Album: Global Warming Sessions
Artist: Raven
Label: Laughing Vines Records
Catalogue no: N/A
Tracklist:
1. I
2. II
3. III
4. IV
This is only the second
release from Belgrade’s Laughing Vines Records (having been established earlier
this year), and a noisy affair it is too. As I’ve intimated before, however,
noise doesn’t necessarily have to be the equivalent of sitting next to a jet
engine for an hour or more – noise has its own textures and modes, and it can
be manipulated to create moods and stories (and, when all is said and done,
that’s exactly what music of any kind is – a series of noises manipulated to
produce pleasing melodies and moods). However, on this particular release, what
we get is a series of hot blasts and
slabs of pure unadulterated noise, but there’s still a tale to be told here and
if listened to closely one can hear it.
However, whether this was
named the Global Warming Sessions to
serve as a warning or as a nihilistic ‘let’s finish off the job that we’ve
already started’ is completely up to the listener. One can interpret this both
ways: a) this is what’ll happen if we keep messing with the ecosystems of this
planet or b) this is what happened because we carried on as we’d always done
and this is the result. As reviews are subjective (no matter if we aver
otherwise), on this one I am leaning towards the former and so will base this
assessment on that.
Four tracks, each lasting
between 14 and 15 minutes, comprised of brain-searing, necrotic, flesh-ravaging
concussive walls of sound. Imagine this scenario: once we’ve killed off the
flora and fauna (and ourselves in the process) all that’s left are
hurricane-strength, howling winds eroding whatever’s left of the varied
landscapes that once were, turning lush grasslands into desert, and steppes and
plains into dried and cracked wastelands, creating unrelenting and unrelieved
planes of dirt and soil stretching from one horizon to the one opposite.
Perhaps, too, enormous conflagrations are burning down the remaining forests, creating
vast fields of black ash while the towering flames are creating their own
downdraughts and strong winds, only adding to the devastation. No wonder, then,
that in its wake there will be nothing but desolation and denudation – a
lifeless, colourless world akin to the surface of Pluto or Mercury, with
atmospheric temperatures equal to those on Venus.
It isn’t a particularly
comfortable listen, but then it shouldn’t be. This is a portrayal of a possible
(some would say inevitable, given our species’ wilful ignorance) future, of a
planet devoid of everything that makes it the place of natural beauty it is
now, and also a warning to any visiting space-faring beings who may chance upon
the blackened globe of the planet at some far future point – this is the result
of arrogance and hubris, so take note.
Whichever way you decide
to approach this one, there’s no denying that it’s comprehensively apocalyptic
and nihilistic in a thoroughly misanthropic manner. This is like putting your
ears and brain into a meat-grinder, turning them into a steaming pile of mush
and mince. Perhaps this is the only way to get us to collectively listen (which
I very much doubt will ever happen), or it could equally be an epitaph, a pithy
way of saying ‘Here lies the Earth, after dying due to gross stupidity and
greed’. Let’s just say that this has the capacity to be extremely sobering, if
one cares to listen.
Available via Bandcamp as
a download and as a limited edition cassette (clear cassette with sticky labels
– 20 only):
Psymon Marshall 2019.
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