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Friday, 10 April 2020

Climax Denial - The Sorry Dream of Being.


Climax Denial – The Sorry Dream of Being – Cassette/Download – 2020 – Total Black – Total Black143.

A. Still Life With Clitoris.
B. Self Portrait With Bottle.




One artist that I have begun to collect seriously in the last year is Alex Kmet’s work as Climax Denial. Climax Denial has been actively playing and releasing recordings since 2005. I was made aware of the project from an interview in As Loud as Possible magazine back in 2010. My first were Sexuality is a Curse (IDES Recordings 2006) and All of my Loves are Like Dreams (Assembly of Hatred 2010). This was back in 2010, but a recent session of repeated listening to those releases was the moment when I finally got the project, I understood what it was all about. The Sorry Dream of Being is the latest release by the project on Total Black, it contains two tracks that are both just under 10 minutes.

Still Life with Clitoris immediately radiates coldness, it pulsates and throbs. It seems to be an ambient take on Death Industrial, pulling things back to cold atmospheres. The slightest change in the pulsations of the drones seems to make massive waves and shifts in the work as it evolves any change in sound has clear impact. The core drone is massive and that is the part that resonates, it functions in a similar way to good wall noise in that thee are two key sounds that combine to make the main drone and slight shift in either drags the listeners focus with it. The smaller sounds play around this and form a constant language that constantly converses and adjusts the mental picture that the work creates.

Sharper atmospherics are present on Self Portrait With Bottle, the main drone has more of a splatter in contrast to the radiation of the early drones, it also uses sharper, obvious shifts. What were smaller sounds on the first track take a more prominent role here they seem to dictate the entire sound even as the drone rises and interrupts, it is as if there is a battle for dominance between the two elements. A wider vocabulary of noises gradually enters the picture and it fills the sound nicely, I feel that the coldness shifts into something of a more suspenseful aura that radiates anxiety. I felt spooked afterwards, but this made a perfect soundtrack to my day of isolation.

The Sorry Dream of Being ties in with the ever-shifting narrative that spreads across the work of Climax Denial. There are many different sonic narratives occurring in the project, the bleak minimalism of this release is a dominant theme. The journey continues as does my devotion.

Nevis Kretini 2020.

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