Hostage
Pageant: The Cherry Point: Kazuma Kubota: CD: Cipher Productions: 2019: (sic
115)
Hostage
Pageant is Shane Church, releasing since 2010. The Cherry Point is Phil
Blankenship, releasing since 2002. Kazuma Kubota is Kazuma Kubota and has been
releasing since 2008. This split CD contains 3 Hostage Pageant tracks, 1 Cherry
Point track and 1 Kazuma Kubota track. Artwork is by the Deathpile dude
Jonathan Canady – Jonathan’s amazing art can be seen on his art page - here.
The
Hostage Pageant work is like being immediately thrown into a big vortex of
Harsh Noise. His work is Harsh and direct, the sound shifts and distorts
massively. Depletion is brutal in its’ delivery. Falling Out of Place takes
time, it crackles, splutters and keeps trying to explode, it tries and tries
until it kick starts a massive wall of distortion. What sounds like a dog
panting seems to act as an interlude as things creak and echo around until the
sound explodes again, this time there appear to be shouted vocals in the mix. The
sound here is more violent than that of Depletion, Church kicks off and fragments
big-time here. Enabler is the last blast of Hostage Pageant, this starts with suspenseful
tones until the wall of noise breaks through, sharp fragmented noises are
forced through the wall. The contrast between wall and sharp noise keeps
attention focussed until it breaks down again. This does the break down, build
up again routine a few times and indulges that more than the previous track,
building to a massive finale.
I
confess to only hearing what Cherry Point did on the 10LP California
compilation back in 2006 (wow, so long ago). The spaced distortion of Just
Before Dawn is impressive from the off, it is as if Blankenship comes at noise
from an entirely different perspective, where? I don’t know, but it’s something
else completely. The whole track feels distanced and seems to come from a
totally different mindset. I am very impressed by this, there is something else
going on and I can’t pinpoint it - distanced, distorted and epic. From a
personal point of view this project is the one that really grabbed me as it ties in with the current UK PE sensibility.
Kazuma
Kubota takes epic journey to new proportions with Zattou Ni Tokete, this has
quiet beginnings that shift to loud build ups of vortexed distortion right back
down to quiet shifting. There is subtle rattling and creaking before some blast
of noise takes over. This like Cherry
Point shows a different mindset, but it happily plays noise in the quiet areas
allowing subtle sounds to play off each other, interact and build. This has
more in common with Hostage Pageant yet is more shifting in the range of areas that
it occupies for periods of time. Kubota delivers a gorgeous, long journey of
sound.
Three
artists who all play outside the box, all the works are different, yet share
some vague similarities, the main being that they are all trying to push their
work elsewhere. This is a good split of three artists pushing at the boundaries
of their own work. A strained beauty of an album that I like a lot.
Nevis
Kretini 2020.
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