BRIAN J. BEATRICE

In a bizarre turn, the scheduled Gnaw show tomorrow at the Knitting Factory has become a Happy Hour of sorts. That means your favorite avante-doom-noise-rock band will perform concisely and stick to the point before the sun sets. There will be no better way to kick off your weekend.  Again, it’s early so we all run the risk of missing it. Here are the details:

-GNAW
-7:30 pm performance, 30 minute set.
- Friday, September 25th
-The brand new Knitting Factory** (formerly the old Luna Lounge, formerly the new Luna Lounge):

**located at 361 Metropolitan Avenue – Williamsburg – Brooklyn

http://ny.knittingfactory.com/about.php

**do not listen to google, mapquest, etc who still indicate the Knitting Factory address at 74 Leonard Street.

Here’s a list of all bands and showtimes for the night’s performance:

7:30 – 8:00 Gnaw
8:15 – 8:45 OvO
9:00 – 9:30 SubArachnoid Space
9:45 – 10:15 Child Abuse

“Everyone gets kicked out of the joint before 11 pm to make way for John Zorn’s Painkiller….no, no just kidding….everyone gets kicked out at 11 pm to make way for DJ sets.  Come early and get in bed drunk by midnight.” – Neuser

GNAW – Live – September 6th, Public Assembly, Williamsburg Brooklyn.

Here we go again!  On Saturday August 8th we will, once again, attempt to premiere  Rhys Chatham’s “A Crimson Grail”, a piece for 200 Guitars, at Lincoln Center. The production is part of New York’s Wordless Music Series and also Lincoln Center’s Out of Doors Series. I will be part of the guitar orchestra as a Soprano part in Guitar Section 3. There will be 4 Guitar Sections surrounding the crowd. It promises to be nothing short of amazing! The event is 100% free and open to the public; no tickets issued or required. It is an outdoor event in Damrosch Park just south of the plaza at Lincoln Center. The program starts at 7:30pm and “A Crimson Grail” is the second piece. However, there is an expected crowd of over 10,000, so if interested, think about getting there early. See below for the seating chart.

Last Sunday’s New York Time’s Arts Section ran a piece about the upcoming performance and also recounted last summer’s quite memorable struggle against the Heavens  The weather lately hasn’t been too encouraging, but here’s to hoping we’re getting it all out of the way now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/arts/music/26herm.html?ref=arts

http://new.lincolncenter.org/live/index.php/wordless-music

The piece, now revamped, premiered in it’s original incarnation at Sacre Coeur in Paris in 2005. You can read about this event and the recording here:

http://www.rhyschatham.net/crimson/crimsonfrance.htm

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/41078-a-crimson-grail-for-400-electric-guitars

Listen to Saturday’s Listener Hour Brodcast at the following link:

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/31723

I will be the guest DJ on the Nation’s best free form radio station, WFMU, this Saturday June 6th at 9am. Every Saturday morning they host a “Listener Hour”, during which selected listeners can play a set of music. So get out of bed, make some coffee and let me help cure or contribute to that hangover. I make no promise to go easy on you, but with Trouble at the controls, she may try to keep me in check.  You can listen in the tristate area at 91.1 FM, or otherwise stream it anywhere else on the globe. If so inclined, help keep this vital resource and art form alive by contributing to the cause while doing yourself a favor by getting a break  on your taxes.

If you choose to sleep in or are on the west coast, you can always listen to the set through WFMU’s archives.

Cosmos Gaming

Are you willing to push the limits of you musical palette?  If you said yes, Gnaw’s debut album will be a release that you will listen to time and time again in an attempt to figure out what hidden meanings lie beneath its harsh, violent exterior.  Even listeners who have experienced quite a number of noise artists will find that Alan Dubin and the rest of his band have a unique way of doing things that separates them from the rest.  But one thing is for sure, Gnaw is off to an intriguing start and considering how many different elements are present it will be exciting to see just where the group chooses to go from here.

Teeth of the Divine

Gnaw is an aurally terrifying display of dissonance, yet is not without rhyme or reason. Once again, it’s all relative though, isn’t it?  …the noise terrorism takes several different forms, none of which are soothing to the ears or conducive to anger management. However, through all the electronic-laced, feedback drenched, and tribally percussive clutter and clatter, This Face offers memorable moments…

Metal Hammer

[Gnaw] provides more grist for the gore mill than most could cope with. Haven Vault is howling white noise and harsh blackened vocals but the centerpiece is “Feelers”, whose remorselessly increasing bpm could drive a sensitive person to tears. Horrifically effective. [8/10]

Plan B

Gnaw’s relentless rhythmic grind, almost psycjedelic in its use of infinite shades of grey, emphasizes the oppressive crush of city-dwelling. They perceive the metropolis as a vast mincing machine, the meatpacking district expanding to consume and process the entirety of the five boroughs. So-called “extreme music” often posits an idea of Hell; Gnaw deal only in the most nightmarish, man-made variety.

