In the process of settling in a new nation, I treat myself to a couple of Vaalea Lager. Having grown up with Swedish mass produced beer, I feel right at home with the cheap Finnish stuff. I can sense the pure, S-market/Kotimaista quality wash the last remnants of hipster IPA out of my system. I've had almost no time lately to listen to what little music I've been able to buy in the last month or so, but tonight it's:
Mutant Ape - Morte Felice CD 2015 (Turgid Animal)
Sometimes I feel like my reviews in this thread are very formulaic: I say what I remember about a band, and then I say that I am very surprised that now, when I listen to it, it is not at all how I remember it. Things will not be different this time. In days of (even) greater economic insecurity, I remember downloading a bunch of Mutant Ape's stuff. I remember it as quite straight forward harsh noise, perhaps somewhat similar to my Stoa work, in that it felt rather immature and still "finding its voice", so to speak. Now, this CD is a re-release of a tape from the early days of Mutant Ape, and I must say there is absolutely nothing here to confirm my former point of view. In fact, I might have to plug in some old hard drives and try to locate these Mutant Ape recordings of yore, since this is neither "straight forward" nor immature. Rather, it's crushing and varied, multilayered noise filth of a very pleasant kind. There's quite a bit of reverb, which despite the pedal feel creates a certain sense of space, there's rather typical feedback stuff, and there's also a dryer, darker tape-ish crunch that calls to mind the work of Ulex Xane (or any number of quality artists working with tapes). On some tracks, the sounds are heavily panned to the left or right, which means you either want to use headphones or you really don't (all a matter of taste). There's even some vocal work and reverberated percussion thrown in for good measure, stunts which do the job of broadening the sonic image very well. The tracks are very different from each other, but a consistent sound quality keeps the whole thing together nicely. I'm actually somewhat enthusiastic, here, and feel a bit ashamed about my possibly/probably fake memories of early Mutant Ape.
