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Tactile, "Bipolar Explorer"
Just when I'd almost completely forgotten about Tactile, John Everallchimes in with another well-timed collection of abstract electronicevocations of interior emotional landscapes. Elseproduct
This new release comesalong during a small flurry of renewed interest the so-called"Isolationist" sound of 80s/90s dark ambient electronics, of whichTactile was reportedly a key constituent. Although I must say here thatI've never quite had a grasp on what exactly was meant by the critics'coinage of Isolationism, or what exactly it was supposed to entail. Andit further seems oddly antithetical to group together works that aresuggestive of isolation and alienation.
The album's release also comes quite close to the one-year anniversaryof the death of Coil's Jhonn Balance, to whom this album is dedicated. Bipolar Explorer wasoriginally slated for release on Coil's Eskaton imprint, but due towhat is explained as the artist's "chaotic mental state," it wasdelayed several years and now appears on Elseproduct. As the album'stitle suggests, this work is nourished by a state of innerpsychological sickness, a frigid inner landscape illuminated by harshindustrial tubes of humming fluorescence, populated by the buzzing,scraping circuitry of dread. As one might expect from the artist whocreated such bleak, color-desaturated audio realms as those of Inscape and Borderlands, the sounds on Bipolar Explorer lean heavily on the depressive, and not so much on the manic side of things.
Throughout the album, the listener is confronted with shrill andagitating electronic pulses that often seem utterly detached from anysort of recognizable humanity, coldly passing with seeming randomnessthrough a series of indifferent relays that trip, buzz and spark withan energy that could only metaphorically be referred to as "life."Rhythms do appear, some beyond the accidental rhythms of alternatingcurrent, but they are alien repetitions defined by the kind ofdepersonalized routines of the assembly line, and certainly nothingthat could be called a beat. There are textures and atmospheressuggestive of specific physical spaces on tracks like "PeriodicUnstable" and "Watching the Spiders," perhaps the abandoned undergroundtunnels or warehouses of Everall's native Manchester, but more likelyan idiosyncratic inner-astral-space of oxidized, blasted-out furnacesand smog-stained, damp metal corridors. If Bipolar Explorercontributes anything to my understanding of these emotional imbalances,it is just how all-encompassing and corrosive they can be to one'ssanity.
Ultimately, I had a hard time listening to Bipolar Explorer allthe way through, as it put me in a very dark and claustrophobic place.Though I've never experienced bipolar disorder, I have suffered fromintermittent cluster headaches and migraines for most of my life, andthere were several moments (especially on the album's title track) thatfelt like tangible sonic evocations of that blindingly familiar pain,with waves of acrid smells of battery acid, burnt hair and thesickly-sweet chemical smell of a fresh batch of crystal meth, alongwith that sense of frenzied elation and creeping paranoia that directlyfollows its injection. Assuming that this discomfort and agitation weredeliberate on the part of the artist, this album is chillinglyeffective.
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