hive mind - black tempest 3"CDr

hive mind & luasa raelon - alabaster catacombs 3"CDr

hive mind & luasa raelon - night maintenance CD

hive mind - sand beasts CD

hive mind - death tone CD

hive mind - cataclysmic urge 3"CDr

hive mind - tunnel birth CDr

hive mind - writhing flesh C30




















































Hive Mind - Black Tempest 3"CDr - Let me start by saying that I’m not here to break down all the details of experimental free noise music. When it comes to accurately articulating my thoughts about this ever-expansive sub-genre, I undeniably consider myself a novice. I also intend to keep it that way, so get over it. I’ll leave the task of explaining all its intricacies to the fine-tuned devotees and artists, and I’ll just use my time here to express my adoration for the latest bombastic noise drones of Chondritic Sound founder, Greh (aka Hive Mind).

Black Tempest, one of many releases from Hive Mind this year, is a single-song 3" CDR that takes you on a 21-minute apocalyptic journey of pulsing agitation. In my mind I see it as a ride on the wing of a World War II fighter plane that has been called into battle. And trust me, you’d better hang on for dear life. As the song begins, slow punches of lo-fi drum machine doom are increasingly joined by the buzz of a propeller-like sound. At this point, the music is still somewhat restrained and the idea of something wicked lurks around the corner. Perhaps it’s the enemy?

Being careful to take its time, Black Tempest slowly becomes louder and more intense with each successive minute. At about the 14-minute mark, you can hear the "propellers" begin to pull back as if to signify the plane has reached maximum flying altitude, but now, intermittent high-pitched noises have joined in to slowly add another dynamic to the already intense affair. It’s hard to believe that, as I type these words, I feel as though I’m not accurately describing just how pleasurable it all really is.

Greh’s contribution here is indeed very short. With not a lot of structural change occurring throughout its duration, it’s pretty difficult to go in to too much detail. I guess there’s really no point, either. That’ s certainly not to say Black Tempest lacks in being affective; because for the 21 minutes you devote to this song, there’s a good chance you will be transported to another place. Let’s just hope your skin doesn’t get blown off in the process.

     - Amneziak, Tiny Mix Tapes







Hive Mind & Luasa Raelon Alabaster Catacombs 3"CDr - "Alabaster Catacombs" is a 3" CDR collaboration by these two notable projects. I'm not sure whether this was released before or after the full length CD they did together that was both split and collaboration, but it was released very close to the same time. There is just one track here, nearly 20 minutes long, but it is a hell of a track. Deep pulsing analog Dark Ambient throbs that feel like a slow ooze emanating out from the speakers. Gradually layers of higher end swells and twittering electronics come forth in building layers and frame a more dreamlike vision. It's a dizzying mix of tones that leaves you feeling in a bit of a stupor. These recede momentarily as crackling distortions sneak through the background. The hallucinatory washes resurface but remain more subdued than that initial introduction. A nice touch I thought, in that they establish what they are capable of doing to you and then just threaten you with it for the remainder of the track. The mood of this piece is really incredible and strangely cinematic even though it's not likely to contain many sounds you'd expect to hear in a film score. The control over the mix and movement of the piece flows so well, and while there seem to be elements that never change, there are so many elements that come and go that the length of the track is more of a surprise than anything else. I've always felt that the only people that should make tracks this long are those who can do it without you realizing the tracks are as long as they really are. This is definitely one such instance. Excellent.

