Dwelling in the Scraping Sky

all percussion, all noiz: SPIKE the Percussionist
tracked/mastered at: The Noiz Temple

Noiz Issues...
This is a two month spanning issue of Aug / Sep. There were pitfalls in the pathways that seemed to inhibit the development of the generated source material. Then things seemed to work themselves out over time and the noiz that was fighting amongst itself in the room seemed to all writhe together.
The reality may not always be the perception...

more noiz!

SPIKE the Percussionist
October : 2010
manipulate.net

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NØIZ ånd the drøne øf the sphere.......
 
Astrogenic Hallucinauting is a dark ambient noiz generator.
At times harsh and at others a wash of drones.
Hear some of this existence through my eyes...

Influences:
The the, Coil, Dif Juz, Peter Gabriel, Whitehouse, David Sylvian, Talk Talk, .O.rang, Laibach, Einsturzende Neubauten, Blade Runner, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Stray Toasters, Godflesh, Autechre, The Young Gods, Hellboy, Godzilla, Tron, Terry Gilliam, Jeunet & Caro, Atari 2600, Comic Books, winter, weird noiz making devices.

Band Members: 
SPIKE the Percussionist
INSTRUMENTS: percussion and all noiz generating devices

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ASTROGENIC HALLUCINAUTING / SPIKE the Percussionist is a classically trained performer and composer who studied under percussion guru and Yamaha performing artist Dr. Norman Weinberg, author of "Guide to Standardized Drumset Notation" and "The Electronic Drummer." A master of acoustic percussion, SPIKE is also an expert programmer and electronic music expert with a degree in audio engineering. While most drummers with SPIKE’s talent and training would have headed for a career in classical symphony or jazz composition, SPIKE took an entirely different route. Inspired by Dr. Weinberg’s advocacy of technological advances in percussion and his own inventiveness (SPIKE’s award-winning sophomore recital was the first entirely electronic composition ever performed by a percussion student in competition), SPIKE focused his formidable abilities on ambient noiz and electro-industrial, two burgeoning, but at that time obscure, genres of music. It takes a visionary to create something different, but a genius to make it good. Spike wasn’t satisfied playing the background role, which was a major disappointment to quite a few big name bands who would have loved to have the bizarre percussionist and his trademark saw-blade cymbals banging behind them. It was as he says “too limiting.” “Many of my fans don’t realize that I am a classically trained musician. I’m not ‘just a drummer’ or ‘just a percussionist.’ I am a musician above all else. I decided it was time to take a little trip away from the drumkit and do some exploring.” SPIKE uses everything from the modern (computers, machines, samplers, videogames) to the ancient (Tsingsha cymbals, Tibetan singing bowl, mbira, gong) in creating a sound that is entirely his own. He seems to have a gift for tapping into our primal fears without uttering a single lyric.

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"Now that's what I call 'kickin' some ass' on them drums!" - Johnnie Johnson / The Father of Rock & Roll

"VERY COOL! Just what gear do you use?" - Foetus

"...very tranquil, beautiful, and meditative" - Marc Caro - co-director of "City of Lost Children" & "Delicatessen"

"I needed 100% and you brought 1,000 times that!" - JANDEK

"SPIKE delivers a throbbing, powerful beat, the Keith Moon of Industrial?" -Jeff Boyle Electrozine/COP Int'l

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Astrogenic Hallucinauting - Radon Scan Cycle CDR on Solipsism - www.selfabuserecords.net/home.html

This has got to be some of the best non harsh noise I have heard in a long time. I mean, if noise had to be music, it would have to sound like this, beautiful revolting, sinister, but kind, simplistic, and deep with an atmosphere that heightens the senses and contracts the muscles, this is an audio massage that you will not easily forget nor will you be so eager for it to end. Subtly changing in tone and octave, the sound just billows from the speakers like the chemicals at a plant's smoke stacks, causing the same unseen contamination of all it comes in contact with and ten times as alluring. Arresting your attention like a wet dream that smothers you in pleasure and drastically improves your ability to perform and perform well! The entire one long track seems to better itself minute by gloomy minute, entering a gradual increase of volume and intensity that is sure to please you and perturb the neighbors. Do you enjoy Halloween? Then you actually need this recording piped into your ears played at ten walking through the Sleepy Hollow woods with a sign strapped to your front and back touting that you aren't leaving until you witness a beheading. Enjoy this to the fullest by playing at unnecessary volumes.

By Joe Lombardo
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Astrogenic Hallucinauting - Binary Noiz Series 00

"Binary Noize 00" is the first cd in the Binary Noize Series of 3" CDR's (each containing 3 tracks running about 20 minutes in length) from SPIKE the Percussionist and his project Astrogenic Hallucinauting. The first track "So-Flow" is quite rhythmic, mixing in some robotic voice samples and lazer effects which sound like they were pulled off the soundboard of Centipede. Nothing too extradinary but competent nonetheless. The following track "corridor" is much darker, making use of some echoed percussion and little burst of white noise here and there to create a dark soundtrack feel. "Corridor" would be the perfect soundtrack to a night of Quake. The final track "Level Erase Dredge" works the power-electronics angle with distorted drums and twisted audio frequencies into loud waves of sound. I'd love to see the direction the music would take during the course of an entire album because from these 3 distinctively different sounding tracks i'd have no clue with what was coming next from SPIKE.

