Please send news items for inclusion to tony.dickie@btopenworld.com
Items for review: Compulsion, PO Box 19577, Kilbarchan, Johnstone, PA10 2WX, Scotland, UK
Marc Almond - Stardom Road
No news this month, as I was pretty ill earlier this month and have been caught up with others things recently. Normal service will resume soonish.
Stardom Road is the first Marc Almond release since his near fatal motorcycle accident that left Almond in a coma for two weeks. As recent press testifies he's still not fully recovered but on the basis of his version of the Charles Aznavour song 'I Have Lived', it's obvious that he's making the most of his time here. Like much of Stardom Road it positively bristles with glorious over-the-top treatments swathed in strings and orchestral passages. His brush with death has clearly left him reflective, as the selection of songs on Stardom Road chart his biography and personal obsessions. It ranges from the well known to the obscure, and touches upon aspects of his musical history.
You'd think the neon-city lights and guttertrash of 'London Boys' and 'Bedsetter Images' were Almond originals, not reworkings of tracks by David Bowie and Al Stewart. There's an almost 60s English feel to them, something Marc hasn't really toyed with since Soft Cell. The same goes for his gorgeous take on Dusty Springfield's 'I Close My Eyes and Count To Ten', redolent of the sixties girl group sound, sweetened here by the sugary Englishness of Sarah Cracknell of Saint Etienne. The guitar twang of 'Dream Lover' takes its cues from the David Lynch and Kenneth Anger sprinkled with a bit of the Paris Sisters and Roy Orbison.
Almond's version of 'Strangers In The Night' is an intimate twilight reading of the standard. In much the same fashion Almond and Antony Hegarty (of the Johnsons) combine on 'The Ballad of the Sad Young Men'. Antony's quavering tones a tremulous foil to Almond's solid croon as their voices entwine over tinkering barroom piano and late night muted trumpets. The quiet intimacy of these tracks are poles apart from the the explosive glam workout 'Kitsch', with its camp day-glo colours and disco strings.
His voice has never sounded stronger, holding notes like never before. 'Backstage (I'm Lonely)', his tribute to the late Gene Pitney, and 'Happy Heart' are filled with a melancholic optimism. As is 'Redeem Me (Beauty Will Redeem The World)' the sole Almond penned lyric capturing a contented individual finally resolved to the person who he is and what he seeks in life.
To call these selection of songs interpretations or label Stardom Road a collection of cover versions would do Almond a grand injustice. He inhabits these songs with such verve and gusto, they, for the most part, become Marc Almond songs. There's a passion here, the sound of someone who has lived their life through these songs. Stardom Road is by far his most accessible release. At times its nostalgic and decidely middle of the road, and miles away from the sombre reworkings of Brel and others that he's tackled in his post Soft Cell career. But Stardom Road marks a bold and brash return for Marc Almond, and, I for one, am glad to have him back. For more information go to www.marcalmond.co.uk/stardomroad/ or www.sanctuaryrecords.co.uk
Aural Holograms - Vol 1
A cool, calm recording formed from three distinct source recordings split between North Eastern Guatemala, Czech Republic and Finnmark - Sweden recorded over two decades. The first section 'Before the Great Stone' is awash with serene gliding electronics, punctuated by soft metal percussion. It's a real esoteric treasure with vibrating frequencies that tap into the mysteries of the earth. Sacred ambient music would best describe 'The Day of Opening the Tomb'. Naturally reverb plays a major role here, but the music is all so minimal with dreamy droney pieces given ever so slight pitch changes. Ringing bowls and gongs flesh out the atmospheric sound. If there's an oblique ritual feel to this then it's perhaps not surprising as Aural Holograms feature individuals involved in the Finnish label Aural Hypnox, and some of the musicians behind projects such as Halo Manasch. The final track 'Beyond the Black Deep' is much more nocturnal and eerie, emitting shifting dark drones over spartan percussion. It's the longest track here and the least interesting as despite the tiny modifications in tone very little else happens over the course of a hefty 41 minute running time. That said, the slow oscillating tones and arching drones found on Aural Holograms Vol 1 will draw in those with an ear for minute detail, where the slightest pitch and tone change becomes a thing of haunting simplicity. Aural Holograms Vol 1 is released in an edition of 1000 copies housed in impressive handmade packaging with the CD contained in a foldout cardboard envelope type sleeve with hand printed designs. For more information go to www.auralhypnox.com
Gregorio Bardini - Sentinelle Del Mattino
Something of a mixed release this one. Gregorio Bardini is an accomplished flute player. He's performed classical performances, and has worked with the likes of Vidna Obmana, Tuxedomoon and others, and from what I can gleam he was a member of the Italian post-industrial outfit T.A.C. in the late eighties / early nineties.