     -Scott Candey, Worm Gear





Hive Mind & Luasa Raelon Night Maintenance CD - (7/10) First up on this lengthy split CD is the massive 20-minute "The Marble Orchard" from Hive Mind, building in slowly with rumbling drones and sprawling textures against a subtle midrange hum - ominous, persistent, and hypnotic, as always. As things progress the piece gradually thins out and transitions into a dense yet minimal current of resonant low-end that pulses its way downwards towards the closing moments. Therefore the track is a pretty consistent listen that offers little variety, but that's not a negative characteristic whatsoever in this case. Luasa Raelon follows with four shorter tracks (by comparison) that total around 33 minutes, beginning with "Gateway to Despair": Nine-and-a-half minutes of sinister dark ambient that's among the most effective I've heard from the project to date! The transition from the Hive Mind track into this work is excellent as well, since the two pieces work well together and are similar in general tone. Luasa Raelon's work does possess an eerier undercurrent though, along with very faint instances of melody, which continue in the cascading waves of "Devouring the Light". "Twilight of the Gods" is a bit different, however. The sounds are sparser, with more of an unusual electronic sizzle to the midrange and an increasedly percussive motion to some of the resonating textures. "Sand Beasts" is then more than 10 minutes of back and forth drones and hums layering in and out amidst one another. Afterwards, the title track ends things off with a 17+ minute collaboration between the two projects. Since their individual work is somewhat comparable on this record, it of course makes sense that this joint venture is a very fitting counterpart to the prior chunk of material. Vibrating drones and lots of intense low-end pull you down while ethereal midrange and fleeting hints of barely musical fluidity creep in at points - adding brightness and detail. The layout is printed entirely in metallic silver ink on thick matte red stock, which looks fucking superb. The imagery seems to be close-up shots of skeletomuscular diagrams and such, which take on a very abstract appearance in this particular instance. Very nice, indeed. Perhaps you could call this effort a little slow moving and immobile in its entirety, but that consistent and unwavering style works great during the individual pieces. Only when experiencing such for a good deal more than an hour does it become somewhat tedious. For the most part everything sounds full and ultra thick, and I can't make up my mind how I feel about the slight insinuations of roughness at the perimeter of certain areas of the work. For the most part I think it adds a cool aesthetic to the material that's a little different, so none of these minor issues should be considered faults in any way. I've enjoyed what I've heard from Hive Mind thus far, and I have to say that Luasa Raelon has really been greatly improving in recent times. This is somewhat of a short review for such a long CD, but the tracks tend to take hold and build on carefully executed variations rather than traveling too far away in their allotted times, so dark ambient fans should quite enjoy this one.

     - Andrew, Aversionline








Hive Mind - Sand Beasts CD - Hive Mind is another project from the man behind Black Sand Desert, one half of Cleanse, and others I'm sure I'm forgetting. The project focuses on deep ambience via analog synths. "Sand Beasts" is a solitary track lasting 38 and a half minutes or so, and fulfills the intent of the project most effectively. Slow droning pulses, skittering static and resonating electronics all swim together in a sub bass hum. The composition is fluid, tonally rich and shows a nice evolution through various textures while maintaining a cohesion. Some of the sounds begin to get more gritty and threatening as they circle through the murky foundation and in the context of the track title make for interesting visuals should you allow your imagination to wander, and you should. There is a lot of depth to "Sand Beasts" and the conveyance of the Dark Ambient aesthetic with the tools used here makes for a intriguing take on a genre that has a tendency to get repetitive when done by the books. I like this record a lot, it has strong dynamics and manages to feel almost bottomless in its presentation. The movement of the textures and the way they ripen through different values of grime and purity keeps the development and heaving of the track quite graceful. Definitely worth seeking out, particularly if you have a soft spot for analog synth.

