2023.05.26 - Recoil/Greywash (12" Lathe & Cassette split EP with Of One) - Cruel Nature
2023.04.20 - Nu-shunting (track on Spectrum compilation) - Cruel Nature
2022.12.31 - Phihha Tree (Digital single) - Self-release
2022.04.01 - Blown Vestige (12" Lathe/Cassette album) - Cruel Nature
2022.03.25 - GNOD/WHOK (12" EP split-release with GNOD) - Riot Season
2021.12.31 - Xyllindric (Digital single) - Self-release
2020.12.31 - Stitched Up (Digital single) - Self-release
2020.11.05 - WHOKköln (Digital album) - Self-release
2020.10.02 - Oo (Cassette album) - Still Heat Recordings
2020.08.28 - Sabre (12" lathe/Cassette album) - Cruel Nature Records
2020.07.30 - Acuminate/Anciennekorper (Digital single) - Front End Synthetics
2020.04.17 - Ovoidulations (Digital album) - Self-release
2020.03.20 - Lab Emissions Vol. II (Cassette album) - Fort Evil Fruit
2019.12.31 - Olde Slice (Digital Single) - whok.org
2019.06.01 - Lab Emissions (excerpt) (track on I Heart Noise Spring compilation) - I Heart Noise
2019.01.19 - Knukke (Cassette album) - Cruel Nature Records
2018.12.31 - Non Throt (Digital single) - whok.org
2018.??.?? - ? (track on 101bpm compilation) - Countersunk
2017.12.30 - 8ark (Digital single) - whok.org
2017.12.02 - Another Shudder (Cassette EP) - Cruel Nature Records
2017.06.29 - Bunkrapt (Cassette EP) - Fort Evil Fruit
2017.05.19 - Voix (Cassette EP) - whok.org
2017.04.13 - Vooidtexx (track on 'Elephant Road' compilation) - Candela Rising
2016.12.31 - MMXVIRIP (Digital single) - whok.org
2016.11.01 - Decate (Cassette album) - whok.org
2016.06.29 - Germanium (12" EP) - whok.org
2016.06.23 - Seacht (LP) - whok.org
2016.02.01 - Arc Molt (12" EP) - Candela Rising
2015.05.29 - P!!ggz (Cassette album) - Fort Evil Fruit
2015.05.21 - Botsu267 (WHOK Mix) on ガバケツだもんで by Constellation Botsu - Nute
2015.03.03 - Trensmat 06-14 (Mix) - Nute
2014.08.27 - Comminute (12" EP) - Earwiggle
2014.06.01 - Valved Remixes (Split 12" EP with AnD) - Trensmat
2014.04.11 - Each Lesson Paves The Way For Its Successor (Cadavre Exquis) (Split cassette album with ZPG) - Nute
2013.11.06 - Selectiv Compliance (Cassingle) - Nute
2013.08.31 - WHOK Lab Emissions Vol.1 (Cassette album) - Fort Evil Fruit
2013.04.18 - Devisions (LP) - Trensmat
2012.08.27 - Tarsier Reconstruction on Tarsier by German Army - Nute
2012.08.03 - Alternate Devil (7") - Trensmat
2012.01.16 - Variations 1-3 on Mineral Lamp by Herv (Cassette EP) - Nute
2011.11.03 - Synapse Snaps (on split 7" single with Tlaotlon) - Trensmat
2011.09.16 - Green Glow Bridge/Red Glow Bridge (Cassette album) - Nute
2011.09.04 - Green Glow Bridge/Red Glow Bridge (2x10" album) - Champion Version
2011.03.30 - Saw The Recurrent Future (CDr album) - Reverb Worship
2010.11.29 - Giger Level b/w Mecha-entomology (7") - Champion Version
2010.11.08 - Celestrian Ferroxxide (Cassette album) - Munitions Family
2010.12.08 - WHOK Segues 1-4 on Fina/Cold/Fire by The Last Sound (CDr) - Nute
2010.05.25 - Untitled track on i did ya a c60 (mp3) - Nute
2010.04.06 - Electric Lava re-release (CDr album) - Nute
2009.03.12 - 2-Bar Heater And Smoke track on Wire Tapper 21 (CD) - The Wire
2009.03.06 - Electric Lava (CDr album) - Nute
2008.05.01 - Fazzip (Whirling Hall Of Knives Remix) on Fazzip EP by Ikeaboy (12"/Digital) - D1
2006.10.28 - Live at DEAF '06 (mp3) - The Archiver
2020.04.17 - 30 minute digital single Ovoidulations - available as a name your price release on our Bandcamp. All proceeds donated to ALONE.
