Petrichor – Ascend to the White Lodge –
CDr – 2025 – self released.
https://www.instagram.com/petrichor_noise/
https://petrichor-noise.bandcamp.com
1. The Red Room.
2. Pain & Suffering.
3. Meanwhile.
4. Where I'm From the Birds Sing a Pretty
Song.
5. Once We Cross, it Could All be
Different.
6. Goodnight, Margaret (re-edit).
I watched Petrichor play live a live set
on Friday June 6th, I was impressed enough to buy this cd. This was
sandwiched between a number of strong performances by different noise artists
that night, some new, some veteran – Petrichor came off very well that night. He's
been doing the rounds around the UK recently. It is like we have a new generation
of post Knifedoutofexistence/ Outsider Art
generation forming new networks around the country.
The album is chocked full of Twin Peaks
references, the RIP David Lynch text on the back pointed me towards searching
the references out. I am a big Lynch Fan with a Twin Peaks box set that I have
yet to watch, so I am good with that. I have seen the film a few times, so don't
judge me too harshly.
Petrichor's live set was Harsh and
Abrasive last week, I was expecting the album to be something similar. However,
what’s presented here is something else completely, it models the layered textures
of the live show, but allows for subtle interplays of smaller sounds to occur.
Sometimes they build up slowly, at other times they gradually reduce to fractured
soundscapes. In the Red Room, there are what I would call some old
fashioned, early industrial loops worked into distortion, drones and contact
microphone dragging. The early Industrial thing sounds seem to come and go,
like late 70s and early 80s TV sound effects – they enter the scene and leave
the scene.
Nauseous, warped melody, feedback and
clattering play off each other to form Pain and Suffering. The hostility
to this track has space to breathe and echo and is quick to make itself known. A screwy, hallucinogenic, nauseous psychedelic
darkness soon becomes the dominant language of the track. Meanwhile uses
a lot more scrape, drag and contact microphone battering within its dense, claustrophobic
pulses. Warbling noises return Where I'm From the Birds Sing a Pretty Song, with
a rain of distortion cutting into it, scraping and dragging noises cut into all
of this. As this all gets busier, it radiates anxiety. The explosion, the drop
happens later on, a big wall of distortion roars, while the earlier noises of
the track re-appear within it.
Once We Cross, it Could Be Different - Organ drones play as crashing metal noises
and distortion crackle over it. Warped, dragging drones and broken electronic splattering
become the main body of noise to create nauseous, bubbling mechanisation. Scrapey,
tweaks glitch over this like an occasional noise trying to throw out a message.
The dragging organ sounds are like a vomit inducing nightmare. The feedback and
aggression increase towards the latter part of the track, it begins to choke and
gasp later on. I like the constant shifts going off throughout this track. Harsh
Noise kicks off in Goodnight, Margaret (e-edit), it blasts at us. Petrichor
strangles this in order to slow it down and allow other noises and sounds to play
into the mass of the track. These methods make a haunted nightmare to end things
on.
I think Ascend to the White Lodge has a
good level of complexity, it presents different languages of noise to keep the
listener constantly engaged – I think those languages and methods could be pulled
even further apart, less related purely to Harsh Noise. It would be a shit out
if this project stops after a couple – four releases. I think it has hit on
something good, a Nurse With Wound/Sickness level attention to detail is
obviously apparent and needs to grow and find itself over many releases. It is
very good now and could be brilliant over time. Keep up the good work.
Nothing and Nobody 2025.
