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James Plotkin, "Indirmek"
New Jersey's renaissance man of all things heavy has released his second solo album in as many years that explicitly shows his diverse array of skills at their finest, both in the shaping of complete chaos and the obsessive study of minutiae.
The two sprawling tracks that comprise Indirmek> are named after drugs that accurately reflect the sound created. "Afyon," or "opium" is pure subbass drift. A rumbling, rhythmic undercurrent of processed guitar propels the piece through gravity-less space. Sometimes sounding like a digital didgeridoo, Plotkin's guitar becomes the sound of time and space stretched to pure infinity. The shaking from the low end of the mix is a definite attention-getter, but the subtle, nuanced shifts in tonality and structure keep the attention, almost forcing the listener to listen carefully just to hear what will happen next. At times the guitar work drifts into the higher registers, yet the crystalline shards of guitar are always coupled with the low end rumble that is characteristic of the track. Much like the titular drug, it is slow, disorienting, and forces one to focus on every little bit that happens.
"Amfetamin" is in stark contrast: stuttering feedback loops, phased tones, and hyperspeed edits are the polar opposite of the previous track. The spastic vomited sounds stay locked in a rhythmic groove that may not be danceable, but do indicate some underlying sense of structure or method to the madness. Percussive sounds enter the mix like the death rattles of a legion of plague victims over digitized bass elements, and loops like locust swarms fade in and out of the mix. There is an extremely unworldly element to the track, with processed tones sounding like SOS beacons from somewhere out in the infinite darkness.
While some may know his work best from his more metal projects like Khanate and O.L.D., Indirmek shows that more experimental side of James Plotkin's work that is no less compelling than his more heavy handed musical endeavors, and this makes for one of the best "experimental" works this writer has heard all year.
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