★Fourth Dimension Records
Towards the Nocturnal Sun
*300 copies limited edition* Towards the Nocturnal Sun is the second solo album from Malaysian artist Siew Y’ng-Yin’s Reverse Image. Earlier this year she also had her debut album by her noise project Fallen Sun released by Fourth Dimension. Unlike Fallen Sun’s proclivity for melding uncompromising and often abrasive sounds together with occasional rhythmic undercurrents, Reverse Image’s approach to soundmaking is defined by measured crystalline shimmer, iridescent patterns formed on a Martian s…
I Am The Dirt Under Your Fingernails
*Limited edition of 400 copies.* Since 1983, Justin K. Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu, Council Estate Electronics, The Sidewinder, etc.) has been producing largely solo, but sometimes collaborative, work under the Final moniker. Beginning as a more obviously power electronics-inspired project it has during the past two decades or so evolved into one which still retains that sonic intensity but has a more expansive sound. 'I Am the Dirt Under Your Fingernails' is the latest album, closely following 'I…
Mummies and Madmen Grow Dark In The Sun
24th August 1983. The scene: a small and chaotic terraced house in Craven Street, Coventry. Bob Oliver, main man of eclectic tape label Slob Tapes, and Alan Rider, head of early industrial label Adventures in Reality Recordings (Attrition, Stress, Irsol, SPK, Test Department, Muslimgauze and others) and one half of electronic duo Stress, have come together with the mysterious Cryptic Z Mostmen to record a single track, ‘Mummies and Madmen Grow Dark in the Sun’, over the course of an afternoon. I…
Beyond the Flat Earth
Tip! *300 copies limited release* "Fallen Sun, the noise/industrial moniker of Reverse Image from Malaysia, approaches the creation of noise music through the layering of sonic textures aligned with a sense of space and movement. Using Harsh Noise Wall as distant inspiration, she takes the seed of an idea and expands and contracts it, before further compressing and then twisting it, layer upon layer, until the idea has morphed into itself. 'Beyond the Flat Earth’'s ten concise tracks explore thi…
Gloriosa
Brighton's Map 71 are a duo comprised of Andy Pyne (percussion, electronics) and Lisa Jayne (words, voice). Together they have been working away at an approach that draws from post-punk, improvisation, electronics, and other such realms of music to create a refreshing environment where reflection, wry observations, the abstract, and immersion can develop. They have existed for a few years now and had several releases out both on their own Foolproof Projects imprint and via a couple of other labe…
Lost in Room: Mark Perry, Alternative TV and Related, 1977 - 1981 (Book)
"That’s my argument against the way punk’s become so cabaret. It’s almost patronising [when bands play all their hits]. Oh, we’d better play ‘How Much Longer’ because people want that. To me, that’s just patronising to the audience. I’d like to feel, and I always have done, that an Alternative TV audience wants us to experiment or to try new things out through that sense of exploration, or that childlike sense of wonder about making music. That’s why I’ve always wanted to retain that. I haven’t …
Direct Action
Since their formation in 1977 Mark Perry’s group Alternative TV have moved far away from their more direct punk rock beginnings into all manner of other areas of music that have sometimes themselves drawn from improvisation, free jazz, industrial and electronic music. On 'Direct Action', Alternative TV’s first studio album since 'Opposing Forces' in 2015, we are presented with six instrumental tracks which steadily rip apart all expectations as they shed all allusions to rock music in favour of …
Down But Defiant Yet/Acceptance Is Not Respect
Fourth Dimension collects a couple of immense, previously CD-only albums into one neat package from Ramleh/Broken Flag's Gary Mundy, operating under his Kleistwahr handle. 'Down But Defiant Yet' and 'Acceptance is Not Respect' were originally released in 2017 and 2018 and were created with a more spiritual intent than previous works. Essentially, we get blasts of cinematic, ominous black psychedelic sound that channels elements of krautrock into harsh, brutal yet cleansing elegiac noise.
No/On
*In process of stocking* Debut album from this London based group whose contemporary take on a guitar-driven post-punk sound equally inspired by early '90s grunge is energised by ferocious melodies and an impulsive charge rarely found right now. With two brothers, Aaron and Hayden Brown, serving as both the main songwriters and lead vocalists, Blue Statue focus on existential malaise, mental health issues and other such concerns in a setting that's accessible and angry yet augmented by an openne…
Astro-Noetic Chiasm X
"In listening to Astro-Noetic Chiasm χ by Zsolt Sőrés, one quickly has the impression that the sounds being heard are coming from an anomalous nowhere. As if they were not generated here but received from there. They simply sound otherworldly. So, what is their actual address in space and time, as well as the sender’s or the receiver’s? How are we to identify them?
