va – 804noise (804noise)

804noise is a collective of experimental artists, enthusiasts and political activists who work in richmond in order to make their experimental scene stronger and open to experimental, noise and avant-garde ideas and art. they collaborate and connect with other scenes and communities to make the event more accessible in their region, and the 804noise calendar of experimental and noise events is increasing even outside of richmond including events that promote the mutual things in the experimental community as a whole. formed in 2001, based above all on togetherness and common help instead of on a pretentious scene, in the course of years 804noise evolve in a strong community of experimental, noise and visual artists. in 2004 they decide to promote their work by establishing a label that will release the music created in this community of artists and be concentrated on virginia, richmond specifically, and the idea culminates through this compilation 804noise which starts up the work of this label. the opening track of lafererra is a short glitchy piece that comprises of all moments of classically oriented track: it starts with glitch that resembles fennesz, then a vibrafon that sounds like the post-rock moments of tortoise and then it becomes rhythmical. jason lafererra runs his own studio and plays in the post-punk bend gregor samsa. the next track is signed by the turntableist manic amyche (michael parez) who in this track presents his gramophone skills. experimental hip hop. birds in the meadow add on to the first noise track. one-minute classical experimental/noise piece. behind this name is marty mccavitt, richmond experimental and improvised music veteran that has played in many bends. harm stryker follows, politically and socially motivated project comprised of kelly nourse and kenneth yate and they present the creators and main initiators of the 804noise collective. here, they present themselves with a deep and dark, it may seem an ambient, track that has a bit of noise. monolith zero (adam h.) logically adds up to the ambient with a quiet dark ambient track that slowly meanders. he also performs in the improvised noise project the no-fi. sephan smith who also performs under his real name, and on the bass together with the elektro-rock bend vcr presents himself here with a completely melodic track that looks like electronic nursery rhymes. never presence forever goes back to the noisy moments. dark ambient background with subtle glitch moments. andrew westerhouse in his work has released numerous releases. metal (michael ryan) adds another rhythmic track in which the basis is consisted of noisy background and an electronic middle ages melody look alike. he is also doing sound installations such as “runway/study for movement”, the illustrations of which are taken as the basis of creating the remarkable design of the cover. william preist (john priestly, a jazz musician) offers a deep dark ambient track in which fading voices of a distant transmission are intermingled. the middle of the track introduces instrumental hip hop rhythm which leads the track in a completely different dimension. really dark instrumental hip hop with noisy elements. to kill a pretty bourgeoisie (jehna wilhelm and mark mcgee) explore the experimental noisy electronic and the acoustics is brought to the highest level in the noisy construction in which the melody also enters. mi is again michael ryan aka metal who with his side project goes more deeply in abstract and conceptual territory of the experimental music. to be more specific, glitchy experimental electronic music. after describing each track, there is nothing else to say about the sound of this compilation, and after describing this richmond community of artists we are sure that the intention is not to have one specific sound, but to be concentrated on the experimental sound created in this region.