Audiodrome

Couldn’t tell you what it says, but it’s probably pretty terrifying.

This week’s Village Voice features an article about Khanate and their recent “Clean Hands Go Foul” LP. It is appropriately situated on page 66.

Also, Dubin hates a lot of things. Babies, dogs, and wives are not spared in this seething interview on the Obelisk blog.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-03-18/music/khanate-springs-eternal/

http://theobelisk.net/obelisk/2009/03/17/gnawinterview/

“This Face” is now available worldwide and critical acclaim has continued.

Aquarius Records

Thee extreme/experimental/industrial metal scene has a potential new ruler here, with the doomic and disturbing debut of Gnaw.  …this new project, seems to take up where Dubin’s previous bands left off, but in a direction much more deviant & eccentric. The claustrophobic chaos… ought to determine pretty quick if this is for you or not. …Extreme indeed, and all right with us! …if you like some strange surprises in your grim glitchtronic avant-metal music, and moreover enjoy the varied vokill stylings of Mr. Dubin, you’ll want Gnaw’s Your Face at your place.

Stonerrock.com

[GNAW] create the newest signpost in extreme music. Over the course of 50 minutes the quintet aurally accosts the listener with myriad squeaks, squeals, and good old fashioned doom. Gnaw has a strong industrial feel – both dissonant rock and abrasive noise sections trudge mechanically forward like an electric hate golem.

Brianwashed

the production clarity and density yields an awesome heaviness and immediacy that far exceeds that of most of Gnaw’s peers. Obviously, this much hate and dissonance is difficult to listen to in an album-sized dose, but that only indicates how impressively Gnaw have succeeded. This Face is an overwhelming monolith of uncompromising and malevolent nastiness.

Montreal Mirror

expectations run feverishly high for this one, and within the first minute, this slab of molten hatred pays off in spades. …If you are looking for the perfect merging of brutal noise, bleak industrial beats and charred black metal vocals, or just general dementia locking horns with pure evil, look no further. 8.5/10

Textura

GNAW’s debut album This Face opens with a maelstrom of noise and the intensity rarely lets up for a moment thereafter. Piercing the thrashing firestorm generated by the instrumentalists—are eviscerating vocals by Alan Dubin (ex-Khanate, OLD) which sound as if he’s singing while someone’s ripping out his vocal cords with a razor blade.  In a word, This Face is clearly not for the faint of heart.

MetalReviews.com

…in its best moments, like the opener Haven Vault, the horror tension is absolutely palpable. Waiting for percussion to enter in Haven Vault is like waiting for the other shoe to drop, only to land in the palms of a synthesizer with its icy fingers running down your back. Factory noise and mechanical conveyor pressure of Feelers is unyielding and unforgiving, then it suddenly collapses, dissolved into some big blue yonder, before the industrial civilization can make its last throes. Rhythmic locomotive of Shard put me in the state of hypnotic bubbly trance to the point I almost ran my car off the road.

Way Too Loud, actually our first tepid review.

…those who can get into “This Face” will find it a harsh, terrorizing world.

WFMU:

http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/30425

http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/30304

Stream “Feelers” from Brooklyn Vegan’s “This Week in Metal“:

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2009/02/this_week_in_me_35.html

As “This Face” is leaked, bloggers start responding. Look for an official review in the next Alternative Press and an interview with Alan Dubin in the most recent “Rock-a-Rolla” magazine and an upcoming issue of the Village Voice.

“One of the sickest and most twisted albums to be EVER recorded!!!”

Gothtronic

Gnaw did deliver us a pioneering work of art which is essential for people who like it harsh and uneasy and are not afraid to try something new. “This Face” is a recommendation to take seriously.

Monochrome Projekte

Listening to “this face” you quickly realize that those who have gathered here to destroy acres and acres of musical landscape are not new to this, have their own crafted taste in musical extremities and aren’t afraid to go the whole way. Because this is probably the musically most extreme record you will have heard in a long time that at the same time keeps a small remnant of tradition.

The Obelisk

It is extreme, experimental and sonically unpleasant. This Face is sonic masochism on the part of its creators; an album that practically dares you to listen… Broken glass gone audio. The feedback and bass booms… feel like they’re cutting out my eyes…, [it's] packed with dense layers of cruelty and a hate that seethes, making even the blackest of the black metal look corny and lightweight by comparison.

The Worried Well

I’m listening to it as I type and I can actually feel it removing vitamins from my system, dissolving my teeth and replacing my blood with piss. Not exactly the best way to spend a Sunday hangover but I’m a slave to this stuff.

Vampster, so much for the translation, but:

“This Face” is proof that no one else so haunting texts to write. …Mastered to perfection, is this work and others will hopefully follow some like nothing more than a great start for the friends of aural torture and masochists general. This U.S. group is currently only offers the soundtrack to your true self.