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Much like labelmate Minotaur Shock, Belgium's Dim Dim takes a contrarian and perverse approach to contemporary electronic dance music. Whip is a loopy, absurdist dance party of an album, largely due to Jerry Dimmer's skillful and deranged incorporation of exotica, turntablism, and Negativland-style plunderphonics.
Jerry Dimmer is a former cartoonist, dance music producer, painter, illustrator, and all-around eccentric iconoclast who has been releasing albums since the early nineties. His music is pretty damn unique, although Tipsy seems to be a similarly weird and decadent kindred spirit. However, Dimmer largely eschews lounge-y kitsch and conventional musicality for more demented, ADD-addled deconstructionism.
"Sheena," the first actual song on the album, immediately makes it clear that we're in for a curious and capricious experience. The song has a looping, cartoonish rhythm and is bursting with cut-up gurgles, opera snippets, spacey synths, and other disparate stolen sounds. As with all songs on the album, there is no real melodic repetition or attempt at a conventional “song,” but it is irrelevant because the music is so propulsively bouyant and surreal. The only notable exception is the album's closer “Stippy,” which almost ends with a surprisingly melodic chorus of children’s voices and conventional guitar, but ultimately degenerates into kooky wordless warbling.
The title track has a wonderfully off-kilter pseudo-breakbeat rhythm and incorporates a staggeringly varied arsenal of burgled audio: Oval-esque glitches, random vocal exclamations, cartoon noises, some sitar, laughing children, mangled foreign speech, record-scratching, and possibly a steel band. I am fascinated by the brevity of most of the samples; rather than milk a handful of lengthy snippets, Dimmer opts instead to unleash a torrent of unrelated, unrecognizably splintered, and extremely brief sounds. It must have taken an inordinate amount of time to make this album: this track alone must have at least 18 different sound sources involved and they are all expertly sync-ed with the underlying music.
Aside from his adventurousness and ambition with assembling material, Dimmer conveys an astonishing degree of exactitude and self-awareness. There are very few bad tracks on this album and nearly every song is extremely tight and funky. Obviously, music of this sort has the capacity to be hugely annoying, but Dimmer wisely keeps all the tracks short enough that they don’t over-extend their welcome. This is an inspired and batshit crazy album.
Samples:
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Adhering to the edicts of minimalist techno, the music produced by Jon Gaiser is only minimally enjoyable. Focused listening provides few rewards, but is unobtrusive as the soundtrack to a night spent in back room of a club. At its least it gave me a rhythm to tap along with on my feet.
The best aspects of Blank Fade were the noises and arrangements that formed the backdrop for a plodding, clip-clop beat. It is unfortunate these are relegated to the background; it gives the music what little character is has, and it would be nice to hear them as the focal points of the compositions. Instead all things possibly inventive are held in check by the unyielding drum machines. The sounds are kept orderly, down-tempo, synced together in a totalitarian stranglehold.
As the disc progressed, the clicks, hums, and buzzes that made it tolerable faded, only to be replaced by a cheesy Casio filtered through a bit of reverb and delay. The obligatory distorted vocal samples (that appear to be a necessity in all music of this ilk) were added, as if these gave it more depth or meaning. Occasionally melodies appeared. I felt hopeful about them: if pursued they might capture and extend moment of bliss, but are dissolved before having a chance to be elaborated on or lengthened.
The effects added to the beats almost made them interesting, but they never rose above the style dictated by this musical fashion. What remained at the end was merely a technocratic uniform with a few decorations.
samples:
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This German duo is a rave late and a Deutschmark short. However, those stuck on an interminable techno beat will rejoice; this music from electronica’s sordid past has been faithfully recreated for them yet again.
The electric textures opening the album are filled with a promise that as a whole it does not live up to. The panning swells, synth riffs, and cybernetic effects were the only elements that kept it listenable. Good music has the ability to get me caught up in its immediacy and emotion, but making it to the end of this one was quite a chore.
By the fourth song I’m convinced the sequencers have become stuck in the same patch. The knobs and buttons do not budge. A constant bass ridden throb provides enough rhythm to keep my feet moving on a dance room floor. Without variation, and concocted according to the precepts of a predictable formula, I might quickly choke if I had a pacifier clenched between my teeth. In the meantime I started to wave my glow stick, to watch the tracers for a bit of excitement; they faded, along with any hopes that the music would improve.
