TAKE 5

Hot on the Adidas heels of their new single, ‘Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Noise', Age Of Chance choose five of their favourite noise tracks.

1. 'Wipe Out: Z'EV.
This is the sound of God's Thunder Harness, the sound of 10,000 bombers, the sound of a 16-ton pipeline breaking on the spaced-out heads of The Beach Boys. This is the sound of LA's cro-mag atonalist Z'ev, the one man maelstrom of industrial tub thumping, i.e. the only instruments on this record are the things you beat with hammers. We heard this and went surfing.

Note: There are no beaches in Leeds.

2. 'Symphony': GLEN BRANCA
Branca's work encapsulates Wagner, Spector and the best bits of the 1812 Overture' and conjures up images of an earthquake-ridden Las Vegas, the tumbling walls of Jericho and the sound of the sonic terraces. A 20-piece guitar ensemble playing the E-chord in a series of rolling, rumbling crescendos building to the last, terminal, sweat-soaked finale that spells aural attrition.

3. 'Chain Gang': TEST DEPT
A bootleg of a bootleg and one of the first pieces we ever heard by Test Dept. Sam Cooke's version gives the impression of a load of Hollywood flunkies banging spoons on a table and drinking Pepsi, whereas here you hear sleepers being laid, rivets being hammered and backs lashed. The groans and yelps on this are due, we're told, to some off-centre metal bashing. The whole cacophony was recorded beneath the archways of some monolithic, ex-power station. We think the New York scratchers should use the break beats now.

4. 'Litanies Of Satan':
DIAMANDA GALAS
Where do you begin? It's impossible to hear this music and not become emotionally unstable and physically unnerved. The unearthly shrieks and moans and the sheer malevolent presence of Galas leaves you hopelessly adrift.
There are no precedents for the sounds on this record, no clues or guides to its origins. At the end you have to convince yourself that the sun is shining outside, there is a God (somewhere) and your mother loves you. Harrowing.

5. ‘l Need A Beat': LL COOL J
Apparently a remix, we wonder what a producer could have done to make this physical, mind-crunching assault more punishing and more taxing than it already is. "The scratch elevates and the beat excels," as the double L so rightly says, but the echoing beats doubled, tripled, split and phased surely go way beyond acceptable human limits. An incessant pummelling, without reason or motive other than complete destruction of eardrums and Hi-Fi. Parts of this are so loud it's sick. We love it.