Phil Blankenship’s harsh noise project remains one of the most intense I’ve had the (dis?)pleasure of hearing. 2004 saw the release of three 3" compact discs from The Cherry Point, each on a different label. Blankenship has been kind enough to round all three up into one package and it’s a good thing he did, too. The Cherry Point sound more intimidating than intense on this collection, the use of open space serves the project well.
From a seed of a gentle warm up drone this single untitled track becomes a wrenching guttural live thing that just won’t settle. With all this spiky movement the track doesn’t have an overall feel to it; it’s more like a smeared splurge of sound across the disc. It works but it’s not giving anything away.
A record built from distorted, screaming renditions of Christian and Catholic prayers could’ve easily ended up buggering an already stiffened concept. Having already been thoroughly pillaged by bearded Norwegian sociopaths through the late eighties, this turns the concept into something beyond ineffectual ranting at the already converted. This re-released and reformatted six track disc sees Dominick Fernow spewing venom and generating tension.
The fourth Henri Pousseur CD in Sub Rosa’s Early Electronics series features two long works. Although his condensation of his own interpretation of the Faust legend has been heard infrequently, this is the premiere of "Crosses of Crossed Colors" and to me is the more intriguing and powerful of the two.