PainKiller: Samsara

Samsara (the cycle of death and rebirth in our material world in Indian philosophy) is a welcome return to recording by PainKiller, the trio formed in 1991 comprising saxophonist John Zorn, bassist Bill Laswell, and Mick Harris, whose lightning fast drumming is replaced by beats and electronics, and which quickly recorded two albums in 1991-1992, followed by a 1993 live album and 1994's Execution Ground, which reflected a gradual move into more ambient and dub territory.  A second live recording, made in 1994, was issued eight years later, followed by a couple more live recordings with other drummers.

In 2008, Harris joined Zorn and Laswell for a one-off performance in Paris, accompanied by vocalist Mike Patton and Fred Frith, whose Guitar Solos was the last post here.  It seemed like that was going to be the last time we'd hear from PainKiller, until the surprising news that Samsara was to be released last November.

The most striking difference from earlier recordings is Harris' use of electronic percussion, which he has focused on in myriad ways for the last three decades, and, to this listener, it takes the PainKiller sound in an interesting and welcome direction.  Zorn, who played to Harris' recorded material sent to New York City from Birmingham, England, shows all of the incredible technique and power he's had for a half-century, and, as always, is very impressive.

Laswell has had serious health and financial issues and Zorn has worked frequently with his old friend in recent years to help him deal with both and, if for no other reason, this is a fundamental reason for PainKiller to reunite.  Laswell has great difficulty in playing the bass and so relied on some technical assistance while resorting to playing that is far more basic and simple, but still very effective in holding the bottom along with Harris' contributions so that Zorn can explore the dynamic range of his sax.

A new album, The Equinox, is due to be released this month and, apparently, an ambient recording is also in the works sometime this year, so there will likely be more PainKiller posts in the offing relatively soon.

Scorn: Evanescence/Ellipsis

After the extreme speed, power and auditory intensity, not to mention the famous "blast beat," unleashed on the world by Napalm Death back in the late 1980s, drummer Mick Harris decided to make an abrupt change in direction by 1991.  He was invited to join John Zorn and Bill Laswell with their PainKiller project, which has been covered in a couple of previous posts here, and this experience, along with his long-standing interest in electronic, dub and other music forms, led Harris and former ND band member,  bassist/vocalist Nicholas Bullen, to form Scorn.

It is understandable that the pair thought to gradually shift and evolve their sound through the first two Earache Records albums, 1992's Vae Solis and the following year's Colossus, where, on the first recording especially, thanks to the guitar work of Justin Broadrick, traces of the grindcore sound where very much present.  The second disc, though, pushed more into a dark, electronic sound world and the transition continued into 1994 and the third album.

Evanescence was perhaps the pinnacle of what Bullen thought could be done with the project, though there were apparently personal reasons for his exiting Scorn not long afterward.  Whatever transpired, he and Harris left a remarkable recording, with the 63-minute album a unified work with all of its pieces well-sequenced and consistent from start to finish.  A lot of labels get applied to this music—illbient, electronic, trip hop, dub, isolationist—but Scorn was in its own world at the time.

Bullen's bass playing harmonizes very well with the sampling and electronics, minimal guitar and Harris' drum programming, which is also extremely well done.  The detached, monotone vocals may do more to engender the feeling of "isolationism," but, while many might view the record as dark (and there's plenty of reason to feel that way given Scorn's extensive catalog over the decades, especially when Harris took it solo with the next album, 1995's Gyral), it doesn't have that feel to this listener. 

 

The success of Evanescence invited a remix album, Ellipsis, with contributions by such luminaries as Laswell, Meat Beat Manifesto, Robin Rimbaud/Scanner, and Autechre, and it is intriguing to hear the recordings back-to-back—to some, Ellipsis is better, though this blogger prefers to think of them as complementary and the latter as revealing different audio impressions of the original material.  Scorn's sound necessarily changed when Harris continued with the project, with percussion taking center stage and, therefore, becoming much more minimalist and, yes, darker.  