     -Scott Candey, Worm Gear


Hive Mind - Sand Beasts CD - 7/10 - This disc contains one massively bleak 38+ minute dark ambient epic from this collaborative duo featuring members of Sirkut Electronics and Black Sand Desert, among others. The pace is slow and crawls back and forth while fading in and out with ominously thick low-end and a little bit of a midrange sizzle, maintaining a very quiet sense of minimalism for the first several minutes. Around eight minutes in a consistent hum starts to seep into the background and add an eerie sense of near melody while the foreground thins out just a touch and gradually builds back into a thicker, more persistent pulse as a little more layering gets involved. The background tones eventually get higher and more active, twisting around and fading back and forth, with powerful bass surges coming into play as well. These types of tones and textures mingle together over the course of the track in varying manners and eventually start to reach their most sinister levels some 18 - 20 minutes into the composition as things tend to become thicker and louder, but still not overtly aggressive. Hugely resonant percussive sounds rise from the depths and begin to carry the piece to its end, as the volume starts to drop and thin out (effectively and intentionally) bit by bit over the course of the last five minutes or so. For the most part the entire selection is very consistent, but oddly I wouldn't call it one-sided, nor is it particularly repetitive. In a way it is sort of repetitive, but not in a droning, hypnotic sort of way, just in the sense that it maintains a consistent aesthetic over a long period of time. All of the changes and shifts that manifest themselves do so subtly and over the course of minutes, so nothing is too immediate or jarring, and everything flows quite deliberately. The disc comes in a nice matte slipcase with some green and gray coloring, depicting layers of abstract patterns and clean, minimal text. So there's not much to it, but it is fairly effective. Nice work, overall. Hive Mind already has several other releases out there, so keep an eye out.

     - Andrew, Aversionline


Hive Mind - Sand Beasts CD - (4 stars) Imagine John Carpenter and Throbbing Gristle joining forces to score music for nightmares - Hive Mind's death-dirge horrorscapes are not too far off. Sand Beasts builds slowly from dark low-end analogue drones into rumbling speaker-threatening frequencies, piling on peaks of visceral, almost tactile, electronic churn and circuit carnage.

     -Andrew Carden, MOJO Magazine - click HERE for a scan of this review.

Hive Mind - Sand Beasts CD - (Grade B) Analog synths. They're all over the noise underground these days, spitting and sputtering, being rewired and circuit bent. Control seems far more the exception than the rule. But let that stop here. On Sand Beasts Michigan's Hive Mind (Greh, the one-named wonder behind the Chondritic Sound label, here joined by one Shawn Royal of Sirkut Electronics fame) handle no less than six vintage synths with a surgeon's precision. Like a maniacal back alley $20 surgeon of many a B-movie, but an M.D. all the same.

The amount of control presented on the disc is really astonishing. While doomed bass frequencies play off each other, Francisco López-like chirps eerily modulate as they fade in and out. If you can imagine a guy like López sitting in with Sunn 0))), you're on the right track. The sole 40-minute track emphasizes these two elements to the very best. Alternating between isolated segments of one sound or the other and varying combinations of the two, the subtle shifts keep the track from getting stale without drastically altering the aura that surrounds it. While I'd hesitate to pigeonhole the album as dark ambient, this is certainly dark and definitely ambient. Maybe a few more releases of this caliber and the good guys can reclaim the title.

As each minute takes the listener deeper, the album's title becomes more and more appropriate. It sounds like someone, or thing, burrowing. And while I'd like to think of it digging through some dirty underground caverns, I feel the joke is on me. This beast is actually working its way through my flesh. Pause or stop the album at any point and the air actually feels lighter. It's akin to removing a cinder block from your chest or pulling your head out of a vice you didn't realize someone had been carefully squeezing. Resuming is like dropping or squeezing twice as hard, without the benefit of being eased into it.

There's no info whatsoever on the disc or packaging, so I can't tell whether Sand Beasts is improvised or composed. Based on the precision, power, and physicality I'm inclined to guess the latter, but it doesn't really matter. Whatever it is, it's executed almost flawlessly and the astute listener is rewarded with a spinning head, and, if really lucky, stomach.

     -Mike Shiflet, Stylus Magazine

Hive Mind - Sand Beasts CD - I've never heard Hive Mind before but from this one track almost 40 min release. What we have here is a Deep Dark Drone release with a lot of Dark Ambient and a few Power electronic elements. Its Slow Building but that's what makes is great. Draws you in moment by moment to the abyss of sounds Hive Mind is trying to create. The subtle tone and texture changes are very impressive through out. I'm very pleased there are no vocals here on this track as they would have been overpowering. I look forward to hearing more from this project with much promise.

