Prurient - Troubled Sleep
One of my favorite Noise albums of all time, Troubled Sleep is a masterfully crafted maelstrom of white noise, crackling, waves of piercing feedback, and omnious low frequency brooding, all structured properly in a rather short album. That deals, as I came to discover, primarly with death. Its lyrics contain recitations from the book of American poet and journalist Jean Feraca, which is, according to an extensive rateyourmusic review of Prurient's discography, a relative of Dominick.
The book itself is based on the death of her brother, and Dominick's uncle. The lyrics are subtle, sensitive I would say, and delivered in a poetic fashion that seems mystical yet overwhelmingly brooding. Take for example the lyrics for Bolt:
I draw the bolt, you jimmy the lock
I yank the shades, you tap at the glass
I'm shut against you like a fort
But you seep through, your foot-
Prints multiplying overnight
Spreading over the carpet like a dew
Devouring mist
You're in the air I breathe
You're growing in my left breast
I hack you out, but you grow back
Hang on, jaws locked
You flop at my back, at my chest
Overhead, your yellow eye
Roving like a hawk
You swoop across my yard, your shadow
Blowing toward me in my sleep
You're piling high against the door
You're howling like a jackal on the other side
A whiff of me bristles your hock
You sniff the air and bay
Begin your long relentless trek
Loping out of the desert half-lame
Seems to be describing the effect of his death on the author. The lyrics for The Zealot give no doubt about the profound nature of this work:
He never let anything die
He never let anything die
He never let anything die
He never let anything die
He never let anything die
He never let anything die
He never let anything die
He never let anything die
He never let anything die
He never let anything die
He never let anything.
Definitely a great album, leaning towards a more Harsh Noise Prurient.
PS: Funny thing though:"The album's mastering, a trademark of Fernow's production style and overall noise ethic, is noticeably extremely clipped, and its DC offset is at times in the album intentionally brickwalled. Due to this, in an anomalous case of Prurient's albums being digitally distributed, the album is nearly incapable of being properly listened to on Spotify, as it amounts to faint white noise." (Wikipedia) - because of this, the first time I heard this album on an automatically generated YT playlist, it was just a sharp wall of white noise, almost with no dynamics at all. Didn't notice at all, at first that I hadn't actually listened to the actual songs from the album, and why would I? Heh. Sounded to me like Prurient went HNW-ish or something.
