Lilac's "
The Great Argus" seems to be the only completed release from this project so far, a project by one Chris Bryan. The first, titular and longest spiral is a fine example of that kind of strangled, eager-to-burst but restrained kind of electronics, a loud, clear, clearly digitised sound that supports instead of detracts from the source material. Low, loud hum, simple feedback lines, dust-like crackle, these and similar elements introduced and retired over the course of the piece. The second piece, "Hemptira", has a similar growling feel, this time a more obvious use of organ-sounding keyboards below the other electronic sounds, the over-all feel reminding me, of all things, of Raymond Dijkstra, at least until a rhythmic pulse comes in and is osscilated across the rest of the piece. A slightly louder volumed cold sample drone starts "Water Boatman", not too disimilar to Non's "Ragnarok Rune", various chord-clusters appearing and disappearing, various ossilations used, various pitches and filters employed, various layers lain. The final spiral, "Picis Viridus" (scientific name for a type of woodpecker), starts oddly with a rhythmic electronic pulse that is mutated in various ways until it reaches its end and sullen, soft metallic drones wax and wane and similarly soft pieces of static start and stop.
Despite it's title, "
Heavy Electronics" by project Forward strikes me not quite so heavy as more of a minimal and somewhat reserved release. The sound, particularly on the second track "Overdose", is up-front and sounding very direct-input. It's loud, but not necessarily heavy to my ears, until towards the latter part of the piece when the intensity builds up. It invites comparisons to earlier Whitehouse pieces such as would feature on "Halogen", for example, which is hardly surprising given how much of an influence Whitehouse is for Peterson (he's covered "Phaseday" and "Mindfinder" on one of his releases). For mine, I preferred "Adrenaline", in which the precise and clear-edged sound recording worked well on the gradual build up and smooth minimalist droning of the piece. One can hear, at least, the deliberate progress of both pieces, the titles make sense. And I very much appreciate the starkness of the source, un-effected synthesiser straight in.
More to my liking was Modern's "
Untitled", four pieces of more layered, constructed and varied sources ranging from electronic to acoustic. Released as a double cassette, these pieces feature more layering of source sounds which, despite all being recorded on cassette and thus endowed with tape hiss, don't manage to over-crowd each other. There's an obvious attempt at some sort of composition, at least at timing of elements that come and go, and an interesting disparity between levels of recording quality which uses the fidelity as part of the construction. Object use, sometimes heavy metal, sometimes light, stands alone or alongside electronic drones and buzzes, which also get their time alone on occasions. The crudely recorded sources are considerately layered and assembled via software (there might also be some latter filtering too). One the shorter, latter pieces there's more a use of repeditive looping introduced, and both these pieces sound more layered and cluttered, yet still very precise in composition. In fact, the precision used to put these spirals together is more reminiscent of academically minded electro-acoustic rather than rape-your-guts Power Electronics. You end up with material that is neither raw nor polished but completely enjoyable.
