, using a new one-off alias, [SSN] Technologian, a somewhat indirect response to the [SSN] Technologist alias of 2016 that brought longform “crackle studies” to the platform. (Artwork pictured below by Atari Seagrave-Blood).

I have also had a new batch of releases for the HNW netlabel as well as it’s fourth themed compilation – Unseen, Unheard – the first in many years and a welcome return to the format! I have been considering drafting an open call for a fifth edition, themed around isolation and seclusion – this time the open call will be a tad more rigorous and actually use the Facebook platform and so you might expect more than thirteen tracks for that one.

Much more has been happening behind the scenes as well! But I won’t give too much away here as I need to keep some things under wraps if I’m going to have enough material to keep monthly posting a reality.