Fortunately, though he has put the brakes on a couple of times, Scorn is still with us, including albums in 2019 and 2021, while he has also, fortunately, also revived his amazing Lull project, as well.  It's been a remarkable career and good to see that, despite many trials and tribulations in a tough profession, Mick Harris continues to put his indelible and individualistic stamp on some amazing electronic music.

Lull: Cold Summer

From the extreme blasts of intense noise that was Napalm Death to the slow washes of sound built on a base material of very gradual movement of subtle rhythm with Lull in a few short years shows how much former beat blast drummer Mick Harris evolved into a distinctive architect of sonic exploration, whether through the Scorn project, collaborations with a variety of musicians like Eraldo Bernocchi, Bill Laswell and James Plotkin, or with this really remarkable recording from 1994 and released on Subharmonic, with which Laswell was associated.

It is usual to refer to this as isolationist or dark ambient and so it is common to find references to it as an album filled with foreboding, as being cold or ominous.  That's understandable, but this listener finds the experience of hearing recordings like Cold Summer to be soothing, contemplative, and relaxing, even if there are those washes of sound that do have those touches of eerieness.

The first two Lull albums, Dreamt About Dreaming (1992) and Journey Through Underworlds (1993) were more visceral with elements of often loud percussion, extended voice samples (often expressing some form of agony or angst), and stronger electronic sound sources.  Both are very interesting and will be higlighted here some day, but there is a demonstrated turn inward into a more flowing and captivating ambient soundscape with Cold Summer that directed the Lull project for the next fifteen or so years.

Music is mood and even in this largely house-bound pandemic environment (though a major emergence looks to finally be in the works), Lull has proven to be an apt musical accompaniment, though, again, not in a dark sense, but, rather, in a mood of reflection and acceptance.  Having said this, there have been quite a few times over the many years that I've listened to this music that I've thought about playing it, especially, say, "Lonely Shelter," during Halloween as trick or treaters walk up the path to the door.  Talk about "dark ambient"!

Mick Harris: Hednod Sessions

This two-disc set released in 2004 on Hidden Art Recordings were culled from sessions created by the former Napalm Death drummer who turned to dark, slow tempo electronics in all kinds of guises including Scorn, Lull, Quoit and in many collaborations, but who has largely been silent for a number of years.

Harris' forte consists forbidding washes and undercurrents of processed sound over steady, heavy beats, or, as often was the case with Lull, pulses.  Variability is often subtle and slowly evolving and the simplicity can be deceiving when he introduces change in ways that are disarming.  While Scorn was generally very heavy on the beats and Lull increasingly mitigated them with a glacial pace of change in pulse, the Hednod Sessions strike something of an (un)happy medium.

These thirty tracks were created in 1999 in Harris' minuscule home studio, a converted bathroom labeled "The Box."  They were initially issued as a quartet of 12" singles on the hushhush label with additional tracks provided to subscribers of a series comprising the four sessions and five bonus pieces added later.

As befits the location where these works were created, there is often a claustrophobic, or, if preferred, intimate sense in hearing these pieces.  Some of this is the muted percussion, but a great deal of the effect comes from the eerie employment of sound sources.  There is something compellingly immersive about listening to these recordings, especially with headphones.

In instances like this, Harris can be at his most appealing and interesting when he creates that atmosphere and environment in music that essentially consumes the full attention of a dedicated listener.  Again, the results tend to be best appreciated by focusing attention on the subtleties of the sound as it works through and around the steady application of rhythm.

When this set was purchased new some fifteen years ago, the shock was that it was acquired extremely cheaply—literally a few dollars on eBay—for reasons that remain a mystery.  This is hardly a "you get what you pay for" statement, but it did seem like a stroke of great fortune in getting such a bargain for such utterly absorbing sound worlds.

