Ivory Bunker Recordings
Welcome to the world of Tomoroh Hidari, 'Pataphysics' Ivory Tower gone underground
Bleaker than Blake: Hexagrams of the Non-Euclidic
On The Verge Of The Best Madness So Far, a panicked flight from the Plateau of Leng as conjured up in my debut The Necrophonicon (see this post), to which this Mini-Album was intended to be the second chapter. Building on one of the core tenets of Lovecraft’s work, madness – a state of mind I was quite interested at the time (evil tongues might say somewhat near as well), and a staple in the discussion of the life and work of some of the more, let’s call them extravagant, artists. So naturally a great field of exploration, sonically and in the tapestry of title, cover, etc. that usually comes packaged with the musick.
Musically it was a continuation of the breakbeat/breakcore/glitch IDM inspired sound I was producing on The Necrophonicon, although having played a couple of live performances in between finishing the former and starting to work on On The Verge…, this was a noticeable influence and some of the tracks did, in their first incantations, stem from some of those live performances. Most noticeably Wounding of the Bright, By Hook and By Crook and, pretty much directly lifted from my live-set, Lucifera Is A DJ, a schlager crossover mashup of Luciferette and I off the Necrophonicon.
Wounding of the Bright as interpreted by Stable Diffusion
Wounding of the Bright is, of course, Hexagram 36 from the I-Ging, a book I had first encountered many, many years earlier in high school, which I had rediscovered at the time I recorded On the Verge… via Philip K Dick’s The Man In The High Castle.
(If you excuse me wandering off on a tangent there, it was – once again – many years later that I connected the dots and got the reference to PKD and the I-Ging as well as the Horselover Fat character from Valis in the track Oh Merry-Go Round on Current 93/Hilmar Örn Hilmarson’s classic “Island” album:
“Philip throws hexagrams
To discover the cosmos
Horselover fat
Talks with Christ
Metal fish glints
On the girl’s breast
And the Ape’s
Mock universe
Dissolves…“
thus things going full circles by coincidence, connecting the dots of various influences… Gnosticism hasn’t been one yet, tho.
Current 93 would later on be a direct influence for Some Stars not yet Black Holes (although the influence doesn’t go much further than the title…) but I digressed further than intended, thus let’s return to our Best Madness…
…So far, so good. “No Reason to get Euclidic” is based on a joke, whereby “going non-euclidic” was an in-group euphemism for being off your t*ts (as they say), or more soberly called, entering altered states. All purely theoretical, of course.
The Cruelty Knits A Snare, is a line from a William Blake Poem. I’ll leave it to you to search which one now… the track also appears on a mammoth compilation – “PHOTON COLLISIONS” – by Welsh brothers and underground legends Somatic Responses that came out around 2013. Do check that one out!
Last not least the EP ends with a remix of Wounding of the Bright by Dino Felipe! I first came across Dino’s releases on Schematic (and am very stoked to have since also released there), before meeting him on Soulseek (a place where I also met Robbie Martin from Record Label Records – another story…) and eventually asking him for a remix. The result, “Disflated”, was described as “Science-Play-Bunny” by Rom from Schematic.
The whole EP was originally planned to come out as 12″ on Isolate Records. However, after Wai Cheng sadly passed away much too young, that sadly never came to be. So eventually it only saw a release via Ivory Bunker Bandcamp in 2020. With two additional tracks, the above mentioned By Hook and By Crook and A.O.S (aka Austin Osman Spare)… That ought to do it for Trivia… if you’re still here, or if you’ve scrolled down to here… without further ado:
On The Verge of the Best Madness So Far on Bandcamp:
On streaming services and other stores:
If you are on any of the streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube etc., please consider following me. And if you are sharing relevant electronica playlists, then adding one or more of my tunes will go a long way in supporting what I do and getting my music to new listeners! Thanque!!
Hidarimixing Lagowski
The first time I heard a piece of music by Andrew Lagowski was in 1994/95 when I got a compilation called The Cave 1654 which featured a track – Komarov – by his Legion project. Quite intrigued by this track, its sample and the story in the compilation booklet I began exploring more of his work, first Legion and S.E.T.I., then his more beat oriented projects such as his collaboration with another fave of mine, Lustmord, Terror Against Terror and his output under Lagowski. It was in late 1995 that I found his Europa EP at a store in Soho on one of my London trips. Decades before moving to this city. With other releases to follow, especially when I discovered his bandcamp many years later….
Fast forward to the present, and our paths crossed on some not to be named social media platform. A “meet bruit” that should eventually lead to him remixing the track Anikim on my recent Oblivion Engine EP (two fantastic mixes).
Now I had the honor and pleasure to return the favor contributing two remix to his – if I may say so – fantastic new album “2525”, out today on Bandcamp. So please have a listen and, if you haven’t done so yet, explore more of Andrew’s manifold output!
Pulp Glitch-Breaks: Lovecraft, Lucifer and the story of The Dead Sounds
A couple of days too late for Lovecraft’s lesser feast, and aeons too late to change the fate of the Earth being invaded by some Elder Gods and Great Old Ones…. yes, I’m setting the tone for some eldritch horrors here:
I was young and I needed the trouble, so what better than to wake up great Cthulhu and go mad… And thus it came to pass that back in 2004 my debut album, The Necrophonicon, was spawned.
It’s not, nowadays, the oldest album of mine available online as some like Alien Audio Absurdities or Dubnihilism were recorded earlier, they just never saw a release until years later. But it was, following a couple of compilation tracks and remixes, my first full length release at the time. In its original form it came out on CD (ISO13) on Isolate Records, a pioneering US electronic/IDM/Breakcore label run by mastermind Wai Cheng aka Optic, who sadly passed away in 2006. “On The Verge Of The Best Madness So Far” was originally intended as follow up release on 12″. More on that in an upcoming post.
