scything threshers harvest plastic babies: luke vollar on filthxcollins, rob lye, bbblood, posset & stuart chalmers

June 26, 2017 at 4:21 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a comment
Tags: bbblood, chora, collaboration, crow versus crow, filthxcollins, luke vollar, posset, powerviolence, rob lye, stairwell editions, stuart chalmers

FILTHxCOLLINS – Demo 2017 (No label)

Rob Lye – Ink (Stairwell Editions)

BBBlood/Posset/Stuart Chalmers – Delirium Cutlet Impaste (Crow Versus Crow)

 

FILTHxCOLLINS – Demo 2017 (No label) digital album

FILTHxCOLLINS are a couple of scamps from Nottingham who play an extremely condensed, bastardized, version of Hardcore Punk and Death Metal –  Powerviolence.

Free of all excess baggage Powerviolence is the cross eyed cousin of Grindcore. Songs are very short and very fast with screamed or growled vocals, generally ending as abruptly as they start.

On a personal note I have been on a most enjoyable journey towards the rapidly beating heart of Grindcore and Powerviolence, getting a big kick from the espresso-like quality of hard and heavy music as lean and fat-free as a whippet and as cleansing as a full immersion in an icy plunge pool.

On a purely practical level, being able to take in an entire album in the car on the way to the supermarket has been supremely gratifying for the insatiable music fiend with not enough lounging time.

I bring my wholehearted recommendation of the FILTHxCOLLINS demo as a guy who has waded deep into the murky waters of extreme(ly fast) metal.  I have discovered some gems and I have inevitably come across some drek; heck like any genre it can get a bit samey but to me at least FILTHxCOLLINS have the X factor.

One of them does deep guttural vocals like a volcano with an ulcer while the other has a midrange shriek that makes him sound as if he is literally on fire. They both batter hard at their instruments but with the deadly precision of a venomous snake: alert, lithe and ready to fight. A sudden change in tempo or direction and then POW! The song is done.

There is a track called ‘Cameron’s Britain’, seven seconds of compacted fury that gives a fair idea of how the mood is on this miniature-masterpiece: pissed off.

I hope they have plans to do some t-shirts…I would love to see them live.

Rob Lye – Ink (Stairwell Editions) cassette, limited-edition print and digital album

Rob Lye is at the nucleus of the English group Chora – a project that takes in junkyard-gamelan, rollicking communal freak-outs and head-hunting trance rituals.

Rob and I have history.  Back in the day Chora and my old group, Lanterns did a lot of gigs together in the UK and abroad: we shared a split CDr and did a number of collaborations. We once spent a night post-gig drinking whiskey and listening to records until the small hours. But before I drift off into misty-eyed reverie let’s take a look at this new lump of plastic from Rob following what has been a period of relative quietness musically.

Now given my preamble you may suggest that I would be biased due to my fondness for Rob as a person to which I would retort:

1. a) I was a Chora fan before I was friendly with them and

2. b) the no audience underground is literally crawling with nice guys and galls. A point our editor in chief has made much more eloquently in these pages previously.

So as wrist (i) and (ii) start with laps of tidal wash before bumping into crisp arpeggiated vanilla essence I opt for a track by track dissection:

• Leaning. Loops of blue piano that advance and retreat like the tide on a secluded beach

• Nape. Makes like an eddy in a downstream current or a chorus of bulbous toads languidly belching sunny tones

• Off. A shaker is extrapolated beyond the realm of the circadian ant people

• Lip. Wisps of candy tones, frayed at the edges drift like buoyant seeds ready to give new life on fertile land

• “You’ve bought a curse to the table.” The processed ivories beat like the wings of a moth that has settled on your sleeping face

• Ink. the mirage of a water wheel in sunlight, casting rainbows

• ‘sham. sleepy head fuzzballs of obscure melody that have the same rapt sun warmed backwoods grace that has defined this fine debut

  

BBBlood/Posset/Stuart Chalmers – Delirium Cutlet Impaste (Crow Versus Crow) Sold out CDr with trippy fold-out collage and digital album

A triumphant three-way release from Crow Versus Crow by three gents with a fine body of work behind them. Knowing that they’re in intimidating company our trio of NA-U heavy-weights turn in exhilarating examples of fermented cerebrum boogie!
BBBlood – Absent Lottery

Paul (BBBlood) Watson presents a slow burning start.  Incidental sounds and background chatter slowly morph into grim corridors from which there is no exit. Watery sounds, static chunder and a strong ‘What’s behind the filthy curtain?’ vibe.

Bubbling and sizzling, an unsafe experiment involving Bunsen Burners and glass funnels crusted with white resin; the cavernous reverb and the scooter exiting the underground car park. A hasty retreat after a highly illegal cook up?

Scything threshers harvest plastic babies, the sinister breathing apparatus of a dead eyed humanoid or the haunting song of memories beneath damp soil.

More creepy field recordings, a sinister figure observing you from behind the hedge. A vortex of cogs and switches becoming more ghastly as it settles into its appalling form. A symphony of sickly frequencies expertly woven into a bruised tapestry of anti music.

Spellbinding.  Best enjoyed on cans.

Posset – What’s going on?

Double voices: the beautiful voice from foreign tongue (Bulgarian?) fed through the Posset machine, mumbles and murmurs.  Then oxide-rich saliva dribbled into the Posset cauldron with tongue-wagging vocal jaxx goes:

dodoliddleliddleow

A motley collection of sound-events chucked together like pick and mix. Robotic voices croak in unison, the voices are reversed, the pause button is sweaty. Joe is micromanaging the tiny soldiers that spring from the battery operated machines (Editor’s note: Like General Jumbo?).

He should be commended for his fine work within the sacred circle of the unfathomably odd.  Lips that soar like eagles, teeth that prowl like lions and an epiglottis that just won’t quit

Stuart Chalmers- Birth of the Bamboo

Bamboo sounds begin in hushed reverence, the sonics are deftly manipulated with pause and delay.

Forth-world exotica sheds its brightly-coloured feathers and increases the intensity. Patterns of stretched tape scree resulting in ear-throbbing thrum.  The lysergic quality makes it appear as if reality is slipping in and out of focus, the jungle idyll has turned into a feverish kaleidoscope of luminous algae and swivel-eyed reptiles.

A step down and change of gear; floated tones rise from the ground like mist as a lone flute plays us out…

So…by the time I’ve got my ass into gear to review this the CDrs are long gone, proof that just keeping up with underground music is a challenge.  But fear not – the digital version is available!

I’d say this would justify a fancy-pants heavy vinyl release such is the quality within, but heck, what do I know, right?

 

FILTHxCOLLINS

Stairwell Editions

Crow Versus Crow

-ooOOoo-