Meth Drinker interview + Open Tomb split review

A few words from Sam Thurston of Wellington's filthiest sludge merchants METH DRINKER!

1- The music and name of Meth Drinker creates a mental image of the band being a bunch of filthy, derelict, glue sniffing, methylated spirits drinking drop kicks. How close is this to the truth? Who would you actually describe yourselves personally (not musically)?

Picture a scummy flat in Newtown that hasn't seen a vacuum cleaner in 15 years. There is assorted crap strewn everywhere, used plates with dried crusted floor all over the floor. The occupants are unconscious... occasionally coming out of their drugged out methylated spirits haze to start jamming on the various instruments set up around the room. Nah seriously we're some of the most cleanest, tidiest civilized people Lance knows.

Lance - "sam, tony and james are probably the most cleanest/tidiest/civilized people that i know of "

2- You released your Self titled on Vinyl and CD in early 2011 through AlwaysNeverFun Records to what seemed like a huge underground response internationally.This included a rave review in Terrorizer magazine and my review on Subcide Webzine has attracted more than double the amount of hits of any other article I've posted. What do think has attributed to this level of attention being paid to Meth Drinker?

We just tried to write music that we wanted to hear and didn't think there were all that many bands these days doing sludge that wasn't 10 minute long self-indulgent wanky boring shit. Trying to write nasty shit as heavy as possible. So we're not surprised that other people may be into it.

Meth Drinker s/t album reissue cover

3 -Still on the subject of the debut s/t Album. It’s been re-released for Europe by Raw Birth Records. How did this come about? For those that missed the original release how can they get this version? Why should people get the album?

We were compared to Bottom Feeder from Denmark on a blog review and one of the members co-runs Raw Birth Records so they liked us and wanted to repress the 12" and got in contact. So we're stoked about that and they're gunna help out large with a Europe tour in May next year. People can get the album off Raw Birth Records blog. Why should people get the record...? Why not? 

4) Going back to the first question, you say that your music doesn't reflect the members of Meth Drinker as people. Yet it's (your music)  up there with some of the most dark, sick and twisted sludge there is.  Where exactly do you draw your creative inspiration from for these dark musical and lyrical themes?

We never said our music doesn't reflect us personally but it's not hard to draw influence from the ongoing pain and suffering endured in this world.

5 - You own and run “AlwaysNeverFun Records” (and Zine?) that released the Meth Drinker debut. Tell us abit about the label,it’s focus, what it’s released and going to release. How can people check out your catalogue and make orders? Additionally, Tony does a blog and label called Drug Violence. What can you tell us about these?

I just started Always Never Fun to release records on my own terms and there were no labels in NZ I wanted to be on. I've released mostly our own shit with the exceptions of a 12" NZ comp and the Electric Mayhem /Numbskull split cause they're good cunts. Tony started Drug violence to make local NZ demos available to local friends but there has been subsequent international interest.

6 - You have just released a split album coming out with Hamilton band ‘Open Tomb’. How did this come about? What can we expect from it? Musically how does it compare to the debut? How can it be obtained?

We're friends with the old cunts from Open Tomb so it was natural to do a split with them. It was originally gunna be a Gawj / Drug Problem 12" but both bands broke up. Musically, it's more of the same. It's available for not much longer stunsmas@yahoo.co.nz and opentomb666@gmail.com 

Note: See the end of this article for a review of this release

Open Tomb split cover art

7- Meth Drinker members are also involved in a number of other bands including Scab, Shortlived, Influence, Rogernomix, Invertebrate, Drug Problem and Baboon King. Could you please give a brief description of each band including styles, which members are involved, current status and any links or releases that readers can check out.

Too many bands to go into. Just search them and you can easily figure it out or check drugviolence.blogspot.com

8 - You’ve made a pretty unsettling music video for the song ‘731’ off of the Open Tomb split. Who put this together and where did the footage come from? What was the intent of it?

We got the footage from Doctors of Death (Killer in a White Coat). It's basically about the history of humans testing on humans. 

9- You played a gig a short while ago at ‘Strathmore Gun Placement’. What was that all about?

There is a lack of decent AA venues in Wellington and we got sick of playing at the shitty bars so we decided to release the 12" in a bunker on generator power. Keeping it punk as fuck. DIY. There will be more generator shows in Wellington to come so stayed tuned. Illegal shows are the best shows.

10 - What is next for Meth Drinker? Any last comments?

