These are the final two cassettes in the recent spate of releases from the Icelandic noise label Hundrað Prósent Plastík and in a way I’m glad I saved them for last, because Wüünderbar Holokaust’s This Machine Fucks feels like the synthesis of the three other aritsts who were part of this series, Mávar, Ófreskja, and Feral Menace. That’s not to imply that it is somehow better or superior. Instead I almost think of it like the periodic table, with those three artists each independent elements, singular and well-defined, while This Machine Fucks is a chemical compound comprised by bonding those three elements together to create something new, something with it’s own characteristics.
This Machine Fucks consists of rehearsal recordings made ahead of RVK Noise Fest ’26. Distorted, metallic, industrial, there is a greater sense of organization here, not beats you can dance to but instead a pulsing rhythm, the sounds of heavy industry. Approaching the halfway point of side A there’s also an interesting pivot, some bleeps and bloops overlaid with a vocal sample which eventually devolves and deconstructs itself into a roiling cauldron of static and guttural wails. This Machine Fucks is probably my favorite of these recent cassette releases.
Wüünderbar Spilar Wunderlich is something completely different. It’s comprised of samples that feel tape-looped, less noise and more avant-garde. I’ve always enjoyed looping and samples, the glitchiness of them, the seemingly familiar re-constituted in an unfamiliar way. On the B side there are a few recognizable song samples, most enjoyably the distorted, languidly slowed parts of The 5th Dimension’s “Let the Sunshine In” (best known for it’s chorus of this is the dawning of the age of Aquarius… age of Aquarius...).
Neither album is available for streaming or purchase on the Hundrað Prósent Plastík Bandcamp page (HERE), but if you DM them (I did via Instagram) you can probably make arrangements to get copies. While looking for places to purchase I also discovered a distro in Montreal that still has copies of the previous CD series from Hundrað Prósent Plastík which I highly recommend not only for the music but also for the packaging – check out Scream & Writhe HERE. You can also find some of their releases at Reykjavik’s Lucky Records HERE.