Here's a split/collaborative effort between Tender Love and Tactical Eradication Function (perhaps better known as simply T.E.F.) where the two groups collaborate on the first two tracks, and then each offers up a few selections on their own. "Metal Guru" opens with 8+ minutes of what I would tag as rather straightforward, lo-fi harsh noise. There's a lot of overloaded distortion with some thick bass and a few crackling feedback tones fighting through to the surface, etc. "Rise Unbound Serpent Fire", the other collaborative piece, is similar, but longer and not as consistently harsh. There are definitely tons of overloaded tones, but there's a lot more of a bass rumble with the only obvious distortion appearing thinner and subtler. At the same time, though, it's also very redundant... sticking with pretty much the same thing for 10+ minutes. Tender Love's tracks are fairly short and minimal for the most part. "Screaming Wolf (Vegan Saint)" is the first significantly shorter track, starting out with a distant sort of reverberated feel and quickly shifting into some earsplitting harsh noise. "Meta-Tesla AC Transmission" is somewhat similar in structure but has an eerie undercurrent to it, which is more spacious and succinct. T.E.F. ends things out with two monolithic tracks. "Arclight III" is 13 minutes of unrepentant harsh noise: Thick, chaotic, and seemingly layered with a lot of nice subtleties happening. And then there's "Arclight IV" - a massive 21+ minutes of extreme noise. This one's a bit more diverse than most of the other tracks, utilizing a fair amount of noticeable changes and several layers of obscured detail. Good stuff. The lo-fi recordings never bother me here. In fact, I think they work out quite well to some degree. There's a lot of density, but there's also a lot of piercing high-end to the distortion. The packaging is quite cool for being relatively inexpensive. The CD-R comes in a jewel case with a xeroxed booklet and traycard, and a full color xeroxed front cover flap that wraps around the back half of the booklet. The quality of the copies is actually quite good, and the imagery is very interesting. There are tons of icons, diagrams, and designs, most of which seem to be Asian influenced and deal with energy. Very cool. My only problem with this release is that the material is all somewhat one-sided. The two projects don't sound all that unalike one another (there are distinct differences, but in the grand scheme of things there's not all that much separating them), and as a result the two collaborative tracks don't really show how the two projects are combining their approaches. As far as harsh noise goes this material is better than average, and I like the fact that there are ideas at work and the CD-R is properly presented in a tactful D.I.Y. manner, but all the same... as far as the actual compositions, things could be more interesting.
[Inner Space]
Running time - 64:14, Tracks: 8
[Notable tracks: Metal Guru, Meta-Tesla AC Transmission, Arclight IV]
Inner Space - [email protected]