There were moments, starting early in the record, when the monotonous beats did relent for brief tone sustained seconds. My attention was caught, briefly. When repeated at what seemed like random intervals on almost every song, this tactic came across as a cheap gimmick. To what end I do not know.
There are only so many occasions when I can listen to a hi-hat tap out the same 4/4 pattern heard on countless other techno albums. Its use here makes this one indistinguishable from the rest. If that was the goal of Extrawelt, I can say with certainty that it has been achieved it. As for me, this is yet another piece of plastic destined for the musical scrap heap.
samples:
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March 31, 2009
US CD Killer Pimp PIMPK007
- The 11th Hour - [MP3]
- Heptadecagon
- Final Frontier
- Gyres
- Bestowal
Music by David Reed
Artwork by Robert Trautman
CD has enhanced content with artwork by David Reed and MP3s of:
- Apparition
- Glacial Drift
One of the most interesting realities of US dark ambient/death industrial scene, combining low-rumbling drones with extemporaneous noise bursts to create a pretty personal and recognizable sound.
Columbus, Ohio-based David Reed has been recording music under various monikers since the year 2000. He currently records under his own name and has two other active solo projects, Luasa Raelon and Envenomist. Envenomist is sourced solely using synthesiers to produce dark ambience heavily influenced by Maurizio Bianchi while bringing a lot of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze into the mix. He is also a member of Starlight Fleecing with Larry Marotta and Ryan Jewell. Other activities include playing in the Larry Marotta Group, the Avant Collective, and as part of the Rocco DiPietro Ensemble.
The Helix was recorded over the fall and winter of 2007. Using analogue synthesizers as the sound source, the intent was to create a series of transmissions from space. Not in the narrative sense, rather as a series of abstracted visions or moods from a lone traveler attempting to come to grips with the sublime.
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March 31, 2009
US CD Killer Pimp PIMPK008
CD has enhanced content with the music videos for "Weapons" and "15", photos, and MP3s of:
- Weapons (Zlaya Remix)
- Weapons (Ade Fenton Remix)
- Weapons (A.R.E. Weapons Remix)
Formed in 2006 amidst a growing state of frustration at the surrounding mediocre music scene. Brothers Paul (vocals) and Benn (keys), together with Simmons (guitars) and Karl (bass), have garnered attention from all quarters through powerful and bracing live performances.Raw, electronic sounds, attacking drum machines and aggressive guitars compliment sloganeering lyrics. Their live reputation has helped cut a path through current UK scenes and gained them comparisons to JAMC, Big Black, early Manics and Suicide.
Kempers Heads combines songs from their first two UK-only 12" singles, Weapons and 15, adds some new tunes, and comes as an enhnaced content CD with music videos, remixes, and photos.
"...a sonic thunderstorm suddenly ripped forth from the speakers, quelling the chatter of the assembled scenesters and style hacks. This was Ulterior, and their weapons of choice were pounding techno beats, blazing Jesus & Mary Chain-style noise guitar and the passive-aggressive vocals of a stock-still, moody frontman. They blew the roof off the place..." Playlouder
"Ulterior are like a pack of dogs. Rabid and hungry and full of reverb, they sound like having a fight with yourself in an underwater glass factory" PiX 'Zine
"Any band who dedicate their entire existence to the pursuit of all-out visceral noise deserve a place in my record box." Faris Badwan, The Horrors
"The spluttering drum machines and primitive synths are pure Suicide. The air of icy aggression evokes Spacemen 3; the sullen, leather-clad image evokes the Jesus & Mary Chain; and the screaming guitar feedback evokes both. These are men of impeccable taste, clearly, and from the moment they appear onstage, you're somehow magnetised by their hostility." Yahoo! Music
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March 31, 2009
US CD Killer Pimp PIMPK009
- Imagistic Continuity - [MP3]
- Loss of Perspective
- Negative Space
- Horizon Line
Recorded & mixed by Aidan Baker & Eric Quach
Photography by Christy Romanick
Drawings by Eric Quach
Aidan Baker is a musician and writer from Toronto, Canada. Classically trained in flute, he is self-taught on guitar, drums, and various other instruments. Baker has released numerous CDs on independent labels from around the world and is also the author of three books of poetry. As a solo artist, Baker explores the deconstructive sonic possibilities of the electric guitar as a primary sound source, creating music that ranges from experimental/ambient to post-rock to contemporary classical. In addition to his solo work, Baker performs with the trios ARC and Whisper Room and the duo Nadja.