     -Clint Listing, Beauty and Pain Webzine

Hive Mind - Sand Beasts CD - Hive Mind is the noise project of Chondritic owner Grey. I never heard of Hive Mind before and this disc called "sand beasts" is my first journey and only journey of 38 minutes into Grey's black twisted mind. The disc comes in a pretty basic but beautifully packaged cardbox (no idea how I should call these) but I'm kind of getting used to these cd packagings since I didn't want to miss out on any of these releases coming out of the PAC office. Hive Mind is more like a ambientesque travel through darkness, you might want to hold your candles close cause it's dark and scary. 38 minutes of ambient synth noise, loops gets repeated constantly while in each round new sounds and effects are getting added. It sounds dark and breeding just like you're hiding in darkness next to a swamp, you can't run just hide. Crossing your fingers that this nightmare will be over soon. It eventually gets louder and heavier towards the end, but once it's over you turn on the lights again, thinking how scary this actually was. This is good, and I heard some new stuff will be coming out on Hanson Records. I'm quite curious about that. If you're into dark moody even scary droning souns. This might fit perfectly. I'll definitely keep an eye out for Hive Mind. A split release between Chondritic and PAC.

     -Ray Kluze, Semtex Zine

Hive Mind - Sand Beasts CD - The first new name is Hive Mind, who is the same man who is behind Chondritic Sound, Black Sand Desert, Cleanse, S.P., Gate To Gate and Greh Wolfs - erm is that it? I haven't heard any of these, but as Hive Mind, I must say he has a damm nice disc. Spanning thirty-eight minutes of 'true Michigan-style-death-synth drones', meaning there is one analogue synth working overtime while the sound is fed through an endless line of sound effects. It sounds relatively simple, but it's building crescendo is like an ever growing monster, endlessly multiplying. It bears similarities with the CDR I reviewed last week by The Urge Within, or bands like Death Squad. In a way this is of course heavy and noisy music, but it's dark broading atmosphere could easily be pinned down as an deathly ambient force. Hive Mind succeed well.

     -Vital Weekly































Hive Mind - Death Tone CD - Hive Mind is back. Death Tone, the new album, appeared as welcome as a midsummer rain. Since the release of the previous Hive Mind cd, Sand Beast, on Troniks/PAC Records, I've collected a couple of items coming from the inventive brain of Hive Mind. I missed out on the double tape on Animal Disguise though, as it seems to be sold out. Anyway, I decided to grab the Death Tone cd and give it a review. The thing is you don't listen to Hive Mind like you listen to any other record or cd. It's not like that. I've been saving up this cd for the ultimate right moment and although I've been listening to this cd for like three times, it only works well on me when I'm ready to get overwhelmed by it. Yesterday was the right moment: I turned off the lights, relaxed in my couch and surrounded me with a good stereo sound. A good headphone might give the same results, I don't know, but still you should try different options because sometimes the bass tones are quite heavy and bursting. The only thing I'm trying to point out here is that this album will only work if you're ready to get on a dark rumbling sonic trip for 43 minutes of your life.

The sound of a heartbeat opens the record and in minutes you'll get dragged along dark swamped landscapes surrounded by buzzing insects and haunting echoes. It's a synthesized dark ambientesque trip you're making and it feels like you're constantly circling around the same spot, not finding a way to get out of there. After 25 minutes you'll find yourself tripping and lurking on intense droning, while everything else gets mashed up into smuggling and crackling distortion, including repetitive heavy bass throbs. After half an hour you'll be struggling right in the blackened mud, when finally Hive Mind decides to bring the mind to rest. Now you can spazz out for another 15 minutes with the lights still turned off. And then the end comes in and you realize it's going to be another sonic dark trip. But a good one. Listen to it when you're ready for it.

