See bottom of this post for digest commentary.Sewer Election – Blizzard Amplification 1xc40 + 5xc30Every so often, the pure cleansing fury of a good harshhead ritual is demanded. More so I’d imagine when
plainly heretical pursuits threaten to
malign the
internal consistencies keeping the head (the harsh one) screwed on a’right. Here, buffeted by perfect storms of
harsh electronics & feedback, the head- harsh and otherwise- has barely space to think let alone channel its
förtvivlan in the
efterspel of a reverse-engineered
piss poor performance. Put away that weepy guitar son, it's time w-
incomingWHOOOoooooooOOOOOOSH.
Three hours eight minutes and thirty six seconds of never flagging Sewer
ERECTION, six-fold amplifications cumming hard fast gooood, far from impeachable, further still from stoppable, roaring riot through cyclopean jetstreams, torrential electronic blizzards blazing to that cataclysmic Category Six, inundating senses, reaming ‘holes, doing damage that, simply, needs to be done. Now that's what I call harsh head ritual.
Perhaps unremarkable for a project this storied and steeped in the craft, it’s still I think worth remarking that, and not to oversell the cliché of it but: there really is not a single dull moment. Perhaps a single side’s dalliance in not undesirous psychedelic oscilla-bloop, but more in the way of the exception proves the rule. The shit, rules hard. Perhaps too we can read something of this into the initial conception: the self-described
improvised flow of each individual side staking a fly-by-the-seat-of-yer-soiled-panties immediacy, the constant, repeated, punchings-through of yet-still-harsher-eruptions absolutely obliterating even the teeniest suggestion of complacency. In the mindsear: locked down in shelter, unholy storms raging outside, left to own devices (and more than a few Elkbrew) and what to do but channel that rage straight to recording device. Later, per the liner notes, the er rage is remixed, but not at the expense of the living, breathing, ritual, moment.
Before completely losing the head in the moment, it may also be worth noting that not a single one of the twelve proferred sides sounds remotely like the next. Well, okay, a given one would at least
remotely have to sound like a given other insofar as they are all subject to the same hardhheaded predispositions, above. But there’s quite a diversity of aptitudes here achieved, verging far and wide among the blown-out vistas, diving deep into the ear-drilling shriek-holes, plumbing the crunch-depths, scorching the psych-skies, wringing from the harsh head every ritual energy it's worth.
Volume 1, the lone c40
Filterbank Waste Campaign leads off the set with an all-frequencies-maxed mass of dense, blistering, scorch. Redzone Electronics as far as the only thing I’m seeing is red red red, blood red radioactive rains lighting up the sky in dramatic fashion. An early ascent to absolute peak of ‘hole-razing seethe and then that first punch-through, fat flatulent bass-heavy ka-bloowy clearly indicative of the improvised immediacy in play. So too with the sudden drop outs, the widening stereo scope, the narrowed singe-burrowing, all of it delivered on the fly, in the moment, but never once restrained in the full-forced thousand-millibar pressures utterly smoking ‘hole. About halfway through and the intensity ups, hyper-tensions racing through a deceptively mined field of bleating glint and frizzle. A crash down to earth precipitates explosive lurch for the heavens, tempestuous flurry of furies sufficient to lock the listener, gawping, in place- but of course, in my sad and incurable case, pacing about the room like an utter nutcase, unable to stay at this fucking keyboard for more than three words at a time. So to say, in very short order, I am completely sold. No need for the other five tapes, let alone the B side (the earholes are already completely fucked anyway).
I refuse to speculate on the meaning of
Fishnet Psych-Out but it’s highly improbable that I haven’t been there myself. This one hits via much more straight-laced passions, singular singe-tones burning their clear and whitened piercings straight through skull with single-minded devotion to the principle. The principle, naturally: damage hole. At eight minutes possible concrete sources, arched clack of stilettos or well-disguised voice, attempt to crack the veneer, high-end whittling oscillation assuming a defensive posture. The oscillation breaks away and so too the singe-tones, dropped into a bass-heavy field of choking belch. Dead silence. ScrrreeeEEEEEEEEE. Revenge, sweet painful revenge, burning singing seething...choke belch gurgle, extended hum, like you gonna choose a hole or what? The answer is no, the tension is thick, the passion- slaked.
