Arvo/Blood Rhythms on wfmu radio/end of year list

Blood Rhythms was aired this week on Wm. Berger's My Castle of Quiet radio show, and mentioned on Wm. Berger's End of Year list at WFMU's Beware of the Blog!  It is an honor to be included!  Support this excellent radio show/station!  

Arvo on WFMU/My Castle of Quiet radio show

Ill-at-Ease in the U.S.A.

 A live track by Arvo was aired on Wm. Berger's My Castle of Quiet radio show, alongside The Cramps, Mundkrach & Kommissar Hjuler und Frau, New Age Hillbilly, Dhampyr, and Actuary among others! 

Video excerpt from Show on November 27th

Thanks to P. from SSHE RETINA STIMULANTS for sharing, and for the kind words! 

Xylowave/Zylowave cassette reviewed at Memory Wave Transmission

READ HERE

Arvo aired on WFMU, KOWS-FM, KKUP, and KBRP

WFMU's Wm. Berger played "Upheaval (Version 29)" on his recent My Castle of Quiet radio show, alongside Teatro Satanico, Altar of Flies, Havohej, and Wretched Worst. listen here!

Arvo was also aired on Nat Roe's "crass appropriation" themed WFMU radio show with vintage cumbia from Peru, Senegalese big band music, and new Muslimgauze.

 In addition, there've been 3 instances of recent airplay from Don Campau, on his longstanding No Pigeonholes radio show in a number of incarnations out of California. Also featured were Oren Ambarchi, If, Bwana, and Vanessa Rosetto among others.

 Topping that off, Arvo recorded a little message for a small radio show in Bisbee, Arizona, called "Noisesense", explaining the "Upheaval" series. Halalchemists, Emil Beaulieau, and Maurizio Bianchi were also played. Archives not available.

Show November 27th at ex-Enemy space

Tritriangle 
1550 N Milwaukee Ave Fl 3
 Chicago, IL 60622
Tuesday, November 27th
8pm

 SSHE RETINA STIMULANTS (Italy)/Neil Jendon
Dromez (Austin, TX)
Arvo Zylo

LYMPHOMANIA: A BENEFIT FOR KARINA NATIS

LYMPHOMANIA: A BENEFIT FOR KARINA NATIS

November 10, 2012 8:00pm
Tritriangle
1550 N Milwaukee Ave Fl 3
Chicago, IL

Chances are, you've been in a photograph by Karina Natis. You might not know it. You might not know her. You might be a flailing limb, a shock of falling hair, drowned in a swath of light, capsized in a pool of sweat, blood, or beer. But you're there.

In June, Karina was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's B-cell Lymphoma, manifesting as a six-inch tumor between her left lung and heart. After 18 weeks of chemotherapy, her tumor has all but disappeared, and a final month of radiation treatment will hopefully cure her for good.
Like so many thousands of people in this country and many of us in the underground music community, Karina is uninsured, and the cost of the chemotherapy alone extends into the tens of thousands of dollars, not to mention the numerous surgical procedures needed for access to the tumor site and the weeks spent recovering in-hospital.

We're thrilled to announce that some wonderful people (who also happen to be fantastic musicians) have stepped forward to donate their time and talent in an effort to help stem the flow of the enormous cost of Karina's treatment. We invite you to join them in giving back to Karina, who has shared so much of her artistic gift with us and the Chicago DIY community at large. An incredible audio-visual lineup has come into being, bringing musicians and artists from all corners of Chicago together to make sound and light in celebration.

We are proud to present:
Battleship
Pandava (featuring members of Quicksails, Chemtrails, and Mines)
Arvo Zylo
Dead Dragon Mountain (members of Sunsplitter)
Instinct Control
Wish Fulfillment

and visuals by Theodore Darst

November 10, 2012. 8pm
$8 in advance (paypal link coming)
$10 at the door

For more information about Karina's photography, please visit www.karinanatis.com

Delirious Music for Delirious People reviewed by My Lovely Figment/Dictafawn label

http://dictafawn.blogspot.com/

  Holy shit. 

