It’s 2015, and noise is everywhere.
It’s in techno, with the crunched euphoria of artists like Container, it’s in grime and dubstep with the harsh experiments of Mumdance and Rabit, and you’ll even find shreds of it in bonafide breakthrough artists like Baauer (and on a smaller scale, Oneohtrix Point Never, or even a case like Powell appearing on XL). It feels like for many artists at the moment, noise is less a genre and more of a paste to bring together different sounds and genres – and although Helm’s been making a racket longer than most, this wide-reaching approach is a constant quality of his FACT mix.
Helm has been releasing music for around a decade now, both solo and with projects like Birds of Delay, his group with Heatsick. In recent years he’s had two main outlets: the PAN label, who released 2012’s excellent Impossible Symmetry album, and his own Alter label, where he’s released records from artists as diverse as Hieroglyphic Being, Richard Youngs and Cremation Lily. Well, we say diverse, they’re all pretty noisy at times. See what we mean?
Ahead of a short UK tour supporting Iceage in May (dates on his Facebook page), Helm’s FACT mix features dead-eyed coldwave, painfully panned noise experiments, interstellar grime, punk, and techno crushed and distorted to within an inch of their life. At its peaks, it’s sheer nirvana, at others it’s just creaks and noises, but really, who doesn’t enjoy records that sound like the Metroid ship on a Monday morning?
Tracks:
1. Astor – Synth Edit (Forthcoming – Penultimate Press)
2. Russell Haswell – Black Metal Instrumental Intro Demo (Editions Mego)
3. Sully – Blue (Logos Vapour Dub) (Keysound)
4. Rabit – 40 Below (Diskotopia)
5. Acolytes – 6. Brood Ma – Ferite Core (Quantum Natives)
7. Sunroof! – Free Wild Samples (VHF)
8. Vereker – Flesh And Blood (Berceuse Heroique)
9. Astral Social Club – Infinite Thug (VHF)
10. The Lowest Form – Negative Ecstasy (Iron Lung)
11. Logos – Kowloon (Keysound)
12. Blood Music – Chicks (Helm Remix) (Forthcoming – Diagonal)
13. Deas – VII (Alter)
14. Cremation Lily & False Moniker – The Treasury Painted Roof (Strange Rules)
15. Inga Copeland – Advice To Young Girls (No Label)
16. Acolytes – Tunnel Vision (Dub) (Alter)
17. Some Truths – Too Much Bone In Your Skull (Mordant Music)
18. Lee Gamble – Prey Population (En’tracte)
19. Liberez – How Much For Your Brother? (Forthcoming – Night School)
20. Helm & Eli Keszler – V&A Soundcheck (In Dub) (Unreleased)
21. Deas – VIII (Alter)
22. Brood Ma – EMJ-12 (Quantum Natives)
23. DiE – Pressure (Sonic Terror Discs)
24. Spoils & Relics – Not Everyone Thinks Like This (Cylindrical Habitat Modules)
25. Charcoal Owls – The Rundells (Night School)
26. Visionist – Eye Try (Lit City Trax)
27. Ravioli Me Away – Imagination (Good Job)
