Press Reviews :
Syphilis Sauna :
"Syphilis Sauna is the solo-project of musician/sound-collagist Patrick Urn, who also makes music as part of the dark
electronic group In Ether. In relocating to Seattle, Urn's nourish blend of IDM, glitch-hop and industrial tinkering is a fitting gift to the city; a soundtrack to the spooky, cloud-covered
atmosphere it takes on most of the year. Live through enough gray days, and a kind of unparalleled clarity bursts forth. I believe that Urn's ultimate aim in making music as Syphilis Sauna-
and one Richard D. James could be proud of- is contemplation. While there are moments of frenetic energy on the mostly-live album, a majority of the songs are built on a foundation of jet-hum
whirs, light and rapid drumtaps, and Coil-like synth tones. Blessed with listenability, something many IDM albums fall a tad (uh, miles) short of, the sounds on SS's newest collection of
songs, Step Down In, are persistent and pleasant enough to worm into your thoughts like viruses. In this way, not just the most particular darkwave fans will hear this, and Urn's political
and social messages - because they're in there somewhere-
Listening to this at midnight while looking out my second-floor window into a sketchy alley gave me the appropriate creeps. Both everyday scenes, like a lone woman in a miniskirt lighting a
cigarette beneath the streetlight- and tiny details, like a faraway curtain's flutter, were given a suspicious foreboding of doom. "Sottjoyriytilmitid", recorded in a Denver café, shifts
the album into the realm of twinkly soundscape, with deep bass acting as support and counterbalance to the otherwise pretty noises. I think of "28 Days Later", and imagine a light, fresh rain
falling on the charred and wasted remains of London following the zombie-induced apocalypse. The sounds on Step Down In are a sonic study in duality. Urn's music creates visual reminders that
no matter how fresh and good something like rain can be, without the dirt and shit of life to wash away, it's worth nothing.” -Rachel Shimp- www.tinymixtapes.com
“…The music of Syphilis Sauna (Patrick Urn) recalls Coil;s naefarious ambience in an advanced stage of agitation and also
bares vestigal traces to Skinny Puppy/Download’s post industrial toxicity.”
- Dave Segal (The Stranger , vol. 14 no.11)
" ... Syphilis Sauna (patrick urn) practitioner of black-hearted, post-industrial sound soundscapes that often sound like the amplifiied bleatings of insects the size of seattle center ..." - Dave Segal ( The Stranger January 6th 2005 )
Review of Pony Puree EP: "A remix single of sorts, this 8-track CD features various tracks created using an original "Horse Filth Loop," created by Syphilis Sauna's Patrick Urn as source material. The original loop is a short burst of squealing, grating noise, which was then traded around to various compatriots from the Backwards Records family....." - Mathew Johnson Grave Concerns 4/23/2006
"The horse fixated "Pony Puree" EP is a collection of original tracks and remixes of the opening loop by assorted noise artists. Patrick Urn, otherwise known as the wonderfully named Syphilis Sauna, releases "Pony Puree" following a series of compilation, EP and full-length releases (mostly on his co-owned Backwards Records imprint) from 2000 onwards.Starting with 'Horse Filth Loop (Original)', which forms the basis for the remixes included in this EP, Urn contributes 3 other tracks/remixes of his own to the release. 'Horse Filth Loop' itself is basically 42 seconds of fairly abrasive noise that has been offered to collaborating artists to remix for the EP. Nova Sak basically take the screeching haze of noise and add more static drenched layers to form a dense low crackling drone. Urn's first contribution - 'Angerpony' - starts in the same way but soon heads in another direction, taking some of the weird alien vocal elements of the original and adding huge pounding industrial bass to liven things up. DJ Lamp's remix starts all manic but soon breaks down into elastic breaks and smooth moody electronics while the very short Koma Fuzz rework concentrates on dark subterranean drones. Urn's second track, 'Gluefac', again revisits the huge industrial rhythmic pounding of his first track but heads in a slightly more fragmented abstract direction. XISIX's remix focuses on a