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Astrogenic Hallucinauting - Binary Noiz Series 01

Here we have the second installment in the Binary Noize series simply entitled "01." Starting pretty much where "00" left off, the first track "Unknown Variable Shifting" returns to echoed percussion, robotic voices and what sounds to me like a game of missle command gone horrible wrong. "Indirrect Addressing" is quite disturbing and is sure to leave me with nightmares of alien abduction. The sounds of "Indirrect Addressing" takes my thoughts into the inner chamber of an alient craft, where little grey men run around and set up machines of human torture. The third and final track "AudC," isn't quite up to the standards I've come to expect from Spike's work and was a bit disappointing. Especially after hearing the earlier tracks on the disc. Nevertheless, the low-fi sounds of Spike's work is quite good and just shows that's it's not that amount of gear you use but how you use it. 

By GunHed @ wetworksezine.com

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SPIKE the Percussionist - Astrogenic Hallucinauting 

My first exploration comes after a 2.9 mile run. Night. I've got plenty of stuff on my plate that needs to get done but I'lll do this first. I kept the site up on a tab in my browser all day so I wouldn't forget. Might as well roll out. 

Drag the laptop to the papasan, prop my feet up on the arm of the couch. Great view of the street at night. Nothing out there, just dark. Lamp on. Plant in corner still alive. So are the dogs. I don't know where the hell this stuff comes from. 

"Onto The Next Wire." - Well, metallic, deep, thick. Like a large pipe with a decent charge running through it. Cold. Steel. Filled with liquid. Communicating or picking up signals from a satellite, or tapping into your neighbors hacked cable signal. Almost like you're hearing something you weren't meant to hear, like a new sense or gaining the ability to hear beyond the normal human range. Then a bit of a freak-out, an alarm that rolls, fades into the distance. More of a space or a statement than a tune, per-se. 

There's one track down. I hit ctrl+s and the stupid save sound from Microsoft Word blasts through my headphones. 

See, this is why I demand a CD or reviews. I made a rule. no reviews from tunes found on websites. And here I am breaking my rule, and complaining about it in the middle of a review. What a dick. 

"So Flow" - Sounds like a pulsing didgeridoo sample for the foundation of the piece, jagged, brittle, stern. A video game laser assault. Not an ounce of soul. Frosty, dry, sterile, thick. An electrographic workout, post-apocalyptic, static, buzz-saw jam. Damn, I just don't know. I've got an expectation when I think of Astrogenic Hallucinauting. My cover-judging expectation is that I'll be voyaging through the stars, hitting some brave new worlds, etc. This is darker, with a healthy shot of hard-nosed industrial intent for effect. Grind to kill rather than a flowery hippy voyage through the cosmos. 

"AudC" - Downright painful. Seriously. There's a song out there, up tempo, fuzzed out and treble-jacked beyond belief, with a brief dip into a bass roll that frankly makes for quite an appealing piece. Sounds like some old-school Asteroids sound effects, maybe the explosion sound from Space Invaders. Lossy-frenetic with an eerie, almost imperceptible sense of space. I'm using AKG K240DF ear goggles to scope this scene and I've gotta say that there are parts of this piece that hurt my ears. Almost as if the thick vibra-treble effect is tearing my eardrums to shreds. Don't think I've ever experienced that before. Well, pain. And it's my favorite so far. Pause. It is becoming apparent that Astrogenic Hallucinauting is perhaps a worthwhile trek. One must sure as hell go in with an open mind. Alright. Continue.

"Ree-Tox" - Like a slow-motion heart attack. Big. Limited to highs and mids, not much on the bass end. A suspended, up-there'd-ness. Pulsing, slow and unnaturally steady. Suspended a thousand miles above the North Pole during an aurora, without a space suit, the instant of your death casually drawn out for a few minutes. Remember. the universe is eternal and it's got all day. You're but a proton, friend. A sonic ass-kicking. A gritty, rigid, thorough, ass-kicking. I wonder if ass-kicking is supposed to be hyphenated. 

"Free Possession" - Let's pretend that the higher power that holds sway over this neck of existence is an almighty vengeful hombre with a keen sense of tragic wit, and decides to settle up with you karma-wise after you've had an exceptionally bad day. One morning you wake up as a sentient, feeling, hunk of reinforced sheet iron that forms part of the wall of a boiler that powers a turbine on a large ocean-going vessel. Your world is suddenly quite hot and extremely painful.

On the whole I'd say I'd have to place it somewhere out on the experimental edge of the industrial ambient spectrum. Interesting stuff. 