Lull: Continue

Well, it is Halloween and I've often considered taking this 1996 recording, released on Relapse Records, or others made under the moniker of Lull by Mick Harris and playing it outside when trick or treaters tentatively make their way up to the house.

This is partly because I live in a canyon community, appropriately called Sleepy Hollow, where we have dark, narrow streets, lots of trees, and, in this case, a replica Victorian home that might give an aura of spookiness, particularly when decorated for Halloween.

Then, if Continue is playing in its entirety as an unbroken 62 minute exercise in slow, dark, hypnotic electronic droning, how could a trick or treater not feel a sense of dread, foreboding, unease and even fear?

Any other day in the year, though, at least to this listener, the album actually has a calming, introspective effect, even if it does have a chilling aura to it.  Harris establishes, without overt rhythm, a sense of flow and the rising and falling of electronic sound that captivates and draws the listener in.  He creates a powerful aural soundscape that doesn't get old.

Whether it is music to many people is another question entirely.  As the description of this blog states, courtesy of the great modernist composer Edgard Varése, "music is organized sound."  How that factors into conventional conceptions like melody, harmony, counterpoint or how it might square with orthodox views on beauty is up to the hearer.

For this listener, Continue is a fascinating immersive experience, a sound world that blots out extraneous circumstances when heard on headphones.  It is a aural journey into a world that is dark, but also fluid and open.   In fact, it is no accident that Lull's first recording was titled Journey through Underworlds.

Because, yeah, it is like that.

Harris has been conspicuously silent for the last couple of years and hopefully has not given up on making music.  With Scorn, Lull, and his many collaborations, his body of distinctive work has been really interesting.  May he reemerge with new music soon, no matter what the moniker.

Equations of Eternity: Equations of Eternity

Recorded over a year in 1995-96 at the personal studios in Milan, Italy; Birmingham, England; and Brooklyn, New York by the trio of experimental electronic musicians Eraldo Bernocchi (electronics, programming, treated guitars), Mick Harris (electronics, drum programming), and Bill Laswell (bass guitar and what is listed as "interstellar influence," whatever that may entail), Equations of Eternity is a fascinating excursion into a world of electronic ambience, solid programmed drumming, fluid and dubby bass playing and the occasional sampled voice.

Bernocchi, a collaborator with Harris on some notable albums on the Sub Rosa label during this period, produced and mixed the record, almost certainly after Harris and Laswell established the rhythms, and was likely the prime mover on the project, which spawned another excellent album, also on the WordSound label, in Vevè (1998).

The varied elements offered by the collaborators are excellent, enticing and intriguing.  Laswell's bass playing is particularly essential in holding down a reliable groove in tandem with Harris's spare, but well-chosen beats, while Bernocchi adds all manner of interesting textures, along with what are presumed to be contributions from Harris, as well.

Adding to the mysterious musical vibe is a quote from British mystic Aleister Crowley from his Book of Thoth:  "Pour water on thyself:  thus thou be a fountain to the universe / Find thou thyself in every star / Achieve thou every possibility."  Might be gibberish to some and profound truth to others, but this album has enough to recommend it with the well-organized layers of sound and Laswell's consistently-excellent bass playing that you could almost certainly take or leave the mysticism and just enjoy the electronic-ambient-dub grooves that flow unendingly from this fine recording.

Equations of Eternity:  Equations of Eternity (WordSound, 1996)

1.  The Collector  6:48
2.  Eons Geography  5:51
3.  5th Element  5:35
4.  Loa  6:31
5.  Stream  5:52
6.  Shadow Sewer  7:43
7.  Fifty Gates  4:34
8.  Descent  5:47
9.  Slow Bleed  5:52

For Fanatics Only: Mick Harris/Martyn Bates: Murder Ballads, The Complete Collection

There is a tradition of English (and Scandinavian) balladry going back centuries dealing with the "murder ballad," a mournful, if morbid, genre with themes involving the homicide of father by son, sister by brother, the lover by the paramour, and so on.  There are also modern revisions and new pieces, as well, including a well-received 1996 album called Murder Ballads by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

