1. Tooth Orb
2. Are Militant Atheists Using Chemtrails To Poison The Angels Of Heaven
3. Armpit Beer
4. Shaking A Wren
Side B
5. Upholstered Chair Guevara
6. Necknominator
7. Spooky Electrics Blog
8. Raw Plastics
9. Feeding The Hand That Feed You Hands Hands
Originally released on cassette by Opal Tapes
Theo Gowans work as Territorial Gobbing is a vital presence in the new vanguard of tongue-tied wonk. A visceral noise poetry and electro-acoustic scene which has been present in the UK underground for decades. From Phil Minton's vomitous grunts and burps to Dylan Nyoukis' skat-gob postulations via Chocolate Monk.
The Territorial Gobbist in question couples these larynx bending styles with quick-draw dictaphone blasts and a John Wiese esque scattershot surgery of complex acoustic audio thrown all over the listening field. 'Capitalist Art Is Cartoons Fucking' is a no-nonsense, all-nonsense finger pushed into the eyes and ears. Like a demonic Donald Duck, Theo modulates his voice against varying scenarios of improvised rock UND roll, trash jazz calculations and caricature comic-strip-searches into the world of GOB.
No need to break tracks down here. Just allow yourself a moment and apply salt and lemon.
released September 27, 2019
OPAL161
"Theo Gowans’s Territorial Gobbing project trades in “STUPID music” and “wiggly pleasure air,” or so says the Bandcamp page. I’m not sure I can do much better than that, given how his latest tape, Capitalist Art Is Cartoons Fucking, is, indeed, wonderfully stupid and surreally ecstatic. In this case, stupid really means giddy, goofy, and happy about accidents, willing to fall down the stairs if there’s something shiny at the bottom; most of the nine tracks here teem with rattles and shakes and banana-peel slips, and yet Gowans is in complete control of all his bumps and bruises. That Gowans never takes himself too seriously (his idea of a good pun is “Upholstered Chair Guevara”) helps make Capitalist Art work on multiple levels, and reward multiple listens. In other words, his sonic nonsense isn’t just enjoyable: it’s enduring. " - Bandcamp Daily, Best Experimental Music on Bandcamp October 2019
"You have to start with the name. The title of U.K. noise musician Theo Gowans’ excellent new album as Territorial Gobbing is less a provocation than a post-ironic commandment—a call to nonsense, and to regurgitation. The question of whether capitalist art (whatever that category involves) is, in fact, cartoons fucking, is almost beside the point. As is, it’s the chewed-up remnants of a more coherent observation, originating somewhere further up the digestive tract. Track titles like “Spooky Electrics Blog” and “Feeding the Hand That Feed You Hands Hands” trace a similar logic, without overdoing it.
Capitalist Art Is Cartoons Fucking sounds like it slithered out of a Cronenberg film. “Upholstered Chair Guevara” invokes a harsh, mechanical energy, while “Shaking a Wren” amounts to a disturbing clump of metal, feedback, and sucking sounds. The low-register esophageal scrapes of “Armpit Beer” feel like a dying wheeze, or indigestion. In all its disgusting, somatic splendor, Capitalist Art Is Cartoons Fucking is neatly attuned to our age of unknowing. Pulling back the flimsy veil of meaning, it suggests that all our pretensions to criticism and philosophy can be countered with a fart joke. — WILL GOTTSEGEN" - Spin
"Earlier this year, Leeds-based tape skronk project Territorial Gobbing (also known as Theo Gowans) entered my ears with Stud Mechanism, a brief but formidable odyssey into junk coagulations, mucous-caked a cappella scrabbles, and other aspects of Gowans’ “no expense spent cheap stupid music with tapes, clutter and spit.” Despite this irreverent, no holds barred, almost anti-music approach, there’s always a great deal of masterful technique at work on a Territorial Gobbing tape, especially on Capitalist Art Is Cartoons Fucking, the project’s most recent release. This time, Gowans’ toolkit is largely the same—dizzying, violent tape manipulation; chopped-up radio grabs; gargling, moisture-filled mouth sounds; and clattering object hodgepodges—but the space occupied by the music is much more expansive and ambitious. Introductory remarks of indecipherable deadpan muttering and contact mic clutter are claustrophobic yet atmospheric, and “Tooth Orb” specifically evokes something not dissimilar to the dark, musty basement milieu of Mars beneath its noisy bustle. Things spread out a bit more on “Are Militant Atheists Using Chemtrails to Poison the Angels of Heaven,” with terrifying throat warbles ricocheting off raucous clanking metal and what sounds like a field recording of a public environment. This track is the longest on the tape and therefore has the most time to bring its hulking junkyard monstrosity to fruition, but the shorter pieces accomplish amazing feats with their more limited durations; “Armpit Beer” discombobulates with sudden blasts of fast-forwarded tape, “Spooky Electrics Blog” stitches together a haphazard form from disparate voice samples, and there’s a moment amidst the heavyweight kinetics of “Raw Plastics” that seems to depict a small mouse being brutally murdered. Stuffed full of rust, slime, and trash, Capitalist Art Is Cartoons Fucking is Territorial Gobbing at the top of his game." - Noise Not Music
Leeds based experimental music venture from one brain under one roof (other brains will be specified). Harsh cutup, tape collage, drone, pop songs, minimalist piano workouts. Free Music
supported by 10 fans who also own “Capitalist Art Is Cartoons Fucking”
Listening to this album, I kept trying to visualize what other objects & materials were used.
All the while really enjoying the resulting sounds & noises.
PadraigC
A collection of tracks from the singer and multi-disciplinary artist's 111 collaboration series, featuring KMRU, Laraaji, and others. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 25, 2024
