NOISE/AMBIENT SPECIAL FORCES LIVE
sabbath20jun200999 @ KINKY KONG/Athens:
KOMMPOUND
NAΦΘALYN
(feat. Mantas: Voidhead, Dephosphorus)
LUNAR MIASMA
(ex-Red Needled Sea)
More details soon.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
SUFFOCATION "Blood Oath" (Nuclear Blast)
This is the 3rd record since SUFFOCATION have returned. It is the best of them and the one that the hardcore fans have been waiting for since the mid-90's. As a matter of fact, the level of intensity with which "Blood Oath" was crafted is such, that it sounds like merely one year has passed since the release of "Pierced From Within".
This does not mean that SUFFOCATION are one of those pathetic old bands who returned, tried out something new and then when they saw it didnt work as expected, rolled back to their older popular style... Yes, they play as intensely as in "Pierced From Within". Yes, this is better than "Souls To Deny" and "Suffocation". Yes, as Mike Smith admitted to a discussion we had together for a Metal Hammer feature, they've held back and kind of compromised in the previous two records. Now they are back in full force and they want nothing less than total domination and mass recognition. If things dont work out as they want, they will quit at their peak.
Right. What's the deal here? The foundation of "Blood Oath" is "Pierced From Within"-like complex brutality. Their playing is challenging and stimulating. You definitely should not expect from those guys to suck their own dick with some gratuitous musical onanism.
On top of that there's some novelties for the SUFFOCATION style, which are definitely welcome. There's melodies on the guitars, technical parts that could be labeled as "prog" by some and most important of all: atmosphere. I realize this might sound scary to some, but there's not any reason for that. SUFFOCATION are still one helluva brutal band. The only twist is that not only they are bestial but also cerebral. I definitely like that! Tracks like "Dismal Dream" and "Provoking The Disturbed" are instant underground hits. The re-recording of "Marital Decimation" (erroneously marked as "Martial Decimation" on the tracklistings) from "Breeding The Spawn", their record with the weakest production, is a charm.
The only thing I DON'T like is John Ziggs' cover artwork that is pretty much mediocre. This is the way things have to be: a classic SUFFOCATION album must have cover artwork designed by Dan Seagrave! Period. It's just like that: we, the fans, tend to associate bands with some excellent covers that wrapped some of their finest moments. Truth is that most of them don't look back. But we can still complain! You want some examples? All right.
- SUFFOCATION "Effigy Of The FOrgotten" and "Breeding The Spawn"
- BOLT THROWER "Realm Of Chaos" and "Warmaster"
- METALLICA "Ride The Lightning" and "Master Of Puppets"
- etc.. etc...
Whatever. Another thing for us fans is that "Blood Oath" sounding so good, we cannot but wonder how it would be like with Doug Cerrito back on the guitars. Maybe one day we will find out! Until then, grabbing this album is a no-brainer. The way SUFFOCATION are focused on rythm and atmosphere is irresistible.
Panos Agoros 200999
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
CALL OF DUTY 4: MODERN WARFARE ANTI-CHEATER PATCH TO BE RELEASED FOR THE XBOX 360
According to a brief post by outspoken Infinity Ward PR kommander Robert Bowling at his blog, a new COD4 patch for the Xbox 360 is in process of certification by Microsoft in order to kill cheaters.
Since I am a COD4 trooper and haven't encountered any cheaters myself (well, except that one guy who wouldn't die on headquarters at shipment, who later told us that the program glitched for that single game and he hadn't done any mod at all), i did some research to find out what's the trouble about.
A quick visit at the game's official forums at http://forums.infinityward.com reveals that there's been an awful lot of complaining by community members during these last two weeks.
Apparently there's been quite a few cheaters ruining the show at ranked matches lately. There's a god mode when you can fly and are invincible, you can also run all around the map at light speed or in slow motion, etc.
It's been quite a surprise to learn about this, because until now online cheating and modding was largely reseved to PC users. Consoles were supposed to be immune. Oh, of course there's been the guys glitching on the maps and accessing areas outside the normal map, also those glitching and having their names first on the leaderboards with impossible scores. COD4 players with modded rapidfire controllers are rather common too. This allows them to fire semi-automatic weapons (typically the G3 assault riffle and the pistols) at full auto rate.