Lesser known, but intensely fascinating, is the trilogy of recordings by Mick Harris, former drummer of grindcore pioneers Napalm Death and the main figure behind the electronic acts Scorn and Lull, which have been featured here, and Martyn Bates, best known as half of the duo, Eyeless in Gaza.  Harris has also engaged in a number of collaborations with such figures as Bill Laswell, Eraldo Bernocchi, Neil Harvey and James Plotkin that run the gamut from high-energy "drum 'n bass" to the glacial pace of so-called "isolationist ambient" music.

The collaboration between Bates and Harris began in 1994 with the album Drift, which established the pattern of creating four lengthy pieces, in this case running from about 14 to some 18 1/2 minutes, in which Harris lays down the chilling, austere and yet compelling backdrop for Bates' slowly-enunciated croon detailing the murder of poor Polly by her lover, or how Jimmy the fowler shot his love "in the guise of a swan," and so forth.

For many people, a snippet of either the music or it and the vocals might be more than enough, as this is a type of music that can easily be off-putting unless one appreciates the modern update of a time-honored tradition.  And, for those that do share that appreciation, Harris and Bates promptly went back in the studio and created two more recordings, Passages, recorded in the summer of 1996 and then Incest Songs, laid down over the last half of 1997.  The individual albums were released by the Italian label, Musica Maxima Magnetica.

And, for those who simply have to have all three recordings together in one nice, neat package, as was the case with this listener, who bought the set near a decade ago, there is 1998's compilation, Murder Ballads (The Complete Collection) with all twelve tracks on the three albums showing both original ideas and others updating classic ballads like "Long Lankin," "Lucy Wan," and "The Banks of Fordie," while some are based on real-life incidents like "The Murder of Maria Marten," derived from an 1827 incident in England.

While true enthusiasts can probably run through the three discs in succession and indulge fully in the three hours of extraordinary ambient sounds and soft and otherworldly crooning, it often works well for this blogger to listen to the first album, wait a few days or so and then listed to the next one, followed a similar interval before delving into the last recording.

The compilation, released by Invisible Records, a Chicago-based label founded by Martin Atkins, formerly of Public Image, Limited, and which put out a number of Harris' recordings, including on his own short-lived Possible imprint, features a black booklet with striking gold lettering for the text, including the lyrics to all twelve pieces, and art with a medieval touch.  The box set is not likely easy to find, but it remains a fascinating excursion into musical and lyrical realms that evoke a sense of both macabre history and modern soundcraft.  It's an amazing aural experience that rewards with each subsequent listen.

Mick Harris/Martyn Bates:  Murder Ballads, The Complete Collection (Invisible Records, 1998)

Disc 1:  Drift
1.  The Death of Polly  14:09
2.  The Fowler  18:32
3.  Lucy Wan  14:39
4.  Long Lankin  16:05

Disc 2:  Passages
1.  The Bramble Briar  13:27
2.  The Cruel Mother 11:24
3.  The Banks of Fordie  13:07
4.  The Murder of Maria Marten  17:33

Disc 3:  Incest Songs
1.  The Bonny Hind  12:11
2.  Sheaf and Knife  12:07
3.  The Two Brothers  17:09
4.  Edward  17:41

PainKiller: Execution Ground

John Zorn, Bill Laswell and Mick Harris have all been profiled on this blog before, but their project called PainKiller, which existed primarily from 1991 to 1998 and featured a brief reunion in Paris five years ago, featured a form of musical expression borne largely out of Zorn's late 1980s fascination with "grindcore." 