Sentinelle Del Mattino is his latest release issued under his own name, aided by numerous guests including Bleiburg. His flute playing dominates this release, but doesn't overshadow the compositions which are varied and, at times, quite surprising. The curiously titled 'Ezra Pound In Mantua' opens the album, and becomes somewhat clearer when you realise that it his daughter, Mary de Rachewilts, who is reading from her father's Cantos. Her voice contrasts nicely with the music that veers from short bursts of orchestral strings and background operatic singing, to stuttering electronics and electronic dance rhythms. The prolific neo-folk martial outfit Bleiburg supply the electronics for the next two tracks. The first a combination of eastern flute melodies, discordant e-bow guitar and martial electronics, while the second has Bardini's stern voice reciting (the first of two) poems by Christine Kortschal over subdued electronics before culminating in military snare. The voice of Ezra Pound features on the next track reading from his Cantos follows, over a flute with added and minimal experimental touches.
From then on Sentinell Del Mattino loses its flow. It jumps from style to style, with his predilection for all sorts of wind instruments taking centre stage. 'Zalmoxis' features Spanish guitar arpeggios and some sophisticated flute playing, 'Atla-Itla-Lati' is far more orchestral, with the words from the title sung and spoken, over gentle strings, and a delicate piano score. Once again the flute weaves a lamentful melody. 'La Bottege Dell'orefice' continues with classical piano and brief snatches of radio broadcasts before bagpipes blare across the top, ending on medieaval textures. Before it returns to the ethno-ambience of the closing track, it indulges in a couple of tracks of throbbing electronics and harsh aggro vocals pitted against improvised flute melodies.
Bardini has composed a varied release that continues his passion for, I guess, meditative wind instruments but flute playing and experimental music appear to make odd bedfellows, and while it follows its own path I'm not convinced that it's one that I'd want to travel down too often. For more information go to www.theeasternfront.org
Formication - Icons For A New Religion
Icons For A New Religion is the first proper CD from the Nottingham based duo Alec Bowman and Kingsley Ravenscroft following on from a number of professionally released CD-R recordings on their own imprint. Formication have been around a while garnering much interest with their abstract approach to dark electronica, ranging from the mutated rhythms of Crossing The Sea By Radio, and its satelitte release, Redux, which took their loose electronic compositions into a far more dense and abstract place. The Untitled Wasdale Recordings, a more recent release, placed their ritual sounds into a rural setting, largely due to its acoustic approach and improvised recording in England's Lake District. Icons For A New Religion returns to a pure electronic sound. It's a celestial headfuck of swirling electronics, fragmented rhythms, ritual voices absorbing the influences of seventies electronics, the dense sound explorations of Coil, and the fragmented and clustered rhythms of IDM. It's fair to say that the electronic influence takes precedence and that's why I regard them as a Boards of Canada for dark electronic listeners, swapping the pastoral for the astral. 'Arise or Originate' is a fine example where ritual rhythms merge with distorted cut-up voices, and spacey synths float over a dense electronic undertows. As it progresses more voices are transmitted over radio waves, and the shuffling beats swell into a solid electronic throb. The thunderous, richocheting electronic rhythmic slabs of 'In the Kingdom of the Electronic Eye' quickly evaporate to be replaced with incessant insectoid rhythms beavering furiously over pulsating textures. Here, as on the closing 'Faces of Fire', massed chanting adds to a ritual feel that permeates this and other Formication releases. The liturgical singing on the aforementioned 'Faces of Fire (Introspection)' with its reverberating electronics even recalls Coil. At other times listening to Icons For A New Religion is like astral travel as asteroids, stars and planets gush past in succession.