Here's a few examples of how cheating looks like:
Ok so how does work the mod which will be soon annihilated by the patch? The methodology which apparently applies to both CALL OF DUTY 4: MODERN WARFARE and CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR, consists of the following steps:
1-Transfer a gamesave to your PC from the Xbox 360 HDD using a transfer kit.
2-Edit the gamesave with a hex editor.
3-Do a search and locate the configuration commands. Change the values. There's a few dozen of parameters to play with (gravity, invincibility, ammo, speed of movement, etc).
4-Transfer back the gamesave on the Xbox 360 and you're good to go.
You can find detailed guides on the forums, like this one.
If we believe the interweb, the guy who found out first is known under the nickname of cheater912 and he's actually selling the mod through the webpage www.codtool.com for those who want to skip the hex editing part. If I got it right, you can download the modding program for free but in order to make it actually work you have to pay the guy $10 or $20. He's even selling mod tutorials for $100!!! Nice little business he got going huh?
The technical part is very interesting because consoles are still largely considered to be immovable boxes. It also demonstrates that hackers can take control and that we should expect far worst like stealing credit card details registered on XBOX LIVE or on PLAYSTATION NETWORK. So there's a lot to be done in terms of security and counter-hacker research.
As far as the actual gameplay alteration goes, well it sure looks like a lot of fun but for private matches only. It doesnt make sense to use it on ranked matches because except the moral part of ruining the party for the other players, there's the practical issue that you will be permanently banned from XBL since you'll be violating the terms of use.
What to do if you come across such an asshole on XBL? File a complaint with "cheating". If the guy plays a few matches he will get so many complaints on his ass that he will be banned soon enough.
Panos Agoros 200999
Since I am a COD4 trooper and haven't encountered any cheaters myself (well, except that one guy who wouldn't die on headquarters at shipment, who later told us that the program glitched for that single game and he hadn't done any mod at all), i did some research to find out what's the trouble about.
A quick visit at the game's official forums at http://forums.infinityward.com reveals that there's been an awful lot of complaining by community members during these last two weeks.
Apparently there's been quite a few cheaters ruining the show at ranked matches lately. There's a god mode when you can fly and are invincible, you can also run all around the map at light speed or in slow motion, etc.
It's been quite a surprise to learn about this, because until now online cheating and modding was largely reseved to PC users. Consoles were supposed to be immune. Oh, of course there's been the guys glitching on the maps and accessing areas outside the normal map, also those glitching and having their names first on the leaderboards with impossible scores. COD4 players with modded rapidfire controllers are rather common too. This allows them to fire semi-automatic weapons (typically the G3 assault riffle and the pistols) at full auto rate.
Here's a few examples of how cheating looks like:
Ok so how does work the mod which will be soon annihilated by the patch? The methodology which apparently applies to both CALL OF DUTY 4: MODERN WARFARE and CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR, consists of the following steps:
1-Transfer a gamesave to your PC from the Xbox 360 HDD using a transfer kit.
2-Edit the gamesave with a hex editor.
3-Do a search and locate the configuration commands. Change the values. There's a few dozen of parameters to play with (gravity, invincibility, ammo, speed of movement, etc).
4-Transfer back the gamesave on the Xbox 360 and you're good to go.
You can find detailed guides on the forums, like this one.
If we believe the interweb, the guy who found out first is known under the nickname of cheater912 and he's actually selling the mod through the webpage www.codtool.com for those who want to skip the hex editing part. If I got it right, you can download the modding program for free but in order to make it actually work you have to pay the guy $10 or $20. He's even selling mod tutorials for $100!!! Nice little business he got going huh?
The technical part is very interesting because consoles are still largely considered to be immovable boxes. It also demonstrates that hackers can take control and that we should expect far worst like stealing credit card details registered on XBOX LIVE or on PLAYSTATION NETWORK. So there's a lot to be done in terms of security and counter-hacker research.