 This is easily one of the best and, dare I say, most relevant compilations I've heard in the past few years. Not only does this comp have some head-turning artists to make it well worth the purchase--Big City Orchestra, Boyd RIce, fucking CONTROLLED BLEEDING and WOLD(!)--but a lot of the acts on here that are unknown, at least unknown to me, are truly exceptional; The Cenitmeters' bizaare [i guess] new wave-ish sound, Pharmakon's intense power electronics and even the charmingly goofy, vintage spook show-esque opening track by Hans Grusel's Krankenkabinet, just to name a few, stand out amongst the waves of either mediocre or just plain shit things I've heard from other artists in these general categories. 

 More importantly, this compilation isn't confused like other compilations tend to be when presenting a variety of different styles; no, this compilation knows exactly what it wants to present and comes out exactly what it intended to be: delirious music for delirious people.

 Smashing work, man.

333 gets 3 new reviews

Memory Wave Transmission

..."at times, the rhythms shift from music to noise, with little strands of static and percussive elements keeping a hold of the ideas, or at other times, bass-heavy beats and stuttery staccatos create a march of sound. It’s easily the best showcase of 333 because of its length, but it’s also a good song altogether, and 333 could have stood on its own with just this track."

Gumshue Grove

"Either way I’m voting yes. FUCK YES. Adjourned."

ninehertz
"'You ask your mom please, but she... melts off your face with a shoulder-mounted laser'... "

Blood Rhythms and le Scrambled Debutante Split on Banned Production

BLOOD RHYTHMS has done a split with veterans of odd experimental spacescapes, le Scrambled Debutante, now out on Banned Production, a ground breaking label that was started in 1984.  The Scrambled side is like a melange of tape warble induced bugs bunny transcendental chaos.   This incarnation of Blood Rhythms is assembled with collaborative recordings between NV13 and Arvo Zylo.  It  shapes up to be deflating balloons of organs, synth noise and horrific screaming.  At present time, this tape is not on the site, although it has been available for over a month.  Those wishing to acquire a copy should contact AMK.

T.O.M.B./BLOOD RHYTHMS split out now on LAND OF DECAY!

Now available on Land of Decay:  T.O.M.B/BLOOD RHYTHMS split c50 cassette.  T.O.M.B. works in a realm of their own around the fringes of black metal, industrial, dark ambient, and noise.  They perform with human bones and stolen tombstones, and they have been released on Prison Tatt Records, as well as Crucial Blast, among others.   This incarnation of BLOOD RHYTHMS features contributions from Christopher Turner (Nookleptia), Michael Esposito (Phantom Airwaves), and NV13.  Our side is a sprawling affair that incorporates Electronic Voice Phenomena with subsonic frequencies, a sample of a feraliminal lycanthropizer, and excerpts from a recording of Arvo screaming through a contact mic'ed gas mask for almost 2 hours straight.   Land of Decay is a private label headed by the founding members of Locrian.  We are proud of the way it turned out, and to be included in part of their vast, highly calculated body of work!

333 reviewed in WORDS ON SOUNDS

Excellent review from WORDS ON SOUNDS

Our next DIY artist is Chicago's Arvo Zylo, a genre-defying musician who is also the host of The Delirious Insomniac Freeform Radio show on WLUW, which airs from midnight to 4AM on Monday mornings (Facebook page for the show here). Zylo sent a copy of his "333" on CD (it's also been available in a cassette edition), an incredibly deep record whose creation spanned six years. I've been digging into this recording for a few months--while it makes a powerful statement on first listening, it continues to reveal new secrets every time I put it on.

The story behind this album points to discipline through adversity: "333" was started in 2003, using only an RM1x sequencer while squatting in an abandoned house, and the piece continued to evolve until being mastered in 2009. As one might expect from the circumstances of its birth, it's a dark, bleak outing, but it's not a simple release of rage. This is detailed work, rich in nuanced layers of sound whose precise deployment points toward careful working and reworking of every element. Most records I hear that gravitate toward harsh noise/power electronics have a certain immediacy or even haste evident in their production, but the nature of "333" involves time and architecture.

For a recording created with a device that functions essentially as a step sequencer, this music is incredibly varied--you never get the vibe of someone simply pushing buttons to move between simple sequences. And these pieces use a huge dynamic range, from walls of noise to pensive, early-industrial textures. There isn't a lot of pitch-driven content: sounds and textures are used rhythmically, articulated with filters and other onboard effects, which is another approach I don't often associate with sequencers. But this recording feels like it had to be made, and it transcends its limited equipment resources as though the music couldn't be stopped.

