Ennaytch - Withdrawn

Ennaytch – Withdrawn – Cassette/Download – 2023

https://ennaytch.bandcamp.com/album/withdrawn

      1.       Withdrawn from Family.

      2.       Withdrawn from Friends.

      3.       Withdrawn from Love.

      4.       Withdrawn from Everything.

Photo courtesy the artists Bandcamp.

Ennaytch is a Noise project from Tucson, Arizona that has been active and releasing since 2019 on labels like Basement Corner Emissions, Machine Tribe Recordings, Imploding Sounds, Mutual Aid and Father of Lies. The project tends to move across all areas of noise, never confined to one area and they allow themselves to experiment across recordings. Ennaytch has played live several times in America. The Withdrawn, double cassette is available from the Bandcamp site.

I’ve become aware of this project through their livestream performances from their recording studio, they have impressed me with what I’ve seen. I felt I needed some detailed listening time with the project.

Photos courtesy of the artist.

Each track on Withdrawn is just under 25 minutes long. The first is Withdrawn from Family. This begins as subtle, diseased, insect-like noises that chirp and churn away. A subtle hostility resonates as things play out in spacious lower levels. This is classic Death Industrial menacing, I feel as if I am in a face off with a potential enemy, wondering how I can get out of the potential combat that awaits. I am particularly fussy about low level noise as subtlety and tension aren’t an easy mix – this pulls that combination off very well.  Recent live, video broadcasts have demonstrated that well.

There is a complete change of methods on Withdrawn from Friends, drones and glitches combine to form a scratched ambient sound. The glitching seems to spit over the drones as if to interrupt the meditative feel that they would give off alone, it is as if they are interrupting a dream. A sea of distortion floods the work as pitched drones swim through this. There is a subtle beauty to the work that I like, it doesn’t revel in ugliness, but swims happily in waves of bleakness.

Pulling back to the low frequencies and subtleties of the first track, Withdrawn from Love splutters into life, progressing into whirling psychedelic effects, whilst pulsating distortion is the only element keeping it bound to the other tracks stylistically. This maps out a bleak landscape, a constant theme throughout the album. I like how the sound breaks down into struggle as the keyboards splutter, gasping out noises, never dying, it eventually progresses to a solitary drone and echoing quack-like noise basking in the ambient fog.

A more Industrial feel is initially present in Withdrawn from Everything which clutters with drones shifting in the background. This progresses to an ambient soundscape with electronic glitches interrupting, eventually progressing to a passage of more complex noise. This is the liveliest Withdrawn of the four, it is as if the maker has accepted and adapted to the position taken on this recording (Withdrawal) and they are revelling in it. There is a warped sense of victory that can be felt to achieving solitude and this expresses that perfectly.

The mastery of this album is the execution of consistently quieter tracks over 25 minutes, the variety of methods used to do this and binding them all together. The dynamics of the sound, how they create a bigger soundscape and expand when needed works well. I initially thought I was going to just do a review for a new Facebook friend, draw on the positives and that would be it. Instead, I found a great album that I love.

One alone, I am the crack in all cliques, 2023.