This genre of metal consisting of extremely fast, intense, short bursts of buzz-saw guitars, guttural grunted and/or high pitched screamed vocalizing, rapid and intense "breakbeat" drumming, and imagery and lyrical content (should one find printed versions, because deciphering the vocals was all but impossible) largely pioneered by Napalm Death, for which Harris was drummer until he left in 1990.  Zorn's grindcore obsession first manifested itself in his Naked City project, launched in 1988, but which included a typical Zornian smorgasbord of sounds from country to cartoon music to lounge jazz to surf music, as well as those blasts of grindcore played by such luminaries as guitarist Bill Frisell, drummer Joey Baron and the mighty Fred Frith on bass (rather than his usual guitar pyrotechnics.)

While Harris spent most of his career forsaking the drum set for projects like the so-called "darkwave" electronic music of Scorn, the glacial and involving ambient sounds of Lull, and a host of other projects including the mind-blowing collaboration of Eyeless in Gaza's Martyn Bates in the phenomenal trilogy of Murder Ballads recordings, he did resume his work with the kit in PainKiller for the golden opportunity of playing with two musical masters in Laswell's stellar bass work and the idiosyncratic alto sax playing of Zorn.

The first two records, Guts of a Virgin and Buried Secrets, both recorded in 1991 and released on the Earache label (Napalm Death's label), were short albums of roughly 25 minutes each featuring generally brief pieces of grindcore-influenced music, albeit with superior musicianship from Laswell and Zorn.  The latter recording actually did feature longer pieces, two of which topped the six-minute mark (which in the early Napalm Death days could  include a half-dozen or more pieces,) but there was only a slight derivation in overall sound.

After a hiatus, however, PainKiller reunited in June 1994 for the third album, the fascinating Execution Ground, which was released initially on the Subharmonic label which released Laswell's frenetic output at the time.  Reflecting Laswell's growing interests in dub, ambient, and world music, this album featured some of the pounding grindcore sound, but more often morphed into strange and compelling excursions into wide-open sonic spaces largely influenced by dub and ambient textures, while the titles reflected the fascination Laswell had with India.  There was an entire disc devoted to ambient reworkings of two of the three tracks on the first CD and reveal a side to the PainKiller project in which ample space proved to be no problem for the trio to revise their sound into something different but highly compelling.

Later in 1994, the trio embarked on a tour of Japan, a place that proved highly receptive to PainKiller's music.  In fact, there were eventually three live recordings generated from Japanese performances over the band's lifespan. 

When, however, Zorn sought to reunite the group for his amazing 50th birthday series of live performances and recordings in 2003, Harris declined to take part, his insecurity in his drumming having grown more prominent over the years.  Hamid Drake, an excellent percussionist, filled in and a great performance was had, though purists might balk at not having Harris present. 

As noted above, a one-time reunion show was played in Paris in 2008 and Harris reluctantly took his place behind the kit.  He seemed, from the videos available on YouTube, to have played well enough, but no recordings have been issued and it appears likely that PainKiller has ceased to exist.

This is certainly difficult music and its intensity, power, disturbing cover art, and more is probably forbidding to most.  But, for those who like adventurous music and can leaven their grindcore with dub and ambient (how many of you are actually out there?), Execution Ground is up your alley and then some.  It is truly a unique and memorable musical excursion, even if it might leave you with disturbed dreams afterward!

The album, with excellent engineering from Oz Fritz on the first disc and Robert Musso, assisted by Layng Martine on the ambient disc, was packaged in 1997 with the first two albums and a live recording in Osaka as the four-disc box set Collected Works and kudos have to be given to Tomoyo T.L. for some of the most evocative and hauntingly beautiful cover art likely to be found anywhere--a trait found with many projects released on Zorn's Tzadik label.

PainKiller:  Execution Ground (Subharmonic, 1994; Tzadik, 1997)

Disc One
1.  Parish of Tama (Ossuary Dub)  16:05
2.  Morning of Balachatudasi  14:45
3.  Pashupatinath  13:47

Disc Two
1.  Pashupatinath (Ambient)  20:00
2.  Parish of Tama (Ambient)  19:19

Lull: Moments

Mick Harris became known as the insanely fast drummer for the notorious 80s grindcore pioneers Napalm Death, but, after leaving the band in 1991, largely put away his drumsticks and took up electronic music. 

