improvization band with a heap of Unfinished Sixties Business factored in (the real-time-from-scratch multilayered equivalent of "I Am the Walrus," let's say)...Free Music in its grandest, and least superficial, sense (à la the denser moments of Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz)...a ritual fusing of any and all musics and non-musics at the level of the hum, the blap, the tink, the boom.
In 1973, when Smegma (the band) was born they had only one rule: No Musicians! That way they could re-invent the musical wheel with a new primitive, suburban, anti-hippie approach. 44 years later perhaps the world is ready for the first full LP of this original, uncompromising sound. At the time, it seemed they thought they were on a solitary journey, but shortly after these recordings, it was discovered that there was another local group, The Los Angeles Free Music Society, that they shortly be…
Part of the underground collective Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS), the American iconic weirdos SMEGMA were formed in Pasadena, California in 1973 to reinvent improvisation with a DIY etchic, against the boring, conventional commercial-rock of the time. This release gives the holder the opportunity to capture the development of their own “primitive suburban folk” approach and traditions of their existence. First side of this tape is featuring drunken chaos at a Party, then an inner mind S…
The Smegma & Blood Stereo collab LP "Guff Vout Mulch" on Nashazphonehas finally landed. Old fashioned postal collab finished up in 2009, sweet printed colour sleeves and bonkers liner notes by the noise soulman John Olson.Good old fashioned Trans-Atlantic postal collaboration LP between Smegma and Blood Stereo, recorded in Brighton, Pasadena and Portland. The whole shebang was finished in 2009, but Cairo's Nashazphone label didn't think you dinks were ready for it then, now they reckon yo…
The mythical LAFMS collective Smegma really needs no introduction, where would we all be without them? How many bands were so ahead of their time (1973!), and have been for so long, like Smegma have? Well, here they are with a brand new LP of their famous mix of free jazz, industrial noise, improvisation, straight-up weird music so typical of these masters / US freaks. On the opening track, they are riding on the amazing drums of historical member Dennis Duck (of Dream Syndicate) to pay h…
*Exquisite black and silver silk screen printed cover. Limited edition** Oh man, this match-up must be a dream come true for at least a handful of freaks, somewhere, us included! The tenth release on Jozef Van Wissem's Incunabulum imprint sees the label curator jamming with LAFMS legends, Smegma at the Pink House in Portland, 2010, infusing his 13-course swan neck baroque lute into their uncontainable free improvisations in eight parts. They appear to be entirely respectful of each others space,…
With Mirage on Important Records, Smegma again does the impossible. 38 years after reinventing the musical wheel, they have recorded a stunning masterpiece. With four of the original members working together again for the first time in many years, together with many new collaborators , they have kept alive their unique brand of old school primitive, Avant/Garage music. Running the gamut from the Musique Concrete inspired subtilely bombastic mood of the Title track to World of my Own's frenzied n…
'On side one, a live performance of smegma and Liz Young at LAFMS Telethon Revisited 24hr performance on February 2009. On side two, studio recording of smegma + John Wiese. With member of Airway (Ace Farren Ford, Dennis Duck, Frederik Nilsen), Ju Suk Reet Meate, Nour Moborak, Oblivia, Parker Lemus, Victor Sparks, John Wiese with special guest vocalist Liz Young. With a poster, cover print on recycled paper, to open like a book... Art work by fleur D. Limited and numeroted to 500 copies.' label …
This astonishing 6LP/DVD Box-Set compiles most of Smegma's long out or print and impossible to find Vinyl-releases and contributions on labels such as their own legendary Pigface Records, LAFMS, TRAP, DOM and SELEKTON. The box incl. their first three 7" inches "Disco Diarrhea", "Flashcards", "Pigface Chant", their Lp's like "Pigs for Leper" or "Glamour Girl 1941" as well as a 2Lp-sided extract of the Live 73-82 Double Tape „Spontaneaous Sound, all in one place. Smegma started collectively by Ju …
Inspired split LP that pairs feral European art soundists Kommissar Hjuler and Mama Baer with the avant garage surrealism of LAFMS stalwarts Smegma. Numbered edition of 177 copies with colour paste-on sleeves. The Smegma side bundles an eerie track from 1975 with two pieces from 2008/2009 that use loops, electronics and waves of extended muzzy tone to confuse time lines completely. The Kommissar side is less about outlaw sound poetry and more plugged into their destructo rock style as documented…
In 1987 the Morass tape was released. One studio side. One live side. Totally killer. The studio side was recently re-released as bonus material on the Nattering naybobs CD (Harbinger). We decided to re-release the live side on vinyl. And to add 15 minutes of extra material. Astounding unreleased live recordings from 1986. Full colour artwork and labels. Black vinyl bag.
