NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS Vinilo y CD

Review: For German retroverts Sign Bit Zero, it's "all about the expression of hate, despair, pain, waste, destruction, tristesse and misanthropic in art and music!" and that's good enough for us, really! On offer here are five noisy reinterpretations of some serious industrial unclassics. Hamburg's Wosto (of Fallbeil) takes the razor to UK pioneers Nocturnal Emissions and the raw tonal energy of "Bite Them Back". Label boss Kilian Krings appears also, delivering an edit of vintage EBM classic "Nervous Breakdown" by Suicide Commando and also for short lived Dutch trio S.M. Nurse and their grinding minimal synth anthem "Heinwerker". Some great edits on here for the new industrialists.

Review: Founded over 40 years ago, Nocturnal Emissions is the punk-dub brainchild of Nigel Ayers. Released back in 2010, 'Nocturnal Emissions in Dub Volume 1' is a micro-world creation of Ayers with their fingerprints all over it. Post-pandemic saw the release of Volume 2, and now for the first time in vinyl, the best tracks have been compiled from both volumes into this preview of dub heaven. Personal favourites include 'Credit Crunch Dub' from Volume 1 (its structure evoking tropes that many video game soundtrack composers used back in the 2000s with the limitations on portable speakers and chiptune soundboards) and the jazzy 'No God No Devil Dub' from Volume 2 with its escalating absurdity with harping saxophones in the background. This limited release feels like the perfect celebration of a long career for a dub legend.

Review: Under the Nocturnal Emissions alias, Nigel Ayers has been making inspired sound art and experimental ambient music since 1980. In that time, he's put out many fantastic releases, with 1988's cassette-only "Spiritflesh" amongst the most beguiling. Here issued on vinyl for the very first time, the album sees Ayers and a small group of collaborators create woozy ambient soundscapes out of a limited range of instruments and a large number of manipulated and processed field recordings (according to Mannequin's accompanying liner notes, these are mostly of various animals and birds, though such is the tape trickery you can barely tell). The results remain utterly spellbinding, as if Chris Watson had sat down with Brian Eno to create something magical out of his noted nature recordings.

Review: It's an arduous affair to even begin getting a grasp on Nocturnal Emissions. The one-man show, led by the legendary Nigel Ayers and, through the years, supported by other artists like Daniel Ayers and Caroline K, has been a pillar of the UK industrial scene since 1980. Yes, the year where it all went pear-shaped. Thankfully, we're talking about an innovator here, and the Mannequin knows that; it's no surprise that they've asked him to compile a monster release, stretched across four sides of wax, and this is the go-to release if you've been keen on getting hold of Ayers' music. Remastered and carefully presented, this is the perfect foray into the man's activities over the foundational years of British industrial thrash. Much like the work of pioneers like Throbbing Gristle, this guy saw into the future, and has easily constructed the most timeless noise music around.

Review: The Accumulator 12" sees We Can Elude Control, the label run by Emptyset's Paul Purgas, issue a fascinating historical document from Nocturnal Emissions. Founded by Nigel Ayers in 1980, the hugely prolific London based Nocturnal Emissions remain active to this day drawing on a palette of sound that incorporates elements of electro-acoustic, musique concrete, post-industrial and outright noise. This record contains two previously unreleased takes on "Accumulator" which both sound as current and thrilling as anything you might recently have heard through LIES or Morphine. In addition, the label has included a CD that contains a 23 minute recording of the band playing live at the Brixton Ritzy the night that Margaret Thatcher was re-elected as Prime Minister on June 9, 1983 - the sense of frustrated tension is palpable throughout.

Review: Contort Yourself reaches its sixth installment with yet another era spanning gathering of post-punk and industrial oddities for the most deviant of dancefloors to digest. In the contemporary corner we have Penelope's Fiance, a promising industrial artist from Greece. Meanwhile on the B-side, Nigel Ayers as Nocturnal Emissions takes us back to 1983 with the utterly chilling "Demon Circuits Bloodbath" and "Even The Good Times Are Bad". L.I.E.S boss Ron Morelli steps up as U202 to remix "Even The Good Times Are Bad" as a death march of malevolent percussion.