witcyst: screuma/chilli song

Since the early 1990s, Michael Veet aka Witcyst has been the stunning secret diamond of the New Zealand noise underground. A short-circuiting monolith on top of the rubbish heap of NZ art and sound. This LP contains two pieces originally issued on cassettes in 1995. "Screuma" sounds like a guitar being fed through a washing machine -- a giant guitar made from old medicine bottles and beard hair. The washing machine is on full spin and it has pinecones in it. Witcyst mumbles a running commentary. It goes on and on. All outputs are fed back into the inputs. "Chilli Song" is a Witcyst rock song stretched into a spitting blur of strumming and singing. Streaks of hiss and saturation swamp and dissolve the riff. Someone is frying old meat and Witcyst has a lot to say about it. It goes on and on. All outputs are fed back into the inputs. Witcyst's instructions for completing the sleeve artwork: "If the vinyl comes with unprinted blank card covers rub them a bit on rough concrete, cut out the center holes like a 12" sleeve, but not perfect circle -- like rough chop chop. Hack or lay a cover on wood, slab with a big metal pipe end, slam down off center like cutting with a cookie cutter, and tear the centers out. That would be goodly!" Witcyst lives and works in a concrete-floor shed in Whangarei, in the far north of New Zealand. His releases on his own labels Extemporization and LifeSpace run into the thousands. Each item is hand-made from insect casings, old X-rays, beer cans, and elbow grease. Exquisite drawings, obsessive collage, unreadable calligraphy, and photocopying onto tinfoil. His music is always a surprise and wrestles every potential sound out of endless mutations of endless new ideas. Every variation is layered, wrung out, and exploded. It is the freest of all the free noises. A complete drooling feast for the eyes and ears. Witcyst makes everyone else seem like a baby with a coloring book and one crayon. Edition of 300 copies in DIY sleeve.