"333" is made of three long compositions. The first, "Quicksand Eggs of a Beaten Pathos," is over 30 minutes, quite a ride on its own. "Quicksand" starts with a short bass-driven introduction before leaping headfirst into walls of sound. Power electronics textures dominate until we reach the 7-minute mark, where a midrange riff begins to take over. The interplay between evolving textures and riffs continues for much of the piece, punctuated with really harsh rhythms that propel the music forward. Around 18 minutes, the piece dissolves into near-silence, eventually coalescing into a really cool synth ostinato figure, turning on itself repeatedly, and this section gets extensively reworked with sections of pads and countermelodies that shift focus momentarily toward harmonic function. Some almost drum & bass-sounding rhythms bring up the energy toward the end, followed by some stuttering rhythmic stabs and heavily filtered synth blips. From drones to harsh noise, "Quicksand" integrates a number of compositional impulses into a powerful whole.

The other two pieces, "Deadbeat Deluxe" and "Plasthma," are shorter, their combined length not quite reaching that of "Quicksand" alone. But these are complex pieces that travel across compositional approaches, too. "Deadbeat" uses some interesting, almost dub-like drops between rhythmic ideas, eventually melting into clusters of colliding note sequences driven by brutal quarter-note rhythms. "Plasthma's" first half is perhaps the most texturally-driven section of the album, eventually giving way to some of the most harmonically-dominated writing on the record in its second half, which almost sounds like an early Residents recording at times. As other reviews of the album have noted, one can certainly hear a lot of early industrial, noise, and electronic music influences in "333," but there is a certain compositional flair that combines and juxtaposes the musical sections in a more classical sense. I'm sometimes reminded of the most explosive trill/repeated-note moments in Nancarrow's player piano studies, or "Systems Emerge"-era Flying Luttenbachers. These works all share an especially personal energy that is usually only possible when a composer is also the sole performer/programmer of their work.

Listening to this album as a purely aesthetic experience is satisfying enough, but there is a larger concept behind this music that I think is worth exploring for a deeper context. As Zylo describes it, "To this day, and for at least 9 years, the artist has seen a series of numbers, "333," on clocks or other various places constantly; nearly every day, to the degree that it has become a fixation." In keeping with some of the magical resonance in the early industrial movement, the "333 current" seems to play a significant role in this recording. The Thelemic tradition associated 333 with the Crossing of the Abyss, essentially a process of confronting and (hopefully) transcending the Ego, and with the figure of Chronozon, essentially a "chaos god" of the Abyss itself, beyond good and evil (but usually pretty evil-looking!). The number gets associated with concepts like forgetfulness, lies, "breaks," redemption, and the darkness/overwhelming potential of total revelation. Later chaos magic traditions have continued to associate the 333 current/Chronozon concept with the Ego, somewhat softening the drama of the encounter to more of an acknowledgement/release process rather than confrontation/transcendence, in rituals such as Peter Carroll's "Mass of Chronozon."One doesn't need to be a believer or practitioner of such traditions to find their philosophies and archetypal implications interesting, and knowing a bit about them seems to illuminate this record nicely, with its ever-shifting shapes and conversations between melodic and textural ideas. You can find more information about "333," as well as other projects involving Arvo Zylo, at http://www.nopartofit.com.

--also published at Killed in Cars

Arvo/Blood Rhythms on 2 new cassette compilations

 E.F. Tapes will be releasing 2 compilations, as well as 2 other releases, on 9/11 in honor of their 20th anniversary:  One is a compilation of interpretations of the Star Spangled Banner, another is a compilation of Midwest noise artists, both of which include Arvo/Blood Rhythms, as well as artists such as Animal Steel, Disthroned Agony, Dental Work, Panicsville, Breakdancing Ronald Reagan, RU 486, Cock E.S.P. and many more!

Delirious Music For Delirious People Reviewed in Hiroshima Yeah!

Click on the image to read the review of Delirious Music For Delirious People in the latest issue of Hiroshima Yeah!

COMING SOON

Arvo interviewed at Chain D.L.K.

 Arvo is interviewed on the venerable site Chain D.L.K.  Feel free to click on the link for the whole thing.  

