Okay, let's go somewhere that isn't Japan. I was always totally antisocial as a kid, plus I grew up in a pretty small town with no real punk or metal scene, never mind grind and noise. So when I was around 16~18, I'd spend a lot of time online hunting out new bands. Obviously, one band on this four-way stands out as being better known than the other three; six months or so before Gronibard's self-titled first album came out on Bones Brigade, I wound up chatting to some French dude on ICQ (my French is pretty good). He recommended Gronibard to me as his friend's band, and sent me a few mp3s of songs that wound up being on that first full-length. I was instantly hooked, and more than a decade later that album is still a personal favorite. I think the dude I'd been talking to went on to do his own label, Meatbox 5000 or something like that. Anyway, another thing I stumbled across online was a webzine done by Necrophil, the vocalist of noisecore band Infected Pussy. I don't remember the webzine's name now, but at the time I checked it regularly. He had a little distro attached to it too, and when I had the money to start ordering records that was one of the first places I started to buy shit from. That one name, Gronibard, on the front of this tape made it a no-brainer.
This thing is an all-French affair, with four quite different bands contributing. First up, we have Putride Defecation. They play a retarded - in a good way - kind of noisecore; their songs are broken up by goofy-sounding old French disco-pop music which adds to the fun of this part of the tape. Their song titles are all in French and take the same dumb, humorous approach to things like sex and toilet humour that Gronibard are known for. I don't really know anything about this band, but I really dig their stuff on this tape. If I recall right, I was a bit unsure when splitting the tracks whether I'd gotten it right... not sure if my memory serves me well, but I think the last track, even though it's the longest, is nothing but that goofy disco-pop thing, no noisecore. So I might have split the tracks up wrong, but I can't see that being an issue for anyone.
Finishing up side A is Infected Pussy. I guess these guys were somewhat well-known in the underground noisecore/grind scene of the mid-to-late '90s, or maybe I just think that 'cause I was a reader of the vocalist's webzine. They did splits with a bunch of other better known bands, including Dead Infection, Squash Bowels and C.S.S.O., but the only other InfPus record I have is a split CD with Mucupurulent. They split up some time around '99~'00, then reformed in 2003 playing the same kind of groovy and goofy goregrind that Gronibard had by then become well-known for; I actually got to see them live in late 2003 and felt that they were better at goregrind than they had been at noisecore. Their stuff on this tape gave me too much of a headache trying to split it up into the right number of songs, so I just gave up and left it as one mp3.
Starting us off on side B is the band that I considered the main attraction when I picked this thing up. This tape came out in 1999, a year or two before Gronibard signed to Bones Brigade. Their earlier material is much noisier than the chunky, groovy style they developed on their CDs, but it's undoubtedly still the same band, just taking themselves (even) less seriously. Like with the Putride Defecation tracks, I wasn't 100% sure if I split the songs up correctly; I think I got halfway, then realized I was going to end up with one song too many. So it's possible that I split one earlier song in half, and then included two songs together on one mp3 somewhere in the middle. Whatever, it still sounds the same that it would.
Finishing up the tape is Carnac Attack from Brittany, the northwestern region of France. Brittany is historically a Celtic area, closely linked with Cornwall in England, as well as Wales, Scotland and Ireland. There is some kind of separatist movement there, but it is non-violent and not well-known around the world. Anyway, as a Welshman, I feel a certain affinity for that part of the world - actually, at the Infected Pussy show I mentioned before, I made a good friend for the evening by telling a Breton that I'm Welsh; he declared me his brother. I guess he was pretty drunk. Anyway, my point is, when I first got this tape and saw the insert, I remember I was kinda stoked to check out this Breton group whose contact address was their own record-label, named in the Breton language. I was a little disappointed when I listened to the thing and found that it was just noise. Actually, at first, I kinda hated it. In the years after that, I became much more a fan of noise, and now I can enjoy this part of the tape too. Like the Infected Pussy tracks, though, I was totally unable to split the recording into the correct number of songs, so it's all one mp3.
Man. I think I've typed way too fucking much about this tape by now... haha, sorry. Anyway, I think this is a pretty interesting little tape. It's cool to hear some stuff by Gronibard from before they became so well-known, but actually I think my favorite part of the tape is Putride Defecation. Anyway, it's nothing life-changing, but I think this is a great little tape... definitely worth a free download and an hour or so of your time to check it out. Especially if your French is good enough to understand the dumb song titles and intro samples. Released in 1999 by Carnac Attack's own record label. Cover scans are included, but the color on the front cover has faded quite a bit over the years... sorry.
