From the Pica Disk website:
“Cover by Hair Stylistics is the july edition of Jazkamer‘s ongoing 2010 monthly Compact Disc series. This month’s album finds Hegre and Marhaug joined by Iver Sandøy playing noisecore. Noisecore is a crossover between grindcore and noise music. One could call it improvised grindcore, as its emphasis is on short bursts of blastbeat drumming backed by screaming vocals and heavily distorted guitar. Often the music is improvised on the spot. (…) Cover by Hair Stylistics contains 129 songs in 20 minutes. Because of the Compact Disc-format’s limited index ability the songs are presented as one continious track. Jazkamer also prefers the album to be experienced as a whole, rather than prominence given to individual songs.”
How can we possibly not do that?
Noisecore should contain hard chaotic drums, chaotic vocals and chaotic noisy guitar (and/or bass). No proper guitar riffs, and difficulty to hear musical elements should also be a part of the overall experiense. In such manners, Jazkamer succeeds very much in doing so. As with a lot of noisy stuff, it is also better to enjoy live than any studio recording. As Jazkamer has recorded this fast an furious, with some mixing after, they manage to make it sound quite live-like.
The noisecore recording tradition is also rough, distorted recordings, with difficulty to separate even the instruments at times. The recording of this Jazkamer edition is at times very distorted, both drums and vocals, but the mixing quality makes it easier to separate the individuals and you can hear what they are doing. It makes for a good listen, even so. Maybe even better as this album is quite long for a noisecore release. It is easy to lose focus after a while, but the mix helps, as there are new interesting things happening all the time. Maybe as Jazkamer is not a true noisecore band, but plays on quite a few strings, as we have learned during the monthly series, they also add bits and pieces to this genre (unintentional or not), that helps the untrained listener to stay focused throughout the entire 20 minutes (my player stops at 19:25) and 129 songs(!). Hailed noisecore bands are usually very fast as Anal Fist, or very distorted. Jazkamer is fast at times, but also slower for a noisecoretrack. For me this also creates a more diverse and interesting listen. The last minute comes out quite weird, even.
-Ronny Wærnes-