2016.06.23 - New WHOK album Seacht is out now. This is the first release through whok.org - a vanity press you can trust. Sounds/images/order here: SEACHT.
2015.03.03 - Trenmsat has gone into cold storage but WHOK give you a white hot mix containing many triumphs from the catalogue. Go here to stream and download: Trensmat 06-14.
2014.08.25 - Comminute, the new EP from Whirling Hall Of Knives is due at any moment from Earwiggle. This contains three new tracks and also features an incredible remix of the title track by Ancient Methods. Sound previews are available on the Earwiggle Soundcloud. The video below for Scrap Assembly was done by Sean Mulligan.
2014.05.19 - The Valved Remixes 12" EP is available for a short time to pre-order from Trensmat. This is a split release with AnD with both artists contributing a couple of remixes each of material from the Blood On The Controls album by Valved, released earlier in 2014 via Nute. Sounds and more info on the Trensmat soundcloud.
2013.11.06 - Selectiv Compliance is a new EP from WHOK, available now from Nute. Sounds and more info on the Trensmat soundcloud. See the video below for Volaré Symptomatic by Sean Mulligan.
2013.09.07 - A new album - WHOK Lab Emissions Vol.1 - is out now on cassette from the eclectic and wonderful Fort Evil Fruit label. Their words: "This single 38-minute piece comes only a few months after their acclaimed Trensmat LP Devisions. Eschewing the pounding rhythms of its predecessor, it's dense, harsh, eerie, ecstatic, nerve-shattering noise / drone all the way. Like drowning in ectoplasm. Flee in terror or submit entirely." Get it here.
2013.03.15 - The new WHOK album is called Devisions and will be released via Trensmat in May on splatter vinyl (with accompanying mp3s). Pre-orders will open soon on the Trensmat site. In the meantime, listen to some samples below...
2012.06.18 - WHOK have a new single called Alternate Devil available now for pre-order from Trensmat. Listen and buy HERE. Video for the A-side is below...
2011.11.03 - WHOK are very pleased to be sharing a split single with the amazing Tlaotlon. This limited release is available now for pre-order from Trensmat. Listen and buy HERE.
2011.09.16 - The Green Glow Bridge and Red Glow Bridge 10"s are sold out but the album is now available on cassette and download from Nute. Listen and buy HERE.
2011.09.04 - Green Glow Bridge/Red Glow Bridge, the 4th WHOK album, is released today as a limited edition 2x10" vinyl set, available only from Champion Version. For a taster, watch the video for a track taken from the Red Glow Bridge disc HERE.
2011.03.30 - New WHOK album Saw The Recurrent Future is released today on a limited CDr from Reverb Worship. Sound previews and video for the title track below:
2011.02.11 - Video for FCXO Analgesia (Midst). Sign up to the mailing list at Champion Version to receive news of the forthcoming limited Whirling Hall Of Knives album from which this track is taken.
2010.11.08 - The new Whirling Hall Of Knives album Celestrian Ferroxxide is available from today on cassette from Munitions Family. The album contains two side-long tracks, short extracts of which are now on the Munitions Family Soundcloud. While there, please check out their other highly recommended noises.
2010.10.02 - A new limited Whirling Hall Of Knives 7" - Giger Level b/w Mecha-entomology - is now available for pre-order from Champion Version Records, along with new 7"s by the mighty Mugstar & Machinefabriek. Hear short extracts:
2010.09.24 - WHOK contribute four short remix interludes to the upcoming Nute release Fina/Cold/Fire by The Last Sound. This will be available from the Nute site from 8 Nov 2010.