Harris formed Scorn with Napalm Death's first bassist, Nic Bullen, and had some success with albums like Evanescence that established a form of electronica that was slower in tempo, heavier in atmospherics and darker in subject matter.  While Scorn continued as a Harris solo project after Bullen departed in 1995 until Harris decided to end the project last year, he has also embarked on many other solo and collaborative projects over the years, many of which will be highlighted here later. 

Other notable projects include the remarkable Painkiller with saxophonist John Zorn and bassist Bill Laswell, both incredibly prolific and diverse performers, with this trio essentially lasting about four years.  Harris played live drums in this outfit, one of the very few instances in whichhe continued to do so after he left Napalm Death, but his departure was largely predicated on his continued dislike of his performance on the kit.  Remarkably, there was a one-off reunion of Painkiller in Paris in 2008, which appears not to have been recorded.  There will be Painkiller music detailed here in the future, as well.

As will another exceptional collaboration involving a trifecta of recordings with former Eyeless in Gaza vocalist Martyn Bates called Murder Ballads.  This 1995-98 project was a modern update of the folk murder ballad, which was popular centuries ago, and Bates' crooning of lyrics dealing with all manner of human crimes outside the pale of polite society are well-matched by eerie, droning, slowly evolving soundscapes crafted by Harris.

Other notable works are efforts with such artists as Eraldo Bernocchi, James Plotkin, Laswell, and Neil Harvey, some of which venture into the so-called "drum-n-bass" territory, while others were more ambient.  In any case, Harris' discography is diverse and broad within the general spectrum of electronic music and has a small, but very devoted fanbase.

Another early endeavor was Lull, which has been termed by those who cannot live without labels as isolationist or darkwave, whatever those are supposed to mean.  Actually, the former does, perhaps, hint at a key element in the music, which involves washes of sound, bass-like rumblings which can shake the speakers, eerie background noises and an achingly slow development of pulse that is usually almost entirely absent of a pronounced beat.  From the earliest effort, Dreamt About Dreaming (1992) to the most recent release Like a Slow River (2008), the Lull project has been one that has experimented with the fringes of ambience, but far removed from the new age-like productions that lie on the furthest end of the spectrum from what Harris has concocted.

To those attuned to this music, it can be extraordinarily beautiful and, yet, is also can be disturbing and unsettling to others who might not be prepared for the starkness of the sounds.  For this listener, Lull has been an object of fascination because it is transportive music and creates its own world of truly immersive sound.  It does not lend itself to the background or to systems that lack a decent low-end.  In the case of YHB, the music is best heard on the home system with a nice set of Klipsch bookshelf speakers that deliver excellent performance on that low-end and works pretty well even in the car, which has a decent system.

The epitome of the Lull experience to this enthusiast is the 1998 Relapse Records release, Moments, the fifth album in the project.  This 62-minute work is divided into 99 tracks, but it really is, like its predecessor Continue, a work that is a continuous piece embracing all the hallmarks of the sound Harris had developed with Lull from its beginnings.  Notably, the album is said to have been inspired by the soundtrack to the impenetrable, but highly immersive film Eraserhead and it would be interesting to watch the film with Moments playing along with it (actually, this blogger was so close to playing the album for Halloween for any trick-or-treaters who might come by, but there are so few typically and they're mostly small kids who would likely be too frightened to even approach the house.)

It does not seem particularly meaningful to try and describe the music anymore than what is stated above, other than to say that, if one is prepared to give this album (and the other Lull recordings) a dedicated listen and is open to being taken somewhere that can be dark, foreboding and, yet, also captivating and, yes, starkly beautiful, hearing Moments can be one of those moments that expands the horizons of listening to music in an utterly transformative way.