patchwork of diversely amusing yet appropriate samples and nightmarish screeches over an urgent heart-like beat. Closing the EP is Urn's final and shortest track, the still more abstract and fractured 'Spasmpony'. Described by the label as "deconstructed glitch sound and trashtronica", Urn's music ranges from glitch noise to rhythmic industrial dark ambience. Most of his music falls in the latter category but lapses into the former as it gets more adventurous and experimental. This is evident across the 3 tracks on this EP that get increasingly broken and random as the end of the EP approaches. Of the remixes, DJ Lamp's is probably the most adventurous given the source material although Urn's own tracks stand out as the most accomplished of the set." - Aural Pressure 10/1/2006
"Induced by the name of the band, my interpretation of the sounds went towards sickness. The tracks seem to paint, each, a digital canvas of a different ache or disease that appear inside the human body like nausea, headaches and else. This impression lasted until the fourth track which quits dark ambient/illbient to a different approach with its glitchy idm rhythms. The following tracks plounge into a cyberpunk atmosphere and slowly turn back to the dark ambient form. There inside (inquiry) features a beautiful piano piece with noise notches above. This marks beginning of a second part, Imagery rehearsal, fast paced and hectic, contrasts drastically with the rest. Nice noise" --Review of "there inside" net release on Decisive sound by Sothzine
NODE :
" Denver industrial luminaries lBlack Cell rummage in the charred debris left by Skinny Puppy and Download. locals Sporadik and Nogunri deliver merciless beats that may cause you to pass your Tazo Tea through your nasal passages "- Dave Segal (The Stranger , January 6th 2005)
Cross Pollination :
"Its Fremont home field is a tad more obscure than the Crocodile,but Cross Pollination is right up there with Iron Composer as the most innovative collborative indie night in town.Avant noise merchants Euphondisson will generate live chaos ,to be remixed on the spot by industrial electro heads XISIX " Seattle weekly march 5th 2005
"heres a pretty damn brilliant improv concept : A local band that ideally doesnt skew toward electronica plays a live set which a local electronic artist remixes on the spot ,employing only the sound that the band just created. Tonight experimentalist Patrick Urn's Solo project Syphilis Sauna re-imagines the introspective instrumental rock of table land " Seattle weekly January 5th 2005
ZDEFEKT
"...avant rockers Zdefekt, whose recent disc, Complex Breeding Program (Scatological Liberation Front), teems with squiggly synths, tribal drumming, and odd textures like the magnetic field recording of a powering-up minidisc on the epic "Krajanie Rodzenie." - CHRISTOPHER DeLAURENTI The Stranger Nov 24 2005
A honest Press Review from Aural Pressure about Zdefekt: "Zdefekt is a seven person collaboration featuring members of
Euprondisson, Syphilis Sauna, Harmoxscape and Mortii. The primary focus here is on percussion centered tribal/noise. Gerald Hansen (formerly of Count Fistula and Euphondisson) and Bez Shumwas
(Euphondisson) provide the beats. The instrumentation consists of guitars, bass, synths, drums and tape loops." Read the rest of the review Here.
Review of Complex Breeding Program from Grave Concerns: " The music of ZDefekt, a collective of musicians that includes members of such projects as Syphilis Sauna, Mortii, Euphondisson and Harmonxcape, resembles nothing so much as the studio material of the lamentably defunct Crash Worship ADRV. This seems unexpected; at first glance, one wouldn’t immediately connect Crash Worship ADRV’s themes of dark Mesoamerican sorcery with the Polish serial killer vibe ZDefekt seem to be going for, but these are cosmetic differences......." - Matthew Johnson Grave Concerns 4/23/2006
Penatration Camp
Review of the Sampler from Grave Concerns: "A brief selection of tracks from extreme noise project Penetration Camp, this disk runs the gamut from excruciating to merely disturbing. "Poor Little Town Of Bethlehem" starts things off with moaning drones and hints of distorted conversation that recalls the tape loop experiments of Current 93's early work...." - Matthew Johnson Grave Concerns 4/23/2006
DJ L.A.M.P.
