The most extreme music ever?
 

I think I've found a contender.

Now if you're easily disturbed I'd tell you not to read on... it's 3am and it's probably not a good idea I'm doing this exactly, but I'm sure someone may be interested...


DO NOT click if you think you're prone to being disturbed:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EXg2HGFLLIc

Stalaggh, I've been told, are composed of artists, black metal musicians and noise musicians. One member is an insane guy who killed his own mother at 16. One of the "musicians" was almost murdered during the recording process and it was all recorded.

The video itself is recorded with WWII mental patients screaming footage with someone's manipulated screaming above it. The rest I'll leave to you.

suiting video, it's really powerful. I like the band as well. Thank you.


This is extreme in a different way. It's a noise band that brought a forklift in for an indoor performance and tore a wall off of the venue. It's a slideshow, so you need to click the arrow thingie
http://www5a.biglobe.ne.jp/~gin/rock/japan/hanatarasi/hanatarashi2/hanatarashi2.html

FUCK YEAH HANATRASH! Eye is the craziest motherfucker in the world.

Do you know if they play parties and weddings?

Seriously, don't buy into this "using mental patients for the vocals and recording in abandoned monastries and factories where one band member nearly got killed by a mental patient" thing. It's just some made-up bullshit to create a tough image, possibly done by some kid living with his mum.

The "mental patient" thing was done by SPK in the late 70's, and it's been oft mentioned that one of their members in their peak early 80's period was a former patient himself (I think he's the one taking bites out of a rotting cow's head in the "Despair" video).

As for extremity? Hmm, one person's extreme hell music is another person's "meh". Oh course, there's also extreme tunefulness, quietness etc etc.

'Most extreme' doesn't really bother me as a category. I did quite enjoy the music mind. I'll probably invest in their album. Thanks, C. Rob.

I was just thinking the same thing about SPK.
Stalaggh left me cold - the whole 'grainy monochrome concentration camp footage' thing has been done to death, and I don't really see how it can relate to music in 2007.

I found SPK to be much more disturbing.

The guy who killed his mum is dead now. Killed in a car crash earlier this month.

Hang on there, are you two talking about SPK the band or SPK the terrorist group/ patients' collective? Or did the terrorist group make records as well? I don't know much about SPK the band, but I'm not sure they had any mental patients involved. It's possible they did, of course, but there are two SPKs. Checking wikipedia it transpires that SPK band worked in a mental home. Well, there you go then, that doesn't make anything clearer.

In fact, more than two - wiki 1

SPK 'patients' collective' & SPK band

Can anyone remember that electronica record that came out in the late 90's by some German musicians that worked with a group of mentally ill patients? I have it at home, but I don't remember what it's called. It's not a very good record.

Gee that's pretty creepy. I played my harmonica over the top to lighten the mood.

This one? I assume it's that one, because that one isn't very good.

Yes, that's the one. Listened to it once, and I don't wanna hear it again.

i really dig this. this video doesn't bother me at all, though. the holocaust fascinates me to no end & i get entertainment from pictures of birth defects. ANYWAY, thanks for posting. :)

Glice - I was referring to SPK the band, who of course took their name from the original terror group/collective. Their head honcho Graeme Revell did work in a psychiatric hospital, and another of the members (Neil Hill/Ne-H-Il??) was the guy who legend has it had been a mental patient.

The imagery is extreme but quite typical. It's being intense without really saying anything. A bit like a drunken stranger screaming at you from the other side of a busy road.

I just wonder what motivates them.

The whole thing really reminded me of an old SPK video too. This ground has been tread before, and quite a long time ago, but I still enjoyed it. It was better than Sleep Chamber, at least.

where's the hijokaidan?

and the sounds in that video were actually quite boring.

Ne/H/Il was a schitzophrenic who was with the band early on. He was the one responsible for the pseudo-german used in a lot of the early SPK stuff. He killed himself in the early 80's after his wife died.

extreamly tame really,

im so cool, this mad shit doesnt even touch me

It is extreme, yeah, but perhaps too much so to really disturb. Unfortunately this sort of stuff has been done to death, plus there's the fact that the images they choose often cease to be disturbing pretty much because of the music that is played in the background, which kinda implies that YOU MUST BE SCARED, when in fact something lighter and unthreatening would have done the job. Still good, though.

Hijokaidan is not that extreme to me.

It IS extreme, musically. But on the other hand, you get a thousand of other noise records just like that. Emotionally, it's not that disturbing.

I'd go for a Whitehouse record myself.