Volume 2Razor’s Edge is a good title for the sharp, severely pitched concentrations in feedback-driven shriek. A dialog of the raw and the ragged seems to be holding more frenzied incursions at bay, spare jugular-straining rip-throughs ramping up the pressures before heftier curdles collapse the opening in piles of frequency overload. There is air, even hints of daylight in the over-amped chamber, frazzled rumble-balls scaling the inward-curving sides of spiraling screech-walls. Unlike the first tape, the sense of control, or unwillingness to bend, is pervasive, the chipped and stuttered physical exertions wasted in their attempts to divert attention.
Scream Bloody Acid expands on the blueprint sourced on the A-side, upping and dumping a good pile more shit into the outlying extremities. Heavy and steady wins the rage, the first decisive thrust seemingly promising of deviation to come only to fall in line, jacking the throttle to full mast, pouring thick and rich into whitened psych-sheets of puritannical scathe. Some ways through and low-lying underwater thunder bulgings start to disrupt proceedings, reinforced in their efforts by cascading dribblings of smoothly oscillating wave-ripple, presumably the Bloody Acid finally getting in on the action, bleep-heavy bloopery all but ensuring in their pathos a slickly sickening slither through rubbery puddles of jiggly jellied butt-wiggle.
Volume 3The jiggly jellied butt wiggles reach their zenith in
Crystalized Disease Genitalia, like we couldn’t see this coming, juicy electrodes sending salacious psychedelic signals across wide-open pools of dribbly oscilla-poop. A concerted effort to generate necessary tensions in the rise and fall of reedy buzz-surge, ever so inexorably drawing on the feeding back hydro powers of an ultimately immersive tidal wooosh. Low-lying underwater thunder bulgings are now back in the mix and with them the unmistakably caustic insinuation of Bloody Acid, never quite to scream but to drown in the sweetly synthetic deluge.
Mass Mass Nerve will certainly get on them, the nerves I mean, in the wake of the Crystalized predecessor. Harsh, in the sense of lazer focused on extracting from the earholes their utmost attentions, choosing in its viciously pointed attack the classic method of searing through the core even as the outlying complexity of interlacing backwash attempts to distract from the fact that ‘holes are getting utterly scorched into oblivion. I wouldn’t call this terribly violent, more singularly, clinically, focused on ensuring that the remaining three tapes in this set will be played for significantly depleted receptor follicle thingies. At a key interval, the backwash starts to howl into open-aired bleed sirens, snatches of voice or ripped electronics propelling more visceral exchanges among the competing masses of nerve-wracked overtones.
Volume 4Spirals I and
II consume the whole of this tape, which on first hit could be taken as palate-cleansing dive into white-sheeted walls of purtinannical psyche-seethe. Layers of the shit, icy-smooth and impenetrable, caught in the thick of the jetstream, dense squalls obliterating any sense of forward movement even as more nuanced agitations compete at the periphery for attention. In the first Spiral an irregular coruscation of low-end thunder-bulge rolls through the all-consuming mass, the net effect of which is simply to remind the listener that, yes, but nothing is getting through. In Spiral the second, a slight narrowing of scope, occasional glimmers of definition emerging in the convergence of component parts, the metallic abrasiveness countered by low-lying rocket-shrines shredding the ozone, the stench of well-scorched hole heavy in the air. At this point one would expect things to move in a slightly different direction, an expectation gloriously borne out in the next volume of the set.
Volume 5Trip Melt Flesh could be the most classically harsh head ritual-esque of the bunch, at least in the opening seconds. Here full-flavored clusters of bottom-heavy bilge flatulate through crunched-out rumble-loads, all but guaranteeing the speakers the work-out they so desperately crave. Soon, however, an exceedingly nasty fit of jaggedly jerking rust-skewer ruptures the dead-center, hacking and slashing at already mangled nerve-endings, significantly upping the harsh stakes. Crunched-out rumble-loads start now to indulge a more rocket-flavored consistency, thundering in indignation, opening up to freshly skinned contusions of raw-textured abrasion, surprisingly well-defined in the cold glaring light, ugly as fuck, and just, well, sick. The brilliance is in the cyclic progression, returning again and again in waves that at every crest signal an ever-greater propensity for face-melting over-violence, the ultimate promise, the commitment to ‘hole cleansing ferocity par FIRE.
