MR001 = PARADISE CAMP 23 - Bar-BQ Dungeon
MR002 = CRACKHOUSE - I
MR003 = CRACKHOUSE - The Acid King
MR004 = VOODOO MECHANICS - Chaotika
MR005 = REZANATE - Missed America
MR006 = BULL ANUS - Enter the Anus
MR008 = CRACKHOUSE - Rocks
MR009 = CRACKHOUSE - HArdCORE

Listen to the full CD in MP3

Vital Weekly number 378, week 27
http://www.staalplaat.com/vital/
"PARADISE CAMP 23 - BAR-BQ DUNGEON (CDR by Mandragora Records)
PARADISE CAMP 23 - MANDRAGORA (CDR by Mandragora Records)
Two new releases on Mandragora Records, who seems to be specializing in music that is a crossover between psychedelica and industrial music. Paradise Camp 23 clearly takes their inspiration from good ol' Throbbing Gristle. Distorted guitar, treated field recordings, snippets of field recordings. Their CDR could have easily been part of the twenty four CD by Throbbing Gristle. Quite a rough recording, maybe down the garage of one of the members (are there members, or maybe just one?). Actually I thought this was quite nice, since I always a big Throbbing Gristle fan, and I think their sound was never really copied to such an extent.
The other release is a mix work, in which Paradise Camp 23 samples the entire Mandragora catalogue in one long mix (split in five tracks). You'll have to forgive me, but I am not altogether familiar with the Mandragora catalogue, so I don't recognize anything here. Musicwise it's more open then the "Bar-BQ Dungeon" release, even when both "psychedelic" and "industrial" are stamped all over it. Maybe this one is more psychedelic and the other release more industrial? The "Mandragora" release features more guitar samples and comes closer to some form of lo-fi rock music. Both releases are quite nice, and very much rooted in musical underground." - (FdW)

Dead Angel #52 (07/02)
http://www.monotremata.com/dead/issues/da52.html
"I'm not completely sure what's up here -- the "liner notes" are kinda cryptic -- but i gather it's Paradise 23 taking bits 'n pieces of material from the Mandragora catalog (including chunks by the likes of Paradise 23, Bull Anus, Rezenate, and Crackhouse) and retooling them into something new. That "something new" is noisy, whacked-out, repetitive, and full of forbidding death rumble. The end product sounds like the work of people on serious fucking drugs. Kids, don't try this at home! Sniffing airplane glue will not be powerful enough to achieve these effects! There are five tracks here, none of them have titles (or if they do, they are cleverly hidden), and they are all variously noisy/devolved/full o' satanic-sounding grunts and machine noises and psychedelic death spoo. This is some seriously grotesque-sounding shit. Walls of eerie-sounding noise and scary bleating make for an experience you won't forget if you're tripping too hard. DEAD ANGEL says investigate."

Aural Innovations #19 (April 2002)
http://www.aural-innovations.com
"The Mandragora Sampler is not what you'd expect. Rather than being a simple compilation of artists from the label, Amlee sampled a selection of tracks from the Mandragora roster into a freaky mix of his own. This actually has some of the calmest music on any of these discs, though no less strange. Dark astral space drones, tones, clatter, noise, and voices create a steadily evolving drama that's loaded with fun freaky sounds and often has a thematic feel. I hear industrial, space ambient, out of control acid freakouts, oddball Residents styled voices, and big gloms of all these things. There's some seriously spaced out music on here and one of the best parts is near the end when we hear what sounds like an army of flying saucers racing against multiple layers of ambient waves and drones. Lots of interesting stuff here and Amlee does a good job of holding my attention throughout. The action is continually shifting but Amlee makes the transitions seamless. There are 5 tracks but checking the Mandragora web site it looks like each includes several bits of tracks from various artists from the label. Indeed there's no breaking point even between tracks so I enjoyed this disc as a continual work rather than giving me direction toward any individual artist on the label. I think the message is to just go for it and start exploring some of the tasty oddities Mandragora has to offer." - Jerry Kranitz

Indieville.com - 4/20/02
http://www.indieville.com/reviews/mandragora.htm
"And you thought "continuous mix" CDs were only for those trendy trance and house labels. Well, not anymore; here, Paradise Camp 23 has crafted a nice little a mix album of the various artists on the Mandragora roster. And Mandragora certainly isn't a "trance" label - although the music may sometimes put you into a trance. In fact, Mandragora is a noise label - a "pure psychedelic noise" label to be exact.
Each of the five tracks on this album are excellent - if you listen carefully, you can hear bits of noise from the likes of Crackhouse, Rezanate, and even the fantastically named Bull Anus. But chances are, all you'll notice is noise. Pure, blissfull noise. However, this is less harsh than most noise out there. Instead of the traditional Merzbow-esque abrasive stuff, this album comforts your ears with ambience, soundscapes, and even some warm guitar playing.
This is music for the less harsh-oriented noise fan. If you want your ears to bleed, look elsewhere. If you're up for something calmer, go out and snatch this album up." - Matt Shimmer

Industrial.org - 4/02/02
http://www.industrial.org
"Label samplers usually fall into one of two camps, unreleased outtakes and rarities or selected tracks culled from existing releases as a promo tool. Here, the crazy folks of Mandragora have followed the latter approach but with the extra kick of setting Paradise Camp 23 loose on the recordings before commiting them to a fresh CDR. I normally associate "mixes" with shitty techno samplers and the resulting destruction of often otherwise listenable songs. In this particular instance though, it works mighty fine, the textural variety pushing this well over into good acid trip territory with no bummers or rip offs in sight.
While not specifically named in the liner notes, this release apparently features sounds from the likes of Paradise Camp 23, Bull Anus, Rezenate, CrackHouse and Voodoo Mechanics. Aesthetically it pretty much covers every stage of intoxication you would go through if you stumbled across the key for your police drug impound when suitably bored to let curiousity override better judgement. I hear everything from Noggin string based cacaphony to Caroliner weirdness to British acid damage (Splintered, Ramleh) to much of the back catalog of Atavistic. The noises on board reach around much of the freaky gamut, "outsider" symphonies slithering their way under the feet of more deliberate constructions but overall the sense is of basement drug lab with all the tense nail biting and paranoia that comes along with such illegality.
Not knowing which tracks belong to whom makes it hard to give proper credit but of the three Mandragora releases sent my way recently, this is by far my favourite. Like expecting a pro-drug pamplet and instead getting a full colour encyclopedia including a free sample of ketamin mixed with a super high dose of niacin to make sure that your trip is suitably uncomfortable. This disc is at times humongous, like the fridge monster from "Requim For a Dream". Undulating metallic reverb that makes me the think of the cover of Stepenwolfe's "Monster" amplified a thousand fold, an army of shirtless and shoeless undesirables screwed in the head from two weeks of steady crank use with some nasty drug logic involving a knife, a guitar and battery acid spewing forth in broken syllables from their red dripping mouths. At other times this release is inward pointing street crazy, an externally random but to the nutbar, perfectly consistent of course, acoustic ode to who knows what. Some pure american shit noise creeps in too but in this context it comes off more like a momentary flatline before the CPR equipment sends several thousand volts through you to get your heart started after ODing on mystery pills.
I rather like this 40 minute or so head scratcher. Lotsa movement through plenty of head spaces you don't tend to (or perhaps want to) reach every day. Trippy without smelling like patchouli and crazy without asking for spare change. A good introduction into the world of these Northamption, MA based weirdos." - moron