I don't know what goes around in the head of Greh of Hive Mind (also the man behind Chondritic Sound). It's pretty dark in there for sure. This record fits perfectly on Hanson Records and it's kind of cool to see this fancy jewelcase with simple green coloured artwork. On first sight it looks like leaves but it's actually a zoom from a painting. I'm in love with this disc and I'll save it up for some other time when I'm into another evening of dark sonical trips. This is for the noiseheads out there and also for people who're into dark ambient. If you're not acquainted to Hive Mind I recommend you this album, along with the Sand Beasts cd on Troniks. Keep an eye on Hive Mind because there is a lot more coming up from this guy, including tapes, vinyl and so much more. Good stuff. Rumble in the Swampjungle.

     - Ray Kluze, Semtex Magazine


Hive Mind - Death Tone CD - If noise music is really the new music (and really for real this time), you're gonna have to prepare yourself for Hive Mind. Pretty much one Mountain Dew-sipping Michigan dude named Greh, Hive Mind has issued what may be the virtual gauntlet of USA noise releases so far in '05. It's the Hanson Records CD Death Tone (yeah, CDs are not what we generally want to review here, but this one shreds the template, plus Greh has equally kill city cassettes popping off day and night on his own label Chondritic Sound, so...) and it is the one you can play to make any square pup's head combust. Hive Mind is focused on a timeless tone of skin crawl ear/brain shatter and he's come to masterful point with it. In a league with such heavy purveyors as Prurient and John Olson. This shit is excellent.

     -Byron Colley/Thurston Moore, Arthur Magazine - click HERE for a scan of this review.

Hive Mind - Death Tone CD - A man known to most fans simply as Greh, the proprietor of the excellent Chondritic Sound label, has made quite a mark in recent years with his limited-run releases, often in 3 CD form. He? also gained notoriety for melting frontal lobes as Hive Mind, his (usually) one-man sonic torture unit. Death Tone is Greh? most widely available release to date, a one-track disc of sewage hypnotics and primal pulsations.

The slowly stewing Death Tone centers on almost subsonic distorted rumblings and an array of analog undulations minimalist explorations with teeth. Greh chokes and mangles low-frequency tones, forcing the ragged creations to shoulder much of the album? load. A barely audible mechanical heartbeat and wisps of arthropodal flutters rise from nothingness to begin the disc, slowly evolving into the ebb and flow of a distorted waveform, before a steady buzz envelops the sound.

Greh works in an almost episodic format, allowing one sound creation to runs its course before it segues into another. The segments escalate to a calamitous apex, rising in volume and intensity, before seceding back into nothingness in a fittingly bleak denouement. His keen use of timing and subtlety are what make Death Tone so compelling; like a stagnant pool, the slow circulation leads to thick and grimy results.

Unlike the new age credo, which calls for music to relax the senses and empty the mind, Death Tone puts the body on heightened alert with its ambience, much like the immune system goes on the defensive to ward off infectious invaders. The threat of a new wave of terror is always alive, and the ugly, writhing sections of the disc that represent its more ambient are far from soothing. Greh makes a few false steps with some higher-pitched squiggles that threaten to lighten the mood, but, on the whole, Death Tone is one of the most subliminally disturbing pieces so far in 2005. Biorhythms be damned.

     -Adam Strohm, Dusted Magazine


Hive Mind - Death Tone CD - Finally, here's the ultimate CD to accompany all the depraved behavior you enjoy. Have you been looking for theme music to play while you bleed yourself in front of your pet snake, or peel the skin from your arm into a plastic baggie with a razor blade while drinking a slurpee? Look no further than Death Tone. Not only will Death Tone provide the most horrifying analog synth drone noise you've ever encountered; the fine folks at Hive Mind had the decency to pack it all into a single 45 minute track. That's right -- no more of that annoying silence between six minute drone-athons. No more skipping around as you try to remember if "Rumblings" or "Facialmess" was your favorite dirge. It's all one uninterrupted piece; imagine how nuts you can get in 45 minutes. Not sure? The answer is very.