Their ability to enter alien terrain with psychedelic electronics puts them on a par closer to Cyclobe, rather than with Coil with who they are frequently compared, just as I did earlier on in this review. Either way, Icons For A New Religion is a dense and ornate sound exploration. It's the first Formication release that truly captures their potential. Let it do to your imagination what it did to mine. Recommended. For more information go to www.theformicarium.com or www.lumbertontrading.com
Merzbow vs Nordvargr - Partikel II
Okay, just how wrong would you be if you thought this Merzbow and Nordvargr release would throw up heaving blasts of noise and cavernous dark ambient groans? Wrong. Very, very wrong. For the most part. Partikel II is the second part of a planned trilogy between the Japanese experimental noise musician and the prolific and varied Swedish black metal / black industrial noise artist where soundsources were swapped and worked on by each of the collaborators.
Partikel II consists of four tracks, with two of the tracks 'Reakt I' and 'Reakt 2' breaking the 20 minute mark. A series of noise barrages take up the first few minutes of 'Reakt 1'. The crunching rhythms that underpin the distortion and screeching gradually break free to lead the listener on something of a merry dance. Glitchy electronics, controlled high end screechiness, snatches of layered electronic distortion all kept in check by skittery rhythms, that verge on IDM territory. It attains a real fucked-up groove, but a groove nonetheless.
The influence of Nordvargr can be found on the dark ambient undertones of 'Luxon'. They don't manage to take centre stage though due to the interplay between rhythms and stutterning electronica. They're replaced by a series of buzzing drones, and clipped static fuzz, with groaning dark ambient swells that diminshes before bowing out with yet more rhythms.
'Reakt 2' returns to the groove first encountered on 'Reakt 1', with a loose downbeat low end throb. It all starts with a rush of layered noise before crackling textures give way to a mass of disjointed rhythms with passages of windswept noise. It eventually settles on almost electronic dub rhythm, kinda reminiscent of Techno Animal. Clocking in at just under the half hour mark it never succumbs to a given sound opting instead for fluid passages of whirring and gliding electronics, occasionally given some squelchy treatments. While the noise is dense and layered it's never overstated nor harsh enough to overshadow the rhythm. You'd be hard pushed to guess the identities of the musicians involved here.
Partikel II ends on a real prime slice of dark atmospheric electronica. The scream of a petrified girl opens the final track, 'Brockengeist Elektron', amidst flickering glitches and deep, dark ambient rumbles. There's moments of crunchy textures, disembodied voices and brief snatches of melody throughout the rhythmic sinister ambience.
Partikel II is going to raise eyebrows, and I suspect there will be lots of head scratching by followers of Merzbow, Nordvargr and Cold Spring collectors. It's by far the most original piece of work from either party and the combination of noise, ambient and rhythms is by far the most listenable material from both too. So if you think you've got these two prolific musicians sussed, I'm afraid, you're going to have think again. For more information go to www.coldspring.co.uk
Sistrenatus - Division One
It seems Harlow MacFarlane the Canadian musician behind Sistrenatus takes the term industrial music quite literally. Right from the get-go, Division One is awash with the sound of industrial machinery and disused factories. Steel doors slam shut, metal chains clink and clang, footsteps traverse along industrial shafts and corridors. Amidst the carefully controlled chaos electronics drone and shudder. Voices are distant and muffled, with only the occasional sentence becoming decipherable.
