Review: v/a “Creaking Brawling Dreams of Undertaker” compilation CD

Three long tracks from three different acts, all recorded live, all recorded raw. Filthy Turd is up first with "Filthy Live": 16-and-a-half minutes of minimal harsh noise recorded at the Packhorse Pub in Leeds in July of 2004. And I mean minimal. It's very sparse, very simple, and stagnant piece to a degree. There's no layering at all, so you basically get one harsh texture that breaks up and changes over throughout the course of the piece. A crunchy hum, drones of feedback, more active and brittle sounding distorted crackles, etc. That's about it. Since it's so simple the utterly lo-fi sound actually works okay. Is it optimal? No, but it doesn't detract from the base level of the piece so much. Romance follows with "Romance Live", recorded at the Packhorse Pub on the same night as Filthy Turd's performance. Also 16 minutes, this piece is more active in its harsh excursions, but sounds much more distant and muffled, so the raw nature of the recording situation is more detrimental to this selection. There are a few very brief hints at atmospheric ambient lulls, but all they do is get my hopes up for a change of pace, when in fact things sort of rest at a dense, wispy midrange sputter for almost the entire piece. Closing it out is Feast of Ishtar with "Playmate of the Year", which is nearly 14 minutes of live noise, which I assume was recorded on the same night (despite the lack of documentation on the packaging) since the project is a collaboration between Filthy Turd and Romance. This piece is harsher than the self-titled Feast of Isthar CD that Voltagestress*r released, sounding more like a literal combination of the two tracks that each artist offers up herein under their individual project names. There's a lot of biting feedback and muddy, distant distorted motion, and again things are incredibly consistent for the duration of the track. The CD-R comes in a plain looking xeroxed cover and plastic sleeve, as minimal and rough as the other material from this label. And I don't view that in a good light, I have to say. It looks lazy to me. I think this is a bit of a boring disc, but I've heard worse, and sound-wise the level of rawness is tolerable. I still think the packaging needs to step it up, though. Well, everything needs to step it up, but...