Here's the ten cent breakdown (please use headphones for proper effect). A high pitched throb enters. It stays, slightly shifting in tone as it bounces from ear to ear. Thirteen minutes later it's still there, but the sound of a vicious electric hummingbird has joined it, and it flutters around your head. At the twenty minute mark, the drone has shifted in tone from pure and high pitched to fractured and bassy. You will hear the Jetsons' car fly by in the background. At twenty-seven minutes listen for the Star Wars light saber battle (note: the drone never drops out). Other high points: near the thirty minute mark, there's an enormous explosion followed by the sound of slide whistles. Not long after, the drone hits a calming low, possibly near the infamous brown note, but it is indeed soothing after the previous half an hour of aural etchings. When all is said and done, you might ask for a refund if you weren't able to squeeze in all your debauchery. But that's not likely to happen -- Hive Mind is easily the finest, the freakiest and the longest piece of maddening ambience you'll find this year.

     -Philip Stone, Splendid Magazine


Hive Mind - Death Tone CD - C+ grade - What? Michigan like? For starters, it? the first post-industrial apocalypse to be left behind in America? transition to a service economy. It? a dreary, wet, flat bog land crusted with rust. Optimistic citizens live with a perpetual grimace on their face, awaiting the next brutal economic blow. Most trudge off to work under a mottled gray sky, bitterly dreaming about the security and nobility of the union paychecks now sadly shrunken. The disillusioned haunt train yards and glass-strewn parking lots, loitering sullenly in denim jackets, faces lurid underneath the flicker of a neon light about to die out. And disturbed youth lurk in basements, blaring Sabbath at a volume intended to hurt Mom and Dad? ears.

If you, fine reader, are a proud Michigan resident, and the above description offends you, keep in mind my impressions are culled primarily from a few dysfunctional relatives and Ann Arbor? Hanson Records. Hanson? noise comes from broken machines otherwise rendered useless. It comes from the collective rage of the depressed and emotionally deprived. And it comes from the heads of those basement youths who had to turn to something else when the Ultimate Sabbath Mixtape wore out. Oh yeah?nd it comes from lovely Ann Arbor, a chill college town that rivals any other.

Hive Mind fits right in with Hanson? aesthetic (or anti-aesthetic?e can argue about that later), though their sound is more polished and subdued than any Wolf Eyes release would dare to be. Death Tone sits uneasily on the boundary between drone, noise, and dark ambient. Indeed, uneasy is possibly the best word to describe the lone 43-minute piece on the disc. From the first quiet heartbeats to the final distorted air-conditioner rumble, Death Tone places the listener in an awkward position. Layers of analog pain scream and rip your collar should you ever let the album fade into the background, yet long sections of rolling darkness and ultra-bass throbs lure you into a narcotic haze. Death Tone allows no comfort zone and no easy classification.

When listening to Death Tone, I feel like captured prey. The slow-growing low-end roars of sound contain the confident aggression of a predator that knows it?l eat good tonight. Death Tone takes its time to kill. It paws at you and squeals sine-wave sharp in your ear just to watch you squirm.

But Death Tone? strengths are also its weaknesses. I commend Hive Mind? refusal to commit to a genre, but to straddle the genre line, they must mash together the slow-burn dynamics of dark ambient and drone with the instant violence of noise. To clarify, consider a piercing Merzbowian shriek. The sound is unsettling when it is first heard, and it is harrowing after two minutes. But unless you are a serious and committed noise fan, it is merely annoying after eight. Similarly the epic 43-minute length of the track is ponderous. The track simply doesn? pay off unless you listen all the way through?ot enough is happening at any one time to justify hearing this in bursts. But those 43 minutes contain at least fifteen where the listener suspects that something more could be going on, if only Hive Mind weren? so enamored with repeating a particular cycle of curdling squeals and shudders for minutes on end.

Death Tone demands a lot from a listener, and if you?e willing to provide your time and attention (and take some ear pain along the way), the album succeeds. So if you dare, prepare yourself for dread, for pain, and for the sinking feeling that death lurks behind every cloud of tortured sound. Prepare yourself for Michigan.

     -Bryan Berge, Stylus Magazine
Hive Mind - Death Tone CD - Yup. This is exactly how it's supposed to be done. Perfectly composed and packaged, with a simplicity and brutality that's only matched by my only other Hive Mind encounter, the huge Sand Beasts CD out on Troniks (more about that album later).