Harlow MacFarlane used to record under the name Funerary Call and while that project was much more in the vein of ritual ambient, with Sistrenatus he switches effortlessly between industrial, noise and dark ambient, often in the course of the same track. Just to confuse the listener even more martial rhythms sporadically surface throughout. Division One foregoes proper song titles in favour of simple indexing ranging from I to IX, with the intention of Division One being played as one in its entirety. Sound and texture appears to be the key to unlocking its secrets.
'III' ranges from harsh industrial rumbling noise to short controlled bursts of power electronics, while 'IV' is dark ambient with droning synths and thumping beats. As it progresses orchestral synths rise and fall to the sound of timpani drum rolls. Unlike the corrosive textures and factory smog of the other tracks on Division One 'IV' is like the soundtrack to a slave ship in the fiery pits of hell. 'VI', meanwhile, opts for throbbing synths and a cut-glass melody obscured by background industrial squeaks'n' creaks and more muffled voices. The following track, 'VII', takes in wartime news reel footage, cut-off by the piercing shriek of a drill accompanied later by martial drum beats and deep bass throb layered with assorted cut-up voices. After that its shuddering electronic tones and military eyewitness sample, over piercing shrieks and passages of industrial noise, The final track combines the electronic hum of harsh industrial noise with martial drum rolls. And throughout it all there remains the clatter of industrial activity and production.
And that's the main problem here: Division One can't decide whether its death industrial, industrial noise, dark ambient or whatever. It seems to have a tick in every box. With 9 tracks in 36 minutes its also a tad short leaving little time for development before the next track is upon you. It's like listening to an industrial effects record; a Radiophonic Workshop release designed for an industrial and noise audience maybe. As mentioned earlier sound and texture appear the key here and Sistrenatus veer between genres with some good sounds and good tracks, but ultimately Division One fails as it tries to be so many things in such a short space of time. Sistrenatus appear to be highly competent at what they do, and I certainly wouldn't write them off, but I'd like to hear them tackle less over longer tracks. Perhaps things will become clearer on Wrought Iron Railings, their new CD due later this year on the French label Hermetique. For more information go to www.coldspring.co.uk
Items for review: Compulsion, PO Box 19577, Kilbarchan, Johnstone, PA10 2WX, Scotland, UK
Marc Almond - Stardom Road
No news this month, as I was pretty ill earlier this month and have been caught up with others things recently. Normal service will resume soonish.
Stardom Road is the first Marc Almond release since his near fatal motorcycle accident that left Almond in a coma for two weeks. As recent press testifies he's still not fully recovered but on the basis of his version of the Charles Aznavour song 'I Have Lived', it's obvious that he's making the most of his time here. Like much of Stardom Road it positively bristles with glorious over-the-top treatments swathed in strings and orchestral passages. His brush with death has clearly left him reflective, as the selection of songs on Stardom Road chart his biography and personal obsessions. It ranges from the well known to the obscure, and touches upon aspects of his musical history.
You'd think the neon-city lights and guttertrash of 'London Boys' and 'Bedsetter Images' were Almond originals, not reworkings of tracks by David Bowie and Al Stewart. There's an almost 60s English feel to them, something Marc hasn't really toyed with since Soft Cell. The same goes for his gorgeous take on Dusty Springfield's 'I Close My Eyes and Count To Ten', redolent of the sixties girl group sound, sweetened here by the sugary Englishness of Sarah Cracknell of Saint Etienne. The guitar twang of 'Dream Lover' takes its cues from the David Lynch and Kenneth Anger sprinkled with a bit of the Paris Sisters and Roy Orbison.
Almond's version of 'Strangers In The Night' is an intimate twilight reading of the standard. In much the same fashion Almond and Antony Hegarty (of the Johnsons) combine on 'The Ballad of the Sad Young Men'. Antony's quavering tones a tremulous foil to Almond's solid croon as their voices entwine over tinkering barroom piano and late night muted trumpets. The quiet intimacy of these tracks are poles apart from the the explosive glam workout 'Kitsch', with its camp day-glo colours and disco strings.