2010.05.25 - An as yet untitled taster from the forthcoming second WHOK album is included on the first of Nute's new c60 mix series. Download or stream them from the redesigned Nute site or on the Nute Soundcloud.
2010.04.06 - Electric Lava has been re-released with full artwork from Nute. Initial white-sleeve copies are sold out.
2009.09.03 - "A huge hall of ever whirling knifes that rules from the centre of the ultraworld (hating you)" - Whirling Hall Of Knives will be appearing at this year's DEAF with a live improv/dj set at this event.
2009.09.01 - Please note: all Nute releases including Electric Lava are now available via Trensmat. Click on the Nute link on the Trensmat site.
2009.07.01 - Electric Lava is reviewed in the current issue of Rock-A-Rolla and there is also an online review at Foxy Digitalis. Big thank you to everyone who has picked it up so far. It is available exclusively from Nute, as is the new Magnetize album Sweex.
2009.03.09 - Electric Lava, the debut album from WHOK is now available from Nute. Sound clips from each track are on the Nute site and on the WHOK myspace.
2009.02.17 - Magnetize will be DJing on February 22 in the Joy Gallery. Music from the forthcoming WHOK album Electric Lava will form part of the set. Doors at 1pm, bring your own refreshments.
Reviews of WHOK/Tlaotlon split 7":
Along with the Carlton Melton / Mugstar split 7" reviewed elsewhere on this week's list comes another new 7" from the fine folks at Trensmat, this one another split, but this one from two bands we had never heard of before, the first, Whirling Hall Of Knives, already had us kicking ourselves, their track a gorgeous droned out chunk of brooding slow building psychedelia, layered tones, looped rhythmic fragments, all manner of buzz and swirl and thrum, pulsing and throbbing, hypnotic and mesmerizingly sinister, until suddenly a beat surfaces right in the midst of all this swirling hypno-psych noisiness, a sort of squelchy acid-y groove, that transforms the sound something else entirely, a sort of spacey electro kraut-drone groove, that seems to dissipate as quickly as it was conjured, leaving just a bit of washed out drone-drift shimmer to finish things off.
A NZ band called Tlaotlon counter with their own sort of abstract psychedelia, less dense and ominous, a little more looped and rhythmic, right out of the gate the sounds swirl and beats stutter and pulse, reminding us a bit of a more electronic, slightly less noisy Our Love Will Destroy The World. As the track progresses, it becomes more Goblin/Carpenter soundtracky and synthy, woven into the band's psychedelic swirl, heady and dreamy and really great. We'll definitely be after more from both of these outfits.
And as with all Trensmat 7"s, there's a link on the sleeve to a download, which in this case includes a 30 minute tripped out live video from WHOK, as well as two extra tracks from Tlaotlon. SUPER LIMITED as always, already sold out at the label, so these are the last ones we'll ever get. Aquarius
Whirling Hall Of Knives are a great Irish duo with electronic scuttling on their minds. Here, they create a dense, dark patchwork of claustrophobically building tones and rhythms that manage to pull a certain psych feel out of the chaos. Tlaotlon is apparently a new solo project from Wellington New Zealand's Jeremy Coubrough, and it shares a squishing pulse with its record-mate, but gets a lot more overt in terms of space squeedle. Nice one.
