Bastard Noise

Zonal are the British duo of Justin Broadrick (Godflesh) and Kevin Martin (The Bug), a reactivation of their 1990s Techno Animal partnership trading in cavernous bass, cacophonous dub and ear-splitting drone. Their debut album Wrecked was released on Relapse Records on 25 October 2019, with Philadelphia poet-vocalist Moor Mother featured across its first six tracks. The record was mastered by Stefan Betke (Pole) and pairs industrial hip-hop menace with drone-metal weight.

System Error (ft. Moor Mother)play in the dock

Bandcamp

compare profiles →

shrieking violet (lowercase, as styled on all official releases) is the Stavanger, Norway duo of Finn Baker and Nora Wiee, building noise-industrial collages out of harsh noise wall, glitch-damaged electronics and screamed vocals across albums like 'dead things with teeth' (2022) and 'the earth was split open' (2023, about, in the band's words, 'men who are pieces of shit'). Citing Lingua Ignota, Aaron Dilloway, White Suns and Have A Nice Life as touchstones, they fuse post-punk songcraft with abrasive noise and ambient decay, landing on RYM/Album of the Year under post-industrial, experimental rock and avant-garde metal tags.

KK Null (Kazuyuki Kishino, b. 1961, Tokyo) is a prolific Japanese noise and experimental musician — composer, guitarist, vocalist and electronicist — who founded the progressive-hardcore trio Zeni Geva and the project Absolut Null Punkt, and has released well over 100 albums. His solo electronics moved onto Neurot Recordings with Atomik Disorder (2003) and Oxygen Flash (2009). He has collaborated widely, with named partners including Merzbow, Keiji Haino, James Plotkin, John Zorn, Fred Frith, Jim O'Rourke and Boredoms' Seiichi Yamamoto.

Excepter are a Brooklyn experimental/noise group founded in 2002 by John Fell Ryan (ex-No-Neck Blues Band), released on Load Records and Animal Collective's Paw Tracks — often grouped with Animal Collective and Black Dice as part of a mid-2000s New York noise/psych "class of 2003." Their 2013 record Christisland was recorded in Copenhagen with an expanded, Escho-scene lineup that included Düreforsög's Nis Bysted and KLoAK's Niels Kristian Eriksen.

Human Impact are a New York noise-rock supergroup formed in 2019, welding Chris Spencer's Unsane fury to Jim Coleman's Cop Shoot Cop-derived industrial electronics. The debut lineup added the Swans rhythm section of Chris Pravdica and Phil Puleo; their self-titled debut appeared on Mike Patton's Ipecac Recordings in 2020, followed by Gone Dark (2024). By 2024 the rhythm section had turned over to ex-Daughters drummer Jon Syverson and ex-Made Out of Babies bassist Eric Cooper.

Greymachine is an experimental industrial noise project formed in 2006, built around Godflesh and Jesu frontman Justin Broadrick and Isis frontman Aaron Turner, with bassists Dave Cochrane (Head of David) and Diarmuid Dalton (Jesu). Broadrick described it as needing "something black to Jesu's white," pairing crushing beats, dissonant guitar, and harsh electronics. Their debut album Disconnected was produced by Broadrick and released on 4 August 2009 via Turner's label Hydra Head Records.

Merzbow is the project of Japanese musician Masami Akita, the most prolific and definitive figure in harsh noise, working in distortion, feedback, synthesizers and homemade noisemakers since the late 1970s. His vast collaborative discography connects him deep into this atlas: he has recorded with Boris continuously since 1997 (Megatone, Gensho, 2R0I2P0), mixed the tracks "O)))Bow 1/2" on Sunn O)))'s Flight of the Behemoth (2002), and later performed live with Sunn O))) at Tokyo's Earthdom in 2007. His early-career work also included collaborations with KK Null.

Woodpecker No. 1play in the dock

BandcampSpotifyTidal

compare profiles →

Doolhof (Dutch for 'maze') is an experimental collaboration between Aaron Turner (Sumac, Old Man Gloom, ex-Isis) on guitars and effects, Will Brooks a.k.a. MC dälek of dälek on vocals and electronics, and Belgian audio-visual artist Dennis Tyfus on vocals, tapes and effects. Recorded live at Roadburn Festival 2019 in Tilburg and released by Turner's SIGE Records in 2020, it fuses abstract hip-hop, drone, ambient and noise into immersive, texture-focused long-form pieces.

Live At Roadburn Festival, April 13th 2019 (Excerpt)play in the dock

Bandcamp

compare profiles →

Head of David were a Birmingham-area experimental/industrial-metal band formed in 1986 and signed to Blast First, whose abrasive noise-rock was once described as being about as harsh as music can get 'without descending into pure noise.' Their releases include Dustbowl (1988) and Seed State (1991). Justin Broadrick drummed for the group from 1987 to 1989, a stint between his early stretch in Napalm Death and the founding of Godflesh.

Abishai is the lo-fi noise-rock vehicle of Torrance, California multi-instrumentalist Abishai Smith (aliases DJ Bathtub, Eden, Mizpah), who splatters feedback, drum machines, and kazoo across deliberately unpolished sludge, no wave, and noisecore excursions. The 43-track 'Raw and Legendary!!!' (2017) is a maximalist, comedic blowout of punk-metal bits, while the wider catalog under various aliases swings into death industrial, drone, power electronics, and ambient territory — DIY extremity closer to a bedroom noise scene than conventional metal songcraft.