Exclaim! Magazine features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with special focus on Canadian and cutting-edge artists.
“as the one-man masterpiece borrows from other musical genres to create stellar, unique music, versus heavily relying on the traditional norms found in European-based black metal. The desolateness, urgency and brutality of American Black metal are clearly palatable”…. Read the full article below.
I’m proud to announce that To No Avail is out now. You can download and pay-what-you-want at Handshake’s Bandcamp page. I recommend downloading the FLAC version and listening in it’s full merciless glory and of course grabbing it on vinyl when January comes around.
Pre-orders for vinyl are available and will include either a copy of Plague Diagram or a refined logo shirt. More details as they come. Winter is Coming…
The first review for To No Avail is out!
“It’s a basic fact that you pretty much have me at the words “experimental black metal.†Or at the least, you’ve basically guaranteed a listen. On a continuum between conventional black metal and the more extremely experimental stuff that I love, Surachai are occupying a comfortable middle ground.”
The next release “To No Avail” will be distributed through Handshake Inc’s label. Digital versions of the album will be released on October 25th 2011 while the vinyl has a scheduled release date January 4th 2012. A sample will be available October 13th on Handshake Inc.’s website.
Handshake Inc., the film and music video production company behind the films ‘Maryland Deathfest: the Movie,’ (parts one and two), “When the Screams Come, (live Pentagram DVD)†“Disgorge Mexico the Movie,†“Axis of Eden, the Feature Film,†and music videos for Jucifer, Hail of Bullets, Drugs of Faith, Agoraphobic Nosebleed and Woods of Ypres, is extremely proud and excited to announce the launch of Handshake Inc – , the record label.
This isn’t a typical label – we all know how well those are doing nowadays. With North American distribution through MRI and RED, the label will focus exclusively on vinyl and digital releases, and will give online consumers the option of paid, pay-what-you-can and free digital downloads.
“I’m basically copying Grindcore Karaoke, but with a few tweaks,†said David Hall, owner of Handshake Inc, from his London, Ontario office – referring to the digital label created by J. Randall just over a year ago. “My intention with Handshake Inc., as a music label is to promote bands I love, to people who are passionate about great music.â€
The formation of Handshake Inc., the label also means some personnel additions to the company. Rabble-rousing writer/promoter Kim Kelly of Catharsis PR will be handling PR, marketing, and A&R; and the indomitable J. Randall of Agoraphobic Nosebleed and Grindcore Karaoke is contributing creatively. Handshake and Grindcore Karoke will also be collaborating on several upcoming releases – keeping things in the family, as it were.
Handshake’s first vinyl offering will be abrasive sounds of death grind noiseniks SULACO’s “Build and Burn” LP. SULACO features BRUTAL TRUTH’s Erik Burke on guitar, and delivers a shotgun blast of full-on intensity and grinding fury, the likes of which the world has been missing since the band’s last record in 2006. The new album was mixed by Neil Kernon and mastered by Alan Douches, and will hit stores, the web and mail-order on Oct 25th. The label has plenty more in the works for 2011, including wax/digital works from Chicago’s avant-black/doom/electronic maelstrom SURACHAI and Philadelphia noisemongers LADDER DEVILS, both of whom were suggested by J. Randall and are poised to blow the doors off this joint!
Handshake’s tentative 2011 release schedule will also see digital releases by The Sun Through a Telescope, ((Thorlock)) and live releases by Maruta, Yakuza, and more to be announced!
Handshake Inc.’s most recent DVD releases include ‘Maryland Deathfest: the Movie II,†and “When the Screams Come,†(A live Pentagram DVD on Metalblade Records.) Handshake Inc., is currently in production on an as-of-yet untitled documentary about producer Billy Anderson, and in the next few months will complete music videos for Maruta, Rwake, Rottenness, Fuck the Facts, Jucifer and Toronto’s Vilipend.
Handshake Inc. is currently in post production on “Marlyand Deathfest: The Movie 2.5,†“Untitled Brutal Truth Documentary,†and “The Excitutioniz Come Tomorrow: Jucifer live at Call the Office.â€
*Please contact Kim Kelly (catharsispr@gmail.com) for more info and media inquiries for Handshake Inc.!