Of the millions and millions of xeroxed, hand-stitched, bound in aluminum documents existent, there is the disembodied sense of a human hand, tweaking the mixers to sculpt the air, to try and tame the raging machines. You can see where they have pasted the covers, or the tape run backwards. Listening to Arvo Zylo‘s music, you get the sense that he loves handmade things. His fingers are in every element of the production. He promotes his own material. He makes the records and record sleeves himself. he sends off mutant transmissions into the aether with his Delirious Insomniac Freeform Radio program, where he spews his own underground noise, and helps spread the gospel of other sewer-dwelling mutants. Listening to and looking at his creations, they are uniquely personal and utterly sincere. He seems like a person with a curious mind, who wants to see how things will sound. He has a refreshing, old school industrial vibe to his sensibilities, working with influential noise artists like Boyd Rice and GX-Jupiter Larsen from The Haters. You can practically visualize the sparking machines, the tinny radios belching static. His experience and craftsmanship, as well as a history in the visual arts, allow him to properly place artifacts in the sound field, yet he never stops moving forward and trying new things, and he’s not afraid to fail.

Saint Street reviewed at Memory Wave Transmissions

Link

Arvo Zylo – Saint Street (CD-R, No Part of It)

Saint Street‘s an album from Arvo Zylo, although you wouldn’t know it simply by investigating the cover. Only inside, listed underneath a brilliantly colorful picture of a dead bird, does it list artist moniker. Instead, the cover art reminds of Merzbow at his birdiest, similar to artwork on his 13 Japanese Birds series. But Arvo Zylo’s noise on Saint Street sounds quite far from the ‘bow’s harsh noise; instead, Zylo provides the listener with a fairly long disc of ten noise tracks, often wall-like in texture while mixing in a few tracks of noisy rhythms.
The noisier walls that pepper this disc are an interesting mix of shifting static textures combined with new takes on the genre. Opener “Upheaval (Version 3)” is an impressive wall of blasting noise with a fairly consistent undertone of sound, but it often shifts between more musical droning from the opening into hypnotic churnings of fuzz and distant violence. Similar scenarios often occur on this disc, although tunes like ”Undula” and “Freudian Scrape” tend to emphasize the ability of noise to completely obliterate otherwise dance-able soundscapes. It might seem at first odd that Arvo Zylo pairs the sonic blasts of harsh noise wall static with rhythmic noise akin to Black Dice, but it also feels right, a fresh stance on walls that considers changing the simplicity of the sprawling length and unchanging tone of those stoic anthems. There’s also the wallish cut crafted out of layering rewound sounds together on “DPRV”, a magnificently hypnotic piece that aims to throw the listener’s sense of direction off course.
Saint Street falters just a bit, especially in its latter half – “Arachnid Orchid” is one piece that feels contextually out of place with its digital laser beam beats, and “Freudian Scrape” feels outlandishly long considering the total runtime of the disc. The biggest problem with Saint Street is its tendency to sprawl for too long, stretching pieces on until they’re ready to fall apart. Condensing these tracks down would have allowed the listener more time to allow them to soak in; instead, Saint Street packs so much good noise into one disc that it’s difficult to absorb as a whole.
But that’s easily fixable – simply listen again and again, and come back to Arvo Zylo’s ideas fresh. Saint Street is a beauty of a noise album, and the mix of percussive instrumentation with blistering textures is refreshing as well as inspirational.

Show at Enemy next month

May 5th 9pm

Enemy 1550 N. Milwaukee Ave 3rd Floor

Illusion of Safety

Wyoming (Riley Walker & Andrew Young)

Boyle (member of Nihilist Spasm Band)

Michael Esposito & Arvo Zylo

"333" reviewed at Bad Alchemy

I keep forgetting to share this peculiar but flattering review from Rigobert Dittmann at Bad Alchemy:

ARVO ZYLO 333 (No Part Of It, CD-R): Es gibt sie noch, die Totalabsage an das, was vernünftig und was ästhetisch akzeptabel ist. Da ist einen Typ in Chicago, der in einem rattenverseuchten Kabuff die Industrial-Geschichte verwurstet wie Haarmann seine Opfer. Nicht als Farce, sondern with a vengeance, mit Gewalt, wie der Teufel, auf die Spitze getrieben. Das Machwerk besteht aus drei sperrigen Brocken, 'Plasthma' (11 Min.), 'Deadbeat Deluxe' (16 Min.) und gleich zu Beginn 'Quicksand Eggs Of A Beaten Pathos', eine Lobotomie von über einer halben Stunde, nach der allein man schon wimmernd mit allen positivistischen auch allen nihilistischen Gelüsten abschwören möchte. Oder, drachenblutabgebrüht, von nun an erträgt, was immer auch kommen mag (zumindest bis man sich das nächste Mal auf den Daumen hämmert). Aus einem Trolltanz zu Spinettgeklimper entwickelt sich splattriger Harsh Noise als Overkill mit Druckluftnadlerdauerfeuer. Dann wieder verzerrte Keyboardclusterschläge zu fortgesetztem Lo-Fi-Gewummer und Spießerschreckgeorgel zu schmetternden Paukenschlägen. Ein Karnevalszug von Orks und Trollen, der ausdünnt zu spotzendem Gebrodel, in das im Sekundentakt Metall tropft. Aus grausligen Stimmfetzen und stotterndem Noise plötzlich melodieähnliches Gedudel, ein pulsierender Groove, Geisterbahnsynthie, Maschinenstumpfsinn, ein Charivariloop und noch mehr Geklopfe und Georgel zwischen primitiv und kaputt. Gekurbelt bis zum Überdruss, zur Erschöpfung. Schnitt. Und schon geht es im gleichen Stil weiter, kaputte Beats, kaputte Motoren, die von einem Locked Groove zum nächsten holpern. Apokalypso ad nauseam. Was, wenn man trotzdem grinst und, obwohl die Welt da aus dem letzten Loch pfeift, die 'Plasthma'-Melodie mitswingt? [BA 70 rbd]

Here is what the translator engine had to offer:

ARVO ZYLO 333 (No Part Of It, CD-R): It still exists, the total rejection of what is reasonable and what is aesthetically acceptable. There's a guy in Chicago, the rat-infested mess out in a cubbyhole, the industrial history as Haarmann's victims. Not as a farce, but with a vengeance, with violence, like the devil, to the extreme. The concoction consists of three bulky chunks' Plasthma '(11 min),' Deadbeat Deluxe '(16 min) and at the very beginning' Quicksand Eggs Of A Beaten pathos, a lobotomy of over half an hour after the single want to renounce even with all the whining positivist and nihilistic all appetites. Or dragon's blood boiled, from now on bear, whatever that may come (at least until the next time pounding on the thumb). From a troll dance Spinettgeklimper developed splattriger Harsh Noise than overkill with compressed air eagle auto fire. Then again distorted keyboard strokes cluster continued to lo-fi and Gewummer Spießerschreckgeorgel to blaring drum beats. A carnival of orcs and trolls, which thins to spotzendem seething, dripping in every second metal. From gruesome vocal scraps and stuttering noise suddenly droning melody like a pulsating groove, haunted synth, stupidity machine, a Charivariloop and more banging and Georgel between primitive and broken. Cranked up ad nauseam, the point of exhaustion. -Section. And then it continues in the same style, broken beats, broken engines, the jolt from a locked groove to the next. Apokalypso ad nauseam. What if you still grinning, and, even though the world since its last legs whistles, the 'Plasthma' mitswingt melody? [BA 70 rbd]

Arvo/Blood Rhythms at Denver Noise Fest

Arvo will be Djing and Blood Rhythms will be performing at Denver Noise Fest 2012. Other acts include Crank Sturgeon, Sickness, Marlo Eggplant, Fatale, Nookleptia, Matt Taggart (PCRV), and Cock ESP among others. April 27-28th.

There will also be a show with Ralph Gean, Little Fyodor, and Noise Circumstance to kick the fest off at Rhinoceropolis on April 26th, and Arvo will be taking part.

GX Jupitter-Larsen/Arvo Zylo split cassette reviewed at Killing Birds

Two Spleencoffin releases were reviewed favorably at Killing Birds, one of which was the GX Jupitter-Larsen/Arvo Zylo "Xylowave/Zylowave" split cassette release:

GX Jupitter-Larsen needs no introduction, to anybody even in the periphery of the noise scene, Larsen's project, The Haters, is legendary as one of the defining artists of the genre, up there with the likes of Hal McGee, Merzbow, Whitehouse, etc. This split tape with Arvo Zylo, titled "Xylowave/Zylowave", is a 2012 release on Spleencoffin. The first side belongs to GX and here he creates an urgent sound, though to the ear the basic patterns do not change and there are no clever editing tricks, there's something beautiful in these long stretches of wind-licked, barren machine-noise. This is crushing, bruising, yet when listened to in a certain way can be heard as ambient sounds. Rising frequencies punch holes in the structure, power tools shower sparks, until in it's final incarnation it becomes crunching rhythmics that descend to an abrupt ending. As awesome as you'd expect!