As far as the actual gameplay alteration goes, well it sure looks like a lot of fun but for private matches only. It doesnt make sense to use it on ranked matches because except the moral part of ruining the party for the other players, there's the practical issue that you will be permanently banned from XBL since you'll be violating the terms of use.
What to do if you come across such an asshole on XBL? File a complaint with "cheating". If the guy plays a few matches he will get so many complaints on his ass that he will be banned soon enough.
Panos Agoros 200999
Noise vs. Subversive Computing out on 1st June 200999
COMPUTATIONALLY INFEASIBLE RECORDS 001
“Noise vs. Subversive Computing”
This is the “Noise vs. Subversive Computing” Project: A Collaborative release split between Noise/Experimental Artists and Subversive Technologists/Computer Hackers. Ten representatives from each camp were asked to contribute a piece of work which could be anything at all: an audio track, a drawing, a written passage, software, video, combination of all that, or anything else that can be converted to binary. The Noisicians had “Subversive Computing” as their central theme, and the Technologists worked with “Noise”.
This is the outcome:
NOISE:
0. BBBlood (UK) - Bicep Venoms Gut Virus [AUDIO]
1. Config.sys (DE) - Bit Bucket [AUDIO]
2. Family Battle Snake (DE) – Black Hat [AUDIO]
3. Francisco Lopez (ES) – Untitled 223 [AUDIO]
4. GEN 26 (SI) - Untitled [AUDIO]
5. Hellboy106 (GR) - stgzknmhtrka [IMAGE+AUDIO]
6. ILIOS (GR) - 4000 ĉevaloj kriegas Mi ami Vi [AUDIO]
7. KOMMPOUND (GR) - Softmod Exploit [AUDIO+WORDS]
8. La Jacquerie (IT) – Re: If you're angry don’t [AUDIO]
9. Sarah's Charity (DK) - Colour of Clarity [AUDIO]
SUBVERSIVE COMPUTING:
0. Ach3n0r (GR) - Noise Steganography [SOFTWARE]
1. Ashrae tosh & KaOS (BE/DK) - Netglitch [AUDIO+WORDS]
2. E (US) - Sifting through the Noise [WORDS]
3. EK (UK) - Rainbow [AUDIO]
4. G0rg0g0l (GR) - Gorgogoogle: Web, Search, Noise [SOFTWARE]
5. Gorrrrgar (RO) - My kind of Shithole [PHOTOGRAPHY MATRIX+WORDS]
6. Jazra Khaleed (GR) - Noise [POEM]
7. Pascal Cretain (DK) - Information Pollution [VIDEO]
8. Rodrigo Marcos (UK) - MySQL Sounds [VIDEO+SOFTWARE]
9. Stelios Douskos (US) - LawyerFish [SOFTWARE]
The merger is truly fascinating; explosive to say the least. The radical thinkers at work in here have the momentum, the mindset and the technical skills to crash Adaptive Firewalls, defy traditional definitions of music, “hack” live performance semantics and bypass Intrusion Detection Systems.
Only this is not Cyberspace. We are subtly injecting polymorphic shellcode into your reality, brainwashing you with white noise and reverse engineering your obsolete modus operandi.
Alas; you can’t pull the plug.
“Noise vs. Subversive Computing” out 01.06.2009
Limited release of 256 Numbered Copies in 1GB USB Stick format
Contact Pascal Cretain for Ordering Information
“Noise vs. Subversive Computing”
This is the “Noise vs. Subversive Computing” Project: A Collaborative release split between Noise/Experimental Artists and Subversive Technologists/Computer Hackers. Ten representatives from each camp were asked to contribute a piece of work which could be anything at all: an audio track, a drawing, a written passage, software, video, combination of all that, or anything else that can be converted to binary. The Noisicians had “Subversive Computing” as their central theme, and the Technologists worked with “Noise”.
