Scrat - Scrat EP.

Album: Scrat EP

Artist: Scrat

Label: Nailed Nazarene Industries

Catalogue no: N/A

Tracklist:

     1.      Subterranean Marketplace Transaction.

     2.      Purchase.

     3.      Volume.

Scrat the band is Scott Ballard and Rorac Johnson, while Scrat the EP is a short three-tracker of about ten minutes’ duration. The band themselves define their brand of music as noise, musique concrete, avant noisebleed, Santacruzcore, and porn grind. In all honesty, for once I am going to be deferring to the band’s own descriptions of what their music is, based as it is around manipulations, improvisations, tape loops, and samples, which make it nigh-on uncategorisable, which futhermore makes it all the harder to describe adequately. It very much reminds me of early Smell & Quim (I am talking early nineties here), at least what I remember of them, a collage of styles and ideas that get blurted out and are done with almost instantly, but without the tongue-in-cheek approach of S&Q. This is not to say that Scrat’s interpretations aren’t any good, it’s just that they’re coming from a completely different angle, and that their compositions are more abstract and nebulous, their music a series of concatenated sounds built around a looped background and field recordings, all held together by percussion and drums, eliciting altogether darker and more unwholesome reactions.

‘Subterranean Marketplace Transaction’ begins quietly and unobtrusively before an almighty growling exhalation intervenes that could be the prelude to something heavy and gargantuan: against expectations a disturbing laugh breaks out (‘That was fun!’) and completely shatters the anticipated sonic assault, followed by some dark ambient-like sci-fi/cosmic warblings and doodlings. It gives off an almost psychopathic vibe, especially with that laugh, and it honestly sent shivers down my spine. A good start, and quite an unexpected one at that.

‘Purchase’ begins with staccato bursts of noise, which abruptly jumps into a background of playground voices accompanied by furious drumming and a male voice. This one is especially slippery, the only consistent aspect being those voices in the background: the only thing I could think of was that this is describing a drugs purchase being conducted in a public playground or housing estate, and even then I feel like I’m stretching. However, it’s extremely listenable in its own elusive and jumpy way, and I actually liked it.

The final piece, ‘Volume’, brings one into familiar noise/industrial territory, featuring machine buzz and what sounds like a tiger making low growling noises in its throat. It’s certainly tempestuous and stormy, and drives along at a jittery but boundless pace, rolling along with a certain modicum of exuberance. Perhaps we’re looking at an unstoppable behemoth, obliterating everything in its path with uncaring abandon, a killing machine bent on killing and destruction.

The tagline used here is ‘Listen and enjoy… if you can’, which for me conjured all manner of assumptions about what the music would be like but I can honestly say don’t be put off by it, because it is certainly listenable and can definitely be enjoyed; if there is any criticism to be levelled at this it would be that perhaps the three pieces could each have been a tad longer, allowing for more exploration and a slightly broader canvas on which to delineate the ideas expressed in them. As it is, there’s a lot to get to grips with and not too much space or time in which to do so: but what is there I found intriguing enough to hope that a longer exegesis will be forthcoming in the not-too distant future. In all fairness this is nothing more than a sampler, a taster of what Scrat could produce if they’re given a little more room to play in. They’re definitely an outfit to look out for in the future.

Available as a download from here:

https://nailednazareneindustries.bandcamp.com/album/scrat

Psymone Marshall 2019. 

Hypnagogue - Eon

Album: Eon

Artist: Hypnagogue

Label: Nailed Nazarene Industries

Catalogue no: N/A

Tracklist:

     1.      Convulsed

     2.      Shadespace

Eon is the latest experimental/abstract ambient offering from Nicholas Medone from Italy's Hypnagogue, and this constitutes my first encounter with the project, and it certainly won’t be my last. The two side-length tracks delve into hellish, darkly esoteric soundscapes using nothing more than taking the familiar and transposing them into something less comfortable and identifiable, shifting the narrow contexts normally associated with them, and creating wholly alien and claustrophobic, airless vistas. In particular, Eon rinses such familiarity in the raging waters of filth and contamination, to produce a set of compositions that are unsettling, harrowing, and teeth-grindingly unnerving without going down the route of exaggeration and bluster.

‘Convulsed’ is a loop of crackling pops burning against a backdrop of a faint metallic ringing. This isn’t a cosy picture of people congregated around a campfire, however: instead that faintly alarming background ringing does nothing to reassure you, raising the hairs on the back of your neck. There’s a subtle industrial feel to this, an oiled and well-greased mechanical malice that permeates every nook and cranny, a smell of blooded steel and iron accompanied by the stink of death. Perhaps this is the aftermath of ruthless and mechanised massacre and bloodshed, and perhaps that crackling is an orchestra of funeral pyres, singing of ash and scorched bone, incinerated hopes, and the smouldering remains of hubris. Columns of black smoke rise up into an empty, greyly ashen, cloud-filled sky, where not even carrion birds are present.

And now, on ‘Shadespace’, the skies have opened and the blackened, acidulated deluge pours down in torrents, an attempt perhaps to wash away the sins and scars of the battle. A mournful drone accompanies the rain, a lament perhaps for the dead, for what’s left behind, and for a future that’s been forever lost. Blood and ash run in rivulets, the smoky remains of the pyres are dampened, and the soil is enriched from the vain attempts of blood and flesh to stand against the forces of industrialised warfare. It’s as if nature itself is weeping.

It’s an art to take what are essentially two basic streams of sound, one strand of which is familiar, normal, and commonplace, and the other an artificial counterpoint, that in combination manage to invest the results with such power and a deeply dread, malign atmosphere. Both tracks are subliminally oppressive: it’s only when you really dive into and recognise the richness on offer here that you understand the darkness and decadence it represents. Both can be classified as warnings and laments – a warning that this could be our estate if we’re not careful and a lament for the fact that we’ve allowed it get this far in the first place. This says far more to me than any number of protest songs, or grimy, granular noise blasts ever could. Its sparseness is what elevates it above the formulaic, and consequently it delivers a frisson of dismay and horror all the more emphatic. There’s a rare talent at work here, at least in the opinion of this reviewer. Eon seeped into my consciousness far more than I imagined it would and, given the chaos of the present, opened up some not too pleasant scenarios. For those who love their experimentation and abstraction tinted in thoroughly nihilistic hues.

Available as a digital download from here:

https://nailednazareneindustries.bandcamp.com/album/eon

Psymon Marshall 2019.