harsh noise wall

i was hipped to this genre of noise music by john b-r.  we have an annual noise festival here in sac.  several years ago i met the founder and guiding light of the noise festival, a poet/musician named lob instagon.  i told lob how much i love dark ambient electronica.  he told me there is so much more to noise music, including percussion made out of banging on coffee cans.

harsh noise wall is utterly new to me.  listening to its practitioners i am reminded of the noise musician, boyd rice who records under the name, non.  this ain't everyones cuppa tea.  but if you listen to it carefully you will find subtleties in texture, rhythm and tempo.

below is the french musician who records and performs under the name of vomir.  great sound for a haunted house.  or if you want to evacuate your house of the living and the living dead.  in this vid vomir is performing at an arts festival called luff.  for all i can see vomir stands like a zombie before his electronic kit with a burlap sack over his head.  without moving at all.  the lighting is a flickering blue.  there are a handful of people in the audience.  i always wonder about the audience for avant films and music.  there is such an audience that at least i think nominally supports the artists thru ticket sales and merchandise sales.  i could be wrong.  but another terrific noise artist, mick harris, who records under many names but his better known moniker is scorn, tours all thru eastern and western europe.  i don't know how well harris' albums sell but i think he makes a decent living at it.  so then, there is an audience for difficult, not so lovable, material.  right. 

but this performance by vomir reminds me of a poetry reading.  a few aficionados in the audience paying dutiful, perhaps even rapt, attention.  and that is all.