Closing - I

Closing – I – Modern Tapes – Cassette/Download – 2020 – mt037.

https://moderntapes.com/ 

https://moderntapes.bandcamp.com/ 

https://moderntapes.bandcamp.com/album/i 

      1.   The Blood Flowed Faster.

      2.   Blurring Not Blinding.

This is a mystery project on Modern Tapes by someone called J.P. I is in a limited edition of 15.

The Blood Flowed Faster begins with ambient drones that create a sense of dream. Noise begins in the background as if in the distance away from the main drones, these change to darker, increasingly prominent sounds. The Blood Flowed Faster is now a bigger, bleaker passage of work sounding like a tense nightmare that slowly unfolds. Once the first storm has passed, the sound pulls back to a distant horror awaiting in the distance. As the sound really begins to die down, it seems to become less nightmarish and slightly merrier, I almost feel glad the dark spell is over. That feeling doesn’t last long, the work rises with more attack via the pitch of its drones which is sustained until the songs end.

Blurring Not Blinding begins as a perfect continuation of The Blood Flowed Faster as it has that distanced ambient sound creating a dream that has not yet unfolded. This remains distanced for a longer period of time and feels as if singing bowls and cymbals were used in a subtle manner. Blurring Not Blinding has a beautiful resonance to it; there’s a darkness punctuated by a rich gorgeousness.

I’ll conclude this review by saying that I is a brilliant album with an intoxicating, immersive sound.

Euphoricbullshitvibeofthesonicdeathwishposse 2020.

Human Aspic

Human Aspic – The True History of the American Human Salvage Program – Modern Tapes – mt036 – 2020

https://moderntapes.com/

https://moderntapes.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/mdrntps

A1. The Whistle is Blown.

A2. Sowing the Seeds of Victory (The War Garden).

B1. Where Does the Soul Come Out?

B2. Soldiers of the Soil.

This is the first release by Human Aspic. The Whistle is Blown is a crunchy introduction to the tape, it has a fast shift, accelerating and changing constantly. It does combine several simple elements that chop and change violently to make a shifting busyness that works well and really holds the attention as the work acerates to its death.

The pace seems even faster as Sowing the Seeds of Victory (The War Garden) explodes into action. What becomes apparent is how individual elements are clearly defined in the work, so it isn’t just a dense wall of sound, there are rowdy, fast clashes between different noises. This is a shorter track than the opener that functions like a rush of adrenalin.

Restraint is temporarily demonstrated on Where Does the Soul Come Out? As the volume, crunch and sharper sounds rise it becomes apparent that this is a slower track that allows more space for sounds to operate within, a more effective dynamic that lets the sounds really work.

The sound seems to become a stutter as it repeats itself, trying to explode until it is successful, this is Soldiers of the Soil. This track is the choppiest of them all, taking off and being dragged back to minimal elements continually as if continually at war with itself. Like other tracks on the album, dialogue shifts at high speed between a few elements creating a sense of change whilst really relying on only a few elements that are continually moved around like pieces on a chess board.

The cassette comes with a huge back story regarding the Human Salvage Program and Human Originated Meat scandal during WW2. It is all revealed in a small booklet that comes with the cassette. The artwork on the card case is hand printed and looks beautiful. As Harsh Noise goes, this is an excellent debut release for Human Aspic.

Euphoricbullshitvibeofthesonicdeathwishposse 2020.