Here we have 19 tracks of experimental noise from 19 different artists, most of which hail from the US. Sissy Spacek starts things off strong with lots of fast cutups and glitchy distorted noise and some noticeable bursts of sampled percussion. The track is short and to the point. Good stuff. Astrogenic Hallucinauting's "Into the Breach" is a great minimal piece of dark ambient/death industrial noise with some crunchy midrange distortion and sinister hums. It's repetitive but very effective for its six-minute running time. Richard Ramirez offers up another excellent piece that blends dark ambient and death industrial textures. Very brooding undercurrents of bass drones mix with some subtle feedback and rumbling distortion, adding a bit of a lo-fi attack. Quite menacing. Muzak's "Funtime" stands out with some percussive beats and samples, and though I can't particularly say that I enjoy the song, it is a change of pace from all of the relatively straightforward harsh tracks found herein. "Undeniable Desperation", by Ze'ro-sum, is far more musical than any of the other contributions, coming off sort of like an odd, manipulated horror movie soundtrack to some degree, though there are some ethereal chiming tones and such that also lend a different sort of feel to the atmosphere. And towards the end of the disc Treatment uses some vocal samples and pounding percussion alongside some smooth low-end and fidgety midrange distortion in "Cradle to Grave", showing off a great deal of potential. Most of the other tracks are basically straightforward harsh noise, some a bit stronger than others (Rusted Shut and Concrete Violin are among the best of the harsh pieces), but in all honesty most of the harsher tracks are actually better than average, and there are only a handful of tracks on this compilation that I truly dislike. The CD-R is housed in an oversized sleeve that's full color on the outside, black and white on the inside, including a xeroxed insert with contact information for all of the contributing artists. All of the imagery is intentionally pixilated/glitchy and colorful, which strikes me as odd (I mean, bright red, yellow, and blue aren't exactly that menacing - this collection is called "Rituals of Termination" after all), and the center spread shows the only recognizable photo (which appears to be the site of the World Trade Center towers after the terrorist attack). Inside the package the compilation is hand-numbered out of 250 copies. All in all this is a nice collection of tracks from many artists that I was not formerly familiar with. As with all compilations there are some setbacks, and in this case I feel that both the lengthy running time and the sameness of the middle portion of the disc can get tiresome, but the effort is a valiant one.
[Axis Mundi]
Running time - 73:13, Tracks: 19
[Notable tracks: Sissy Spacek, Astrogenic Hallucinauting, Rusted Shut, Richard Ramirez, Concrete Violin, Treatment]
Axis Mundi - [email protected]