This is the outcome:
NOISE:
0. BBBlood (UK) - Bicep Venoms Gut Virus [AUDIO]
1. Config.sys (DE) - Bit Bucket [AUDIO]
2. Family Battle Snake (DE) – Black Hat [AUDIO]
3. Francisco Lopez (ES) – Untitled 223 [AUDIO]
4. GEN 26 (SI) - Untitled [AUDIO]
5. Hellboy106 (GR) - stgzknmhtrka [IMAGE+AUDIO]
6. ILIOS (GR) - 4000 ĉevaloj kriegas Mi ami Vi [AUDIO]
7. KOMMPOUND (GR) - Softmod Exploit [AUDIO+WORDS]
8. La Jacquerie (IT) – Re: If you're angry don’t [AUDIO]
9. Sarah's Charity (DK) - Colour of Clarity [AUDIO]
SUBVERSIVE COMPUTING:
0. Ach3n0r (GR) - Noise Steganography [SOFTWARE]
1. Ashrae tosh & KaOS (BE/DK) - Netglitch [AUDIO+WORDS]
2. E (US) - Sifting through the Noise [WORDS]
3. EK (UK) - Rainbow [AUDIO]
4. G0rg0g0l (GR) - Gorgogoogle: Web, Search, Noise [SOFTWARE]
5. Gorrrrgar (RO) - My kind of Shithole [PHOTOGRAPHY MATRIX+WORDS]
6. Jazra Khaleed (GR) - Noise [POEM]
7. Pascal Cretain (DK) - Information Pollution [VIDEO]
8. Rodrigo Marcos (UK) - MySQL Sounds [VIDEO+SOFTWARE]
9. Stelios Douskos (US) - LawyerFish [SOFTWARE]
The merger is truly fascinating; explosive to say the least. The radical thinkers at work in here have the momentum, the mindset and the technical skills to crash Adaptive Firewalls, defy traditional definitions of music, “hack” live performance semantics and bypass Intrusion Detection Systems.
Only this is not Cyberspace. We are subtly injecting polymorphic shellcode into your reality, brainwashing you with white noise and reverse engineering your obsolete modus operandi.
Alas; you can’t pull the plug.
“Noise vs. Subversive Computing” out 01.06.2009
Limited release of 256 Numbered Copies in 1GB USB Stick format
Contact Pascal Cretain for Ordering Information
Sunday, February 22, 2009
GLENN DANZIG “Black Aria II”
GLENN DANZIG
“Black Aria II”
(Evilive/Megaforce)
This was worth the wait. Glenn Danzig’s second part of Alternative History of Theology through dark ambient sounds is ready for your sinful eardrums. Sporting the unglodly sexy cover from Bill Senkiewicz (Wolverine, New Mutants etc) this is one ritual thingie filled with more voodoo like drums , tons of more eastern mysticism aura , and ,yes, agonizing fem vox . There’s also the appropriate Danzig-geek little present on that “Abbandonment/Recreation”,track. Don’t wanna spoil this for you but ,fuckitall, I will. Glenn takes the old “whooo-aap” backing vocal track from Samhain’s “Halloween II” and places it in the midst of ritual drums and phantom-like polyphonies,composing one of his most chill-you-shitless moments ever to haunt the stereo since “Misery Tomb”. The rest is mute and dominated by church organ synth.All in all this is another case of Glenn dropping off ghis guitar and mic , sitting on the piano and giving you one more real reason to realise the futility of existence. “Black Aria II” ain’t no party music guys, gals and ghouls!
Tsamashi ToYo
“Black Aria II”
(Evilive/Megaforce)
This was worth the wait. Glenn Danzig’s second part of Alternative History of Theology through dark ambient sounds is ready for your sinful eardrums. Sporting the unglodly sexy cover from Bill Senkiewicz (Wolverine, New Mutants etc) this is one ritual thingie filled with more voodoo like drums , tons of more eastern mysticism aura , and ,yes, agonizing fem vox . There’s also the appropriate Danzig-geek little present on that “Abbandonment/Recreation”,track. Don’t wanna spoil this for you but ,fuckitall, I will. Glenn takes the old “whooo-aap” backing vocal track from Samhain’s “Halloween II” and places it in the midst of ritual drums and phantom-like polyphonies,composing one of his most chill-you-shitless moments ever to haunt the stereo since “Misery Tomb”. The rest is mute and dominated by church organ synth.All in all this is another case of Glenn dropping off ghis guitar and mic , sitting on the piano and giving you one more real reason to realise the futility of existence. “Black Aria II” ain’t no party music guys, gals and ghouls!