Arvo Zylo is a distinctive noise artist, though not yet well known, I've reviewed his work favorably HERE. This is quite different from the crazy combination of prog, krautrock and industrial forms I heard in Zylo's other work. His B side, "Zylowave", starts with staccato 8-bit repetitions, charged electrons fluxing throughout, then partial dropouts in the mix on one side of the stereo frame or the other. My Sansui S930's are put to the test, but they're used to this kind of noise abuse, since I've had 'em for 30+ years! Midway through, it all becomes hissing and constant crescendos with no means of resolution. Another wondrous slab of power electronics!

Finally let me say this has one of the better conceived cover graphics I've seen of late, handsomely printed in black and silver, a nice art package. Recommended! Get it for $5 (!) HERE.

Arvo aired on No Such Program (Radio Valencia)

Some of Arvo's work has recently been aired on Ferrara Brain Pan's excellent radio show No Such Program on Radio Valencia.

April 10 - Along with Carter Tutti Void, Bobby Beausoleil, Coil, and Tristan Tzara/Jaap Blonk among others!

March 6 - Along with Vagina Dentata Organ, Brian Eno, Keiji Haino, Kluster and friends, and more!

"333" reviewed at Esoterrorist

Chicago-based noise artist Arvo Zylo is rumored to have spent 6 years developing his most recent offering, 333, and the 3-track self-released CD doesn’t fall short of expectations.

The first moments of 333 are reminiscent of what one might imagine a carnival in hell to sound like, with warbly and oblique synthesizers played along to schizophrenic glitch-ridden industrial beats. This runs almost immediately into an abrasive wall of noise and hiss, removing any former traces of melody and rhythm and elevating us to a purely textural abstraction of sound. We come in and out of this traditional (a tradition known to noise purists, only, assuredly) line of harshness with more recognizably concrete instrumentation of modern composition, but the grim atmosphere remains the constant, from the static crushing blasts of noise to the rupturing post-apocalyptic dirge marches.

Within the established structures of industrial noise, Arvo Zylo has found his individual voice, and it resonates with strength and dynamic agility. You can mark us down as fans. Get it here on CDr or cassette.

THANKS ESOTERRIST!

Blood Rhythms on new Power Electronics Compilation

The track "In A Vacuum" is featured in a new 3 disc CD compilation of American Power Electronics. Other artists included are Corephallism, Pharmakon, Slogun, Steel Hook Prosthesis, and Vomit Arsonist among many others. More info Here.

Arvo on Feedback Themed Net Compilation

A track by Arvo called "Chiral Component" is on a new feedback themed net compilation also featuring Government Alpha, Thirdorgan, RedSK, Guilty C., and Elizabeth Veldon. This track incorporates layers of radio feedback direct from his radio show.

"333" Reviewed at Rottenmeats

http://rottenmeats.blogspot.com/2012/03/arvo-zylo-333.html

The first track Quicksand Eggs of a beaten Pathos clocks in at around 30mins, starts off like the Residents at their most jovial… a comedy of bendy melodica that falls over into full on brutalism bullied in percussive kicks and hints of piano storms… It’s a baptism of fire, a swarm of digital insects gnawing at your grey matter, but your skull isn’t pummelled for too long before your endurance is rewarded with a drone bed of sinister Neubauten-esque DIY ‘s and hammered piano amputations… Some great sequenced candy follows, eking out ill-omens, organ lines thrown over grumbling discomfort… mad trebly can openers hooking at the debris like those red roosters dancing over a post nuclear diorama on the back cover… that reverbed intensity and smashing percussion is something else… quasi glints of a goose stepping clout, like some digitally distressed hybrid of Test Dept and Laibach… breaking away in an unpredictable feast of drum patterns and textural quarrel, chugging out those asymmetrical highs and BPM runaways … It's as if the band Ruins has been replaced by a dominion of broken robotics and sputtering dot matrixes and cattle prodded into spastic action…

Ideas flash by at a bewildering speed, everything evolves with amazing fluidity, spurs off in freshly inspired directions... never for one minute remotely boring... at one point Arvo even seems to be redefining drum and bass in fist fighting billiards and Wurlitzer panel punch… This is a bit like those Venetian Snares but way more berserk with the tempo, and homicidal in the collisions.