For logical reason The Necrophonicon was labelled a Lovecraftian thing (that, in the opinion of some at least, shouldn’t be). The name was inspired by the Necronomicon, here becoming the book of dead sounds. I liked the idea of “killing sounds”, as literally a lot of the sounds on the album where samples that were “killed” – mangles, mashed up, distorted, resynthesized until their original life had left them, and they took up some form of zombie- or afterlife. There are also a number of tracks that all are lovecraft inspired – Miss Cthulhu84, Innsmouth Rock-A-Doodle, Frozen Deserts (with its vocal sample from an audio-play of At The Mountains of Madness) or Tentacle Ballet.
But it also had more general pulp & some sci-fi influences – Battle for the 10th Planet, I did it for Satan… and some weird La Vey inspired bull-isht bits Luciferette and I. I certainly saw it more as a pulp/sleaze/b-movie kinda thing, than strictly Lovecraftian. And now you all know…
Recently, after almost 20 years (yay, anniversary in October 2024 – may need to think of something for that), The Necrophonicon has entered the realm of Streaming Services:
Also Apple Music; Youtube Music; Youtube; Amazon and Juno Download, amongst others.
Hardcore adepts, of course, will buy via Ivory Bunker Bandcamp!
For those after a bit more trivia – the very first Lovecraft story I read was “Cool Air”. I found it in a collection of horror stories in our school library. Yes, school libraries are important! I was, however, already familiar with the name from its very prominent feature on cover of Iron Maiden’s legendary Live after Death album… Among my favourite stories are Dreams in the Witchhouse (which I’ve adapted for a compilation, the name of which I still find unspeakable… I mean, we all know how scared of anything to do with sex HPL was…); Dreamquest for Unknown Kadath, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, Mountains of Madness (one of those books, along with William Gibsons Neuromancer that I make a point of re-reading every couple of years) and In The Walls of Eryx. But there are, of course, many more.
Soon, quasi part 2 on this topic, a bit of background on “On The Verge Of The Best Madness So Far”. Stay tuned (or out of tune, as long as you keep vib(rat)ing… f’thagn
Denryoku Mirai – out now everywhere!
My most recent release, 3 track digital single Denryoku Mirai is now out on Bandcamp and all major streaming platforms.
Please follow links below for your platform of choice!
Bandcamp:
All the streams & other web shops:
Thank you for listening, sharing, following, buying, adding to playlists etc!
For more background info on Denryoku Mirai see this post here:
13 Objects and Solipsism in the bruitversum
I’ve never quite managed to stick to a single style within the realms of the Tomoroh Hidari sonic universe, to some degree because interests changed over time, but also because it is fun to indulge in different approaches.
Sometimes I chose or choose different aliases, such as the now defunct his Namelessness Is Legion (hNIL) or its successor 明日の音 (Asu no oto – a pun on Tomoroh Hidari: Tomorrow’s Noise). At other times I just think F# it and go with the original nome de plume. Such the case on the two (and a half) releases on bruitversum. Formerly bruit.at, bruitversum – now releasing via the bandcamp Zaibatsu of noise-anarchism explorers Farmers Manual, was founded by brothers Walter & Gert Brantner aka Dr. Nachtstrom and FM’s v93r respectively.
Founded around 2007 if memory serves well, bruit.at (discogs) emerged into the then burgeoning netlabel scene with a small number of select releases by artists such as the above named, plus Kabelton, Photophob and more. They also released a beautifully curated tribute to Philip K Dick compilation album. And eventually fell silent again. Many years later, with the advent of Bandcamp, a new spark of activity led to some of the original releases as well as some never before released music popping up again.
Among those my original release for bruit.at, originally titled (deep breath):
13 Objects, or a Dadaist, A Surrealist And A Group Of Random Bystanders Marvel At The Ferocious Whateverism Of The ‘Pataphysician.
Shortened to just 13 Objects now, the download now includes many of the source sounds, all created from 13 different household objects (pots, pans… etc.).
As of a few days ago 13 Objects is also available to stream via the usual suspects (spotify, apple music, youtube, amazon music, deezer, tidal, etc.) LINK or available via Juno Downloads.
With the various tracks paying homage to music concrete pioneer Pierre Schaeffer, Sigmund Freud (as spiritual reference of the Surrealists), outsider tape musician Todd Dockstader and French inventor (discoverer) of ‘Pataphysics, Alfred Jarry, this is “Post-modern ‘pataphysic popular music in the guise of music concrète.”
Released only in spring of 2023, after being saved from rotting away on a harddrive, the short “…but is it Solipsism” Ep features experiments in stochastic synthesis done and some of my earliest drone ventures. These pieces were created in 2004 using Cecilia – which I still frequently use, Csound (which I never got very far with tbh) plus some, according to my notes found with the files – although I don’t remember what exactly – creations done in Audiomulch.
A lot more minimal than 13 Objects, here titles are mostly inspired by the readings of Beat authors William S. Burroughs – apparently “It’s all the sane” was a favourite saying of his and Jack Kerouac (Zen Lunacy), with the “Waste-Time Continuum” being my personal description of days spent deep in je nai sai quoi.
“…but is it Solipsism” is, much as 13 Objects, available via subscription services (usual suspects) and from Juno Downloads.
But as always, your support on Bandcamp does reach musicians and underground labels best.
Bruitversum on facebook
Bruitversum bandcamp