The Wire
Reviews of Green Glow Bridge/Red Glow Bridge:
More subterranean voyagers in the micro verse this time entrusted to the Trensmat sub imprint Nute who after an overly long period of hibernation appear back on the experimental sounds radar with a rather spiffing set from the Whirling Hall of Knives. ‘green glow bridge’ / ‘red glow bridge’ was recently released as an ultra limited double 10 inch set via champion version which alas literally sold out at source in nanoseconds much to the disagreeable groans abound here at the ho hum singled out shed of misery. Mourn not though for those that missed this gone in a blinking eye release can stop wallowing for Nute have picked it and released it on a limited c-46 cassette which digital children was a medium with which us elderly types used to use for the purposes of recording old Peel radio shows and other such like before the BBC invented the listen again button and put an end to outbreaks of gloominess and finger pointing in the school yard through missing said shows. Now we here are massive fans of the tape medium mainly for the fact that there’s non of that nonsense with RPM settings which I must admit is a source of embarrassing hilarity in our gaff especially when playing these ambient / meditative type releases unless of course you happen to be playing on a tape recorder where the heads are playing up. Alas they fall down on the track finding side of things which can make listening to stuff in real time a little exasperating. So why stick with tapes when you have CD’s - well simply because CD’s just don’t look right - they are cold, cheap looking and just begging to be unloved and anyhow they lose something of that warmth that’s retained by vinyl / tape and that goes likewise for downloads which I’ll own up to right this moment to in admitting being the medium I’m currently relying on to listen to this release thus shooting myself in the foot I’ve just put in my mouth. And so where were we when we embarked on this ramble - ah yes - Whirling Hall of Knives who just in case your not quite up to speed on these things is a collaborative affair between Magnetize and the Last Sound with this particular 9 set suite being their fourth full length to date. Another release best experienced through headphonic means if only so you can be spooked by the subtle sub strata of near silent disquiet eating away the core and a release meant we assume to be heard in one complete sitting given that the track segregation and differing titles reflect the ebb and flow of the moods and shifts in tonalties as it shifts in varying degrees through the sonic spectrums from the dark slowly pulsating towards the light. Not for the fist time in this particular missive have we had cause to recall the earlier work of Bronnt or more so Shift of at war with false noise fame given that in the initial stages the WHOK ones appear to be ominously skirting around the outer edges of the harsh noise axis with ‘green glow’ reaching something of a Pimmon like plateau with both the proceeding ‘lungswarm’ and ‘choking at the edge of a dying city’ given over to attempting to re-wire your headspace by way of some coldly chilling monastic flavoured Quatermass-ian styled paranormal mind paralysis. Those of you who’ve thrilled to the sound of Mr Kember’s sonic manipulations and modulating frequency quivers may well look upon the dream machine dinked drone recital ’flupirtone’ as some out of body astral portal with which to climb inside (either that or else some mournful epitaph to a dying washing machine) from out of which you arrive at the tranquil and restful ’red glow bridge (approach)’ - from herein the moods somewhat lighten - what was previously detached, sparse, coldly barren and alien soon transforms amid washes of hallucinogenia from this moment elevating to the pursuing ’glow bridge’ only to revisit ’red glow bridge’s’ more trippily bowed chimed half cousin ’red glow bridge (cross)’ where the reverberating strums pick up a distinct out of focus Oriental motif. As though re-entering some orbital incline ’FCXO Analgesia’ is awash with controlled white noise squalls as though approaching some kind of meltdown it rushes to the frantic abandon of locked grooved warning sirens before arriving at its final point of destination for the elegant sky blue parting ’die before dying’ to achieve an elegant state of grace like impasse all swirling glassy orbs and head expanding psychotropic intones all of which whose magick eye casts a fond nod to that Sonic Boom dude. Recommended. Losing Today
Review of Giger Level 7":
Irish electronics duo named after a Butthole Surfers song and comprised of Mr Magnetize and
Mr The Last Sound. What the hell more could you possibly need to know? Well, OK, this seems
to be the label that follows on the heels of the defunct (and thoroughly amazing) Trensmat.
And the sounds here are slippery, not easy to get a handle on. Lots of events occur at low
volume, but the slowly surging electronics maintain an organic wholeness that gives
everything a rich, fleshy texture. Weird record. And good. And ultimately more rock than
experimental. The Wire
Reviews of Celestrian Ferroxxide:
Irish duo with another round of low-volume electronic excursions into the soundtrack for a diabetic coma. Two distinct fields of sonics, one a slowly mutating base that sounds the way a sand dune looks; the other ranging from squiggly detail work to gusts of blown and flapping speaker destruction.
