Quote from: heretogo on November 13, 2010, 01:58:05 PM
Keränen - Bats In The Attic (Pica Disk) cd
The first "movement" of the only track is a bit better to my ears but overall it's a very strong album. Good length too, only 35 mins.
I though I wrote about it somewhere, but seems like didn't...
I think it starts very strong. Then comes the few minutes moment when the stillness hits. Not like it would drone or anything, but the "zzzooing zoing zoing" type of star wars battle, perhaps more the square wave short tööttäilyt, that sounds more playful than intense. But maybe that would be exact sonic metaphor for "bats in the attic"! But as soon as disc gets over that, and moves back to intense noise, I must say this must be among the healthiest and most interesting recordings done with synth in recent times!
No the muddy bass beard-drone. Not the semi-kraut-wannabe psychedelia. No torments on one key/tone throbbing, but extremely rich texture of sounds. Even when he uses synths, you couldn't compare with with CCCC, Hive Mind or whoever. Perhaps more of Incapacitants in era of Ministry of Foolishness. It is so dense, that it becomes a mass. It is such a textured, it ain't the "wall". It is so hi-fi and sharp, it isn't muddy and dark. It is noisy and fierce, though.
That few minutes goofin' around is good as transition, to let the remaining disc proceed with proper synth annihilation.
I feel like I'm too often praising what my friends do, but I do have a plenty to compare it with. And it sounds relatively unique - as much as you can do in field of synth noise anyways!
Black Air "Paris" LP
While listening to A-side, I was like.... pffff... what the fuck? Can it be more predictable? Can it be more similar what these guys have done? It's such a trademark sound of wall of noise crackles and bassy rumbling, there is exactly 0% of any sort of surprise. And also the sound itself is pretty uninteresting. Flipping to B-side, and it seems like now, it's getting somewhere. Starts with thin crackling noises and soon hits in heavy duty bassy rumbles. In theory, it ain't much different, but what they create here, starts to get obscure harmony and even tonality. While track slowly hammers forward, at some point it starts to remind something like Shift or Silence of Vacuum, where the "wall" if often formed with tonal undercurrent. It suddenly makes the stream of disharmonic crackle and crunch take form in key and harmony. It isn't ambient, nor at all aggressive noise, but has another dimension to play with. A-side I felt like that's that, but b-side I returned for replay and it is something that I found pretty successful, in all its simplicity.
