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Friday 1 November 2019

Satøri – The Braver the Bull the Better the Bullfight


Satøri – The Braver the Bull the Better the Bullfight – Cassette/Download – Outsider Art – 2019 – OA031.




Tracklist
     1.   Cunt.
     2.   Burn Out Your Eyes.
     3.   Closing the Gates of Hell.
     4.   Toybox.
     5.   The Paranoid Ward.
     6.   Handmade Tools (for Izabela)


When I saw Satøri play live this year, I remember two things clearly, the depth and range of their sound and being convinced by Dave Kirby’s performance. I bought a CD at the gig, but my amazing co-reviewer Psymon immediately did an in-depth review of it. The term veteran act usually implies there’s a sense of establishment acceptance around the act, the various Satøri Line ups that have led to founder Kirby being the returned sole member of the project, releasing plenty of bleak recordings and the nature of Satøri’s live performance rules out any establishment acceptance.

Cunt is rich in dense, dark atmosphere from the outset, the noise is refined and sharp. The resonating synthesisers are deep in texture as the combinations of different sonic elements work to create that now familiar, infected Satori sound. This serves as a nod towards Death Industrial in the overall feel of the album.  

There is also a submerged feel to Satøri, this is particularly evident in the tortured sounds of Burn Out Your Eyes. Lots of action seems to go off in the background and foreground at different times, the brief vocal is sickened and convincingly disturbing. I believe some of the noises are vocal sounds treated and abstracted beyond recognition throughout the album.

I felt I’d walked in during the middle of Satøri in full throttle as Closing the Gates of Hell’s massive sound erupted. This uses nightmarish, ethereal repetition and walls of cascading distortion to make a full, hellish assault. To tweak it from generic wall noise the sound behind the distortion is prominent and comes to the forefront frequently. As this dies off, we are left in deep spacious a deep spacious dreamlike field of sound as if the gates of hell have really been closed. A different variation on the earlier mass of sound builds up for a short time until it pases.

The deep atmospheres that filled Gates of Hell continue Toybox as a backing to distorted, sampled dialogue, but a similar hell of noise soon erupts begins to unfold. Very sharp noise from one speaker dominates as if there is a sound fault until distorted, metallic crackle suddenly bursts from the other speaker as if to bombard with two separate walls of sound. Toybox absolutely thrives on the play off of noises. This pulls right back as pleasant toybox sound and atmospherics make for a happy ending.

Things remain restrained as The Paranoid Ward unfolds, the wider atmospherics that Satori revels in, really kick in here so that the slightest rise is really felt across the entire sound. Eruptions in the sound are huge as they eventually come to a massive blast of hellish assault before things sink back into silence.

Just as I was beginning to thing Satori’s infected quality had disappeared, it came back tenfold on Handmade Tools. This has a real sickness of sound – an absolute wall of sickness punctuated by shards of sharp frequency making for an excellent erurtion of a finale.

This is an excellent album and up there with Outsider Art’s best, it feels like what I saw Satøri do live amped up to maximum effect with cutting sonic clarity as it moves across many methods of delivery - Buy it before it sells out.

Nevis Kretini 2019. 

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