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Lustmord, "Other"
Lustmord's latest, Other finds the ever-busy sound designer, film composer, and reigning king of dark ambient turning in another assured work of drift and despair.
I was about 14 when I first put on a Lustmord cassette, cranked the Walkman up and lay still in a dark room, waiting for something to happen. As it turns out, something did happen—I fell asleep. But something else made that first Lustmord experience memorable. It wasn't falling asleep to drones and dark, cavernous tones that I remembered, it was waking up in a sweaty panic thinking that I had somehow fallen through a long, aching tunnel into hell. There was some loud, banshee squeal that snapped me awake and I immediately turned the cassette off for fear that it was doing irreparable damage to my subconscious.
Now, I sit with Lustmord's latest album, Other, and I realize that what I want out of a Lustmord record couldn't be more simple. In a sense, my relationship with one of these records is fairly one-dimensional. I don't need a lot of dynamics or tunefulness; I don't expect distinct tracks with unique sounds that I can forever pin to a particular part of the record; I don't even want to be surprised by the artist's evolution or technique. I really just want to be scared. I want these records to be the kind of thing that I can put on with the lights off and just get lost in. I don't mean that in a sentimental way, the way one might get lost in a romantic ballad or throbbing trance record. I mean that I literally want to close my eyes, turn up the volume, and forget where I am so that when I am inevitably jarred to attention by a crash or by a nightmare, I have Lustmord to thank for tweaking my brain.
And tweak he does with Other, with the expected mix of drones and tones drenched deep in reverb, far off crashes of thunder or drums (I can't be sure,) and sometimes even recognizable guitar that grinds along to create a rhythm for the madness. Whether it is Lustmord's work in the film industry that has afforded him the ability to create such pristine recordings of darkness, or whether he always had that gift and is just able to exploit it creeping people out in theaters and on video games, I don't know. I do know that Other does not disappoint. It does that one simple thing that I require of a Lustmord record, and it points out that my simple requirement is not itself a simple thing to pull off.
There exists a level of composition present in Lustmord's work that is absent from the efforts of so many of the people he has inspired. There's always a narrative with these songs, and that separates them from run of the mill drone exercises. Of course, Lustmord's impeccable ear for mixing also helps these songs rise to the top of a heap that seems to always be growing with people who are trying to out-do the master of troll-cave ambience. I just don't think it can be done. Other is another grim example of a consummate artist who is working firmly within the parameters that he has laid out for himself over the years. I wouldn't say that much of Other is groundbreaking, but then it absolutely doesn't need to be in order for it to work. It's a fantastically bleak slab of heavy sound that helps me get lost when it's playing. That's the sign of a record to keep.
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