Tsamashi ToYo
THE SENSATIONAL GUITARS OF DAN AND DALE “Batman And Robin”
THE SENSATIONAL GUITARS OF DAN AND DALE
“Batman And Robin”
(Tifton/Universe Records)
Be it the 1939 Kane/Finger originals , the 70’s Englehart/Wein darker-shades, the 80’s Miller epics or the campy 60’s TV show with Adam West ,you just gotta loooove The Batman! I mean, what other millionare playboy-by-day would risk his non-superpowered ass for you by night in the grim and gritty streets of Gotham City? That’s right. None. This is a freejazz take on the original Neil Hefti music for the popular 1966 TV series. So hold on to your Bat-Shark-Repellents and take a joyride on the Batmobile with this jazz/funk trip down crime alley .And ,lo, check out who’s on the steering wheel: Sun Ra and his Arkestra! What’s that you say? Who’s “Dan And Dale?”? Well ,kids ,this ain’t no other than Sun Ra’s secret identity especially tagged for this release.There’s a lot of the occasional Link Wrayish garage-surf guitar rumble on this one for you to feast on, plus some pretty darn gospel like vocals by some (uncredited) gal somewhere. If any o’you were startled by Al Hirt’s “Green Hornet” craze being brought back on the “Kill Bill” compi-soundtrack , this is your one and only chance to do the Batusie just like your momma would back in the 60’s.Holy revivals ,Robin!
Tsamashi ToYo 2009
“Batman And Robin”
(Tifton/Universe Records)
Be it the 1939 Kane/Finger originals , the 70’s Englehart/Wein darker-shades, the 80’s Miller epics or the campy 60’s TV show with Adam West ,you just gotta loooove The Batman! I mean, what other millionare playboy-by-day would risk his non-superpowered ass for you by night in the grim and gritty streets of Gotham City? That’s right. None. This is a freejazz take on the original Neil Hefti music for the popular 1966 TV series. So hold on to your Bat-Shark-Repellents and take a joyride on the Batmobile with this jazz/funk trip down crime alley .And ,lo, check out who’s on the steering wheel: Sun Ra and his Arkestra! What’s that you say? Who’s “Dan And Dale?”? Well ,kids ,this ain’t no other than Sun Ra’s secret identity especially tagged for this release.There’s a lot of the occasional Link Wrayish garage-surf guitar rumble on this one for you to feast on, plus some pretty darn gospel like vocals by some (uncredited) gal somewhere. If any o’you were startled by Al Hirt’s “Green Hornet” craze being brought back on the “Kill Bill” compi-soundtrack , this is your one and only chance to do the Batusie just like your momma would back in the 60’s.Holy revivals ,Robin!
Tsamashi ToYo 2009
DIRECTOR'S GUT
Hail!
Once upon a time (ie. approximately four years ago, on the year of our lord 2004) there was a bunch of friends. Some of us were bandmates, others co-editors at Metal Hammer Greece, all of us comrades. We have joined forces in order to produce a different kind of webzine. The idea was while keeping a focus on underground music to be open-minded, cover all sorts of art forms while maintaining social/technical/scientific/spiritual sensitivities. The project was appropriately baptized in blood TIGER TELEVISION by Tsamashi Toyo who also designed the logo. I was the self-assigned chief editor - to be honnest this is something I had missed since the CHAOTIK WEBZINE days… We started rounding up material and were quite excited about how things seemed to turn out. Eventually, for a variety of reasons the operation was aborted.
A month ago I was browsing across my hard disks and came across the material I had collected from the team. I thought it was a fucking pity to let it buried and forgotten. I discussed a little bit with Mantas and started posting some of this stuff at my blog. Yet it wasn’t enough. The idea of reviving the fucker was around the corner. The choice of the blogzine format was obvious in order to be fast & flexible, as well as in order to avoid the time overhead a proper website administration demands (and to be honest, we could think of nobody for the job). Initially we thought about going with the Wordpress format. While it is not rocket science I was familiar with blogspot and just wanted to start put things together asap. Plus I’m an old-school type of guy and like minimal, 90’s-like visuals. So here you go buddy!
