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Hostage Pageant & The Cherry Point & Kazuma Kubota
Gotta love the kinky shit. Straight-to-the-hilt no-holes-barred rrrriiiipper meets fully flushed heavy metal butt-thunderer meets obscenely contorted tightrope jerker. In that order. To try and divine rhyme or reason is to waste energies better spent reveling in multi-hued harsh bliss. But that never stopped me before. Therefore, after several complete run-throughs, I'm pleased report my findings. If you'll just bear with me while I consult my extensive notes. Let's see now. Oh yes, here we are. Ahem: "It works." Yes, well, there you have it. The fat one balances the two skinny ones.
Hostage Pageant rrrriiiipps into hole with some not-unanticipated no-bullshit scorch. To worriers of more bullshit-inclined persuasion, no fear, plenty of that to come later. For now though, all the excess blubber is stripped clean to dish one lean, mean, sphinct-rupturing machine. Exceedingly high-energy, balls-slapping-the-wall, pummel. Dry pummel. No lube. Violent. Physical. The feel is as though loads of full-on brute are edging to push out, frustrated, hemmed in, by the unforgiving confines of the speaker cones. In between the general brute, an occasion or two for buckled lurch and stammer, setting off renewed bursts of rage-wracked stabbing. At three minutes or so a whitened scorch-blaze blasts clear into open airs, upping the harsh, driving in a straight line for the kill before heavier burbling crumble shuts the shit down.
And now, some bullshit. Hostage Pageant still here, but with the straight goods evidently Falling Out Of Place. Wrinkled crinkling forced through bass-bilged sewage grate and what sounds like an ill-tended doggy yapping in the background. Abbreviated balls-out blasts come at random interval to establish a nice little spastic dialog. Then that damn pooch wanders over to investigate, panting heavily, slobbering all over the mic. Now, I mean. This here's some sick shit buddy boy. Hope someone got it on camera. Downpitched pooch takes center stage, raggedly huffing and groaning over low-brow gutter-filth. Then the out-and-out balls-out blast and hots damn is it fierce, ascending storms of puritanical seethe obliterating everything in their path, clustered earbleed frequencies drilling hard, fast, good.
Hostage Pageant's final Enabler posits straight-up harsh purity with brief dabs of ye olde bullshizzle. An initial call-and-response bullhorn digs into sputtering scrunch grits before browned rim-dangles recoil along taught length of steel cable. Sudden snap and the not unanticipated explosion. All the violence and physicality to be desired, but twisting and turning through singularly singed splurgings of semi-erratic hack and spazz. There are even a couple moments wherein the brakes are duly slammed, ultimately to end careening in ill-controlled masses of straight-up scorch bliss.
The Cherry Point drop, smack dab in the middle, with some seriously fat-cheeked weight. Dense, phantasmagoric folds of cumulonimbus reverberation, the great billowing mass swelling to truly monumental, sky-blottening, proportion. In the wake of Hostage Pageant's hard drilling severity, Just Before Dawn sounds practically ambient, an impression not diminished by generous applications of delay. In seeking shared airs, a first temptation is to reference that other TCP on Cipher, at least as far as the heaving densities humping deep into Rusted Gut. Let's throw in others from thenabouts, like Smog City and Bloodstalkers, just for fun.
The initial moments of JBD frame an already fully fleshed development, sounding like a windstorm surging through deep-sunk subway tunnel, faint industrial whines and moans rounding out the edges. Heavier rumbling thrusts buffet the walls, shaking under tectonic duress, pressures steadily increasing throughout the longform stretch. At six minutes the taps open and waterfalls of psyche-tinged whitewash pour into wide open spaces, quickly saturating the outlying chambers, stealthily suggestive of legitimately harsh encroachment. From this point onward the slow sultry sink into delicious depths, luxuriant layers enveloping defenseless core in crushing embrace. At thirteen minutes a supremely tweaked upper ended wheedle sears the fringe, just to remind the listener that, yes, yr 'holes are pretty much fuck'd by the time this is through. Final brown buzzer to fizzle on out, but wait- just as the first rays begin to peep at the horizon a mighty raging blast just to make sure y'all are still paying attention.
The opening of Kazuma Kubota's Zattou Ni Tokete had me diving under the table for cover. Perfect simulation of an earthquake in a workshop, or boudoir, slowly gaining in orgasmic, or seismic, intensity, tumbles, bangs and slithers cumming from every possible direction. Perfect prelude to the signature cinematic soundworld of carefully composed All-Boxes-Tickled(tm). Things soon settle down, disembodied metal dongs spicing whispered build to the inevitable, and inevitably abbreviated, harsh spastics. Plus, of course, the requisite ambient intervals- coming soon to a planetarium near you. Call it: vintage Kubota (the noise artist, not the tractor maker). The range of materials brought to bear is as impressive as the skill with which it is so adroitly negotiated. Everything just so. All the excess trimmed down to a svelte fourteen minutes and nineteen seconds, perfectly placed in precise proportion with the picture perfect poise and balance of an Olympic gymnast. On the technical alone, worthy of at least an eight, though the Russian judge gives it a two.
At 1:43, dainty mouthed acrobatics meet fully-loaded spectrum of spasmodic jerking rips, though by the third minutes we're prancing through a muffled antechamber of tinkling keys, the peaceful inflections drawn out longer than seems necessary as subtle acoustic shuffles and grinds- and obligatory spot of bird chirp- presage a second abbreviated inflection of whitewashed harsh-scathe cum electronic stutter-blurt. Making our way through ghostly highway tunnel, a range of clattering clutter runs scattershot into genuinely heavy-handed steel-on-steel dungeon thunk, carefully panned rust-whines gently escorted out the back amid glowing pads of candy-sweet liquescence. From here a soft hush of tranquil starbursts twinkles in the twilit sky, angelic ululations reaching for the spheres- the occasional harsh ripping blasts jarring in their spasmodic intensities and yet somehow serving to emphasize the becalming calls to deep space serenity.
Digest spew
Some like it harsh, some like it heavy, and some like it every which way, in every which hole, from every which angle, with some glistening acquamarine ambience lubing up the more savagely inflected extremities. Hostage Pageant brings the straight up harshgoods, surging pummeling bristling with ill-managed fury, just the way you like 'em, though he also brings his dog and no comment there except that I probably should have punted for the artist's edition with accompanying dvd. The Cherry Point are by accounts principle instigator and duly deliver almighty butt-thunder of truly monumental dimension, psychedelic raptures burning blisses of densely layered crush deep into hole in a way that feels real niiice going in, but no comment on what's in store for the morning. Kazuma Kubota prances and pirouettes across a bewildering array of carefully choreographed precision with all the studied poise of an Olympian tightrope tumbler, acrobatic contortions rather obscenely strained across their signature cinematic spread, clever dick, winking in and out, now you see it now you don't, attentions left dazed and flustered, ultimately lost deep in space-ace-ace... no comment on where he hid the big dipper.