Eric Quach is a Montreal-based guitarist and sound engineer who is also a founding member of the instrumental rock band Destroyalldreamers. As Thisquietarmy, a one-man solo drone/ambient project, Quach composes visual guitar-based soundscapes and experimental music that goes beyond the typical song structure. Thisquietarmy performs live regularly throughout Canada and the USA, and has played with Ulrich Schnauss, Olafur Arnalds, Tim Hecker, Troum, Nadja & Caspian just to name a few.
Their first studio collaboration was the Orange EP which came out as a limited edition of 200 orange CDRs on thisquietarmy's own imprint. The tracks were recorded separately from their home, sent back and forth via postmail for months, and finally mixed and edited by Eric Quach. The release was quickly sold out, much to the dismay of the largely reputed Aquarius Records store who kept asking for more after having sold a large part of the run in a very short matter of time.
For their first full-length album, Baker & Quach have decided to do things differently by setting a simple rule beforehand: the record was to be played and recorded live together, adding a very minimal amount of overdubs if not any. The recording session took place in the fall of 2007, in Quach's own home studio TQA-HQ in Montreal. Because of their very busy schedule, it took about a year before the two artists decided to get together to work on these tracks again. This time, Baker finalized the mixes in his home studio, resulting again in four long movements, clocking at around an hour's length. Instead of the overall terror-ambient feel of their first collaboration, the first two tracks actually find both guitarists exploring the brighter side of their spectrum, evoking the hope and the beauty represented in Christy Romanick's photographs that were again used for the artwork, in conjunction with Quach's sketches.
Perhaps it was just a lovely sunny day when the recording took place. However, the sounds shift around darker tones in the second half, reaching as much of a party groove that ambient could ever reach, to end in a much somber mood evoking late-night exhaustion migraines and disturbed sleeps.
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March 31, 2009
US CD Killer Pimp PIMPK010
- This Room Seems Empty Without You - [MP3]
- Lost & Losing
- What I Wouldn't Give To Feel Alive
- In Crowded Rooms, On Empty Streets
- What Stays And What Fades Away
- Himmelschreibenden Herzen
Thomas Ekelund - all music and artwork
Recorded December 2005-March 2006 in the bedroom, Kortedala. Mastered by Rashad Becker, Berlin, May 2008. I stand on the inside looking out. www.deadwords.org
Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words is the ghost by which Thomas Ekelund performs sonic exorcism, unleashing his bleak and twisted vision into the material world. Culling found sounds from his habitat, twisting in inspiration from 60's girl groups, and molding it together with the last gasps of vinyl noise, Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words gives birth to what one might name concrete drone pop.
From bleak to bleaker, grimy sounds emanate from the sewer, while rays of hope sneak through the broken glass, reflecting on the blood stained shards on the street above.
Thomas Ekelund currently resides in Gothenburg, Sweden, and is a graphic designer, musician and visual artist. He has released music under a long line of guises both solo and in constellations such as The Skull Defekts, Dead Violets, Normal Music, Teeth, Kill Kill Kill For Inner Peace and Dub Industrial Sound System.
Regarding Lost In Reflections, Ekelund says, "Eighteen months ago I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, a both vile and many-faced disease that inevitably drapes every aspect of life in shadows that range from shades of grey to coal black. It causes a polarity of mind, everything is either or, never in between. It makes you feel isolated and alone even in the most crowded rooms. Slowly this imagined isolation becomes a real isolation. You do not allow anyone inside the carefully constructed walls, built stone by stone by a mind so completely preoccupied with guilt and shame that you in fact become unhuman (sic). An empty shell containing oozing, black bile and nothing else. You become the disease.
