Entre Vifs "Heavy Duty" cs 1989

Heavy duty is right! This is the kind of tape that you really want to blow your eardrums out to. It sounds incredibly heavy on the scrap and power tools, but I believe they use much more electronics than one might think to replicate the scrap sound. There is so much movement and such a wide variety of assaulting, crashing noises coming at you in rapid succession it's almost dizzying. It must have taken forever to make this nearly-hour long tape. Amazing, one hour and I don't think they recycle a single sound. As for harshness, this is up there, I like a HN album that can makes your ears bleed without resorting to super high-pitched screeches. A lot of source sounds come through, which give it a good concrete grounding. Not really a dark HN, but def a powerful one. This tape is pure fucking power. Take a jackhammer to your forehead and thats what listening to this tape feels like, and I mean that kinda literally as many many of the sounds on here are rapid-fire machine gun blasts of a repeated sound, of course for only a couple seconds and then it's on to the next wacky sound. Highly recommended.

Get Hard "The Doctor" c20 Out Now! (SOLD OUT)

(SOLD OUT)

I made this tape before/in the early stages of when I got sick, and never released it due to my illness, but now it is finally officially available. 20 mins of disturbing power electronics, limited edition of only 30 copies. Doctor = vocals, patient = electronics. This release marks the conclusion of the Sharking Target Tapes label. Not for the weak.

$7 ppd, send paypal orders to:

jakevreeland [@] gmail.com

Sample 1

Sample 2

K2 "Souls Are Kontroled By Molekules" CS (1993)

It's difficult to really amass a decent collection of early-90s K2 albums because the prices just keep going up, so this one and the "Noise Tournament Vol. 2" 7" are the only mid-career ones I've invested in so far ("Noise Tournament Vol. 2," with De Fabriek, is going pretty cheap now at around $20). This is the 7th release on Kimihide's Kinky Musik Institute label, and it is what he calls a "recreation" of the 6th release, "Autopsy Soundtrakks," which is going for fairly cheap right now. I haven't picked up the 6th one yet, and I probably won't considering I know that the 6th and 7th are essentially one and the same, so I can't offer much insight, or any insight I guess, into the differences between them. From such a legend in the field there are always high expectations, and the early work of these legends will always be heralded as "the better stuff." If HN is judged by its degree of harshness, this tape isn't K2's high point, but if judged by quality alone regardless of how scathing or not scathing it is, it is a damn fine tape. This tape was among the first after Kimihide's hiatus, and was among the earlier to incorporate what would become his signature use of scrap. It still utilizes the delays so common is his 80s work, and has the familiar K2 "gears churning" repetition of that classic "sound like a steel mill in operation" sound. There are plenty of bleeps and bloops, too, as well as some deranged keyboard work. The form is dynamic and gets all over the place while retaining the centricality which is key to creating a cohesive song. Def dark and mean, but by no means harsh if compared to other music makers of that time, very introspective-sounding, typical of K2, but the music def gets in your face, it doesn't sit quietly in the mind. Quality quality quality.

Macronympha "The Spectacle of Ravishing Our Maidens" CS

Yes! Macro, where to begin. Honestly I'm no expert on the subject, but everything I've been told about Joe and Rodger has been so. fucking. cool. These are BAAADD dudes. I've never heard a Macro album I didn't like, and this one is perhaps not their best, certainly no "Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania," but damn is it good. And not to mention for a 1995 Slaughter Prods. tape it's going for relatively cheap nowadays, which is always a big plus for me. The clear tape, stamped with a slender golden sticker depicting a medieval era torture scene of a guy getting his guts pulled out, has been dropped into an oversized shiny silver bag with the cover art barely glued on (if you have trouble telling from the picture, it's two chicks: one lying down spreading her pussy, while the other girl spreads her pussy and squats over the first). God, Macro makes sex SO unappealing, I'm glad my brain doesn't get off from stuff like that. It's amazing how an image as beautiful as a girl giving another girl head can be made so disgusting by these filthy "musicians." I guess that's the magic. I couldn't really live off of pure filth, though, it's better for me to just visit every now and then for the novelty of it all, but I think I would have a panic attack if my life dissolved into the bleak coldness of Macro's ultra-gritty lifestyle. And on that note, I need to address my thoughts on extramusicality and whether or not it should be such a defining factor in the quality of a band. I am quite vocal on my personal opinions that things such as who made the music, where it was made, conceptual approach, and aesthetic all take a big back seat for me, and when it comes down to it I'm either gonna like something or not based purely on what comes out of the speakers. Often, I prefer to know NOTHING about a band, and just let my imagination run wild and craft the music makers into what I fantasize as my ideal for that particular band, elevating the musicians into an almost supernatural, inhuman state, as if the music simply exists because it exists, it wasn't the work of some average guy. And more times than not my opinion of a band is only marred when I learn more about the musicians behind it. This is not the case with Macro. Yes, their music is amazing on its own, and I would still love it even if I knew absolutely nothing about the redneck retards making it, but in this case, rare for me, the band is seriously elevated by the extramusical elements, particularly the fact that Joe and Rodger are such dirtbag trash heaps. And I think the main reason for this is that it all matches up. The artists are sleazy and gritty. The song titles and artwork are sleazy and gritty. The music is sleazy and gritty. It all comes together so fluidly and completely. And it's so fucking dark. The whole package screams out "mentally sick" in a really messed up and disturbing way. It's not, "my mind is sick because I get depressed and have ADHD," it's more like "my mind is sick because I like raping animals." One of the song titles on this tape is called "Having Sex With Mother." Fucking scum low-lifes. Well, I don't know them personally, so I can't really confirm what I'm saying is 100% true, and I do enjoy exaggerating, but we've all read the Banana Fish interview and we all kind of get the gist, right? I remember when my friend first showed me that interview and I thought, "Holy fuck, are these people real? I don't even want to get near them." I'll never forget the first thing he said to me when he described Macro to me for the first time, and it was something along the lines of "Dingbats making incredible music." It's so true, and it's a goddamn confusing miracle of nature that these people make such good HN. Compare it to the other giants, Masonna and K2, people who are clearly intelligent, artistic-minded folk, and somehow you're still getting the same degree of quality. Maybe it's the grit and grime and harshness so intertwined into the Macro lifestyle that gave them the boost and translated so well into their sound, or maybe under all the drug-addiction and apathy there lies a pair of geniuses, but I have a strong feeling the latter can't really be true. But with song titles like "Golden Haired Thrash Fuck," it's hard to imagine that there was really much of a planned out, art-faggy approach to this band. I think ultimately they just love the dirt and bathe themselves in it, and what you get is a peek inside the mind of someone who has the potential to kill you, rape your dead body, and then proceed to go out and score some dope like nothing happened.