The second track Deadbeat deluxe is as possessed as the first, a mad assemblage of avant mangled hilarity and butt slapped S&M with some tasty Nintendoed Kraftwerk, propping up what sounds like a shoulder smashed garage door before it slips into all out industrialised glee … An intensity that’s later cut back in sparse percussion, only to launch into a junkyard techno of mortar beat and cracking schism … further machine gunned into a grainy post existence of unrelenting ear knives … cut-up in a mud slapped finale of punched hydraulics some 16(ish)mins later.

The last track Plasthma, continues the sequenced mania… strange wreckage indeed that rips through your ear in shrill-like varieties, only to fall back into that Residents avant classical vibe that started the album off.

This will either leave you with a splitting headache or a humongous grin... but I swear somewhere in this albums 59 mins I heard multiple futures...

New Review of "333" on Heathen Harvest

http://heathenharvest.org/2012/03/04/arvo-zylo-333/

Written by: Sage
Artist: Arvo Zylo
Title: 333
Label: No Part of it
Cat. #: None
Format: Pro CD-R

Genre: Industrial / Noise / Experimental

01) Quicksand Eggs of a Beaten Pathos
02) Deadbeat Deluxe
03) Plasthma

Arvo Zylo is one of those few humble souls who manages to go all out with his artistic integrity, pushing what he does into every realm of his life. When he’s not creating his unique brand of rhythmic/experimental noise, he’s putting together live performances or interviews with unheard of names and prominent figures. When he’s not doing that, he’s writing about other people’s music. When he’s not writing about music, he’s writing about SOMETHING. This guy is always creating and, much like his music, it has order and purpose even through it’s chaotic structure and surreal disposition. Zylo hails from Chicago where even his work at WLUW-FM 88.7 allows for him to reach out his creative fingers and deal with music (and non-music) on a daily basis. This doesn’t even begin to address his other project, Mister Fuckhead, or his live appearances such as the Dead Audio Festival 2010. There’s something to be said about the underappreciation that people like this receive — they kill themselves, not just for their art, but for other’s art as well, but it’s all that experience that makes what they creat that much stronger.

The breed of industrial noise that Zylo creates is unique in both its rhythmic allure and also it’s ability to be both incredibly intense but not overly harsh. 333 opens up with “Quicksand Eggs of a Beaten Pathos” which opens up with a carnival-esque melodic line that ends up evolving slowly and steadily over a minimal beat before eventually collapsing into a chaotic stream of disruptive and brutal noise. This onslaught of distorted electronics is only tamed by eventual percussive accents and a minimal melodic line created out of various singular piano fragments that are eventually nearly swallowed by an ominous, gradually building drone at the bottom end of the track. The consumption never quite occurs though and instead the bottom drops back out and we’re led back full-circle to the carnival style of the opening with some powerful industrial influences acting as percussive elements. The carnival sound eventually drops out too and all we’re left with is this disturbing, eventually bombastic death industrial sound that eventually flat-lines as the track quickly fades out only to come back to life as an entirely new entity that has enough character and duration to stand as its own track, but has probably been included as a second chapter of the same track to keep with the theme of “3″. It’s this formula that Zylo follows through the three tracks found on “333″ that make up the bulk of his style. Strong old-school industrial influences and minimal percussive textures, various rhythmic and experimental sound segments, some slight melodic synth-play and some oddly psychedelic moments that are hinted at by the album artwork.

The five-minute mark of “Deadbeat Deluxe” is a great example of the psyched-out aspect of this release with another playful rhythmic melody that progressively abstracts and builds intensity just to overwhelmingly collapse as in the track previous in an onslaught of industrial noise and disruptive experimental moments between beats. Even a danceable interlude moment approaches at the 11-minute mark of this track which came absolutely out of left field, but somehow also wasn’t entirely unexpected. The fact is that the bulk of “333″ sounds remarkably authentic and natural — or as natural as an electronic release can be. Where much music today can be forced and seem to be created out of the artist’s need to create something within the borders and regulations of something they love, Zylo’s work flows so well, not just between sections and tracks, but between entirely different genres of electronic music, that it comes across as a literal part of who he is. Of course, there is only a certain percentage of truth to this realization as electronic music with structure in any form takes time and focus to create, it can’t just jump forth from your fingertips like a guitar melody or poetry from your lungs, but that doesn’t change anything. Though the 59 minutes that make up this release may have only slightly overstayed their welcome, being the only source of negative reactions, “333″ never leaves your bored or looking at the clock. Segments are always evolving and moving towards their next progression, but any work of personal art has the ability to wear on you leading up to an hour’s duration.

