♫♪  Justin Marc Lloyd - Inappropriate King Live, OK Putrid, Peer Group, etc.

I imagine Justin Marc Lloyd’s uncle or granddad or maybe an ancient blind neighbor sitting him down at age, like, 8 on the front stoop of the Lloyd home. The sun barely peeks out from above the tree line and the fireflies fly low around the yard. “I want you to listen close, Justin,” the man whispers. “No matter what anyone says, no matter what highfalutin’ jobs you watch your school friends snatch up someday like suited-up soulless little shark-humans, I want you to remember this: you will be a Noise Musician, capital N, capital M. You will live modestly, run your own DIY tape label, and create art with an incredible degree of productivity under at least a dozen monikers. This, and this alone, is the American Dream.” Young Justin squints off into the sunset. “…uh, or, maybe this is the Japanese Dream. No, yeah, yes — this, and this alone, is Merzbow’s dream.” They share a solemn nod and go inside for some milk.

Perhaps best known for his work under the Pregnant Spore nom de guerre, noise maven / visual artist / Rainbow Bridge label honcho Justin Marc Lloyd has been churning out uncompromising music alone and with a bevy of collaborators since the mid aughts. His most recent batch of Rainbow Bridge tapes, in editions ranging from 19 to 100 a pop, features not one, not two, not three, but at least five of his own projects (the count could be higher but some releases are barely credited as far as I can tell). Regardless of nomenclature, his current output assaults eardrums with a gloriously noxious stew of overdriven pedals and electronics, field recordings, garbled vocals, and cathartic cut-and-stitch noise collage. His work as Dementia and Hope Trails strays into more consonant territory, however, presenting us with what he calls “deeply reflective, wrist slitting ambience and glistening beauty.” Check out a few samples of these projects below, or head to Lloyd’s SoundCloud for a full preview of the batch.

Snag whatever Rainbow Bridge tapes are still available from the label’s webstore, or check out an enormous backlog of out-of-print and net-only releases from Lloyd and numerous other artists on the label’s Bandcamp.

• Justin Marc Lloyd: https://soundcloud.com/pregnantspore
• Rainbow Bridge: http://rainbowjmlbridge.tumblr.com

Chocolate Grinder

CHOCOLATE GRINDER is our audio/visual section, with an emphasis on the lesser heard and lesser known. We aim to dig deep, but we’ll post any song or video we find interesting, big or small.

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