This was my personal revelation for 2017. Possibly my vote for album of the year. Fake digest version at the end of this post.
Michael Ellingford – A Tangled Web
Those seeking no bullshit no holds barred harsh are advised to seek elsewhere. As says in big letters, "Musique Concrete / Noise from South Australia". That's Noise second, big bearded first to Musique Concrete – hot steaming piles of it (bovine and otherwise). The principle party responsible has already impressed, with a handful of memorables under the name Deafault, most notably Nikita Division – the main of which is radically reworked for this project. Project does seem the appropriate term. Project proper, with phases for definition, planning, design, development, and, of course, the EXECUTION. This shit cold murders. It is so well put together it would probably be the first thing I'd throw on to convert the most stubborn of noise skeptics. (After, that is, dismembering and pissing on the corpse. Stupid fuck.)
Nikita Division is the first point of reference, but not before we're already three tracks deep. Opener "Irukandji Springs" is another rework, this time from the Hard Panning comp. Among luminaries like Jaako Vanhala, TEF and Lettera 22, the original comp submission (also courtesy Deafault) was a standout: taut, detailed, precise, but exploding with compact, tight-fisted, blasts of full-spectrum-ripping harsh. Here, on A Tangled Web, a completely different mood prevails: dark, complex, rich in dramatic tension, skillfully conjuring scenes of forest-draped mystery, far from human trespass, deep and beguiling pools beckoning the weary traveler. And, completely divested of harsh. Panpipes float over lower-pitched winds as inhuman snuffling growls ignite a foreboding cinematic palate washed with cold, bell-like drones and skittish, metallic riffles and scrapes, tentacled appendages writhing through the depths, latching on, dragging the listener down, deep, within. For the noisedonkey, satisfaction is far from guaranteed, but it wouldn't surprise me if a major Hollywood production company or two came calling. Coming to a theater near you.
"Jericho Trumpet" triumphantly announces the first gestures toward harsh. And they are, if not obscene, then certainly persuasive. Fat, flatulent, distorto bilge-balls, rear back, slam down, harrd, in looped percussive regularity. Cantankerous engine motors lurch and sputter, slowly, to life. Or so one might gather. As the stubborn engine continues its protest, a subtle tinkling on the ivories, piano keys occasionally discernible amid the ceaseless rigor of bilge balls methodically pounding their way around the channel pan. In fact, the goddamn machine never gets going, confining proceedings to frustrating fits of continuous revving, even as the piano dirge starts to echo in vaguely anthemic commiseration.
Anticlimax folds into the melodic piano dirge-ings of "Stone Banister", faint whining sirens rising and falling to more close-mic'd fingernail-on-chalkboard scrapes as clouded undertones gather on the horizon, floating in baited, whispery, anticipation before, without so much as a fetchez la vache, "Jesus Chri-" BELCH! BLURGH! BLECH! CHUGGA-BleeaAAARGH! This is it. The real, fat, flatulent, deal. The harsh. It comes, in intense, sporadic, blurts. Belches. Sphinctal bursts of noxious joy. Principally lower-register wind breakage, but not infrequently seething into piercing upper extremes, metal-tinged sheets of searing glass. So, totally obliterating the dirge harmonics, if only for the duration of each flatal eruption. Call it the most traditional in harshnoise scope, the rectal rippage delivered more on the fly, more "live" in presentation. This continues for three solid minutes, but is never dimmed by anything less than wide open, three dimensional, acoustic space. Each individual excretal excursion is in itself a fully flushed piece of harsh purity, albeit momentary, fleeting, until the closing forty-five seconds of full out, blurt-till-it-hurt, sphinct-bludgeoning spasmation.
"Ursula's Shield" is the first major rework from Nikita Division. Once again, the differences are striking. Shorter in duration, more densely layered- but never to the point where individual elements are crowded out. Where the original is much readier with the harsh, blasting, electronics, the rework drives the harsh to blunted acoustic pasture, carefully composed arrangements of metal junk more hinting at harshness than ever really getting the noisehead in there. Sweet vocal fragments, female, repeat over a fast panning horde of collapsible scrap-heap clambering, edgings of string and reverb lending dramatic twinge. As vocal fragments fade, the clambering grows more persistent, coming in cresting waves, militant marching, the background an ominous, glowering, down-pitched brood. Sense of striving, for something epic, or revelatory, threatening to shatter the dense orchestral tapestry. But the pressures never defuse, the tension never releases, so to set-up the singular-
"Occam's Razor". One word: explosive. Better: explosives, plural. Continuous, slow-rolling, hard panned explosions, combustions, detonations... lotsa stuff blowin' up. Alternately, junkyard demolition orgy in big ol' trash compactor. This sounds massive. The sources seem principally of the junkmetal variety, but ripple with hefty, bottomed-out, distortions. Densely saturated, but never at the expense of detail, a studied precision and care taken to maximizing the potential weight of impact. In the concussed wake, string-laden swells sound out an almost mournful backdrop, deeply reverberant tones filling out the unexploded spaces. Harsh? Well, harsh more as texture for the velvetine un-harsh, inviting long languid repose in the sumptuous, ambrosial pools of pliant, voluptuous, luxuriance. Flying shards of gut-sluicing shrapnel never felt this good.
"Larry's Scrotum" is the closing ditty, the second Nikita Division rework. As with the other reworks, all the original harsh is gently, if rigorously, extracted, and, with hushed and ceremonial reverence, replaced with a mellower collection of exotic jades, tinkling keys, and somber, fugue-like, strings. The first half of this piece is practically classical chamber music, albeit repeatedly badgered with sufficient burgeonings of distilled crunch to leave Bach spinning in his grave. Halfway point and an intermission of slow-drawn cello, and then the drama. The drama, it is good. Muscular mass of deeply percussive thunder, TNT, crunching in a pernickety panned series of full-bodied fireworks, a strange loop of sweet voiced Ursulas wafting through progressively heightened pitch, low-sunk bunkers bombarded, pummeled, yes this means war, incessant raspy scrapes scouring strings in increasingly intemperate disturbance, abrasions forming, chalkboard fingernails Mr Quine, are you listening to me? the murderous glint, unasking, surging peaks, dense concatenation of diverse and divergent elements, elemental, sound, the sound, listen, listen, you, hole, your holes, yes, no, but never once is control to be sacrificed for the musical offering, The Eternal Golden Braid.
Fake digest version. In a more digestible span of words, I can't say for sure if this edges into one or another category of noise. Without question a superior composition which showcases the potential for so much more within the genre of... music. When I'm forced, simultaneously, to applaud both the gestures toward, and away from, harsh (and raw, for that matter), I can't help but reflect that I am applauding some weird new mutation that could very well suggest certain strains are edging toward <edit> a new pointless subcategory. Or not. Maybe I just need to listen to more Hum Of The Druid.
