The Five music things thing yet again (and again) for whatever it still might be worth. Five? There’s something rather compelling about five, cross-pollination? Five more? Do we need to do it again? Is there another way? A cure for pulling cats out of hats? A new editorial yet maybe? Is there a rhyme? Is there a reason? Was there ever? What do reasons make? Again and again and again (and again). Five more, same as last time (and the time before) five and no, we never do and the proof of the pudding is in that proof reading. When we started this thing, oh never mind, it doesn’t matter and like we asked last time, does anyone bother reading the editorial? Does anyone ever actually look down the rabbit hole or is it all just method acting? Cut to the chase, we could just cut ‘n paste the editorial from the last time, there’s loads of music further down the page, well five or so pieces of music that have come our way in the last few days and cut to the damn chase, who needs an editorial? Anyone seen my contact lens? Who needs any of this? Who needs it, who needs it, Cynical where? Same what every day? Here’s your five for today. Five recommended musical things then, in no particular order, this is a non-stop operation…

1: Simon Grab + Francesco Giudici – Zurich-based sound artist & no input mixing innovator Simon Grab collaborates with experimental musician & sociologist Francesco Giudici on a new album ‘[No] Surrender’. We’re promised a “powerful, unadulterated confrontation of social injustice, corruption & deficient systems of power. Fierce bursts of feedback, thunderous, enveloping drone, unsound noise and visceral undulations of guitar: a dialogue of intensity & intuition”, There’s just this one rather brooding taste available so far (via Bandcamp), the album is out on January 28th.

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More on Simon Grab – “The co-founder of ganzerplatz soundstudios has been an active musician and producer in a wide range of musical contexts. As a composer and sound artist he produces music & sounddesign for feature films, documentaries, theatre and radio. In live performances and installations Simon Grab uses the venue as an acoustic playground. He likes exploring new grounds by negating existing borders”. We note that he’s in London on march 3rd at Cafe Oto

His release from February this year, Black Revolution, with Yao Bobby – Yao Bobby & Simon Grab is well worth checking out

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‘Social injustice is ingrained in our society, and the powerful are not willing to make way for real change. Urgency is the force driving us, both in musical improvisation and in life. Our sounds are war sirens, a form of resistance against an unremitting sense of cataclysm’ – Simon Grab & Francesco Giudici

2: Non Serviam / Gallkrist – Non Serviam? We haven’t covered the self proclaimed “Electronihilisme, sludge industriel, anonymat et misanthropi” band from Paris for a bit. They are always interesting, always a little diffeent. “We’re very proud to annouce a Split EP with the amazing @ViviankristS‘s Gallkrist (ex-Gallhammer) that will be released on CD/Cassette version thanks to the great Trepanation Recordings (uk) & Bad Moon Rising 惡月上昇 (Taïwan)” so they say. There’s only one track on the Bandcamp page right now, a Gallkrist piece, but hey, precious Non Serviam encounteres couple with a mention of the mihghty Gallhammer has us more than curious.

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Nore details –

“Gallkrist is the solo project of Vivian Slaughter, a Japanese musician relocated in Norway and known for having founded the cult Japanese Black Metal band Gallhammer, but also for her solo work with modular synths, or her more noisy experimentations in Sehnsucht with Maniac (ex-Mayhem), Congenital Hell, Nikudorei and many other projects around the world.

Non Serviam is a multi-talented, genre hopping anonymous collective blurring lines between genres and going beyond the boundaries that restrain them. The collective creates a sonic collage of experimental, black, darkwave, doom, grindcore, crust and industrial metal while staying within the framework of a baroque influence, with which they assaulted the auditory senses in 2021 with critically acclaimed albums like ‘Le Coeur Bat’ and ‘Il Pleut Partout Derrière’. This Split EP contains half an hour of unreleased material from both bands, exploring the deepest pits of the universe and the human mind.” Release date is February 12, 2022

We did almost miss out on Non Serviam’s Il Pleut Partout Derrière EP released back in late November, let it unfold now, there’s some fine musical reward to be found in those layers., “genuinely avant-garde. It’s challenging and beautiful” as someone else said.

“‘Il Pleut Partout Derrière’ is a heady and hypnotic mix of sombre, fuzzed out guitars, glitchy distorted trap beats, screams and ethereal vocals arranged as only Non Serviam can. Those who have heard Non Serviam’s previous work will know that absolutely nothing is off the table, genre wise and ‘Il Pleut Partout Derrière’ only aids to reinforce that there is truly no one else around doing what this talented and mysterious collective do”. More of an album than a EP, a full on full bodied piece of work, loayers and layers of it, painterly extreme metal, well somewhere beyond extreme metal. Alive with dark colour, sharp edges, with intriguing warmth , with venom, with so s omuch, this is good! And that unexpected Nirvana cover is just so so right…. “Is it liberating or alienating? Is it both? Composed of seven brand new unreleased tracks from Non Serviam, including two incredible covers (Nirvana’s ‘Something in the Way’ and Bloodiest’s ‘Obituary’)

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3: PoiL – This just in from PoiL and their joint PoiL Ueda project that we keep getting tastes of, “Hi friends, this is what happened in the last 15 days of our short earthly life! Hola amigos, esto es lo que pasó en los últimos 15 días de nuestra corta vida terrenal! Much love to you, much love to everyone who supported our fantastic PoiL Ueda bordelo, see you soon!” – more from the next album, a dhort preview of the latest PoiL Ueda recording session at l’Hacienda.

4: Bratakus – ” The audio quality isn’t the best, but here’s a video of us preforming an unreleased song called Final Girls at our last gig. Thanks to our pal Ash for filming!”

5: Kamoos – Berlin’s homegrown sultry, hypnotic post-punkers. A new release on Cabbage Records. Mighty Mighty is, so we’re told, “a muddy ode to the morning after the night before”

And while we’re here, Wednesday 24th November 2021, Dr. Jaz Coleman received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Gloucestershire.

And Big Country play a scratch version of Fields of Fire at The Hexagon in Reading in 1986 for BBC’s Whistle test.