Deutsch Nepal "Deflagration of Hell" CD
[Cold Meat]
Here's a long overdue reissue of Deutsch Nepal's debut cassette from 1991 (at that time released through the Sound Source subdivision of Cold Meat Industry), originally pressed on CD in 1993 by Staalplaat. For those few who may remain uninitiated, this is an excellent collection of almost hypnotically repetitive tracks based around low-end ambience with lots of percussive rhythms and beats and the occasional harsher edge seeping into things. It's a really brilliant mix of dark ambient and industrial textures with obscure musical references at times through the use of dense synth tones. "Excursioner Angel", for example, blends an unexpectedly "peppy" sort of rhythm with bassy hums with some of the most aggressive harsh noise of the disc. The 11-minute "The Hierophants of Light" opens with a looped sample stating, "You shall hear nothing, you shall see nothing, you shall think nothing, you shall be nothing..." that quickly transitions into sparse, resonant percussion above slightly raw ambient hums that have a really interesting and melodic character to them. Everything gets pretty loud and some middle eastern sounding chants pan around at times in the lower layers of beats and synths. There's a surprising, quick burst of distortion towards the end of "Energy - Not Orgasm" that leads into the quirky electronic blips and bassline accompanied beats in "Glimpses of War, Parts I & II", which happens to be the only track herein that I'm not that fond of as it strays a little far from the general atmosphere of the disc and is sort of disruptive to the otherwise consistent and controlled flow. "Holistix - Links Between God and Human" closes on a more sinister and minimal note, passing up on machinated rhythms in favor of swelling drones with a few very subtle scratches of harsher sounds in the deep background. Sound quality wise you can tell that this material is dated as it has a certain edge to it, it's not raw or lo-fi by any means, it's very warm and has a lot of depth to it, but it does have that sense of originally being a 1991 cassette release, you know? But it sounds great compared to a lot of what's out there today, thus upholding its benchmark status. The disc comes in a glossy digipack with minimal artwork that, in my honest opinion, is pretty weak compared to the actual sounds it contains. It's mostly purple with some strange images of eyes floating around, and minimal notes inside the cover that mention the original release details. That's it. I don't think it looks as good as either the original cassette nor the Staalplaat version of the CD, but that's life, I suppose. The bottom line is that it's just great to have this historic material readily available again. A dub of this cassette was my first exposure to Deutsch Nepal, and it remains one of my favorite releases from the project to date. Very nice. (8/10)
Running time - 42:14, Tracks: 6
[Notable tracks: Deflagration of Hell, The Hierophants of Light, Holistix - Links Between God and Human]
Cold Meat Industry - http://www.coldmeat.se

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