The CD-R is pro-printed and comes in a jewel case with a two-sided insert. The art itself is as chaotic and strange as the music itself and blends yellows, reds and oranges with purple hues, but may lead you to believe that the psychedelic textures found in “333″ are stronger than they actually are.

You can catch Zylo on Chicago-area radio, as mentioned, on WLUW-FM 88.7 hosting “The Delirious Insomniac Freeform Radio Show” as “Arvo Fingers” every Monday night / Tuesday morning from midnight until 3:59 AM.

Rating: 4.5/5

"Saint Street" reviewed at Vital Weekly

I want to be clear that not all of this material was written prior to knowing about noise, but I think it's a good review anyway.

ARVO ZYLO - SAINT STREET (CDR by No Part of It)
I have had long discussions with Arvo about Australian Sheep rolling over cattle grids. That is the 'new' way of wearing scarves which seems to have taken the UK (and probably the world) by storm - folded in half and then ends put through the loop - and they mentioned 'morphic resonance' to explain the fact that the behavior had spread so rapidly – here perhaps in relation to noise? Or the Jackson Pollock Formica tables of the 1950s. Just in case anyone thinks this is a performative review, the calculus was either invented or discovered allegedly simultaneously by Leibniz and Newton. Zylo claims no prior knowledge of noise before creating these works, “but from a reckless abandon that resulted from an absolute failure at making electronic music”, which is one of the most precise definitions of noise I’ve read recently. Though the signification of the calculus was
fairly definitive, noise is not, so arriving at it, like the blank canvas can be via a dead logic, or sublime mysticism. Good noise – which escapes “goodness” can be so regarded, as a mystical sublimity or a dead logic, as both philosophic and non-philosophics, as a chain of difference, and repetition of not the same in the same as a signifier without a signified. Some might find these works (Saint Street) as sublime metaphysics or music physics, as a logic of abandonment of music into a Kierkegaardean sickness unto death or a Nietzschean overcoming (of music), or failure of communication, or a nihil, similar to but not IMO noise, in these protoforms which collide and collapse. The ten tracks are of shear non-musical invention, no matter their origin they claim and demand to be listened to, as a destruction of music, more an imaginative and authentic act of existenz than the cooler essence less existence of existential noise. Remarkable works. (jliat)

http://www.vitalweekly.net/819.html

Review of 333 on Touching Extremes

http://touchingextremes.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/arvo-zylo-333/

In an handwritten note, Arvo Zylo (note the relation between his first name and the website’s) advises me that it took six years to complete 333. The many hours that he put in are discernible throughout the three tracks of the CD, radical sharpness subjacent to music mostly born from of jolts and compulsions, classifiable without reluctance in the orbit of semi-dignified noise. The project’s unfolding leads the listener across stages of “refuse-any-melody”, industrial-scented cadenced autism, characterized by the same pros and cons of other releases in this battleground. This means that the physiological reaction connected to the initial impact is somewhat dampened by the absence of a functional evolution, the various constituents succeeding in separated scenes rather than agreeing to a proper arrangement. Things improve over subsequent temporal transitions, a distinct opening towards more “orchestral” sonorities making the difference; we even start hearing (perhaps illusively) echoes of samples in the overall crushing. I won’t name names to forcibly compare Zylo to the usual suspects, because he does not deserve it: like it or not – and I do acknowledge several of its intriguing aspects – this records shows a strong backbone and a good degree of individuality, regardless of the cosmetic qualities.

I will be playing at Crown Tap in Support of Mac Blackout Band and Shaved Women on March 17th

Xylowave/Zylowave

Spleencoffin has just released a split c50 cassette between GX Jupitter-Larsen and myself. It will come with a double sided 3 panel insert, xerox on black paper, and silver screen printing.