The 2000s Noise Scene

19 works, in the order the book names them

• 001/Album/1975

  Metal Machine Music

  Lou Reed

  It was enabled by changes in technology and distribution, newfound critical respect for the likes of Merzbow and Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, and the blanket blandness of heavy’s nadir driving discontented listeners to the furthest extremities of harsh and ugly music.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 002/EP

  Anagrama

  Sonic Youth

  In 1997 Anagrama marked the first in a series of experimental, often improvisational and mostly instrumental records released via the band’s own SYR imprint.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 003/Album

  A Thousand Leaves

  Sonic Youth

  Some of these jams were shaped into more substantial pieces for 1998’s ‘proper’ studio album A Thousand Leaves.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 004/Album

  SYR4: Goodbye 20th Century

  Sonic Youth

  The following year’s SYR4: Goodbye 20th Century proved even more challenging.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 005/Album

  NYC Ghosts & Flowers

  Sonic Youth

  A proud Chicagoan, DiCrescenzo interpreted NYC Ghosts & Flowers’ minimalist noodling and Beat poetry vocal choices as the epitome of the vacuous pomposity that thrived among the beret-clad bohemians of Manhattan.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 006/Album/1994

  Venereology

  Merzbow

  In particular, the hellish artwork to 1994’s Venereology appealed to the grisly tastes of metalheads.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 007/Book/1999

  Merzbook

  Brett Woodward

  In Brett Woodward’s Merzbook (1999), Akita is quoted as saying his track and album titles are ‘not chosen to convey any meanings.

  Open in Goodreads ↗

• 008/Album/2007

  Boss

  Magik Markers

  Once known (albeit not widely) for the shambolic and clanking nature of their extemporary rock racket, Magik Markers tidied themselves up a little for 2007’s Boss.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 009/Album

  The Door

  Religious Knives

  Having earned a reputation as droney krautrock fans, Religious Knives introduced a lot more melody and traditional song structure for 2008’s The Door.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 010/Album/2004

  They Were Wrong So We Drowned

  Liars

  It was a playfully uncompromising concept album about witchcraft titled They Were Wrong So We Drowned.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 011/Album/1979

  Metal Box

  Public Image Ltd

  Revelling in repetitive, clanky rhythms and seemingly random washes of electronic, amplified and acoustic noise, it felt like the new millennium’s answer to PiL’s Metal Box.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 012/Album/2006

  Drum’s Not Dead

  Liars

  Blood!’ Greater still was 2006’s Drum’s Not Dead, its sound centred around the percussive pummelling of, you guessed it, two drumkits.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 013/Album/1981

  The Flowers of Romance

  Public Image Ltd

  If They Were Wrong So We Drowned was their Metal Box, this was Liars’ The Flowers of Romance.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 014/Book

  Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City, 2001–2011

  Lizzy Goodman

  You can read further about the activities of these NME-endorsed bands, if you must, in Lizzy Goodman’s Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City, 2001–2011.

  Open in Goodreads ↗

• 015/Album/2007

  Das Zerstoren, Zum Gebaren

  The New Blockaders

  The fifty-minute single-track set was recorded and released as Das Zerstoren, Zum Gebaren, but you’ll have to turn the volume up an awful long way on the stereo before what was captured on that CD even begins to resemble how it felt to be witnessing it on the day.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 016/Album/1969

  Trout Mask Replica

  Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band

  Wolf Eyes were fans of metal (Manowar especially) and punk rock, but they were also fans of The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, the mayhem of Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica and the disorientating production techniques employed by King Tubby.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 017/Film

  The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

  Tobe Hooper

  However, a more accurate impression of their music can be provided by noting their admiration for the bloodcurdling soundtrack to Tobe Hooper’s masterpiece of horror cinema The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

  Open in IMDb ↗

• 018/Album/2004

  Burned Mind

  Wolf Eyes

  Nestled among this cardigan-clad roster were the Wolf Eyes albums Burned Mind (2004; featuring the classics ‘Stabbed in the Face’, ‘Urine Burn’ and ‘Black Vomit’) and its official follow-up Human Animal (2006; its final track, which was also used as the climax to many live sets, was a cover version of a track by the punk band No Fucker that doubled as Wolf Eyes’ statement of intent: ‘Noise Not Music’).

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 019/Album/2006

  Human Animal

  Wolf Eyes

  Nestled among this cardigan-clad roster were the Wolf Eyes albums Burned Mind (2004; featuring the classics ‘Stabbed in the Face’, ‘Urine Burn’ and ‘Black Vomit’) and its official follow-up Human Animal (2006; its final track, which was also used as the climax to many live sets, was a cover version of a track by the punk band No Fucker that doubled as Wolf Eyes’ statement of intent: ‘Noise Not Music’).

  Open in YouTube ↗