We could of course try to single out the sonic settings and processes we hear according to the technology that produced them (uncon…
Stanford
Debut collaboration between Puppy38 (Hiroshimabend) and Alan Rider (Adventures in Reality, Stress, Dance Naked, Attrition, etc.) co-released by Opiumdenpluto and Adventures in Reality besides Fourth Dimension Records. This album brings together incredible electronic works designed to recreate the sound experience of the notorious Stanford Prison Experiment. About the music, Puppy38 himself says, "A dash of John Carpenter, whispers of early Cabaret Voltaire and a portion of gingerbread stuffed wi…
Do Not
*In process of stocking. Limited edition of 300 copies.* Limited edition reissue of this album originally released in 1986 on cassette on Broken Flag. Comprising two untitled side-long pieces, 'Do Not' catches Gary Mundy of Ramleh in peak 'noise' mode with his solo endeavour, taking much from his place as one of the innovators of the so-called power electronics genre yet pushing this confrontational avant-garde sensibility somewhere entirely new. It is a sound that Kleistwahr has continued to ex…
Mobility
*Limited edition of 300 copies. One-sided LP.* Limited edition reissue of this cassette originally released in 1983 on Broken Flag, gathering five untitled solo pieces by Gary Mundy of Ramleh in full on early power electronics mode, firmly illustrating his place as one of the innovators of this genre yet likewise pushing this confrontational avant-garde sensibility somewhere entirely new. It is a sound that Kleistwahr has continued to explore and add new dimensions to ever since, but never compl…
Nemo Point Soundmap for Terrestrial Melanoheliophobics
Representing Ahad's Flux Worlds 1, the lengthily titled 'Nemo Point Soundmap...' album is the very latest solo offering from this Hungarian sonic traveller now based in Berlin, Zsolt Sőrés. Spread over the two discs are seven pieces that take a combination of viola, bass, piano strings, voice, mellotron, dictaphone, percussion and all manner of other instrumentation and objects into a realm where inner space folds in on itself and unwittingly assumes the guise of multitudinous journeys to those …
Lunatic Asylum
Joke Lanz and Sudden Infant once again return in their razor-sharp trio setting whereby the absurdist nature that Joke’s work is already cut with is reconfigured in a gnarled and beefy punk-fucked contorted rock setting. Short bursts of angular flex are heavily propelled by depth-charge rhythms, wry lyrical musings on modern living, and sensibilities hatched from years of experience in the worlds of sound art, abstract music, industrialised junk-noise and related areas have manifested in the per…
Broken Masses
*300 copies limited edition* Five collaborative pieces between Gary Mundy of Ramleh/Kleistwahr/Broken Flag and Eraldo Bernocchi of Sigillum S. Combining two guitars, subtle electronics and what sounds like a voice from another dimension, rhythmic loops or serene pools of liquid sound are generated that add up to an album of immense beauty and scope. Sometimes more intense and at others almost elegiac, this work is in keeping with Gary's more recent solo work yet benefits also from Bernocchi's ow…
Ward 24 / Trademark
A one-time pressing of 150 copies only, on thick 180g-vinyl, with two inserts and download-code included. Gad Whip blend avant-garde sensibilities with a contemporary take on the place where D.I.Y. culture meets post-punk, hints of deconstructed garage rock and interstellar voyaging through sweat-drenched waking dreams. Immediate, powerful, confounding and kept in place by wry, sometimes observational, vocals that recall Jason Williamson and Mark E. Smith.
Turn Back Metropolis
The very latest album by the Brighton duo built around drums, electronics and vocals. As with the previous album, 'Void Axis', from 2018, this is joint-released by drummer Andy Pyne's own Foolproof Projects imprint and arrives adorned in wonderful, characteristic artwork by vocalist Lisa Jayne. Also packaged with an 8pp booklet featuring all the words. "A stream of angst and agitation not seen since the anarcho-punk days of the eighties worms its way into the rhythm and voice of this Brighton ba…
Kryzys Czytelnictwa
Debut from this Polish group, whose name means Old Tapes and whose members have an impressive background in punk, improv, experimental and even classical music. They have come together here to let out a loud shriek of angry disbelief triggered by the general shape of contemporary Polish society and the concomitant public discourse. The album, whose title approximately translates to Literacy Crisis, consists of six punk, jazz and religious chants, all worked together to form a powerful and specif…
Metal River
New album by another favourite artist here at FD, whose work can traverse everywhere from avant-folk or otherworldly pop to minimalist electronics or some of the most fervent 'outer sounds' one can dredge from the deepest crevices of their doubtlessly life battle-scarred imagination. On Metal River, Richard Youngs offers four songs of deep space beamed curdled electronics not far removed from being akin to the contorted death caterwauls of a cyborg species reaching out in uttermost anguish. It's…