Not so long ago we reviewed the split LP between MGR and Xela on Barge Recordings and now a few months later we see another split LP with one side for Xela. This time the other side is for the American musician Brad Rose with his project The North Sea.
The past few years both musicians on this split have created an impressive amount of music. Xela mainly in the field of electronic music and The North Sea mainly in the field of psychedelic folk. On this split they bring us, as the title Electronic Music Vol. 1 suggests, electronic music. To be more precise they play in the field of drone and noise music.
Side A is for the music of Xela and contains 2 tracks. The first is Feminine Remorse is a huge drift away from his more regular releases. For this track John Twells, the man behind Xela, is playing his music in the best noise drone tradition of the late 80's and begin 90's. He seems to be running his guitar through loads of effects. Playing with feedback and distorted sound structures build up. Somewhere from the wall of sound sometimes soft distorted guitar playing emerges, while as easily it blends in with the mix again.
His second track Masculine Guilt starts from a different approach. Dark horror sounds are building up soft scary drones, but this is only the silence before the storm. Like a thunderstorm there are eruptions of sound. Again, one of the sources used is guitar, only this time also the plugging in and out of the guitar cable could be the source. This mixed with massive knob twisting leads to a nightmarish sound. There is only one small turn off for me and that is the use of echo and delay on some of the sounds. But overall again a strong track. Some softer than the first, but still a nice noisy piece.
On side b we find The North Sea (Brad Rose), who started out with psychedelic folk music, presents us one long track of 20 minutes.
We Feast On Swollen Glands shows directly Brad Rose his love for doom metal and noise drones. Organ pulses are combined with layers of distorted guitar in the tradition of the now quite popular metal drones. These layers of noise take the overhand after a few minutes. Far away in this massive wall the organ appears again to play some scary harmonies, grabbing the attention. The whole music now sounds like a hurricane passing over.
From this we slowly shift in the eye of the storm, where everything is slightly less dense. Soft bells are ringing, a choir is singing in the distance.
Nowhere in this piece we hear back the history of The North Sea. No guitar songs, no psychedelic sitar. All has been exchanged for pure dark doom. Scary music that could fit in with the more crazy mind-twisted horror movie.
This is the second release in the RITE series and again it is a good album. Maybe not as mind blowing as the first release (Xela with Greg Haines and Danny Saul - The 12th Chappel), but an interesting addition to the catalogue.
There is only one thing that keeps me wondering: would any one notice if the names were accidentally swapped around? 'Cause none of them really seem to have their own trademark on the music. Maybe something to keep in mind for Electronic Music Vol. 2? |
and 