The Wire
I’ll do a tape now. Yes, they still make them. Sure they’ll be trying to flog Phil Collins new album on cassette in 10 years time, when he’ll be back in Vegas in his cunty shiny suit playing to all the psychos, rapists & paedos that still like him. The cheerfully monikered Whirling Hall of Knives make some pretty damn fine noise. This is stealthy stuff though. Not just a wall of hideous sludge & evil power electronics from these kids. There’s something creepingly apocalyptic about this. A deep, foreboding pulse mongs periodically away in the background like a metronomic warning to the nation as this windy vortex of caustic despair builds slowly in urgency. Then take (what I approximate to be) the sound of elephants from an escaping zoo & frantic air-horns and hear them mingle worriedly, blended effortlessly into a steadily escalating, increasingly static-doused cyber-shitstorm. This is truly great stuff that really takes you on a proper journey, albeit one that may induce panic attacks & mania. And I'm listening to it relatively quietly too. - 4/5 Norman Records
Reviews of Electric Lava:
Electronica of a particularly greasy and grime-flecked hue, Whirling Hall Of Knives' debut release should be the perfect soundtrack to spending the night in a particularly dilapidated Bed and Breakfast room, complete with broken electrics, dim unshaded bulbs, cracks in the ceiling and muggings outside. Formed from a collaboration between Magnetize and The Last Sound at the 2006 Dublin Electronic Arts Festival, Whirling Hall Of Knives' harsh smouldering circuits and eruptions of panicky white noise almost bring to mind the early work of Cabaret Voltaire. There is a profoundly unsettling quality to much of Electric Lava, a sense of gnawing paranoia interspersed with moments of almost euphoric epiphany, as if in the grip of an unshakeable 4am psychosis a growing sense that the door will be kicked in at any second and the world outside will come pouring in. - Rock-A-Rolla
Nute is the new imprint of Irish 7" drone/psych label, Trensmat Records and the quality of music is no less involved and rewarding as its’ patriarchal homestead. My first encounter on this label begins with Whirling Hall of Knives. A soft generator hums in the near distance before the swelling tone evolves and devolves with controlled alteration. The tones shift and shimmer with electric light, feeling like captured transmissions from far off stellar colonies. The sound would fit on the Touch, or Room40 label, focussing on electronic, space and acoustics as artistic foundations. Imagine Oren Ambarchi or Biosphere’s abstract minimal work.
The second piece involves delayed high tones that clink like glass against glass. Pulsating echoes feel like Atmospheres era Eno. These sequences collapse and rebuild with micro-dynamic formations that tingle ones eardrums. Listened to via headphones, or in a large and spacious room at a loud volume, better the experience dramatically. Unlike other electronic minimalists, (think early Autechre), this is music to focus with; to listen intently without the distraction everyday noises.
There is a real Tanpura drone feel as a series of oscillations of slow fade-in/fade-outs overlap and repeat; often with subtle changes in speed, texture or pitch. This gives a respiratory feel, like robot breathing or futuristic bio-electronic engineering. Some tracks are embroiled in coarser depths, finding fuzz and high-frequency radio tunings that appear as emergency sirens. This has a dizzying effect that best not be experienced via narcotics.
The theme of spinning-plates acoustics and structure continues and drifts magically at later stages of the record. Some beautiful topography is brought to mind with the cleanliness of synthetic design. Some more far-out soundscapes are delivered with a dirtier sound that scrapes with distorted vocals and metallic percussion. Human and robot voices entwine in a barbaric tryst.
The track lengths are all relatively short allowing the individual experiments to move in and out of focus without becoming overly laboured megaliths, inducing boredom as so many drone acts do (even the great ones). Much of the sound throughout this record feels like it’s been passed through, refracted and pulverised to make variants from simple singular sine waves. The theme of traffic sound applies to a number of tracks as hooters, sliding metal drones and sirens intertwine or sound-off in the background.
Some "real instrument" sounds issue later in the shaped of guitar and stick percussion. These noises only appear as this, but their fragmented sludge blues at snail-speed is a welcome distraction after the varying tonal movements. Metal scrapings and synths ally to bounding success in a Gas-styled electronic pulse emitter, which decays towards the final breath of this rewarding effort. 7/10 - Foxy Digitalis
