Stefan Widmann’s Azoikum has emerged from the ice, pushing out a number of releases in the last couple of years which show no sign of degradation from the time spent away. The project is coupled on this cassette with Scatmother, an outlet for Hagen Verkhaner which straddles primal noise and sordid power electronics for an intentionally unsavoury sensibility which has played out across a range of releases since the mid-‘10s. The two are united here on ‘Holden Caulfield’, the central character of JD Salinger’s ‘Catcher In The Rye’ and used here presumably as a banner for the character’s mental illness and instability which is faintly threaded to Scatmother’s chosen samples.
After a demure introduction Azoikum launches into a fury of tangled and fried noise electronics, multiple lines boiling furiously in a clutter more reminiscent of mid-90s American or Japanese noise than anything else I’ve found in Azoikum’s discography. Drifting away from the project’s more familiar power electronics dourness has not hurt this material at all: it’s powerful, absorbing, and bleeding confidence, equipment punished but clearly enjoying the force deployed upon it.
There are very few sonic components from Azoikum’s material which I can identify or grasp, with only small fragments finding recirculation through a wider reinventive momentum – but that’s the point; this is noise with the futurist drive of Merzbow’s ‘Relapse-era’ but in a somewhat more confined frequency range (there’s little low-end to kick in, and the high end sheen has been kept dialed back), a way to get from beginning to end quicker and with more bruises than the time/space continuum wants to allow. The project’s well-worn power electronics lexicon shouldn’t put off those wanting a fix of high velocity harsh noise: this material is highly satisfying, and stands up well to repeat listens.
Scatmother finds inspiration in a sparser but still disheveled swamp of noise, with leaky feedback, scrap metal and buzzing synth resonating through a darker and more muted display than Azoikum’s bolder hues, and lashed on most tracks by hoarsely yelled vocals which seem to rage in response to the flames coaxed from the familiar setup. At its best the material surges and swarms with invigoration, effective in its brutishness and forging its way through crude weight and nastiness. “Breeders” and “Kshattriya” are both beneficiaries of this approach, ugly distortion-smothered junk and crude synth adjustments giving a sense of unhinged immediacy which the vocals perpetuates.
It's not an approach which always works, particularly at over half an hour in length. “Proud Flesh”’s ominous opening of delayed junk metal scrapes and unflinching synth sets a more stable and effective tone but that falls apart when the gruff vocals and squirming electronics interject, however the drop in intensity is palpable; “Asperger’s Syndrome” follows and is similarly unconfrontational, the immediacy and abandonment of the better tracks waning through this mid section, unable to keep the energy or depth of sound which gives the better tracks their edge. I prefer the project when it maintains a mood at the expense of ferocity, rather than the other way around; the contributions to this cassette are enjoyable enough when at their peak, but the unevenness and drops in intensity push ‘Holden Caulfield’ back in Scatmother’s discography for me.
Nil By Mouth’s expansive packaging should be well-known by now, and ‘Holden Caulfield’ is the label in its sweet spot: an oversized envelope housing multiple inserts alongside the cassette. Visually the materials are well-made, although the link between what I assume are the Azoikum inserts, and the audio material as titled, isn’t particularly clear: none of the titles match, and the themes seem a little misaligned. Regardless the presentation is a treat, a few rungs above the crowd of Norelco cased cassettes.