Various Artists
Charnel Music, 1996
During the early to mid-1990s, there were few labels as interesting to watch as Mason Jones’ Charnel Music. With an adventurous sonic palette that jumped from noise rock (Gravitar, Mainliner, Pain Teens, Zeni Geva) to in-the-red power electronics (Aube, Cock E.S.P., Hijokaidan, Merzbow) to Jones’ own ambient/psych projects (Subarachnoid Space, Trance), Charnel Music releases were nearly always worth a listen if not physically securing copies of. Perhaps bolstered by the shockwaves that San Diego tribal chaosmongers Crash Worship sent out to resonate throughout the underground music world at the time, Charnel Music documented three volumes of rhythm-based groups that straddled the festering industrial, noise and experimental scenes that orbited near the Crash Worship aesthetic. The first two volumes released in 1990 and 1993 served as essential gateways into this rhythmic realm, giving exposure to fantastic examples of the more interesting fringes of underground music at the time, while also serving as a cohesive and enjoyable listening experiences in and of itself. Arrhythmia Volume 1 featured such legendary artists as Chop Shop, Dissecting Table, Muslimgauze, Pain Teens and the aforementioned Crash Worship; Volume 2 sprinkled in a few known quantities like Illusion of Safety and Voice of Eye among a number of other artists who were much more underground and unknown, and yet despite this lack of more-known artists, Volume 2 holds up as well as the first volume and was a continuation into the fascinating and tranced-out rhythmic noisemaking of the era.
By the time Volume 3 was released in 1996, my interest had waned a bit and there was tons of other wild shit coming out of labels like Skin Graft and Load Records competing for my very limited dollar. I remember Volume 3 being released and only recognizing Neurosis offshoot Tribes of Neurot from the tracklist, so it never made its way to the top of my wantlist. I figured that eventually the Arrhythmia well would go dry and perhaps it wasn’t likely to hold the same appeal that the previous volumes did for me. Recently, after dusting off Volume 2 for a spin and wanting to dig a bit deeper into that well, I was able to snag a copy on Discogs on the cheap and am thrilled to report that it definitely delivers the goods.
Standouts include “Adder’s Tongue” by A Chocolate Mess, with its hushed percussion and submerged vocals that breathe and waver to create a creepy, dark ambient tones among the loud poundfests that fill most of the disc — poundfests of high quality, such as the track by Detroit’s Batterie:Acid, which sounds like a sublime collision of Savage Republic and Crash Worship. Or literal percussive poundfests like the A.B.G.S. track “Vier Am Pass” with its dynamic, all acoustic drums-only approach that manages sidle right up alongside the musical range of Dutch percussion supertroop Slagerij Van Kampen. “Gesicht” by Scot Generik is an atmospheric bubbler with high end industrial samples, driving mid-range beats and deep echoey bass that provides another one of the highlights on Arrhythmia Volume 3, and of course Tribes of Neurot contribute a densely rich track “Desire and Delusion” to close out the disc with a multilayered headfucker that swirls around samples, effects and intermittent percussive assaults. Overall it’s a fun way to spend 72 minutes getting your ear drums, and depending on speaker wattage, ribcage, shaken up and stirred.
Along with this rediscovery came another: After assuming the label was still defunct since it shut down operations in 1999, it turns out that Charnel Music started back up in 2007 and has been releasing new records as recently as this summer. Be sure to poke around the Bandcamp page and sample some of the new goods as well as classics, like the highly-recommended Walking Timebombs CD.