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Skullflower, "Abyssic Lowland Hiss"
Ripped from February 2007 live sets in Den Haag and Antwerp, this is Skullflower in violent duo mode. Joined by Culver's Lee Stokoe, Matthew Bower continues to use this project as an instrument of assault. Anyone looking for the nearly formed structures of recent Skullflower non CD-R releases will be disappointed. This twin guitar din is a storm of falling patterns, shredded by feedback and broken temple wails. As with most of Bower's work beneath the onslaught there is a strata of high end sparkles, though attention needs to be paid to Abyssic Lowland Hiss to reveal it.
The pair's stubbornly perverse guitars plough lines of noise-born melody, undulating hammer blows of melted string giving off waves of bass damage. These extended sections of shred give off buzzing shakes, the duo's inscrutable plan seeming at first glance to be all about damage. The glorious high end of "Part Three" exposes faces in the tsunami, elements of what could even be a vocal sliding up and down the strings. Moments of almost identifiable guitar, and seeds of the magic of his pairing with Marcia Bassett as Hototogisu, strafe like wayward blasts. See-saw notes of crystal radio wreck meld with human animal wails, Skullflower creating punctured walls of lost and seethed over glories more animal than the metal teethed roar of their recent angry drone releases.
The lack of audience hollering means it impossible to tell whether the Dutch audience going ballistic or utterly wiped out by these performances. For something that initially sounds so violent, this release is surreptitiously appealing after repeated listens. It strangles the senses until the glare of the noise edges into acceptability and the subtle difference and depth reveal themselves. This isn't a drone/noise exercise, but another ladder step rip in the void between free music and Bower's search for the ecstatic. Skullflower are bolting together a skyscraper out of the sound of pandemonium.
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