Skin Crime – s/t tape (BSR)
Discogs is my principle source for information on this one, the sole release registered to the mysterious BSR Records. Tracks include untitled and untitled, with Style tagged "Noise" and "Ambient". The latter tag, in combination with the C15 playback time (re- discogs), may explain why the tape has gone so long forgotten amongst the teetering stacks. One out of so many, it would seem, that might never again have enjoyed playback had "research" for something completely unrelated – in this case the recent Trerik titty tape – not fluked the shit back into existence apparent. Still... Skin Crime? Ambient? What the fuck were they smoking? (um, Skin Crime, not discogs) Dense, overbilged, thunder. That is Skin Crime. Ambient? That is simply fal... fa... f... well, on reflection, both Urge and Whorebutcher, two of my faves, could easily approach Ambient, given a little smoothening out. Ambient of a dense, overbilged, thunderous disposition. Add to consideration the tangled atmospherics submitted by Mr S Abuse under the name Hanged Mans Orgasm, and the s/t lp from 2003.... and you are halfway to this slickly sliced sliver of self-titled sweetness. Per Skin Crime proper, there is the density. There is the thunder. There is, however, little in the way of the overbilge. Elements, many of them junked and metallic, are laid out bright and clear for ready inspection. Cluttered, clamoring elements, that rear up in concert for a good hard hint of overbilge before settling back down to their faintly echoing cave corner as frosty buzzings numb the highly sensitized palate. The full-throttled fury of all the clamoring elements might well be a terror to behold, but nothing sticks around for long, never quite falling into anything like a groove. More we enjoy the tensions to be found in the heaving motion, the rearings and settlings, the comings and goings. Such tendencies are even more pronounced on what I take for the flip side. Roaring with the almighty metal-tinged clamor in full groove, the intensities grow deceptively harsh and unyielding... only to plonk down to an unlikely string of steady, tin-head, bonking. After that the furious blasts alternate with unhurried, acoustic, explorations, lurching first to life and then back to death as though struggling to figure out what they want to do with All This Great Stuff. The general atmosphere is one of rather cold and undermanned factory, a hulking industrial strength monstrosity that could threaten to approach epic proportion... were it not abruptly cut off at the seven-or-so-minute mark.