Let me clarify that we are pretty much focused on quality rather than quanitity, value rather than volume. With the internet era access to information is no longer the issue, rather sorting out the mess. We want to propose select analysis and pointers to quality art, culture and aesthetics. We will do it at our own pace, without stress or deadlines whatsoever. Plus the whole thing is a goddamn time machine! You see some us, as I’ve already mentionned, are senior editors at Metal Hammer Greece. We all have at our bunkers source material for interview features that were published (or sometimes not) in greek language. We all felt it was a petty we couldn’t share this stuff with our friends outside the borders. TIGER TELEVISION is our way to get over with it. All hailz to the magazine’s direction for letting us use it. But please do not mistakenly consider TIGER TELEVISION as a sort of Metal-Hammer-leftovers kind of thing. A quick visit will convince you otherwise anyways… Please also notice, that most of us have musical projects. We will promote them here. If we don’t, who else will?
Last but not least, in exchange of our generous offer we just demand three things: a) pimp T.T.V. by linking to us, b) do not reproduce our material without quoting the source and providing a link, c) in this kind of business it is cruel to walk the way without feedback from the recipient, so please comment the posts or send us emails/whatever. Thanx!
OK, make yourself a home and do not hesitate to push the button if we can do something to make your stay more pleasant!
Panos Agoros, on behalf of the TIGER TELEVISION team.
Once upon a time (ie. approximately four years ago, on the year of our lord 2004) there was a bunch of friends. Some of us were bandmates, others co-editors at Metal Hammer Greece, all of us comrades. We have joined forces in order to produce a different kind of webzine. The idea was while keeping a focus on underground music to be open-minded, cover all sorts of art forms while maintaining social/technical/scientific/spiritual sensitivities. The project was appropriately baptized in blood TIGER TELEVISION by Tsamashi Toyo who also designed the logo. I was the self-assigned chief editor - to be honnest this is something I had missed since the CHAOTIK WEBZINE days… We started rounding up material and were quite excited about how things seemed to turn out. Eventually, for a variety of reasons the operation was aborted.
A month ago I was browsing across my hard disks and came across the material I had collected from the team. I thought it was a fucking pity to let it buried and forgotten. I discussed a little bit with Mantas and started posting some of this stuff at my blog. Yet it wasn’t enough. The idea of reviving the fucker was around the corner. The choice of the blogzine format was obvious in order to be fast & flexible, as well as in order to avoid the time overhead a proper website administration demands (and to be honest, we could think of nobody for the job). Initially we thought about going with the Wordpress format. While it is not rocket science I was familiar with blogspot and just wanted to start put things together asap. Plus I’m an old-school type of guy and like minimal, 90’s-like visuals. So here you go buddy!
Let me clarify that we are pretty much focused on quality rather than quanitity, value rather than volume. With the internet era access to information is no longer the issue, rather sorting out the mess. We want to propose select analysis and pointers to quality art, culture and aesthetics. We will do it at our own pace, without stress or deadlines whatsoever. Plus the whole thing is a goddamn time machine! You see some us, as I’ve already mentionned, are senior editors at Metal Hammer Greece. We all have at our bunkers source material for interview features that were published (or sometimes not) in greek language. We all felt it was a petty we couldn’t share this stuff with our friends outside the borders. TIGER TELEVISION is our way to get over with it. All hailz to the magazine’s direction for letting us use it. But please do not mistakenly consider TIGER TELEVISION as a sort of Metal-Hammer-leftovers kind of thing. A quick visit will convince you otherwise anyways… Please also notice, that most of us have musical projects. We will promote them here. If we don’t, who else will?
Last but not least, in exchange of our generous offer we just demand three things: a) pimp T.T.V. by linking to us, b) do not reproduce our material without quoting the source and providing a link, c) in this kind of business it is cruel to walk the way without feedback from the recipient, so please comment the posts or send us emails/whatever. Thanx!
OK, make yourself a home and do not hesitate to push the button if we can do something to make your stay more pleasant!
Panos Agoros, on behalf of the TIGER TELEVISION team.
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