Various Artists

Featuring: Illusion of Safety, Massimo Toniutti, Arcane Device, S.B.O.T.H.I., Randy Greif, Geins't Nait, Rik Rue, Eric Lunde

condition (record/cover): NM / NM

A compilation LP on Ron Lessard's RRRecords, the Lowell, Massachusetts imprint that has been one of the essential American post-industrial labels since 1984, spanning Lessard's own Due Process and Emil Beaulieau projects, the RRRecycled Music series of over 300 cassette reissues on repurposed tape shells, the anti-record series, and an extensive compilation catalogue. Lessard retired from the noise scene in 2006, and RRRecords itself ran as a label from 1986 to 2009, but the record store and distribution operation in Lowell has continued to operate as one of the primary American points of distribution for the international noise underground.

The Testament title is deliberately loaded: a testament in both the biblical sense (a document of commitment) and the legal sense (a record of what is being passed on). For a RRRecords compilation this is characteristic framing, sitting alongside the label's long-running practice of collecting the international noise scene into programmatic statements via the Pigface, Absurd, Parasite, and other series that Lessard curated over the years. The compilation format at RRRecords always served a specific political-aesthetic function: documenting the scene as a scene, rather than as a collection of individual artists.