Tales About Digits - Audioscramble.

Album: Audioscramble

Artist: Tales About Digits

Label: Laughing Vines

Catalogue no: N/A

Tracklist:

     1.      Bits of Tape

     2.      Digital Filaments

     3.      Voices of Vinyl and Video

Occasionally, I come across something that, at first listen, may seem obtuseness for its own sake, and that what I am listening to has nothing to commend it. Initially I, after the first run through of Audioscramble, must admit that I came away feeling bemused and somewhat disappointed. But, rather than dismiss it outright, I decided that the best way to assess this three-track release from Tales About Digits, issued by Belgrade label Laughing Vines, was to meditate upon it, which eventually led me to take an entirely different tack and approach it from a different angle. I’ll get to that later in this review.

First, however, what’s on this release? We get three tracks of equal length, all totalling up to an hour. Each track’s title enumerates a method of sonic deconstruction, specifically the source media from which the track is made. All good so far, but here’s the catch: all tracks sound exactly the same. And what you hear is a hellish conglomeration of nuclear blast and anguished voices, a thick slab of sound culled from the very depths of Hell and the blackest of nightmares. The pace is unrelenting, never letting up for the entire length of each individual track, the only relief evident being the minute gaps between each piece. Even then, the respite is all too brief.

So, you may find yourself wondering, what does it all mean? Why record and release three tracks that sound exactly the same but just differentiate them by using different titles. Okay, this is my take, but please be aware that this is just my interpretation. Your mileage may vary.

First, I get the impression that it’s all about the ubiquity of technology, and that it’s positing a technological singularity, something which has the potential to reduce the humanity and the soul of homo sapiens entirely. Let’s face it, we’re almost downing in bits and bytes (and their multiples thereof), with hardware and computers becoming so pervasive that we’re coming to the point where we consider such devices as throwaway, if we haven’t already gone past that point. We continually upgrade and replace without, it seems, any regard to what happens to our old machines once they’ve left our hands. One scenario I can foresee is vast dumps of computer cases, motherboards, printed circuits, and other gubbins stacking up in ugly eyesore heaps, with those at the bottom of society scrabbling up them looking for recyclable materials to eke out a precarious living on. That, I believe, is covered by the hellish nature of the noise blast.

Going back to the notion of a technological singularity, I think this is where this scores highly: by essentially using the same music for all three tracks but giving them different titles, it appears to suggest that with the digital age we live in all sources and media can be used to produce exactly the same audio-visual product. In other words it doesn’t really matter where the sounds used on this album originated from, in the final analysis all those sources can be manipulated to create three different pieces but all sounding exactly alike. The blurring between technologies is increasing, so that each in effect becomes indistinguishable from the other. And that is the singularity.

This is a scenario I have often pondered upon: are we actually making our lives easier (and more productive in the process)? Or are we just paving the way for our demise, mentally and physically? To some it may be farfetched (and I will grant that it does sound that way) but as the future timeline of our species is hidden from us we cannot know where this technological path will lead us. Is it a path leading to a bright new utopia, or a Yellow Brick Road leading to the Wonderful Wizard of Oz – all flash and show but no having no substance. I believe that Audioscramble, for all its initial inscrutability and obscurity, fleshes out one possible future for a technologically-based and technologically-obsessed humanity. And from my perspective, our prospects don’t look particularly good.

Available as a CD and digital album from:

https://laughingvinesrecords.bandcamp.com/album/audioscramble

Psymon Marshall 2019. 

Raven - Global Warming Sessions

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):

https://laughingvinesrecords.bandcamp.com/album/global-warming-sessions

Psymon Marshall 2019.

Fecal Vomit / WAAS.

Album: Fecal Vomit/WAAS split cassette

Artist: Fecal Vomit/WAAS

Label: Laughing Vines Records

Catalogue no: N/A

Tracklist:

     1.      Fecal Vomit – Inflammatory Punishment

     2.      WAAS – No-Platform Genocide

Back nearly three decades ago, when I first began writing and reviewing the industrial music scene, one of the joys of being involved in said scene was receiving, on an almost daily basis, cassettes from DIY and bedroom labels, most of them crudely put-together packages often with hand-written labels bought from a stationery store and photocopied tape inserts as covers (Smell & Quim, one of the favourites of mine back then, sent me loads I remember), and keeping the editions in very small numbers. Thirty years later, it’s great to see the DIY ethic still alive and kicking - indeed one would say thriving, especially in an age when technology has given us the CD. Laughing Vines is one such DIY label, based in Belgrade, Serbia and on this, their first release, they present us with two side-length outings of noisy experimentalism.

Fecal Vomit might inspire you to think that their side will be one long wail of static and grating noise, but actually you might be surprised to know that it’s far removed from any of that. Instead we have something approaching a species of musicality, albeit seen from a harsh noise angle. It may be eighteen minutes long but it’s extremely varied and, above all, very listenable. It sounds like someone has managed to infiltrate a store selling electronic gadgets, turned all devices on to produce a loud blanket of static and grainy torrents, and then produced a trumpet from somewhere and proceeded to blow his lungs out. I am not trying to be funny: this is what I am hearing, and in all honesty I like it a great deal. Interspersed is the odd bit of percussion, a species of rhythm, and some voices (it’s hard to tell whether they’re samples or the actual artist). Granted, it’s a fine balance between being anarchic just for the sake of it and thoroughly intentional, but if you listen closely one can find a deliberately controlled intentionality and a sense of direction swirling within the maelstrom of blasting chaos, however buried it might appear to some. There are enough variations in expression to keep the listener interested, and isn’t just another opaque screen of undifferentiated noise. And then just to add a little humour, it all ends on a little bouncy music.

WAAS (short for We Are All Slaves) have at it with blistering and pulsing explosive noise that’s a vehicle for some heavily distorted vocals. That’s just within the first two minutes, and it continues to rocket along in similar manner for the rest of the nearly twenty minutes’ running time. Whatever’s causing the mayhem sounds deranged, bringing with it a twisted malice that goes beyond notions of evil. It feels like everything is intentionally collapsing into itself, throwing down buildings and hurling dust and debris everywhere while it’s at it. Imagine a catastrophic domino effect: one edifice falls, and the rest follow in short order, until everything has been demolished, and all that’s left is choking dust and smoke.

I have to admit I was unsure when I first prepared myself to review this – I geared myself up for some nuclear concussion waves of pure noise for the whole forty minutes, but I can honestly say that I was wrong. Perhaps it’s just the way my mind works, or what my mind regards as interesting. These two acts do seem to want to go beyond what is normally seen as noise music and introduce other elements into the mix, which I think is admirable; music in all its forms must constantly evolve, or otherwise it all becomes samey and tending to stasis (look at most mainstream music today: most of it sounds depressingly similar to me, what I’ve come across anyway).

Give this a go – it’s a name your price download on Bandcamp, but there is also a black spray-painted cassette version, with band names written in silver ink on their respective sides, in an edition of 20 only, which can be had for €5 or more. Link is here:

https://laughingvinesrecords.bandcamp.com/album/split

Psymon Marshall 2019.