What you get here are deep, twisted bass-rumbling synths churning out some of the heaviest sounds I've ever heard, filthy bass notes thunderous enough to bring the whole of creation down in a massive fucking collapse; metal ghosts rattling their chains and shrieking banshees battle it out over a bottomless pulsing abyss, as monstrous war machines set fire to the world. That's what this sounds like. This is a 40 minute epic that's as immense and brutal as it is subtle and beautiful. There's a sick atmosphere throughout that doesn't let up and a vague unnerving sense of seething paranoia. Even when some of the most ear-piercing sounds I've ever experienced comes thrashing through this molten storm of death, the atmosphere doesn't let up for even a second. This is the ultimate death ambient release. Get it or forever suffer the consequenses!

     -Jonas Lindgren (Maim),































Hive Mind - Cataclysmic Urge 3"CDr - Hive Mind is the synthesizer noise project of Chondritic owner Grey, and this disc is 19 minutes of sheer ambient drift. There's a few recognizable keyboard notes at the very beginning, chopping out a melancholy melody, but then the piece floats away into droning waves of layered and heavily processed synths, dense and with lots of texture. These drones don't just hang in the air, they actively pulse and massage your brain into malleable goo. Who knew noise could be so smooth and sexy?

     -Ed Howard, Stylus Magazine

Hive Mind - Cataclysmic Urge 3"CDr - This is one 18 or so minute piece. Mostly bassy and rumbling, with some nice throbbing parts. I liked this because I've been in the mood for deep rumbly pieces more than high pitched skree-heavy noise. It's dirty and lo-fi and noisy and just about what the doctor ordered.

     -BW Diederich































Hive Mind - Tunnel Birth CDr - Whereas THIS is EXACTLY what the doctor ordered. Even with the higher pitched swirly static sections on the first track and the majority of the second it's still bassy and rumbling and probably pissing off my neighbors as we speak. Amazing. Mr. Greh/Grey however of Chondritic has done something completely amazing here. I'm only two tracks in but this is probably the best thing I've heard recently. I just wanted lurching, rather rough and tumble noise and this is that to a T. Gorgeous and enveloping, I want to listen to this much louder than I currently am.

     -BW Diederich

Hive Mind - Tunnel Birth CDr - Ok, first off, packaging as usual is awesome on the Chondritic tip, creepy crater points, like the inside of a human skull all dried out in anatomy class... then the CDR itselff... STUNNING... Hands Down the BEST LOOKING painted CDR EVER... I SWEAR that this IS dinosaur skin, it's gorgeous... Also, I love super limited CDRs in jewelcases, it's just kinda funny, for me the jewelcase is a symbol of mass production so this and any other limited disc in one looks weird when you flip it over and it's like 12/15 copies... just file it next to all the "regular" CDs... ok... Once again being ever modest Grey kicks the low run 52 copies business on this baddie. WHY!? I have NO idea. It's fucking amazing. Total HIVE MIND, corridors, different each time, always a cold stale place... Rumbling tubes... vaporizing blast furnaces. Reminds me of being all sticky cold drying blood in a vent, Alien 3 style corridors and BIG fucking machines that do some intense labor... always the electric pulse. Confident machine drones not meant for human ears. Dude totally slipped into some creeped out factory and recorded the machine conversations. I'd tell you to buy it now, but it's gone...

     -Nick Henry (Silvum)































Hive Mind - Writhing Flesh C30 - It was like midnight, too many lights to concentrate I thought my walkman was dying. This is Torpedo blood music. Big stretches of liquid in nasty cold umbilical cords.. phasing in and out of brain death. Comatose pulse stretching? it keeps dying and reviving? I can't believe this is live, it's so relaxed and natural. Gimme a 6 hour audio DVD of this stuff? I can see the title, but don't be deceived, it's writhing IN SLOW MOTION.

     -Nick Henry (Silvum)