part of what i am very interested in, these days, is perusing the past. Taking stock of the present. Freezing time, for a moment, and going through old records by classic Noise musicians, trying to ascertain the aesthetic, to view it objectively through the lens of time. Does it work, or is it merely the nostalgic cast that make people sing its praises? On top of this, the great work of trying to describe sound waves and air pressures. Filtering out psychological catharsis and spiritual transmissions, and wondering about the desire to create such bizarre worlds.The Haters is the main organ by which persistent noise veteran GX-Jupiter Larsen transmits industrial symphonies of entropy and decay. Surprisingly destructive, Larsen speaks of a kind of peace of hearing things break - a satisfaction. Sometimes known to grind a live microphone to dust, or sand-blasting cds and then playing them, his music is crunchy and home-made. Gritty and real. Coming out of the bleak industrial/post-punk axis of xeroxed flyers and philosophical quotation, Larsen seems bright but possibly unfriendly. Unpredictable; a manic genius. He invented his own number system. He's written three novels. He became obsessed with professional wrestling.
This is coming from a time when making funky hostile records and abrasive performance art was not going to get you 'noticed'. Always firmly rooted in the muck of the underground, you can practically taste the paint fumes on In The Shade Of Fire. This was The Haters' first full-length LP, originally issued by Silent Records in 1986, later put back in print by Hanson Records. It has been described as '10 noise compositions made from the sound of things falling apart.' The performances captured on In The Shade.... seem pre-dominantly live, one-take affairs sent straight to tape. Most likely capturing Larsen in the throes of sonic demolition. You can hear glass smashing andbricks dragging, rough-hewn jagged textures. You can hear wet squirming feeback that sound like wound steel worms in a feeding frenzy. Mostly one gets the sense of Larsen riding the machines, an evil genius, bent on destruction, but that's only because what has sprung up is impure, and must be cleansed before rebirth. The Haters are a maggot in the id, cleaning out tumors.
Even though the sounds depicted on In The Shade Of Fire are of a cacophonous nature, there is a certain soothing nature to the sounds. They are lovingly captured, and have the warm analog crackle. Its not particularly harsh or abrasive, but still seemingly faraway and lo-fi, like they were recorded on someone's tape deck. It gives a falling out of time quality while listening - a teleportation back to 1986 when everyone was wearing leather and steel, and things were promising.
Here's what the Hanson Records' website has to say about it:
THE HATERS’ celebrated early work “In the Shade of Fire” acts a document collection for the listener that also reflects THE HATERS strong textural aesthetic through object manipulation and recording that defines GX’s place in the world of ‘harsh noise’. Listening your way through the material is a studied and defined testament to different representational fragments of heavy sound and source manipulation. The tracks Glsam and Diti are explosive introductory and side concluding / framing pieces that highlight and pronounce the breaking and crashing down of material, all gelled with bass driven strikes whose trails deteriorate into hints of cascading dirty and dark ‘Americanoise’ distortion. Bebas powers through a heavier dynamic with conscious falling apart of source material, but in abstracted waves that suggest the material being rebuilt just to simply fall and crash apart again with a sense of powerful futility. Thuch enhances the textural elements of the explosions and crashing as the sharpness of the strikes are slightly ‘rounded’ at the edges to expose an almost ‘gurgling’ texture that moves and slaps with vicious perplexity. Taisic represents a very early ‘Americanoise’ study of hiss manipulation that is accented with minimalist scraping that bring to mind the force of process on top of the white noise line. Cassas is the album’s meditated example of sharp shot-driven violence; articulated and seemingly layered for optimum cutting and breaking which bring forth sound dynamism from very physical deterioration. Fire 5 is an amazing example of a highly textural ‘wall’ of sound that, to the contemporary fan of gritty and dirty crunch waves, is a primary early example of powerful crackle lines that focus on the inner dynamism of the sound itself. All of the material discussed above is made up of elements of physicality and process, but the tracks Iny 1 and Iny 2 act, for the listener, as the ‘notes’ for the ideology of process and falling apart as they act as a more minimal, subtle, and exacting study of the scraping, scuffing, and hands on work of the artist as he manipulates the deteriorating materials. In essence, Iny 2 is an amazing concluding track that reminds the listener of the core focus and ideology behind THE HATERS’ exemplification of grating sound via concept driven manipulation of tangible sources, the process, the aftermath, and the eventual recording that reflects all of the above sound qualities.'
Getting into The Hater's back-catalog, i'm finding a deep well-spring of early, underground weirdoes, that perhaps have not gotten the attention of say a Neubauten or Nick Cave or a Throbbing Gristle. Those more famous bands were arising out of collectives, trading tapes and 'zines, an earlier form of what we do on the internet now. Promotion. Exchanging Ideas. Its always been the same. I'm looking forward to diving in further! Every time, i sink a little deeper...
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