Nordic microsound operatives-turned-noise metallers Jazkamer (or Jazzkammer as they are also known) team up with legendary American underground pioneers Smegma and No Fun head boy Carlos Giffoni (who for this disc is listed as a member of Jazkamer) and make one unholy racket. Far from the overblown formless din this could have been, all parties do a magnificent job of keeping their more explicitly destructive tendencies to a minimum for much of the record, instead resting much of their attention…
Chances are that most of Smegma's fans are already familiar with Merzbow's music. This collaboration, occasionally referred to as Smegma Plays Merzbow Plays Smegma or even Plays, features two 20-minute tracks. In "Electro Smegmacoustic Music," Masami Akita plays Smegma tapes, an audio generator, a teleband tranceiver, and a mixer. In "Smegma Plays Merzbow," Smegma use Merzbow tapes, tape loops, record players, and a few acoustic instruments. The result is surprisingly homogeneous -- enough to ma…
Smegma has been around, in one form or another, since 1973, issuing an average of a record a year out of odd tape-loops and jarring-yet-ambient original instrumentation long before electronic sampling was even a glimmer in Mr. and Mrs. Casio's eyes. They achieved a small degree of noteriety in the '80s as one of that proud elite of North American new-music acts hiply obscure enough to have European-only record deals. They're also known among the anti-pop sound exchangers of the international cas…
This CD collects the first Smegma long-player, Glamour Girl 1941, originally released on the LAFMS label in 1979, the Pigface Chant 7" released that same year and recorded five years earlier, and even adds in four bonus recordings from that same era. These early recordings of this long-running group of noise anarchists show an extremely primitive but non-conformist take on the musical world, even more so than, say, the Krautrock band Faust, as Smegma adds a messier element of chaos to its sound.…
Studio collaboration recorded and mixed by DR. ID. himself at Smegma's Portland studio during Metalux - Giffoni summer tour. Total weirdness full on psychedelic improvisation in the classic smegma style, amplified by giffoni's arsenal of unmatched apocalyptic precission machinery and Metalux's own arsenal of strangeness electronic sound and vocals from the next dimension. Already a total American classic before it even existed. Enjoy the Present. The Eternal Sound is now and forever. Coreleased …
New recordings and a couple of their unreleased tracks. Another Japanese CD from 1997 by this oblique improv collective. In some ways, just as traditional as a bunch of Sun Ra acolytes, in others more bent than actual acid casualties, Tiromancy splashes down swaddled in rainbow dots, early Playboy chic, laughing gas electronics, conflicting vapors, surround-seep ooze-adelia, and highly agile mental capabilities. Japanese import.
Smegma is an American experimental noise group formed in Pasadena, …
An awesome CD resulting from mail collaboration between experimental two noise legends. A dynamic mix of whirr, crystalline drones, and staticky noise abstractions.1-26: Electro Smegmacousic Music Merzbow used Smegma tapes. All composed by Masami Akita using MA-tape, audio generatior, teleband tranceiver & mixer. 27-50: Smegma Plays Merzbow Composed 1996 at Smegma Studios using Merzbow tape, tape loops, record players, wood flute, vocals, optigan, mussette & frequency analyzer. Recorded & mi…
"Smegma man, fucking Smegma. They started the whole damn thing. Sure there was Lee Rocky & some soundeffects 78s that set the crew in motion but screw it.. you wouldn't be blasting The Beast or any Weird Handdrawn LP with rotten ears if it wasn't for this truly motley crew. In high school my sweet momma would give me ten bones a week for lunch, come Monday by noon that shit was blown at the local rec shop. When I only had a couple of raggedy bux left from gripping Zorlac stickers, the only optio…
Ostensibly a tribute to the ensemble’s influences from the late 20th century avant-garde and out/free jazz movements, 33 1/3 is an imposing and monolithic effort from Smegma, the long-standing, Portland-based underground noise collective. 33 1/3 finds the ensemble focusing heavily on electronics and bizarre vocal affectations on this outing, which relies on a framework of abstract free jazz as its basic foundation. It can be safely said, however, that Smegma’s material on the album defiantly ref…
The second in the series of Harbinger Sound's efforts to present the Smegma back catalog. This album originally came out in the UK only back in 1987 and is backed by the studio side from the 1988 cassette release, Morass. Twenty-one tracks in total. Dedicated to Tom (Pig Champion) Roberts. Limited to #1000 copies. CD features an eight-page booklet with photos and a pre-1988 Smegma discography