The future for Meth Drinker is a European tour in May/June of 2013. The first two weeks are with US sludge band Graves at Sea and then one week with Danish Grind band Dead Instrument. Then we head to Ireland to play three shows over there. Hopefully coinciding with the tour will be another repress of the s/t 12" on Raw Birth Records(Denmark) a new 7" on crucificados records (Germany)and Raw Birth records, a split 12" with UK sludge band Moloch on crucificados records and Feast of Tentacles (UK) and we're also working on something new which may or may not be ready by then too, we'll see. For info on the tour dates with Graves at Sea checkhttp://killtownbookings.com/?page_id=6 and for the rest of the tour details will be posted on http://alwaysneverfunrecords.wordpress.com/

Meth Drinker/Open Tomb split 12” (Alwaysneverfun/United Blasphemy Music)

This split vinyl 12” contains two tones of filthy sludge doom. One ‘Open Tomb’, a dark grey sewage silt with streaks of darker grey effluent. The other, ‘Meth Drinker’, a disgusting dark green bile with curdles of brighter green pus. Both are improvements, particularly in the area of songwriting, from each band’s previous recordings.

First we get three Meth Drinker tunes. ‘Dehumanize’ continues in the vein of the dirty sludge we heard on the s/t album. ‘Beyond The Grate’ starts moving into new territory with creeping climbing riffs, rising into an aggressive peak which includes samples of suffering, torture and insanity. Both of these songs seem to build up toward the ultra disturbing, and most musically diverse, epic that is ‘731’. Despite the lack of visuals from the music video, I still find the level of unease in ‘731’ to be up there with a rare few things I’ve ever heard in recorded music. Those include the ‘Khanate ‘Things Viral’’ album and the first time I heard ‘Altar of Sacrifice’ while listening to ‘Slayer - Reign In Blood’ aged fifteen in the dark through walkman headphones. A quick Google search shows that the theme of this song is based around the WWII Japanese biological warfare and human testing ‘Unit 731’. I think Meth Drinker have succeeded in capturing the horror of that place accurately. 

The two song ‘Open Tomb’ contribution (‘Off with his Hands’ and ‘Hostile Womb’) for some reason reminds me of the atmosphere that is projected the first ‘Grief’ album ‘Dismal’ (The really good album they did in ‘93 before all their albums started to sound exactly the same and kind of boring) i.e. a kind of grind sludge that is engaging rather than a wash that plays as droning background music. My observation over the past 20+ years of bands with Sean Carmichael (and associated musicians) in them is that they seem to last a couple of years, start getting really good and then end before they get a chance to develop into something really awesome. Therefore I’m going to be an optimist here and hope that they stick with Open Tomb and see where it goes. In the meantime I can tell you that the material on this split is some of the best and most engaging music I’ve heard from the Sean Carmichael collective in the last almost quarter century....... Jesus we’re a bunch of fuckin’ old cunts! 

Get it if you still can. Beg for a re-press if you can’t.

Review: Nadja live at Whammy Bar, Auckland, NZ 5th October 2010

I recently discovered Canada's two piece Nadja via the  Avalanchers forum, a forum dedicated to fans of Godflesh, Justin Broadrick and other such sonic noise. It's hard to describe the sound of Nadja except that they seem to fit within the description of and tastes of those who frequent said space on the internet.
The fact that Nadja were actually playing NZ and I was getting to witness them live was one of the things that made me finally decide to start up this webzine/blog thing.


The Whammy Bar is a perfect place for ambient drone and dirge music. It's an underground concrete bunker with irregular walls that seem perfect for creating standing wave harmonic reinforcement. As it was the sound from all the acts was impressive.
Upon arriving at the door, I ensured I made the most of the cheaper than usual CDs at the merch stand and picked up a decent number of Nadja (from their extensive discography) as well as an Aidan Baker solo release. I've written up some brief reviews after the below live review and the awesome bit of footage from the show taken by Rangiofthelight.


Once inside the Whammy bar, local electronic ambient artist Nigel Wright had just begun his set. I hadn't seen anything like this live in years. It was refreshing seeing someone performing washes of ambient Tangerine Dream style sounds through an electronic medium. Occasionally he would reach over and pluck the string of a guitar which seemed to be channelled though a laptop and a keyboard. The resulting sweeping sounds built up and up on top of each other creating an intense deep ambience. I'd be keen to check him out again some time.


Next up was Nadja's Aidan Baker performing his own solo material. This had a lot of similarity to Nigel Wright's, only the method of creation was different. Aidan's guitar fed into a table covered in guitar pedals arranged in a way that made sense only to him. By manipulating loop sequences, delays, reverbs and god knows what else, the sound coming out of his guitar was transformed into something dense and intense.


The Nadja set started where Aidan's solo stuff left off when he was joined onstage by his wife Leah. The sonic waves of spacious texture continued, but got more intense with heavy distorted guitar tones, Leah's bass adding a welcome low end and when the preprogrammed industrial drums kicked it felt like the earth was being moved. The set ebbed and flowed like a tide, building up and down without an obvious break between songs, although "songs" is probably not the right way to talk about the music. There was no verse chorus verse structure, it was just one big ugly beautiful soundscape. The recorded Nadja can range from quiet dream ambient to the most crushingly heavy dirge riffs and noise. This live performance seemed to capture equal amounts of both of these elements. Its not regular music made by regular musicians, its 2 people and a bunch of gear (Picture a table centre stage full of effects pedals and sound equipment from beyond. Aidan standing front on to the Audience with his Guitar and Leah Facing away from the crowd with her Bass) creating some kind of sonic alchemy. Its soaring and beautiful and brutal all at the same time. It's a sound that so many post-whatever bands try to capture, but no one seems to come close. The sound of staring into the void.