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CATHARSIS PR
Kim Kelly
US: 609-351-9843
UK: +44 (0)79 29224150
catharsispr@gmail.com
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Atari Teenage Riot is ending their North American tour in Chicago on September 28th, 2011 with Otto von Schirach and Surachai. If last year’s Chicago show was any indication on how this show will go; it’ll tear you apart.
Wednesday, Sep 28, 2011 8PM
Reggie’s Rock Club, Chicago, IL
$25 – 17+
– Tickets
A few months ago Decibel Magazine (the only magazine I have a subscription to) reviewed Plague Diagram in its Needle Exchange Column. I didn’t want to reprint it immediately and decided to let it cycle out of rotation before posting it here. There’s a picture of the review in the link below!
Surachai – Plague Diagram 12-inch
OK, this is actually another records that’s really nice, is involved with Grindcore Karaoke and can be downloaded for free. An electronic blitzkrieg, this is a new wave of harsh industrial that’s mathematically complex, incredibly catchy and balances opaque noise with brutal mechanized riffs. There’s a lone man behind this, and I’m not really sure if he’s into partying, but his album is rad.
Aquarius Records, one of my favorite record shops on the West Coast, has a beautiful review of Plague Diagram. Pick up a copy from them if you’re in San Francisco and/or too impatient to order from PlagueDiagram.com
We didn’t know too much about Surachai, or his record Plague Diagram, but from the way it was described to us, as a one man electronic / metal outfit, whose sound was equal parts black metal, doom metal, powernoise and avant garde, we were sorta convinced it would be right up our alley (and yours), and now that we’re finally hearing this stuff, we’re pretty sure we were right.
The metal sounds remind us of the more mechanical / industrial groups like Godflesh and Pitchshifter, the sound churning and chugging, the rhythms, precise and clinical, hard to tell if it’s a real drummer or a machine, but it hardly matter, this is some serious heavy, downtuned crush, and even in the first track, there are hints that this is more than just a metal record. Little stutters here and there, chirps and glitches and squelches, subtle at first, before eventually, the metal dissipates, leaving a weird bit of black ambience, all bleating horns, looped low end, hazy shifting drones, fluttering backwards effects, gradually growing more and more abstract and tripped out, before giving way to the second track, which opens with a flurry of soft chaos, machine like rhythms erupt as do buzzing riffs, those bleating horns seeming to still be present, underpinning the relentless chug, the vocals harsh and howled, the arrangement mathy and precise, and then again, out of nowhere, the song splinters, and is barraged by strange electronics, mysterious sound effects, before slipping into another expanse of ambient drift, all muted distorted glitch, heaving low end melodies, all strangely cinematic.
The rest of the record plays out similarly, a churning and chugging electronic flecked metal gradually decays eventually leaving some sort of glitched out sonic shadow, a tangle of dense pulses and layered shimmer, of staticky squelches and grinding blackened melodies, the final few minutes of the record maybe our favorite, a strange sort of slowed down demonic IDM, all chirps and hisses and whirring, that gives way to an almost Aphex Twin sort of melodic drift, albeit just a bit twisted and slightly atonal, sounding a bit like a demonic Christmas Carol, before gradually being overtaken by another squall of black buzz.
Includes lots of strange guests: Richie Devine, Nordvargr, Otto Von Schirach and others, and is pretty nicely packaged, pressed on 180 gram clear vinyl, housed in a thick PVC plastic sleeve, with a printed insert and a sticker. LIMITED TO 500
Three major events are happening in September in LA.
September 9 – Assisting Otto von Schirach with a modular frenzy opening up for Atari Teenage Riot at the Key Club!
September 10 – TRASH_AUDIO Synth Meet with manufacturers from all over the U.S.
Information Here!
September 11 – TRASH_AUDIO Synth Event with SONOIO (Alessandro Cortini), Lichens (Rob Lowe), Richard Devine and Big Black Delta Djing.
Information Here!