By Art Grauer @ The Cosmic Spot
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Astrogenic Hallucinauting - Ambient Abstraction
A Houston percussionist creates Astrogenic Hallucinauting. Ambient tracks pushing the boundaries of the definition of music.

Astrogenic Hallucinauting aka SPIKE the Percussionist is a multimedia engineer by day and a percussionist and composer of noizology by night. I can't classify Astrogenic Hallucinauting as music, but its name is more fitting for the images conjured up while listening to his creations. In his own words: "Astrogenic Hallucinauting is a dark ambient noiz generator. At times harsh and at others a wash of drones. Hear some of this existence through my eyes..."

Layers of synth beats with abstract and often changing tempos can make your listening experience change from a feeling of relaxation to a feeling of anxiety and tension. These tracks are suited for an online game of Quake or Everquest, but captured my ear because it is so abstract, far out, and quite frankly, disturbing!

If you're looking for music with a good beat, good lyrics, or good hooks, this isn't it...but if you're looking for music that pushes the boundaries of your mind and makes you think differently about how to use ambience in recording situations, take the time to listen to the downloads offered on his website.

By Pat Ferris @ hotbands.com

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3" CDR
2002
Astrogenic Hallucinauting: "00"
First installment of the "Binary Noiz Series"
Tracklisting: 1. So-flow, 2. Corridor, 3. Level erase dredge
I have no idea who Astrogenic Hallucinauting are or come from, but here are 3 tracks on a 19 minute long 3" CDR, allegedly composed only with sounds recorded from video games, either on arcade machines or computers. The sounds are however heavily treated and run through effects, since you really coudn't recognize them.
The first track is the most rhythmic of the three, alternating some slightly distorted 8 bits drums with a relatively upbeat sound and a little vocoded voice. Not really revolutionary but not too shabby either. The second one is much darker, with somber echoed percussions and outburst of distant white noise. Once again, it sounds a bit cheap on the sampling rate, probably due to the video game origin of the sounds, but this is a well done, dark and moody track, with a slight soundtrack-ish feeling. The third and final track, "level erase dredge" is however the most interesting one, with a deep rumbling drum that reminds me of Brighter Death Now's "Slaughterhouse" album (BDN making music with videogames is indeed an interesting concept) in a slightly lighter version, but still pretty heavy, slow and morbid.
Interesting and rather well done, "00" is a nice little thing that shows quite some competence, but is too short to really demonstrate where Astrogenic Hallucinauting are going, and what they want to achieve. Still, not bad, we'll see what follows.
Nicolas, July 11th, 2002 http://www.recycleyourears.com
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You are not hallucinating...
Crazy noisemaker SPIKE aka ASTROGENIC HALLUCINAUTING has just announced that the first disc of his four part "binary noiz series" is now up for grabs. Like the others in the series, "00" is a 3" CDR containing sounds strictly "derived from videogames and videogame machines". This includes the fucking rad noizSPIKE - 2600/R (rack mounted Atari 2600, just go see it already), nanoloop, sid station, turbo grafix, jaguar, power-player, vectrex, 10 in 1 TV Games and a pile of other wacky electronic thumb candy that has me feeling jealous (at least until my copy of "Bible Buffet" arrives for my NES). The disc will set you back $6 and an example track plus other interesting material can be had via the site above. For more details on this cool stuff drop a note to speyek@johnnie.com.
-moron@industrial.org Webmaster of Industrial.org

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I like your sense of composition and your managing of events in sounds - all the pieces are quite tense and always seems to be bulding up, that is nice atmosphere music that would fit in more than one place...
- the percussive equipment description on the info sheet is quite promising, I would love to hear you " unplugged " !!!!
paolo - s ' a g i t a r e c o r d i n g s

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This guy is not your typical musician. He's a percussionist with Zen-like qualities in his sound. Just as STOMP has shown the world that drums and percussion do not deserve to be hidden at the back of bands, SPIKE creates a sound and vigor in his work that demands much attention. For something really different than your usual listening experience, I think it's worth it to check out SPIKE the Percussionist from Houston.
-B. Tucker - Orb Confidential

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Here, an imaginative percussionist shows off seven tracks under six different names/projects. The music tends to be atmospheric and abrasive, with enough similarity that it could have been the work of one band. The Buckethead* of rhythm.
-Tom Schulte Jam Rag

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When SPIKE the Percussionist contacted me about reviewing the CD I was thrilled. And now that I have it and have listened to it I have basically a two word review "Bidding War." The production on this is the best I've heard from any self released cd let alone commercially released cd. Every level is right where it should be. SPIKE delivers a throbbing, powerful beat, the Keith Moon of Industrial? If I had the money I would snap him up in a second, as any underground label who needs to turn a profit should...easily the next best thing! Underground enough to satisfy the purists, crossover enough to bring in more converts! Take note A&R people!

-Jeff Boyle Electrozine/COP Int'l

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SPIKE the Percussionist wore black angel wings that stretched out behind him as he pounded the drums. The high energy of the performance was down right amazing.

-Shiley Carter The Edge