- Co written in the first person by Chris Rigby and Rangiofthelight.
Footage of Nadja live at Whammy bar courtesy of Rangiofthelight:

An overview Merch stand Purchases

Nadja - When I see the Sun always Shines on TV

This was the one Nadja release that I was most familiar with already and was happy to finally get my own copy.  It features the most conventional 'song' like recordings I've heard so far from the band. The main reason is that it's an album of cover songs receiving the Nadja treatment.  To describe what that is is a slower than usual reenactment of each tune, played with not with what sounds like standard musical instruments, but by sounds from beyond that can only be compared with the musical equivalent of enveloping swarms of bees flying above you. Stand out tracks for me personally are 'Only Shallow' (My Bloody Valentine), 'Dead skin Mask' (Slayer) and the title tune (Ahha!). 

Worth noting also is the awesome cover and internal artwork of by Klawful, who has provided a gothic cartoon graphic for each of the songs, each featuring a caricature of Aidan and Leah.

"When I see the Sun..." was an excellent introduction to Nadja for me and I'd recommend it to others for the same reason.

Nadja - Under a Jaguar Sun (2xCD)

'Under a Jaguar Sun' has some very impressive packaging in the form of a four way in-folding box featuring different oil based paintings on each panel by Aidan.  It's made up of two disks.  Disc 1: Tezcatlipoca (Darkness) - features more obvious bass lines and riffs than some of Nadja's other work.  It's made up of 5 'Suns' namely 'Jaguar', 'winstorm', fieryrain', 'flood' and 'earthquake'. Each song is different to the last and attempts to capture the particular sun's spirit within it's own.

Disc 2: Quetzalcoatl (Wind) contains five adjoined tracks of creeping dark soundscapes reminiscent to Ligeti's contributions to the '2001: A Space Odyssey' score i.e. 'Lux aeterna' or 'Atmospheres'. Not as instantaneous as CD 1, but a hunting sound experience never the less. 'Under a Jaguar Sun' wins the Subcide award for most interesting purchase of the night.

Update: Since writing this Aidan has informed that the two disc in the set have been created to be played together simultaneously.  I'm yet to try this but hope to soon.

Aiden Baker - I will always and forever hold you in my heart and mind

There were a number of Aiden's CDs on sale that night, but as I was unfamiliar with his solo material and more focused on boosting up the Nadja content of my music collection, I chose to randomly get this one to find out what it was like.  Much like Aiden's live set, this recording is made up of building layers of  delicate effected ambient guitar tones. The result is a pleasurable relaxing melodic experience which would be most suited to a darkend room, with a candle and stick of Nag champa burning on a Sunday evening while trying to avoid contemplating the working week a head. 

Nadja - Sky Burial

This release is part  of a limited edition from the 'Latitudes' series put out and recorded by Southern Records in the UK.  It has the most impressive and original packaging of my purchases (a spiral infolding cardboard slip with hand stamped cover design), but was the recording with the least impact on me.  Not that it's bad at all. It's just that it has the sound of the  a live studio recording session (which it is) that has been done quickly and maybe not had the blood, sweat and tears ingrained that some of the other Nadja recordings have had.  There are two tracks on this recording. The first is 'Jaguar' which is made up of looped samples of noises, distant voices as well as slowly building guitar feedback/drone. The second is 'Sky burial' with more structure and rhythm by way of a pulsating building repeating loop of droning bass distortion and guitars evolving into a dreamy mid paced melodic texture. I have noticed this recording improving up one repeat listening. Sky burial is nice documentation of this studio event.

Nadja - Radiance of Shadows

Excluding 'When I see the sun...', this was my favorite purchase of the evening.

Mastered by James Poltkin. Outstanding heavy as hell doom riffs preceded by ambient dreamscapes. I can't think of much else to say about this, except that I love it!

Nadja - Autopergamene 

This, the latest Nadja release is in the vein of 'Radiance of Shadows' (i.e heavy doom riffs preceded by ambient dreamscapes) but with the key differences being the addition of orchestral instruments by other contributing musicians i.e. violin, double bass, trombone, flute, cello and more.  Autopergamene, which is a spell or charm wherein you write in blood, on a fragment of skin, what you wish to happen, continues the theme of excellent and unique packaging and contains a selection of six folded over water based Rorschach styled prints. Some are simply coloured patterns whilst others contain sketches of ghostly figures.  In a way with song titles like 'you write your name in my skin', 'you write your name in my head' and 'you write my name in your blood', these images describe the recording perfectly.  This was a slow grower but has much to offer on repeated listening.