Nomex & Adverse Discography

This discography of Nomex and his label Adverse Records first appeared in the Almanac for Noise & Politics 2016 which was re-released as an eBook as Almanac for Noise & Politics Volume Two in June 2024. This online version is expanded and updated compared to the print as well as the eBook version.

Nomex’s released works are few and far between. The bulk appeared on his own label ADVERSE. Some of these did come out and circulated in the sub-net of underground distribution in mid-to-late ‘90s. Others – like the ADVERSE 2.5 – Desiring EP1, or the Doom Patrol Adverse 1 remixes he reviewed in datacide two (supposedly on test pressing at the time) – I suspect to be more conceptual. Others again, like the four CD releases listed below, were manufactured (although only in small amounts), but Nomex never really put them into circulation. He always was extremely self-critical concerning both live shows and releases.

A side project was the Maschinenbau label, which was a collaboration with DJ Scud on two 7”s, Eurostar and Total Destruction, two absolute breakcore classics which were reissued on Praxis (Praxis 56) on one 12” in 2018. We also include the two major releases on other labels, the Trocante Gramofony EP on Praxis (Praxis 33) and The Bruitist Shaper on Reverse.

His posthumous Paroxism EP will be out on Praxis later this year.

Adverse Records Discography

Adverse Records was Nomex’s own label which he ran essentially from 1996-1999.

ADVERSE 1 – A Moment in Eternity / Language of Dissatisfaction 7″ (Ltd 250).

The first release on his own Adverse imprint is a recording of a needle playing the label – after hours of rotation…

‘The sound of a needle cutting into a label A SIDE – Mastered at 45 rpm, without a run-off groove – so the process is continued. ..B SIDE – Mastered at 33 rpm. the reverse side of the spindle, ending in a lock groove so the process is endless… Music or depth psychology? Record or Found-Object?
Loops variegate the suspension of a prolongated moment as the dirty timbre extends the possibilities for a concentrated listening: A rich noise is filled with such timbres that reveal themselves in a succession of microscopic changes. Is this simply the needle playing the label and not the groove as the photo on the sleeve suggests? There are faint traces of beat tones of melody within the noise… Nothing should evolve but there are shifts in perception. Are we listening to tracks composed to elicit a response or are we creating a track, composing it as we listen? I arrived at an itinerary leading to sound… through experiencing a skipping needle.’
Pierre Shatner

ADVERSE 2 – Listener as Operator
(Tape). See “promo” text by Flint Michigan Underground Services was printed in datacide one as well as the Almanac for Noise & Politics Volume Two. You can read it online HERE. It’s unclear if this tape was ever formally released.

ADVERSE 2.5 – Desiring EP1 7″ (The Sandpaper Destroyer/ Nomex).
Preceeding JD Robb, The Sandpaper Destroyer brings the concept of manipulation to its logical conclusion. The previous “music” is improved via erosion – the method can be further intensified via the piece of 20g sandpaper supplied. B side – A flexidisc is reappropriated and new grooves applied, some lock, collide and cross pollinate. The audio will change with the frequency of plays, as your needle cuts through…

ADVERSE 3- Anogogic Arm 7″
(Nomex) (Ltd 300).
Recorded live at Audiometria ’97 and on location in Lugano. Both tracks created using purpose made tone-arm, vari-speed drill-turntable (12000 rpm) and the Emencifier^TM. Fierce vinyl manipulation using Metatron’s Seduction EP as source. Limited hand packaged versions also available.
There were several types of hand packaged versions. Some using thick paper wraps, others pages from 80s porn magazines.

ADVERSE 3.5 (Maschinenbau 01) Eurostar / Piling Machine (Scud and Nomex) (Ltd 300).

‘On Eurostar the concrete sound source of a high speed train engine is cut up to provide bass sears, rumbles of re-harnessed energy and grainy Doppler-effects.
These dense timbres are set into further movement by tinny breakcore rhythms and quicksand sucks to create a vertigo of sound quality and a collage of propulsions. If this track blows out the ‘the battle of the bass sound’ at the same time that it is distantly ironic then Pilling Machine does the same for the hardcore 4/4 kick by making a construction site mobile and ever relocatable. Waves of noise, a kitsch refrain and a voice sample move in and out of the ever more insistent pacing, waging a guerrilla struggle in defiance of the irrevocable tyranny of the 4/4. Rhythms make light aural tonnage.’
Eddie Miller

Oddly this was featured with a Adverse catalogue number on the old Adverse site on c8 (some of this discography is based on this page which is now no longer online), although the record itself only features the Maschinenbau info (see below).

Adverse 9
Infiltrate Assimilate Propagate Disseminate
was a collaboration with Boris Domain, aka Saoulaterre from Cavage, good friend and an expert concerning the Paris catacombs. The record entirely consists in the sounds of Paul and Boris rummaging through bones deep under Paris.

Adverse 12
Nomex
Are You Anything More Than Just
A Product Of Your Influence?
The Supreme Record
One of the releases he was most proud of, this is a twin parallel cut with one groove playing at 16rpm and the other at 78rpm. The only record in existence with that combination.
Definitely one to have in the collection, but a hard one to play.

Adverse 14
Turntable Abuse E.P.
NOMEX remixes SUDDEN INFANT:
Denial Installs Necessity
SUDDEN INFANT remixes NOMEX:
recorded police whistles will
draw cops
A collaboration where two of the most amazing noise artists provided each other with raw material and remixed each other.