Review of FinaL EP from Aural Pressure: "DJ Lamp is the solo project of Benjamin Thompson, one-time aspiring industrial musician and now experimental glitch noise protagonist. Released on extreme noise label Backwards Records, Final is generally not that harsh or noisy, instead focussing mostly on smooth beats, weird noises and experimentation. This EP is also Thompson's debut release for Backwards Records and precedes a full-length album entitled "The Glitch Path".
When Final does veer off into noise territory it gets very strange and experimental but it is not long before Thompson brings things back under control to return to the cool abstract glitchiness he seems most suited to. 'If Gates Could Talk' for example heads off into a confusion of experimental noise and 'Kill Them Chickens' which follows it sits somewhere between that and the slick IDM seen elsewhere on this EP. Tracks such as '10 Up the Ladder', 'Falze Trackz' and 'Too Dark Too Late' show the slicker rhythmic experimental electronic side of Thompson's music. 'Sound of the Machine' pushes things further, fusing the two extremes to create a steady melancholic beat-laden track under a crackling static haze. Taking his sound in an entirely different direction is 'Counter 8' with its head spinning maelstrom of dark swirling electronics.
Some of the tracks on this release suffer from being too chaotic and appearing to be a random mish-mash of weird noises, effects and unstructured beats ('Twas the Day' for example) but where Thompson sticks to his new experimental/glitch/IDM route the results are slicker and more enticing." - Aural Pressure 10/1/2006
Review of FinaL EP from Grave Concerns: "For an album with such in-your-face D.I.Y. packaging, especially one released on extreme noise label Backwards Records, DJ L.A.M.P.'s new release is surprisingly easy on the eardrums, at least most of the time......." - Matthew Johnson Grave Concerns 4/23/2006
Compilations
A Tribe Called Glitch : "The concept behind "A Tribe Called Glitch Vol.1 - Elements of Circuitry" is a complex one revolving around the commonality of themes amongst primitive communities and how these themes translate to modern society considering the developments in technology available to us. The resulting compilation album features a diverse range of musical styles from industrial dance to IDM through to drum 'n' bass, dark electronica and noise with each artist contributing their own interpretation of the theme. Opening proceedings is the almost anthemic 'Birth' by Quantum-Source which is almost like a call to arms resembling a huge digital war machine rumbling into battle. Droid's 'Andavert Traveler' slows things down with a low rumbling bass, elastic beats, circling swirls and an unexpected melodic quality. Maintaining the low key introduction is Nichts with the insistent tribal rhythms and grating whirs of 'First Pressure'. It isn't long however before Nova-Sak comes along and things turn nasty with the random metallic distortion of 'Pure & Brilliant'. Returning to the relative calm of Nichts is Blackcell with the ominous mood, hissy beats and marching bass of 'Coaxing Seed from Soil' followed by a similar but harder, more distorted and more ferocious track from Pentalith and an interesting drone meets digital hip-hop fusion track from Sporadik. Weirdnerd contributes a track inside a track with 'Rough Seas' which on one hand is a drum 'n' bass excursion but on the other is a foray into a tropical rainstorm wilderness - very odd. 440Hz follow this with 'DV8' which is a deep bassy jungle workout that is followed by a lengthy industrial IDM experiment in the form of Kuxaan-Sum's 'Writhing of Three Serpents'. Syphilis Sauna again shows his humorous side with the digital glitch meets Greek music experiment that works surprisingly well. Necrotek's 'Spectre' closes the album with the increasing anxiety of its repetitive beat and shifting background."A Tribe Called Glitch Vol.1 - Elements of Circuitry" is certainly a diverse collection of tracks ranging in influence and style from hip-hop through to traditional music that can be found in various communities worldwide. Ranging from harsh metallic clatters to smooth rhythmic beats, this compilation takes in the scope of styles in between to produce a varied listening experience with the usual variance in quality you might expect from a compilation such as this. What might be considered high points throughout this album really depends on your chosen music tastes but there should be something for most people interested in the genre." - Aural Pressure 10/1/2006
Review of A Tribe Called Glitch from Grave Concerns: " This lengthy new compilation from Backwards Records does a good job treading the fine line between the experimental electronics of artists like Sporadik and 440hz and the more extreme noise offerings of projects like Nova-Sak......." - Matthew Johnson Grave Concerns 4/23/2006