His voice has never sounded stronger, holding notes like never before. 'Backstage (I'm Lonely)', his tribute to the late Gene Pitney, and 'Happy Heart' are filled with a melancholic optimism. As is 'Redeem Me (Beauty Will Redeem The World)' the sole Almond penned lyric capturing a contented individual finally resolved to the person who he is and what he seeks in life.
To call these selection of songs interpretations or label Stardom Road a collection of cover versions would do Almond a grand injustice. He inhabits these songs with such verve and gusto, they, for the most part, become Marc Almond songs. There's a passion here, the sound of someone who has lived their life through these songs. Stardom Road is by far his most accessible release. At times its nostalgic and decidely middle of the road, and miles away from the sombre reworkings of Brel and others that he's tackled in his post Soft Cell career. But Stardom Road marks a bold and brash return for Marc Almond, and, I for one, am glad to have him back. For more information go to www.marcalmond.co.uk/stardomroad/ or www.sanctuaryrecords.co.uk
Aural Holograms - Vol 1
A cool, calm recording formed from three distinct source recordings split between North Eastern Guatemala, Czech Republic and Finnmark - Sweden recorded over two decades. The first section 'Before the Great Stone' is awash with serene gliding electronics, punctuated by soft metal percussion. It's a real esoteric treasure with vibrating frequencies that tap into the mysteries of the earth. Sacred ambient music would best describe 'The Day of Opening the Tomb'. Naturally reverb plays a major role here, but the music is all so minimal with dreamy droney pieces given ever so slight pitch changes. Ringing bowls and gongs flesh out the atmospheric sound. If there's an oblique ritual feel to this then it's perhaps not surprising as Aural Holograms feature individuals involved in the Finnish label Aural Hypnox, and some of the musicians behind projects such as Halo Manasch. The final track 'Beyond the Black Deep' is much more nocturnal and eerie, emitting shifting dark drones over spartan percussion. It's the longest track here and the least interesting as despite the tiny modifications in tone very little else happens over the course of a hefty 41 minute running time. That said, the slow oscillating tones and arching drones found on Aural Holograms Vol 1 will draw in those with an ear for minute detail, where the slightest pitch and tone change becomes a thing of haunting simplicity. Aural Holograms Vol 1 is released in an edition of 1000 copies housed in impressive handmade packaging with the CD contained in a foldout cardboard envelope type sleeve with hand printed designs. For more information go to www.auralhypnox.com
Gregorio Bardini - Sentinelle Del Mattino
Something of a mixed release this one. Gregorio Bardini is an accomplished flute player. He's performed classical performances, and has worked with the likes of Vidna Obmana, Tuxedomoon and others, and from what I can gleam he was a member of the Italian post-industrial outfit T.A.C. in the late eighties / early nineties.
Sentinelle Del Mattino is his latest release issued under his own name, aided by numerous guests including Bleiburg. His flute playing dominates this release, but doesn't overshadow the compositions which are varied and, at times, quite surprising. The curiously titled 'Ezra Pound In Mantua' opens the album, and becomes somewhat clearer when you realise that it his daughter, Mary de Rachewilts, who is reading from her father's Cantos. Her voice contrasts nicely with the music that veers from short bursts of orchestral strings and background operatic singing, to stuttering electronics and electronic dance rhythms. The prolific neo-folk martial outfit Bleiburg supply the electronics for the next two tracks. The first a combination of eastern flute melodies, discordant e-bow guitar and martial electronics, while the second has Bardini's stern voice reciting (the first of two) poems by Christine Kortschal over subdued electronics before culminating in military snare. The voice of Ezra Pound features on the next track reading from his Cantos follows, over a flute with added and minimal experimental touches.
