Malpa "Primate Electronics" CD
[Propulsive]
Nine tracks of ape-obsessed harsh noise from Ohio. What is it about those damn hairy apes? Anyway, most of these tracks are fairly short bursts of harsh noise in various forms, from the typical, to the more creative. As is often the case, some I like, some I don't. The brief "Staring Back at You" opens with some weird noises that sound like monkeys (surprise) and it's quite annoying to be honest, but "I'm Not Asking, I'm Demanding" picks up the pace with a complete assault of brutal power electronics with massive layers of distortion and vicious low vocal grunts. "A Banned Judgement" uses thicker distortion with lots of low end in a stuttered delivery, along with sparse vocals (this time often insane high, cackling screams). "Avalanche fx86" is very nice. There's more of a death industrial type of vibe to some degree because the harsh textures have more feeling and there are some cleaner undertones that could be classified as ambient on some level. "Let's Use Your Hand for an Ashtray" is another power electronics track, but it's a bit more interesting and controlled than "I'm Not Asking, I'm Demanding". It's not exactly structured, but it leans more in that direction and the vocals are handled a bit better. "911 and Everyone's a Patriot" is longer and definitely stands out with some eerie synth textures and throbbing bass tones underneath the distortion, as well as a looped snare rhythm and some vocals (possibly samples) that are deep in the mix. Also of interest is the massive 10-minute collaboration with Anapthergal, "Jantric Calling on Hanuman": Immediately darker and more sinister than any of the other pieces. (Not to mention two to five times as long!) Light distorted crunches and swirling ambient tones move about in the distance with shuffling midrange distortion in the foreground. After a long break of silence in the middle things start back up with bursts of fluttering distorted tones and a constant low-end hum. The recording doesn't bother me. Some of the panning seems unnecessary (mainly because one speaker will tend to drop to near silence as the sounds bounce back and forth), but the raw sound works out nicely and provides enough clarity to do some damage. It doesn't sound totally lo-fi, but that warmth and density is definitely there. The layout is simple, and I have to confess that I don't like it. It's just cheesy. It looks okay for what appears to be a color copy of something that was initially printed from a nice color printer, but there's a lot of pixilation on the childlike cover illustration (of a monkey, of course), I'm not fond of any of the lettering, and the image of the monkey on the back cover is slightly more amusing, but still cheesy to me. I don't know. There are some serious song titles and some obviously sarcastic ones ("Your Prophecy Revealed to Me in a Dream" versus "Let's Use Your Hand as an Ashtray", for example), but the presentation makes it hard to know how serious this project wants to be taken. I always have issues with that, no matter what genre of music is involved. And that is in fact my main issue with this release. Most of the material is very strong, yet some of it is serious and some of it is sort of silly. I always have a big problem with that imbalance. I want to take this project seriously, but then I hear a goofy track like "Staring Back at You" or see a song title like "Chimpukabra" alongside images of grinning monkeys and I'm unsure of what to make of it. Were the project solely going in a serious direction I would be far more intrigued, I'll say that. In my opinion the humor serves no purpose here and only acts to detract from what is otherwise very promising work. (6/10)
Running time - 34:11, Tracks: 9
[Notable tracks: Avalanche fx86, 911 and Everyone's a Patriot, Jantric Calling on Hanuman]
Propulsive - http://community-2.webtv.net/chadwicked/distribution/

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