Ha ha, one of the members of SPK would later go on to do a brief stint with The Cure. Should have seen that coming.

thanks for the info. heard some pretty extreme stuff a while ago it was literally extreme microphone feedback and screaming then the guy doing it just went nuts and started attacking the audience. suprisingly some of them didnt mind.

Jazkamer springs to mind.

I don't really get the point in a lot of extreme music, it just seems to be a machismo, who can be the biggest bully in the playground / who can stand the most pain, sort of thing, rather like guys in a gym trying to outdo each other by lifting the greatest weight. Whenever I hear any power electronics, I can't understand what the point of it is supposed to be.

I'm not asking to be enlightened, I'm just saying what I feel.

Yeah, I agree with you on the machismo thing. Same thing with technical metal guitar playing and a lot of latter day hardcore punk for me.

Personally, I really like the idea of deeply abrasive music, but I haven't heard anything out of noise/ the darker recesses of metal that particularly disturbs me. I still enjoy some of it, but I think in terms of harrowing music I'd take a Schnittke, Shostokovich or Mahler over any black metal/ noise music. Even something like Toru Takemitsu/ Morton Feldman manage to pull at the ole' heart strings more - I contend that a great many classical types have a great appreciation of dramatic tension, which is more effective in disturbing one's emotional state. You are, of course, more than welcome to disagree with me. You will, however, be wrong to do so on account of my innate rightness.

Haha. Typical SYG replies, tbh.

the question is whats the most extreme music ever................

it all depends on your idea of extreme....
is it this?????????????

or this????????????????

or even this???????????

or for some it could be this...........

who knows??
but one thing for sure there will be even more extreme forms of music in years to come, there has to be, its evolutionary.........

I've said something like this before, but in response to Mr Bee: I think you've half-pointed out the way things are in your post - one man's meat is another man's poison, in many cases. Stockhausen's nearly finished an opera that's longer than Wagner's ring. I think Pauline Oliveros has one that clocks in at similar times. Is Merzbow more extreme than Prurient? How does one measure 'extremity'? Who's more moribund, Hank Williams or Patsy Cline? Or Jandek? Are La Monte Young's drones more extreme than Hindu ceremonial drones? Is Britney more hardcore than Christina?

You can invent a million senses of 'extremity', and it's important that people do push whichever envelope they want to push. I don't think there's a finite point where you can say most extreme though, from the audience's point of view. I would rather say that Xasthur were good than 'the most bleak of black metal bands' or something. This isn't quite a 'it's all subjective' statement - it's that the notion of 'extremity' is subjective. We still have critical frameworks and qualia.

Nah, Sunn isn't extreme. Unless guitar feedback just destroys you.

When I think of extreme, I think of Cyptopsy, Necrophagist, stuff that's obvious that these people are just fucking insane (and probably play guitar 20 hours a day). Maybe Mayhem, since all the murder and weird shit connected with that band, is pretty extreme. I dunno.

I was playing the 804 Noise Fest in Richmond, VA last year and was watching our band's merch in an adjacent room with the rest of the record dealers and artists hawking their wares. Seated at the table next to me were Dominic Pernow? (Prurient) and Carlos Giffoni... I had never met these guys before or even heard what they do, but we were passing a bottle of medium quality vodka and shooting the shit for a few hours.

Later, after burning a spliff in the parking lot, I came back into the space to see Dominic dressed all in black, sans glasses, howling into a microphone, punching the air and making an incredible racket... It was great!

I think it seemed a little more "extreme" than it would have if I had not met the jovial guy he is beforehand.

I don't even really know what makes music "extreme". And looking back at my post, the Necrophagist and Cryptopsy and stuff... I mean, yeah, it's called "extreme" because of how fast and technical it is, but really, isn't a band as talented as that really just a bunch of dorks? And dorks ain't extreme!

So, I'd like to change my answer... Lustmord - Heresy. That's probably considered extreme.

That's pretty lightweight stuff to me. Mayhem extreme? Christ almighty!!

Naked City's Grand Guignol is quite extreme. The thrash tracks 2-34 that is.

Well, I only said mayhem because of the murder involved with the band. Not the fact that they tremolo pick.

But again, I don't really know what constitutes extreme music. There's this weird track at the end of a Cattle Decapitation record that's nothing but cows screaming and meat cutting sounds.. blades ripping through flesh.. all kinds of sick sounds.. I dunno. I'm sure a bunch of noise dudes have recorded chicks getting raped with blowtorches and set it to feedback... a musical equivalent to August Underground Mordum or something... sick shit like that.. I dunno...

I heard a band called Napalm Death who were very loud.

I'd rather listen to rock 'n' roll any old day - it doesn't try so damn hard to move me by being weird.