I never look into mirrors unless it's absolutely necessary. Because I don't see the reflection of man, I see a specter, a phantasm, a distorted human-like figure to which I can't relate. I never look into the eyes of anyone I talk to because I am terrified that they will see the same apparition. I try to achieve invisibility, but in lack of that I hide my true appearance behind meticulously molded masks.
At the time of diagnosis, Lost in Reflections was already half a year old. Still it deals with the aforementioned disease and some of the aspects of it. It is strange how the mind can be so aware and unaware at the same time.
Now it's two years later. And though I in some ways have a better grasp of my ailment I am nowhere near being rid of it. Most of the time I feel suspended, as if I was waiting for some great revelation of thruth, a stroke of magic that will transform me into someone like you. The person you see in the mirror. A human.
It has taken me two years to come to terms with this album. It's in many ways my most accessible work to date, but in other ways my most difficult and demanding. I can't listen to it objectively. In fact I have a hard time listening to it at all."
"Lost in Reflections" is the fourth main album from Swedish artist Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words (Thomas Ekelund), packaged as a limited edition 7-inch/LP combination. Two years in the making, its creation spans a period in the artist's life marked by pivotal struggle, a time in which a debilitating psychiatric diagnosis must have both explained everything and shattered the world. "Lost in Reflections" is a mirror of that realm, a lens through which the listener can discover being set adrift in a sea of introspection, otherness and isolation. Ekelund here reveals the mechanisms underlying his work, in so doing giving a sure glimpse of the very humanity present in that terrifying vessel he inhabits: himself. From the first resonant note, repeating in sinister sincerity, "Lost in Reflections" uncoils with the utmost patience and care. "This Room Seems Empty Without You" continues from that note's deep recurrence, blossoming into spatiality with a rhythmic, three-part beat, joyless guitar plucking and anesthetic background chatter. On the 7-inch's reverse, "Lost & Losing" then deconstructs the peaceful enclosure from without, interior succumbing to exterior pressures of a vast, windblown expanse, fed by guitar drones and discomfiting, surging noise. "On Empty Streets, In Crowded Rooms" reminds of factory innards, chemical swamp gurgling, as machine whirring embattles forlorn guitar notes. "What Stays & What Fades Away" lends a subterranean atmosphere with directionless rumbling and unseen mewling creatures. Later, an insistent strumming seems just out of reach, as if behind opaque glass. The final nineteen-minute epic, "Himmelschreibende Herzen", begins with rippling drone swells, among which soft bass hits rise, and finally, orchestral notes gape and breathe. It is a somber, protracted march, yet ends with these notes hanging poignantly in the air. Whether this symbolizes daybreak, escape, absolution, or something else, it is doubtless hopeful. Unlike most drone acts utilizing guitar to construct sounds, Ekelund's is furnished with an undeniable tangibility, present as a distinct role in his soundscapes. Guitar provides melody where there otherwise would be none, emotive prickling in an environment of shifting black and white. It is the key to communicating a disorder's solitude, the lifeline stretching between parallel worlds. "Lost in Reflections" is not all void and darkness, shrouded apparitions and pervasive melancholy. Full of warmer tones, richer hues and softer timbres, we can accept that ensconced somewhere among the meticulous layering is a mind at odds with its environs, and by no choice of its own. - Dutton Hauhart, Connexion Bizarre
The cover art of Lost in Reflections depicts a sort of bizarre, surrealistic roundtable of clones in business suits, sitting with their arms folded and staring at each other as if they had all just swindled one another in the most heinous way possible. The rest is black. It's truly a strange scene, one undoubtedly meant to be a reflection of the album's vaguely spectral title. Thomas Ekelund (the man behind Dead Letters...) writes of the album that it is, to a large extent, an outgrowth of his diagnosis and subsequent battle with borderline personality disorder, and the attendant feelings of alienation, isolation, and the perturbation of the sense of self. He describes his personal degeneration as having gotten to the point where his image of himself was of "An empty shell containing oozing, black bile and nothing else." For all this marked doom and gloom, it's interesting that the most salient feature of the album is its approachability. A