inaugural post and favorites of 2025
hi. this is rj myato. i have decided to collect my thoughts on recent listening excursions here. i listen to a lot of music/noise/sound and used to write "now playing" type posts fairly regularly on facebook or instagram, alongside the usual promotion of my own or friends' work, etc. i've left all social media for now (for the most part - especially anything where i'm de-anonymized) but i enjoyed the public audio journaling, so i'll jot down notes on whatever i'm listening to in this space going forward whenever the mood strikes me.
for my first post, here's a big dump of everything i can think of or remembered to write down that i enjoyed listening to in 2025, starting with new releases and ending with stuff that was only new to me. this was a great year for music honestly. so much teeth-grinding noise and just weird shit.
the great work released by the label helicopter (run by john wiese of sissy spacek) was a particular highlight, as was the work of saxophonist martin escalante. the otomo yoshihide release with two turntablists and a drummer blew my god damn mind.
two of my favorite pittsburgh bands - watererer (led by my friend david bernabo) and skeletonized (the members of which i've played a great deal of music with over the years) - continued their wonderful trajectories.
RJ MYATO'S FAVES OF 2025
NEW RELEASES
Harsh Noise & Noisecore
Slacking / Black Corolla - Lonely God
Ieskadulla - Apuvälinekeskus
Death Kneel - Absolute Earthbound Spirits
Maranata - Ugly Euphoria
Hanzo Hasashi & Developer - One
Heat Signature - Trench Trapped
Clang Quartet / Crank Sturgeon - Split
Developer & Flesh Shuddering - Fleshdeveloper
Total Sweetheart/ Boar - Total Sweetheart Loves Boar, Boar Loves Total Sweetheart
Daniel Ryan - How About Love?
4 Foot Owl - Burnt Offerings
Wolf Eyes & Anthony Braxton - Live at Pioneer Works
Penis Geyser - s/t (Gracious Host, 2025)
Penis Geyser - s/t (Reanimated Miscarriage, 2025)
Lefthandeddecision - 1997-2002
The Cherry Point - Live Hell 2
Sissy Spacek & Vortex Campaign - The Man and the Old Sea
Strain of Laws - Day of Lightning
Dietrichs - No Bahdu
Martin Escalante - Playing Harsh Noise on the Saxophone Since 2012
Malicious Xeno Consciousness - File #2
Perfected Grave Vault - Wilderness and Industry
Merzbow & John Wiese - Akashaplexia
No Hope Orchestra - Porch Music
Mitchell Brown/Paul McCarthy/Joe Potts/Alex Stevens/John Wiese – Porch Music
Sissy Spacek - Raiser
Gemengung - Superlative Rumination
Confounder - Country Fucker
Living Room - Toxic Waste and the Mutations It Creates
Stalking - Feedback Destroyer
2M2 - Mercury Hill
Disconnected Underground - s/t
Rhizome Weaver - You Are Not Sorry Enough
Jazz, Free, Improv, Etc
K. Curtis Lyle & Alex Cunningham - Quantum Nursery Rhymes of the Divine Horsemen
That Like This - This Is the Grip
Patrick Shiroishi - Forgetting Is Violent
Peter Brotzmann - The Quartet
Sakata & Damianidis - Adyton
Actual/Actual - Dimensionality
Tatsuya Yoshida & Martin Escalante - The Sound of Raspberry
Otomo Yoshihide, Emilie Škrijelj & Tom Malmendier - Weird Morning Meeting
Will Mason Quartet - Hemlocks, Peacocks
Unruh/Davis/Cheli - Lowland
Charmaine Lee - Tulpa
Anthony Braxton - Quartet (England) 1985
Heule / Leguía / Rivero / Escalante - An Inscrutable Bodily Discomforting Thing
Patrick Shiroishi & Dylan Fujioka - Left Up on the Tree
Patrick Shiroishi and Noel Meek - Break Your Eyes
Evan Parker & Bill Nace - Branches
7D - the belonging alongside
Rock n Roll & Metal
Watererer - Flower to the Mind
Brown Angel - Promisemaker
Sumac & Moor Mother - The Film
Grybus - Still Sloppy
Skeletonized - Nightmare Weekend
Stephen O'Malley - But Remember What You Have Had
Shitload & Rosemary Malign - Shitload w/ Rosemary Malign
Friend or Foam - Almost Always Foam
Kayo Dot - Every Rock, Every Half-Truth Under Reason
Tharmazegethuzan - Beasts of Black Smoke
Yellow Eyes - Confusion Gate
Yowie - Taking Umbrage
Demon Sluice - Dancers Beneath Shores of Fire
Kakothanasy - Metagonism
Urthshroud - Silence Pressure
Cancer Void - First Metastasis
Other
The Mountain Goats - Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan
Ches Smith - Clone Row
Nate Wooley - Henry House
Mat Ball - Four Amplifiers
Hermann Kopp - Compositions for Indian Pump Organ and Electric Violin
NEW DISCOVERIES OF OLD RECORDINGS
Harsh Noise & Noisecore
Kazumoto Endo & Kazuma Kubota - Switches & Knobs
The Rita - Reptilian Corpse & Dirt
Alzehgailzeguh - Music for Handi-Capped Ears
Viodre - Interpol Alchemi
Burning Star Core - Operator Dead, Post Abandoned
Wood & Metal - Total Control
Merzbow - Akasha Gulva
Killer Bug - Beyond the Valley of the Tapes
Hijokaidan & Otomo Yoshihide - Noise Join Inn
Jazz, Free, Improv, Etc
Tyshawn Sorey - Pillars
Isaiah Collier and Michael Shekwoaga Ode - BEYOND
Joe Harriott Quartet - Free Form
Miles Davis - On the Corner
John Coltrane - Live In Japan
Spintria - Bacchanalia
Electric Masada - At the Mountains of Madness
Borbetomagus - Borbeto Jam
D!O!D!O!D! - Ghost Temple
St Francis Duo - Peacemaker Assembly
Pharaoh Sanders - Izipho Zam
Mat Ball - Amplified Guitar II
Rock n Roll & Metal
Owlcrusher - s/t
Pisse - Kohlrubenwinter
Timeghoul - Discography
Coprobaptized Cunthunter - Failure Prosthesis
Enmity - Illuminations of Vile Engorgement
Jazkamer - Metal Music Machine
Strix Askesis - s/t
Guided By Voices - Scalping the Guru
Genevieve - Akratic Parasitism
Bedworm - Lagoon
Other
Terry Riley - the Harp of New Albion
SELF-PROMOTION SECTION
burial recordings released a cd-r of my noise featuring artwork by the very talented sam evergreen
bizarro warrior put out a tape of main man matthew reis's noisecore project living room splitting with my own ouroborean piss - i'm proud of the insanity on display here
over the course of the year i released a few things on my new label, aleatoric editions, including work by me, groups i'm part of (ripped off face, weeping banister), as well as great contributions by luke ferdinand, gregory elizabeth, hansrex, and septic prosthetic.
my free improv group elsinore recorded a cd but it's not online yet. it's sick though. i'll let ya know.
updated discography of stuff i've recorded and/or released is always at the enforced existence website
im playing a show at the government center on jan 15 with some friends (a new ad hoc group) as part of the always worthwhile tough pill concert series. my birthday is next saturday and i'll be at the green beacon for a gig that night most likely, then kayo dot at the government center that sunday. hope to see some friends!
thanks folks!!!!