High Voltage Face Removal is nothing less than more of the same. This time, however, all the multifold layers are peeled back, flayed from the bone, raw exposed nerves agonizing in the dry shrieking sado-bliss. Almost nothing remains in the char-blistered, ripped-to-shit, aftermath, mutilated electronic asphyxiations barely choking through tightly constricted apertures of broken glass and metal filings. A minimalist breakdown, in other words, and one which soon signals a renewed drive for massed overbilge of ratcheted-up cantanker, born in bass-bludgeoned filth-dispensers. Or so I would
dead silence
To the home-stretch, and a tense back-n-forth with grizzled blister-sludge, the un-ironic low-end crud-belchings clambering piling surging over one another in a final red-rimmed cluster-fuck, the shrieking tease, the flushed-through bristle, the face clean scoured off, the bone-dry remnants grinning in char-blackened incandescence.
Intermission
I’d just like to take this moment to concede that, at this point in space-time, the earholes are, quite frankly, in no condition to faithfully report their findings. They haven’t been for a good few sides now. I’m now at that rather disturbing point where everything is harsh. Everything. Even fucking silence. But hey, just one more tape to go. Can’t possibly get any worse now can it?Volume 6It would be hard not to invoke the Almighty Hasegawa when a title like
Cosmic Mirror drops. Definitely on the rocket shrine side of the harsh tip, on that deep and abiding psych insinuation, on that ghostly reverberant mass of strangely, say it,
soothing coruscation, sweetly escorting the poor abused ‘holes to their promised, cyclopean, armageddon. Look in the mirror motherfucker, see the Hasegawa look right back at you, baleful, unblinking, glassy-eyed, psyched to the fucking gills, the sound of the sea amplified to larger-than-life monoliths of pure, cleansing, fury. Look, I'll admit I've been going a tad diarrhetic even by my own diarrhetic standards, so I hope you'll pardon me while I just…
….
….
….
blissssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssout.
Cosmic Mirror II and a deepening of the psychedelic bliss, the never-bottoming sub-layers blessed with the increasingly harshed, glistening, wet-mouthed, salivation. This is simply huge, bigly arsed, all-consuming, dense distortions like expansive explosiveness drawn out for eternities of heavenly bilge-headed cataclysms, the Category Six bludgeon-scorch. In the closing moments a tentative attempt to sex things up, or perhaps the ill-sexed bilge-head caught in the drunkenly zippered disregard. That’s gotta hurt. Regardless, this is such a perfection of texture and flow, forty-two-odd Elkbrews fueling forty-two-odd rocket shrines hellbent in their pursuit of the ultimate question. How many times must a perv shred hole before he’s fucked for life? The answer, my friend, just blow it out your ass. The answer just blow it out your ass.
Digest spewNow that’s what I call harsh head ritual. Three hours and change of never flagging Sewer
ERECTION, six-fold amplifications roaring riot through cyclopean jetstreams, torrential electronic blizzards blazing to that cataclysmic Category Six. Through it all, an impressively diverse range of aptitude, verging far and wide among the blown out vistas, diving deep into the ear-drilling shriek-holes, plumbing the crunch-depths, scorching the psych-skies, wringing from the harsh head every ritual energy it's worth. Improvised, he says, improvised and remixed and staking in the constant shift and change of the moment a fly-by-the-seat-of-yer-soiled-panties immediacy, the repeated punchings-through of yet-still-harsher-eruptions absolutely obliterating even the teeniest suggestion of complacency, a palpable, physical, blood-soaked, ritual air, living, breathing, choking, squealing, blood guts shit piss pus cum vomit elkbrews unidentified secretions, unhinged rippage on some Uppeth Ye Harsh shit, squeal boy, fucking squeal, naked sacrifice tied to upsidedown crosses and blood everywhere.
