AUDITION 3

Just received this new track, I think it best to attach the artist's own extensive background description below:

"For this project, I composed a long piece as The Domestic Front, entitled 'Go Slow (Igwe Ocha)'- 'go slow' being Nigerian pidgin English for a traffic jam, and Igwe Ocha being the original name of the city Port Harcourt, known for its many infrastructure problems that make 'go slows' (and much more besides) an inevitability.

The intent of this piece was to strip away all the political, social, and linguistic reference points that normally accompany a location / field recording from an 'exotic' area- what we are left with is an elusive haze of unstable electronics and manipulated, minimal West African percussion. I wanted to merely create an unorthodox vision of the shimmering heat and slow tension that might accompany a drive through the industrialized, oil-rich, teeming region of Nigeria's Port Harcourt, in the Niger Delta- why I've chosen this particular area as the focus for this piece, I'll leave up to the listener to decide. And, of course, I'll also leave it up to the listener to decide whether the fatiguing drones and malfunctioning machinery of this piece provide a believable audio metaphor for an area I have never traveled to. This piece is, at most, a ghost of an impression, but then again, so is much of our perception of the world."

AUDITION 2

A new track just sent in by Norman William Long entitled Oceanic Memories 2005 which is well worth checking out - much of the sound is quite heavily processed but let it run its full course to appreciate how it was recorded and its implementation of the drums. Also check out the Myspace link.

AUDITION 1

Cool new afro noise track entitled Less Than 3 by P.Turner/Furball.

DEMOS

If you have, or are making, any demos that may be of interest to this project, please send them in CD format to our usual address: SUSAN LAWLY, PO BOX 914, EDINBURGH EH17 8BF, UK

Alternatively, send us links to MySpace pages or similar and we'll post the best ones here at this blog.

We can't promise to respond or comment on everything that's sent but we WILL listen to it all with much interest. Thanks!

ON BOARD

I think it's been obvious for a while now my fascination with African (and Haiti for that matter), especially in terms of the music, language, and art - the inspiration has been utterly invaluable, and now my plan is to take this passion and endeavour much further with the pursuit of an open-ended genre that I've dubbed afro noise. Essentially to consist of obscure African percussion elements in free-form work-outs with almost any other type of (genuine) sound experimenting. Already in evidence in some of the latter-day Whitehouse tracks, I believe there are incredible and exciting possibilities here which will also serve to draw a firm line between - what seems to me at least, and I've said it before - the utterly staid, conservative, conformist, and oh-so-boring ageing 'noise' genre. Let's recapture the flame and the excitement.

We're going to soon begin putting out a series of albums of the best of these compositions beginning with Afro Noise I which will proudly feature the amazing art of Stefan Danielsson - so anyone who has any interest will be very welcome to get in touch or send us their own experiments; it's of no matter who you are, what you normally play (noise, jazz, classical, electronica, whatever), or what part of the world you're from; just that it comes from the heart and that it works, just that it hits the spot. Also, in the Edinburgh vicinity, if there are any percussionists, djembe players, or just eager pairs of demon hands, it would also be great to hear from you because we're going to be organising some regular sweaty work-out sessions.

In addition to this blog, there's also a website coming soon, and a MySpace page.

William Bennett