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Hands Rendered Useless - Exit International c30
Hands Rendered Useless is the solo moniker of Ryan Woodhall (Yellow Tears, Halflings, Red Light District). "Exit International" is the first release from the project since 2011 and in our opinion - his finest work to date.
Recorded and assembled between 2011-2014, "Exit International" acts as a simulation of drifting between life and death. The recordings were inspired by various writings published by The Hemlock Society about the right-to-death movement as well as Luc Ferrari's "Les Arythmiques". Woodhall would frequently arrange and process sounds, then later review his work lying in bed on various sedatives drifting between a conscious and unconscious state.
The cold sterility of the hospital is a stark and unsettling contrast to the other-worldly act of dying; The atmospheres on the album teeter between clinical life support and surreal ambience. The sound of hospital equipment interacts with empty field recordings through the audio process of convolution.
"Why is this happening to me?"
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Pleasure Island - Golden Rain c20
Pleasure Island is the power electronics project of Philadelphia based artist & Beyond The Ruins label head John Pyle. Utilizing unmoving low-end synth drones as well as tape, and field recordings he creates a dizzying, paranoid atmosphere that sucks you in before spitting you right back out. Straight to the point. No bullshit electronics.
"Golden Rain" is the first under the Pleasure Island moniker not exploring the grim side of extreme political ideologies or their adherents. The coldness of earlier works is still quite apparent this time around, but this material wears the imagery and language of classical mythology as a grotesque mask, intended not to hide but to accentuate an obsession with the idea of death and rebirth.
The result is not unlike that of a naive child hearing the theme from Unsolved Mysteries for the first time.
Atavistic terror.
The catalyst for pressure.
The domain of the unnerved.