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Zenflesh Records Reviews
zenflesh two v/a homegrown purifying organic
zenflesh two
zenflesh is an independent label dedicated to atonal industrial noise3. this collection of artists certainly nails that point home with a selection of intense pieces by petit mal, hape angel, accelerator, matt bramlette, turk knifes pope, andru kirkpatrick sound source 21, and brownie mallets. you get sixty-eight minutes of the type of music that mentally disturbed people might use to meditate on the ugliness of life.
post bros #52 Sonic Curiosity

zenflesh two
very weird. this is the second of two comps we received from zenflesh, our cd drive hooked up to the computer wouldn’t recognize the first, so we’ll go with this one. eight artists, some of whom are intertwined with others (as referenced by their contact addresses), devoted to minimalist spacey-droney (mostly) non-organic, sound. sort of like what might be considered"ambient" extreme music.
carbon 14 #9

the two cds released so far on the zenflesh label also earn themselves a terrascope design award: screen printed die-cut card which require a black-belt in origami to unfold containing lengthy compilation cds featuring the work of young "sound artists" involved in the kansas city industrial music scene2. this is art rock in the sense that a rock doesn’t move: none of the tracks actually go anywhere, instead the artists pick up a thread of electronic or manipulated sound and follow it until it disappears down a hole. turk knifes pope’s ambitious ‘sleep therapy suite’ on zenflesh one celebrates continuity in the face of total haplessness; hape angel’s ‘caper’ on the second disc is a personal favourite, an echo-filled strum vibrates and the gaps are filled with dabs of synthesized feedback on a canvas of wailing sirens. others sound like the amplified tones of a long-finished telephone conversation. these are sad, glorious and holy sounding experimental works that deserve your support.
ptolemaic terrascope - #21

two discs in distinctive brown card packaging from new californian label zenflesh. the split disc by turk knifes pope and petit mal (zenflesh one) isn’t the sort of thing to get either of these little known names off to a good start, comprising directionless post-industrial music filled with strange noises, rumbling ambience, found voices, distorted classical music4 and entirely lacking in anything resembling imagination or originality. zenflesh two is a compilation, and given, again, that the contributors aren’t well known, they ought to have tried a little harder, there’s plentiful murky post-industrialism of the uninspired sort that zenflesh one offered. only one contributor proves more interesting: matt bramlette strings together unrelated stretches of provocative sonics – hyperspeed piano loops, bird-like honking woodwinds, layered sussurating electronic ambience, rough-hewn cardboard ripples, clockwork mechanisms – and hopefully he’ll be a name to watch for in the future.
est #7

zenflesh two is pleasantly noisy, amusical and distraught, a collection of abstract pieces from sonographers from the midwest and southern united states, none of whom I’ve ever heard of. petit mal, brownie mallets, andru kirkpatrick, accelerator, and some other nice folks all offer sound constructions or compositions that wash out with greyish brown noise and listless rumblings, in a raw and personable ambiance, analog and catatonic, lurching and shifting like spastic narcolepsy. a somnolent selection for this hot, late summer night, closing softly in from the windows with a loose physical presence gurgling into the walls like music.
your flesh – #31

zenflesh two
the compilation exposes the new works of the kansas city2 sound artists working in a field of postindustrial music. diversity of methods and stylistic approach proves a rich and seemingly intensive scene of experimental music. the works presented in this compilation mostly represent ambient music; however the cd provides rich texture collages and also more rhythmical approach. the idea of the producers to start publishing a series of kansas city2 artists work gives us a chance to get deeper into the vivid scene of kansas city2
tango (forthcoming)

Various Artists Homegrown - Organic - Purifying
I don't think it's physically possible for zenflesh to release something bad. I've been incredibly with everything on the label and this, of course, is no exception. Zenflesh two is a compilation of experimentalists doing what they do best - making noise.
The tracks are extremely varied, ranging from organics to drones to power noise. The brilliance of the likes of Steven Stapleton shines through the dark atmospheres of all of the tracks.
If you are at all into the experimental/noise scene, you need this. It's more than just "You should have this CD." You really need this CD. That's the easiest way to put it. If you haven't explored what the underground has to offer, this is the perfect compilation to introduce you to it. I'll say it again: YOU NEED THIS!!!
Scott Mallonnee - Grinding into Emptiness