listener going into this album would be right to expect a plunging, pit-of-despair excursion through black fields draped with mist, the moaning intestines of glacial caverns and abandoned, decaying toy factories, and at points, we do get those sorts of typical dark ambient tropes. However, much more often we are submerged in a more subtle, profound, and strangely comforting seclusion. Set adrift on a sturdy but pliable raft of electronic snaps, crackles, and pops, we are borne gently to and fro by layered currents of iridescent guitar melodies and rolling swells of delicate fuzz. There is no doubt a strain of loneliness and pain suffered in solitude that runs through each of these songs, but it's the kind of neurosis that you can bring home to mom. As hard as this album tries to be tortured and inaccessible, it can't shake the fact that it's actually a very beautiful and generally pleasant experience. This is not to say that we've got an I'm From Barcelona album on our hands here. There are a couple tracks ("Lost and Losing," "In Crowded Rooms, On Empty Streets") that at least break ground on that pit of despair, alerting us to the darker side to Ekelund's project; but even these moments end up resolving themselves into graceful phantasms of melodies. I suppose that these subtle swayings of emotion are just another manifestation of the album's theme, but as illustrations of an ailment that Ekelund says "inevitably drapes every aspect of life in shadows that range from shades of gray to coal black," I can't help but feel that some of that terror and despair has not been fully transcribed. If this album is meant to be a declaration and relation of feelings of anguish, existential anxiety, and sequestration, I must say that it has failed. However, there is a type of invitation here, a form of calling into loneliness. We are not asked to empathize with this album, and we are not dragged screaming by its tendrils into the heart of darkness. Instead we are nudged, led quietly by our hands to a place where someone has found something of value, and then we are left there. A child's fortress inside a giant rotting stump deep in the forest, a dock with no boat or house on the shore of a lake long since turned to swamp — we are left alone, sure, but we are also left with the hope of coming to terms with that fact and of finding something worth being alone for." - Gabriel Keehn, Tiny Mix Tapes
Often one can ignore the background details for a given recording without handicapping the listening experience too greatly. There's no question, however, that one's appreciation of Lost in Reflections by Thomas Ekelund, the man behind Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words, is enhanced by an awareness of the extremely challenging hand the Gothenburg-based composer has been dealt. Almost two years ago, he was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, a disease that permeates one's entire being and coats every moment in darkness. By his own admission, Ekelund's been reduced to a mirror-shunning spectre who can't bear to look into the eyes of others. Now fully aware of his condition and attempting to cope with it, he admits that he not only can't listen to Lost in Reflections objectively but has "a hard time listening to it at all." The severity of the affliction can't help but have affected the character of the album (more precisely the first two songs are paired on a 7-inch while the other four are on LP), and the material is as relentless as one would expect. Though the album apparently was recorded prior to the formal diagnosis (specifically, Lost in Reflections was recorded between December 2005 and March 2006), its gloom-laden spirit is clearly audible; consider as evidence the multi-layered dronescape "Lost & Losing" where electric guitars scream amidst the merciless howl of sweeping winds and lurching noise swells. Much of the fifty-minute recording sounds as if it was recorded outdoors by the seashore during a stormy night; hear, for example, the faint traces of string scrapes and guitar strums that struggle to penetrate the vaporous haze consuming "What Stays And What Fades Away." Surprisingly, the release isn't wholly downcast: "What I Wouldn't Give To Feel Alive" exudes a placid and peaceful spirit that's not bereft of hope, and pealing guitars and chirping electronic squeals bob to the surface of "Crowded Rooms, In Empty Streets" too. Nevertheless, a zenith of sorts is clearly reached in the closing piece, "Himmelschreibenden Herzen," when it unspools for a psychotropic nineteen minutes in a manner that suggests some inward plunge into madness. If one ever wondered what form a sonic portrait of Hades might assume, one need look no further than this grinding colossus. But be patient: while the deranged wail of a thousand tormented souls holds the first half hostage, epic melodies played by what sounds like strings, mellotron, and bells gradually rise to the fore during the second half. "Himmelschreibenden Herzen" hardly provides an easy exeunt to the album but it's definitely an incredible one. - Ron Schepper, Textura