ADVERSE CDS

Four extremely obscure CD releases that never really made it into proper circulation.
One is a compilation titled Misanthropy featuring A Narrator, The Shale, Merzbow, Metatron, MNortham, Noge, Disinformation, Eric Plumrose, Sidi Aliharazam, On-Off, Controlled Weirdness, 12 Lock-out Crew, DJ Scud, Robotnics Crossing, The Harvest, and Nomex himself.

The other three are Nomex live sets in Berlin, London, and Bologna.
As far as we can see, only the compilation has a Adverse catalogue number: Adverse 5.

Maschinenbau

Outside of Adverse proper there was Maschinenbau, the collaboration with Scud from Ambush. Two 7”s of seminal breakcore-noise were released there, Eurostar/Piling Machine and the classic Total Destruction.

Maschinenbau 01 – Nomex & Scud: Eurostar/Piling Machine

The first of the two 7″s co-produced features Amiga-breakcore-noise aesthetics and psychogeographical explorations, while

Maschinenbau 02 – Scud & Nomex: Total Destruction/Total Destruction Dub

is one of the classics of the 90s breakcore-noise-crossover. In Peter Shapiro’s book Drum’n’Bass – The Rough Guide Total Destruction is referred to as

‘Scud’s best union of post-industrial scuzz, bionic steppers’ riddims and rootical reggae was his mind-boggling collaboration with Nomex, “Total Destruction” (1998) on the Maschinenbau label. With a ragga DJ gleefully singing , “Total destruction, the only solution” in the face of searing white outs of white noise and escape velocity “Amen” drum shrapnel, “Total Destruction” sounded like a Sam Peckinpah film breaking out in a Kingston dancehall.’

Nomex on Praxis

Praxis 33 – Nomex: Trocante Gramofony EP (1999)
Nomex mentioned several times that he thought of this as his best work. Ever since this period we had the idea to release more material on Praxis.
When he played a Praxis/Cagliostro party at Knochenbox in Berlin in 2010 this plan was invigorated. We’ll be very happy to release this material in the near future.

Trocante Gramofony E.P. was originally released in an edition of 500 copies on transparent white vinyl with the catalog number Praxis 33. It was a departure from Nomex’ releases on his own Adverse label and was naturally quite different from the DJ  Scud collaborations on Maschinenbau. In relation to his other solo work, Trocante Gramofony is perhaps less conceptual and more composed.

‘Fire Is The Centre’ features vocal snippets recorded at a Dead By Dawn party sometime between 1994-1996. Some of these snippets had been used on the Dead By Dawn record by Shitness & The Jackal, but here they were embedded in a surging wall of noise spread over the first side of the record, complete with crackles, shrieks and ever mounting intensity.

The second side opens with ‘Life Destroy’ an intense collage of voice, noise and music and ends with ‘No-Step 2000’.

With its in between parts, noise fragments and locked grooves vinyl shows its specific possibilities, while the digital version consists of the three main tracks.

Praxis 56 – Nomex & Scud: Maschinenbau EP (2018)

‘Maschinenbau was a label run by DJ Scud from Ambush and Nomex from Adverse which released only two 7”s in 1997/98. The first, Eurostar/Piling Machine, was limited to just 300 copies. It combined psychogeographical exploration and field recordings with Amiga-produced non-conformist breakcore and noise-abuse, while the second one, Total Destruction, became a classic of breakcore / noise crossover with several appearances on compilations such as Collision Course on PIAS (compiled by Kevin Martin, aka The Bug), but nevertheless fell into relative obscurity – like most of the great early breakcore – during the following decade.
Twenty years after the original 7”s, Praxis is proudly releasing a 12” EP with all four original tracks with the catalogue number Praxis 56.’ (Promo text 2018)

Praxis 60 – Paroxism EP (2024)

Ever since his 1999 release Trocante Gramofony EP (Praxis 33), there had been talk about doing a follow up and around 2010-2011 Nomex indeed worked on an album for Praxis, the material for which was finished, but not compiled at the time of his death in 2014.

We compiled it as close as possible to what we think his intentions would have been and as to be expected it’s a killer noise album!

The record will be pressed in a limited and numbered edition with a hand stamped label and sleeve as well as a 30x30cm cover graphic/poster inlay and postcard in an edition of 100-150 copies. Finer details of this may yet change/vary as we’re figuring out the production cost and details. The image depicts the 30x30cm print insert. Details might slightly vary. A download code for digital tracks will be included.

We’re looking at an August/early September release, more details will be posted as we move forward with this and other projects. PRE-SALE of Praxis 60 – Nomex: Paroxism EP is on now!
praxis-records.net/shop/detail/ind…/sArticle/9564/

Nomex on other labels

The last record to come out during his lifetime was The Bruitist Shaper on Reverse Records.
This was released with an extreme delay, and he wasn’t too thrilled when it finally came out. However we do think it’s a sonic and epic as anything he’s done!

Contributions to compilations (selection)

• Break/Flow 2 – The Narrator: Misanthropy (1998, with Flint Michigan)
• Cavage 05 – co I/O e.p. – track: The Sperm Creator (1999)
• Deadly Systems 007 – Praxis U.S.A. – track: Gorf Beat One (2000)
• Hijos de Puta HP0512 – Memento Mori – track: Shadow of the Ghost (2014)

Links:

• Nomex artist profile on Praxis
• Nomex discography on Discogs
• Adverse Records discography on Discogs

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