‘Materialism’ marks the sixth of Skeleton Dust’s ‘Contemporary Harsh Noise’ double cassette sets, a chance for the known and the unknown, the well-played and the freshly energised, to profile the vanguard of the contemporary noise scene. It’s a well curated and diverse cross-section of the current state of play, and all volumes well worth tracking down.
First on ‘Materialism’, Legless thresh several ideas through “Nature’s Cruel Amusements” to find that the project is best when laying down thick slabs of distorted roar, the piece blanketed in a rough production with low and high frequencies rounded off but still finding a breadth of sound by multi-tracking flows of full momentum distortion.
“Nature’s Cruel Amusements” trawls through a fairly scrappy first few minutes, a shallow frequency range semi-submerging warbling feedback, what may be wafts of turntable unravelling, sexed up moaning, and primitive blocks of distortion. A series of crude tape drop-outs are then used to propel the piece out of its initial explorations, a more rugged abrasiveness encasing the piece as it varies between stretches of viscous distortion cut, and stereo-split tangents which revisit the untidy beginnings of the piece but more nakedly, spurts of disjointed wrangling which lay bare Legless’ workings before retreating back into the comfort of its simplest pleasures.
Phocomelus reminds of The Haters’ recent recordings, layered but discrete textures built from dying electronics and the dust and disintegration of discarded media. The outcome is quite static, “Unopened”’s timbres set up to cycle and stagnate: a sinkhole of squirming, distressed, and unhappy components which consolidate into an intentionally untidy muddle of noise. The track is not as head-down abrasive as previous Phocomelus tracks which have strayed into The Rita territory, instead finding a grim enjoyment in the discomfort of its inputs as mired in the surprisingly confronting low-end growl which fills the spaces of the piece.
K.M. Toepfer is the lo-fi miscellany of the set, “Fictitious Growth” built from microcassette player feedback, mixed feedback and a handful of pedals, its flurries of internal feedback given a bulked-up coarseness by the steroidal qualities of the effects bank. The weedy slipperiness of the source instruments still clings to the piece even at its hardest, motors unspooling, buttons clunking and feedback chafing throughout the flailing of the piece, recalling the fidelity and blitheness of Stabat Mors and Licht-Ung: a chase of the moment splattered on tape and offered up unapologetically. It’s not the high point of the set, and lacks the vision of Wolf Creek or the comparative harshness of Legless, but in extolling the joys of noise-making Karl is as proficient as any of the others.
Wolf Creek close ‘Materialism’ with a heavy dose of fast-and-furious harshness recalling the heady days when Merzbow and Pain Jerk were competing for who could frequency saturate a length of tape the most. A barrage of searing distortion blasts most of the piece while snappish filter sweeps, low-end oscillations and barbs of feedback make vague shapes behind the screen of mid-range scald, with some brief drop-out moments of metallic clatter, weightier low-end shudder, and engine motor grind passing quickly in favour of returning to the piece’s central vortex scream. After the first three sides investigating qualities other than out-and-out ferocity, ending on Wolf Creek’s stun gun confrontation is the needed uptick with which to close.
True to the series’ form ‘Materialism’ manages to find variance in even the most confined of genre pinpoints, each performer bringing strong material to its chosen take on modern harsh noise – and the confined tracks lengths guaranteeing no chance of inattention or dilution.
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