From then on Sentinell Del Mattino loses its flow. It jumps from style to style, with his predilection for all sorts of wind instruments taking centre stage. 'Zalmoxis' features Spanish guitar arpeggios and some sophisticated flute playing, 'Atla-Itla-Lati' is far more orchestral, with the words from the title sung and spoken, over gentle strings, and a delicate piano score. Once again the flute weaves a lamentful melody. 'La Bottege Dell'orefice' continues with classical piano and brief snatches of radio broadcasts before bagpipes blare across the top, ending on medieaval textures. Before it returns to the ethno-ambience of the closing track, it indulges in a couple of tracks of throbbing electronics and harsh aggro vocals pitted against improvised flute melodies.
Bardini has composed a varied release that continues his passion for, I guess, meditative wind instruments but flute playing and experimental music appear to make odd bedfellows, and while it follows its own path I'm not convinced that it's one that I'd want to travel down too often. For more information go to www.theeasternfront.org
Formication - Icons For A New Religion
Icons For A New Religion is the first proper CD from the Nottingham based duo Alec Bowman and Kingsley Ravenscroft following on from a number of professionally released CD-R recordings on their own imprint. Formication have been around a while garnering much interest with their abstract approach to dark electronica, ranging from the mutated rhythms of Crossing The Sea By Radio, and its satelitte release, Redux, which took their loose electronic compositions into a far more dense and abstract place. The Untitled Wasdale Recordings, a more recent release, placed their ritual sounds into a rural setting, largely due to its acoustic approach and improvised recording in England's Lake District. Icons For A New Religion returns to a pure electronic sound. It's a celestial headfuck of swirling electronics, fragmented rhythms, ritual voices absorbing the influences of seventies electronics, the dense sound explorations of Coil, and the fragmented and clustered rhythms of IDM. It's fair to say that the electronic influence takes precedence and that's why I regard them as a Boards of Canada for dark electronic listeners, swapping the pastoral for the astral. 'Arise or Originate' is a fine example where ritual rhythms merge with distorted cut-up voices, and spacey synths float over a dense electronic undertows. As it progresses more voices are transmitted over radio waves, and the shuffling beats swell into a solid electronic throb. The thunderous, richocheting electronic rhythmic slabs of 'In the Kingdom of the Electronic Eye' quickly evaporate to be replaced with incessant insectoid rhythms beavering furiously over pulsating textures. Here, as on the closing 'Faces of Fire', massed chanting adds to a ritual feel that permeates this and other Formication releases. The liturgical singing on the aforementioned 'Faces of Fire (Introspection)' with its reverberating electronics even recalls Coil. At other times listening to Icons For A New Religion is like astral travel as asteroids, stars and planets gush past in succession.
Their ability to enter alien terrain with psychedelic electronics puts them on a par closer to Cyclobe, rather than with Coil with who they are frequently compared, just as I did earlier on in this review. Either way, Icons For A New Religion is a dense and ornate sound exploration. It's the first Formication release that truly captures their potential. Let it do to your imagination what it did to mine. Recommended. For more information go to www.theformicarium.com or www.lumbertontrading.com
Merzbow vs Nordvargr - Partikel II
Okay, just how wrong would you be if you thought this Merzbow and Nordvargr release would throw up heaving blasts of noise and cavernous dark ambient groans? Wrong. Very, very wrong. For the most part. Partikel II is the second part of a planned trilogy between the Japanese experimental noise musician and the prolific and varied Swedish black metal / black industrial noise artist where soundsources were swapped and worked on by each of the collaborators.
Partikel II consists of four tracks, with two of the tracks 'Reakt I' and 'Reakt 2' breaking the 20 minute mark. A series of noise barrages take up the first few minutes of 'Reakt 1'. The crunching rhythms that underpin the distortion and screeching gradually break free to lead the listener on something of a merry dance. Glitchy electronics, controlled high end screechiness, snatches of layered electronic distortion all kept in check by skittery rhythms, that verge on IDM territory. It attains a real fucked-up groove, but a groove nonetheless.
The influence of Nordvargr can be found on the dark ambient undertones of 'Luxon'. They don't manage to take centre stage though due to the interplay between rhythms and stutterning electronica. They're replaced by a series of buzzing drones, and clipped static fuzz, with groaning dark ambient swells that diminshes before bowing out with yet more rhythms.