v/a -- ZENFLESH TWO: HOMEGROWN - ORGANIC - PURIFYING
More droning, organic noise strangeness from Zenflesh Central. This has actually been out a while -- it was Zenflesh's second release. The title doesn't make it obvious, but this is actually a compilation, with nine tracks by nine artists. Most are noisy (although not in the harsh, white-noise way o' power electronics) and obsessed with weird sounds; many are quite bass-heavy; none of it can be mistaken for pop. Petit Mal kicks it off with "insomnambulance," in which fuzzy background noise, shuddering bass, distorted loops, chiming drones, and other sonic effluvia make for an eerie listening experience. Hape Angel's "caper w/horse marauder" is a bit unusual for a Zenflesh track in that it's fairly percussion oriented; quiet bongos do the pum-pum while ghostlike feedback wails in the distant (often very distant) background and squelchy noises get added periodically to the foreground. Accelerator brings us distorted rumbling noises with other unidentifiable stuff being dredged from the riverbed in "kitum cave"; Matt Bramlette plies loops, delay-riddled drones, and other gadget-oriented sounds like a more upfront, American analogue to David Jackman or early Nurse With Wound on "detached"; and Zenflesh's flagship band, Turk Knifes Pope, brings on the washed-out electrodrone on "saturation (under review)." That tracks' title is most apt; often the sound is so distorted and overloaded that you just know the tape was buckling under the crush of tape saturation. Andru Kirkpatrick's contribution, "peggy sue DOE: suspension of belief" is a peculiar one: drone washes die away into chirping crickets, flanged-out washes like sheet metal sliding down a hill do battle with pounding metal croaks, and all runs into what is most likely a radically slowed and distorted drum machine before eventually dying out completely. The track from "sound source 21," sounds like a deranged repeat-echo remix of the test of the emergency broadcast system, and Brownie Mallets close the whole exercise in oddness with "sheer pique of boredom," another rumbling slice of brown noise that sounds sort of like the sound of buses being buried in an avalanche as captured by a cheap recorder in a concrete parking lot far beneath the accident in progress. Yes, it's another winning testament in the peculiar belief system that is Zenflesh Central.... dead angel 36

zenflesh two
This sampler, coming once again in an elegant brown card board package, with a creepy drawing of a psycho rabbit holding a bloody knife, was the second release of Turk Knifes Pope's Zenflesh label. It features only acts I have never heard of, except for Turk Knifes Pope and Petit Mal, who appeared on a split CD on the same label.
Petit mal opens with a long track full of really weird sounds (I've heard that this project uses some parts of a bike to produce his sound material) and small noises, to create a nice, calm and moody track. Then comes Hape Angel, that uses a whining violin sound (but is it really a violin) on top of bubbling, almost chaotic beats, the whole thing sounding quite accoustic. Accelerator's "Kitum cave" is a very deep, grave and dark compostion with a lot of industrial drones and organic sounds, plus echoes, and small noises. A very nice participation, but not at all what you would expect from a band with such a name. Matt Bramlette (where the hell do these acts find their names?) uses the same chilly atmosphere, with an introductory piano line that could have been used as a soundtrack for "Rosemary's Baby". It is followed by dark drones, echoes, and a cavernous feeling that Lustmord wouldn't mind having written.
The following track, by Turk Knifes Pope, reminds of the split CD with Petit Mal: heavy winds of low noises, dark drones, long echoes, very distant samples (bells?). A very good continuation to the sampler. Andru Kirkpatrick's track is different. Even though it also gives me the creeps, it sounds more accoustically recorded and experimental, less industrial than the previous material: improvised noises and echoes, things that sounds like electric current or knifes beating on a metal plate. Sound source 21's composition is more or less in between the two approaches featured on this sampler (accoustic improvisation / dark drones). It has a bit of feedback and some background drones, but sounds at the same time more ample, and not as suffocating as Accelerator or Turk Knifes Pope's tracks. Finally, the composition ends with its heaviest track, played by "Brownie mallets": a lot of grunting noises and boiling deep sounds, too heavy to be really ambient and but not really noisy.
I don't know if it's purifying, but this sampler has for sure the taste of homegrown and organic products. It contains really dark material, as well as some more experimental and nonetheless pretty interressant material, which makes of it an excellent choice. I guess the only thing I regret about it is not having checked it out earlier...
Nicolas, December 15, 2000 recycleyourears

footnotes:
2 an explanation of all references to "the kansas city industrial music scene": in the original letter sent with promo copies of zenflesh one and two, we made a mention of this. this was a joke from several years before, when early zenflesh tapes were circulating among (occupational) friends we had in the music industry. one of them called us up and said she understood that kansas city had quite a burgeoning industrial music scene. to the best of our knowledge, kansas city’s industrial music scene has consisted of: trust obey/john bergin, chris connelly, schloss teagal, the zenflesh crowd, and a handful of others (anonymous, satan is my lord and master, …. umm, I can’t think of any others). this became a sort of in-joke we decided to use in our press kit. all of the zenflesh group of people have split kc, and we really have no idea what is going on there now.
we would like to take this opportunity to distance ourselves from not only kansas city (although our roots lay there, future records will feature personnel living in san francisco, los angeles, new orleans, minneapolis, new mexico, and elsewhere, including kansas city), but also industrial music (which doesn’t really mean anything, really) and "the scene" (zenflesh does not consider itself part of any "scene" – quite the contrary we are quite happy putting out whatever music we want for whoever wants to listen to it.)
[PS - *2003* this is a complete and total lie from a few years ago. Missouri (Kansas City-St. Louis-Columbia axis) had an incredible music scene from 1987-93, and I've yet to come across it's equal in my geographical wanderings...]

3 zenflesh has at no time represented itself as being "dedicated to atonal noise". some future releases will contain "real" music!

4 no distorted classical music anywhere on zenflesh one. we are not even really sure what the reviewer is talking about.

 
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