Lost in Reflections takes, as its physical manifestation, the form of an LP with a seven-inch which is intended to be heard in the correct sequence as a single musical statement. Plangent studio-based guitar and effects recordings, in multiple overdubs, produce some of the most intensive and incredible slow drone sounds you've ever heard. Read the insert for a startling confessional text from its creator, Thomas Ekelund, but no matter what he tells you about his psychological condition nothing will prepare you for the ever-changing slew of emotional experiences that this work dares to unleash — veering from the ecstatic to the suicidally miserable, with a range of new and unknown emotions in between. Ekelund's painful personality dilemma is also expressed via the stark monochrome cover image, itself a pastiche of a well-known surrealist image. The sensitive listener had best be prepared for a record of relentless passion and power, yet its music is unspooled in a deliberative and contemplative manner. Chillingly beautiful! No wonder it took four record labels to release it. - Ed Pinsent, The Sound Projector
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March 31, 2009
US CD Killer Pimp PIMPK011
- Bloodlust
- Peri
- Secret Rapture
- Damascus
- Showa
- Black Nature
- Voice Untouched By Conversation
- Horizon - [MP3]
Ken Ueno - voice
Jon Whitney - 808
Thomas Worster - guitar, nord lead
Recorded 2006 at Deadverse Studios by Oktopus.
The second full-length release from Blood Money was the first to be both conceived and recorded completely together. For this, the trio of Ken Ueno, Jon Whitney, and Tom Worster joined Dalek's producer/sound wizard Oktopus in the Deadverse Studios to commit to tape songs formed through dedicated rehearsals and perfected in their live performances.
In the three years since the debut, Axis of Blood, Ken Ueno has spent a year in Rome (winner of the 2006-2007 Rome Prize), had numerous orchestras perform his works worldwide, and has accepted the position of Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Tom and Jon remain in Boston and are now forced to collaborate over long distances.
Blood Brotherhood is notably more song-based yet stays very close to the heart of the group: the intensity of noise, the freedom granted through improvisation, the power of rhythm, and the humanity of introspection. While the introduction of a professional studio has granted them the ability to multitrack numerous layers the group has, for this recording, chosen to remain with its main instrumentation: vocals, Nord lead, and Roland 808, with very slight guitar added on one song.
An LP edition of Blood Brotherhood is in the planning on the Community Library label.
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This compiles eight rather austere avant-garde guitar works from artists spanning the world (yet featuring a disproportionate number of Texans). Thankfully, one of those Texans is Jandek, who conspicuously counterbalances the somewhat academic sensibility of the album. Despite this aesthetic of high-art sterility, the album has a impressively high success rate.
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This compiles eight rather austere avant-garde guitar works from artists spanning the world (yet featuring a disproportionate number of Texans). Thankfully, one of those Texans is Jandek, who conspicuously counterbalances the somewhat academic sensibility of the album. Despite this aesthetic of high-art sterility, the album has a impressively high success rate.
Quiet Design
While the music represented on Spectra is often excellent, I am somewhat perplexed by the album’s focus and ambition. First of all, all of the artists included are quite similar in sound: only a very specific strain of 21st century guitar music is represented. Namely, guitarists who apply for art grants and describe themselves as composers (with some exceptions, obviously). Secondly, it seems bizarre and misguided to attempt a survey of contemporary experimental guitar without Fennesz, Peter Rehberg, Jim O’Rourke, Stephen O'Malley, Sonic Youth, etc. I demand a title change, Quiet Design. Perhaps Electro-acoustic Minimalism in the 21st Century?
That said, there are several rather exceptional tracks here (despite the absence of the aforementioned luminaries). “Six” (by Sebastian Roux and Kim Myrh) is a slow-building piece erected upon a foundation of wavering drone and plucked harmonics. Gradually, electronically manipulated scrapes, whines, and backwards noises are added until it coheres into a rusty lurching rhythm.
