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Daniel Menche, "Wolf's Milk"
It's important to note Menche is an experimenter of sound, not an academic. Here, he takes this opportunity to deconstruct the sounds made by conventional instruments and use them to create something far removed from the original source.
Rather than focus on theories of audio construction and such frivolities, Menche would rather just take a sound source, play with it, and see what he can make it do. While this could be tedious and pointless for the average person to produce, Menche displays a natural talent for this work, and though he never makes specific reference to one, his works consistently show an ear for structure and composition that ensure a coherent piece rather than just a collection of random sounds that go nowhere.
On the three untitled tracks that make up Wolf's Milk, he chooses to use a specific instrument on each: organ, gong, and trumpet. The first track of organ recordings opens with a distant, but notable bass pulse that slowly increases in strength, like a car blasting bass heavy hip-hop in the distance. This pulse merges with other low tones into a solid, but quiet roar. It sounds like a contradiction, but there is a dense, prominent wall of sound that isn't very loud, but notable. Slowly, more traditional organ tones enter the mix: long sustained passages that are reminiscent of some of Hermann Nitsch's symphonic work. About midway though the track's duration, the sound begins to show some grime and dirt, the processing gets more intense, until building to a crescendo of stuttering, buzzsaw distorted passages that would definitely qualify as "harsh," before ending in a stream of subtle alien textures.
Using a gong, Menche can be expected to create a track with a more rhythmic backing, and the percussive tones that open the second track reflect this, though they sound more like a heavily processed synth sequence rather than a percussion instrument. Again, the actual gong tones become more notable as the track progresses. The final track of trumpet treatments focuses initially on the high register notes of the instrument, bouncing from channel to channel like an overly amplified housefly. The track eventually develops into an extremely thick mix, full of rich low and rumbles to counteract the ear shredding high pitched ones.
Wolf's Milk makes for a captivating listen, but the three tracks all seem to follow the same structural formula: heavily processed subtle openings, then some obvious untreated instrument sounds, then processed into harsh noise, then ending on ambience. As a whole it doesn't detract from the experience, but hearing Menche try some different frameworks for his tracks would definitely be a plus. It's a great disc but mixing things up structurally next time would be even better.
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