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John Wiese, "Magical Crystal Blah Volume 3"
The first release in this series began with a live performance and is now a mutant of short interference bursts and quiet signal burps. All of the sounds on this third volume use the second volume as source material. This method of "recycling" noise has compressed Wiese's maniacal signature and made him both more listenable and frustrating.Helicopter/Kitty Play
Standing at just over 17 minutes long and composed of 37 different tracks, Magical Crystal Blah Volume 3 is a different kind of recording for John Wiese. Many of his four and five second songs are loud, free-form noise pieces that buzz by too quickly for me to take in (as in the compilation released by Troniks recently). Here, however, they are relatively dynamic wave forms that bounce, gurgle, spark, and fade just as much as they rumble and scream. That doesn't make it any easier to digest everything he tosses at me, but it does make listening a lot more intriguing.
It's surprising to hear this kind of range coming from Wiese, considering his penchant for harsh approaches. On this EP, it is easier to associate all of his sounds with something, to draw all the noise into the imagination, despite all of it flashing by in five and six second barrages. There are circular saws, trains, decomposing switchboards, microscopic flatulence, and a myriad of other events captured in Wiese's approach to the material. On many of these tracks Wiese sounds inviting and I'd like to think he'd sound that way even to those who've never heard a shred of noise in their life.
Be that as it may, that doesn't change the fact that there isn't much to commit to memory on this record. All the sounds are fun and enjoyable, but because the album is so haphazardly constructed, it is difficult to catch and keep anything in memory long enough to enjoy all its quirks. In some ways the album's fantastic rate of travel makes it simultaneously intriguing and disposable. Once the album is over, replay is almost necessary because much of what just happened will have seemed like a flash of light too sonically ambivalent to pin down. What Wiese has to his advantage is that many of the sounds seem to repeat themselves, although in slightly altered forms, throughout the EP. The rumbling of subway cars is in the beginning, middle, and end of the recording and many of the tiny, almost quiet blips that pop up all over the record provide some form of continuity.
Still, it's hard for me to imagine when I'll want to put this on again. Once I have it in my player, it's an enjoyable and rapid listen filled with all sorts of industrial crunching and playfulness. Once it is out of my player, I find myself forgetting about it. Not because the noise is bad, but because it seems like Wiese has intentionally made this stuff hard to grasp. How in the world am I supposed to keep any of these tracks fresh in my mind? There are a couple of one and two minute pieces that I can readily identify as soon as they begin (they tend to be the most abrasive), but everything else is a haze. Maybe Wiese intended it that way and this stuff is supposed to fade from memory over time. That's a shame, though, because I think any longer material from him in this form would be spectacular. His brevity and refusal to give the listener even the slightest grip makes this release more difficult and more of a chore to enjoy.
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