“Nylah” by Texan "surrealist studio sculptor" Mike Vernusky is an excellent drone piece that manages to simultaneously rumble and shimmer. The swelling washes of feedback are nicely complemented by dripping water, creaking, and a metallic industrial hum. This is quite expertly composed and produced stuff. Vernusky has an excellent feel for dynamics and texture. Austin’s Cory Allen also turns in a striking drone piece. “Fermion” begins with an unadorned low droning tone that slowly becomes enveloped in a buzzing and pulsing cloud of textured digitally processed sound and disintegrating washes of static.
Most of the other pieces on the album are chromatic, minimalist acoustic pieces (although Turkey’s Erdem Helvacioglu bucks the trend by occasionally adhering to conventional scales and melody). The notable exception is Keith Rowe’s (AMM) live rendition of Cornelius Cardew’s "Treatise", which sounds much closer to an ambient Merzbow than anything guitar-based. Eventually it winnows down to simple and recognizable feedback, but there is quite a bit of white noise, grinding, industrial roar and clatter, and possible powerdrill usage before that point.
The album closes with a Jandek track (“The World Stops”) that characteristically rides the line between genius and unintentional comedy. It is intriguing that the album's curators chose this particular track, as Jandek’s playing seems to consist solely of arrhythmic open string strumming on a standard-tuned guitar. However, it features some truly demonic atonal harmonica wailing that would make a nice centerpiece for a future Quiet Design survey of harmonica in the 21st century.
Samples:
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Dukkha traffic in “true Sheffield black psychedelia” and appear to consist solely of an unnamed and enigmatic British guitarist. However, I am deeply skeptical of both his purity (the four tracks are stylistically varied) and his degree of evilness (Buddhist author Alan Watts is listed as his sole influence). He probably actually is from Sheffield though. Regardless, this is some intriguing (if somewhat flawed) stuff.
Peasant Magik
Peasant Magik have provided a cryptic, evocative, and hyperbole-filled description for us: “Endless repetition. Keys spin over down-tuned sludge, FX-ridden guitars suffocate themselves, and utterly massive swells consume all laid before.” Notably, the only one of those descriptors that actually applies to all four songs is “endless repetition.”
The album opens with “Creswellian” (a British Paleolithic culture), built upon a vaguely medieval-sounding down-tuned doom riff that is very much in the Stephen O'Malley/Sunn o))) vein. As it repeats (endlessly, of course), a great deal of haunting, trebly, chattering weirdness is piled on. Unfortunately, Dukkha’s ambition and imagination are scuttled by his very limited production/recording budget. The main riff should be crushing, but ends up sounding like a muted bass hum and the “black psychedelia” occurring around it is buried too low in the mix to be fully appreciated.
The second track, “Hordron,” works much better. It is based upon a simple, melancholy and undistorted minor chord progression (with some deliberate “wrong” notes thrown in). The production still sucks, but the lack of distortion prevents it from turning completely into frustrating sonic mud. While it may seem like an oxymoron, this song features some beautiful, tasteful, and inventive wah-wah guitar work. (Hordron Edge is a stone circle near Sheffield, if you are curious. I am amused that all I can figure out about Dukkha is that he is a megalith enthusiast and probably a Buddhist.)
“The Finest Clothes Turn To Rags” kicks off side two with some discordant, high-end tremolo picking that sounds like someone just broke open a hive of evil, distorted hornets. This is the only moment of the album where I perceive a palpable Black Metal influence. Notably, it is this point on the album that “guitars suffocate themselves” and “consume all laid before” and the song implodes. Lamentably, the awesomeness of this moment is ruined yet again by sludginess- I am sure that this sounded like a goddamn supernova when it was actually being played. Most unfortunate.
“Chromes Gone Home” closes the album with some dark and eerie droning featuring the sounds of children playing buried in the mix. It is much more spacious than the rest of the album and features some nice impressionistic feedback near the end. There appears to be some underlying concept to this song that involves..um... trucks, which seems like an odd aberration next to the album's other arcane and ancient themes. Dukkha is certainly an inscrutable fellow.
Interestingly, “dukkha” is a Buddhist term that roughly translates as “disquiet” or “suffering.” The goal of Buddhism is (rather notably) the cessation of Dukkha. I hope this guy does not achieve enlightenment before recording an album that better does justice to his vision or before forging a sound that is more uniquely his own. (This cassette-only release is a limited edition of 100 copies)
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