'Reakt 2' returns to the groove first encountered on 'Reakt 1', with a loose downbeat low end throb. It all starts with a rush of layered noise before crackling textures give way to a mass of disjointed rhythms with passages of windswept noise. It eventually settles on almost electronic dub rhythm, kinda reminiscent of Techno Animal. Clocking in at just under the half hour mark it never succumbs to a given sound opting instead for fluid passages of whirring and gliding electronics, occasionally given some squelchy treatments. While the noise is dense and layered it's never overstated nor harsh enough to overshadow the rhythm. You'd be hard pushed to guess the identities of the musicians involved here.
Partikel II ends on a real prime slice of dark atmospheric electronica. The scream of a petrified girl opens the final track, 'Brockengeist Elektron', amidst flickering glitches and deep, dark ambient rumbles. There's moments of crunchy textures, disembodied voices and brief snatches of melody throughout the rhythmic sinister ambience.
Partikel II is going to raise eyebrows, and I suspect there will be lots of head scratching by followers of Merzbow, Nordvargr and Cold Spring collectors. It's by far the most original piece of work from either party and the combination of noise, ambient and rhythms is by far the most listenable material from both too. So if you think you've got these two prolific musicians sussed, I'm afraid, you're going to have think again. For more information go to www.coldspring.co.uk
Sistrenatus - Division One
It seems Harlow MacFarlane the Canadian musician behind Sistrenatus takes the term industrial music quite literally. Right from the get-go, Division One is awash with the sound of industrial machinery and disused factories. Steel doors slam shut, metal chains clink and clang, footsteps traverse along industrial shafts and corridors. Amidst the carefully controlled chaos electronics drone and shudder. Voices are distant and muffled, with only the occasional sentence becoming decipherable.
Harlow MacFarlane used to record under the name Funerary Call and while that project was much more in the vein of ritual ambient, with Sistrenatus he switches effortlessly between industrial, noise and dark ambient, often in the course of the same track. Just to confuse the listener even more martial rhythms sporadically surface throughout. Division One foregoes proper song titles in favour of simple indexing ranging from I to IX, with the intention of Division One being played as one in its entirety. Sound and texture appears to be the key to unlocking its secrets.
'III' ranges from harsh industrial rumbling noise to short controlled bursts of power electronics, while 'IV' is dark ambient with droning synths and thumping beats. As it progresses orchestral synths rise and fall to the sound of timpani drum rolls. Unlike the corrosive textures and factory smog of the other tracks on Division One 'IV' is like the soundtrack to a slave ship in the fiery pits of hell. 'VI', meanwhile, opts for throbbing synths and a cut-glass melody obscured by background industrial squeaks'n' creaks and more muffled voices. The following track, 'VII', takes in wartime news reel footage, cut-off by the piercing shriek of a drill accompanied later by martial drum beats and deep bass throb layered with assorted cut-up voices. After that its shuddering electronic tones and military eyewitness sample, over piercing shrieks and passages of industrial noise, The final track combines the electronic hum of harsh industrial noise with martial drum rolls. And throughout it all there remains the clatter of industrial activity and production.
And that's the main problem here: Division One can't decide whether its death industrial, industrial noise, dark ambient or whatever. It seems to have a tick in every box. With 9 tracks in 36 minutes its also a tad short leaving little time for development before the next track is upon you. It's like listening to an industrial effects record; a Radiophonic Workshop release designed for an industrial and noise audience maybe. As mentioned earlier sound and texture appear the key here and Sistrenatus veer between genres with some good sounds and good tracks, but ultimately Division One fails as it tries to be so many things in such a short space of time. Sistrenatus appear to be highly competent at what they do, and I certainly wouldn't write them off, but I'd like to hear them tackle less over longer tracks. Perhaps things will become clearer on Wrought Iron Railings, their new CD due later this year on the French label Hermetique. For more information go to www.coldspring.co.uk