Two tracks of boisterous experimental noise created with a laptop, vocals, percussion, and piano, totaling damn near an hour. A few minutes into the relatively harsh and quickly panned noise of opener "Holy Rood Blast Furnace" a minimal distorted beat comes in, which sort of took me by surprise. After the beat passes, thankfully, some interesting atmospheric noise comes into play that blends some twisted sort of mid- to high-end ambience against crunching distortion. Another rhythm comes in later, not quite a full-blown beat, but very close, and I find it to be disruptive and makes less sense against the rest of the composition. Oftentimes the actual noises are rather minimal, with just enough layering to create some interaction and panning effects, and I like that approach. After some back and forth shifts between varying segments previously exhibited within the track some spoken vocals come in underneath randomly sputtering bursts of eerie distortion, but I find the vocals to be a huge letdown. The delivery almost comes off as halfassed/heldback narration, almost like someone reading a children's "horror story" or something like that. Very obnoxious. The oddly titled "Sway (Warm Slow Groove Mix)" closes the disc, but there's really nothing warm or groovy about it. It is slow moving, opening with faint dark ambient currents that swirl around very quietly compared to the first track. Eventually synths become slightly more musical in nature, droning along and actually carrying thick, dense melodies that aren't deliberate enough to create too much structure (which is nice). A little bit of a percussive rhythm does have a role, but way more subtly so than in the first track, so it's actually enjoyable. To my great, great dismay some horrible groaning/moaning sounds almost ruin the entire track near the end, as it sounds like someone putting a mic in their mouth and just letting air pass through, breathing in spurts with distortion. Fucking atrocious. Why someone would take a fairly well constructed 25-minute piece and fuck it up in the last five minutes like that is beyond me. The CD-R comes in a clear jewel case with some inserts taped onto the back with black electrical tape and a childlike drawing of a green monster or some shit on the front of the case in marker. To say it looks a little immature is an understatement. One of the inserts on the back is numbered out of 50 copies, but I can't imagine these are flying out the door, if for no other reason than, let's face it, this thing looks like shit. I can't help but be a bit of a jerk on that aspect, because really, who can take a piece of music seriously when it's got a green monster drawn on the cover in marker? Should not an artist care more about their work than to package it that way, especially when the sounds are far more developed than that? Some of this work is good, some of it's alright, and some of it stinks. I'd go easier on it were the package more mature, though. I can't stress enough how important visual aesthetics are to experimental music. Chop the last five minutes off of "Sway (Warm Slow Groove Mix)]" and you'd have a promising dark ambient soundscape.
[Fargone]
Running time - 54:24, Tracks: 2
[Notable tracks: Sway (Warm Slow Groove Mix)]
Fargone Records - http://www.generatorsite.com
