radio free midwich

rfm attends to recent downloads: cthulhu detonator, deceiver, orange annihilator, seth cooke, petals

Cthulhu Detonator – Infernal Machines (self-released)

Deceiver – I Will Always Be Dead Inside (Bells Hill Digital)

Orange Annihilator – Scrub (Bells Hill Digital)

Seth Cooke – Intercession (Impulsive Habitat, IHab065)

Kevin Saunders / Petals – various back catalogue items (Hairdryer Excommunication)

My lack of willpower regarding downloads has been extensively documented on this blog before and explains my general attitude of wariness towards this most tempting aspect of modern musical appreciation.  Not all music stored on physical objects is good, of course, but to present it as such does indicate a faith in the work and acts as an initial filter to limit an otherwise unprocessable torrent.  My preference is to sit with my back to the firmly secured floodgates and listen to them creak as I open my post.

However, what is a boy to do when approached by charming artists touting interesting sounding projects that are only available on that Bandcamp or via netlabels?  Or if a known favourites make experiments or long forgotten back catalogue available via the same means?  I would hardly be a conscientious editor if I just ignored these leads, now would I?  In that spirit there now follows a series of ‘in brief’ accounts of some clickable goodness recently brought to my attention.  *Sigh*, one thing no-one dares mention when warning you of a slippery slope is just how much fun it can be to slide down it…

First is Infernal Machines by Cthulhu Detonator.  I know what you are thinking: “how dare this impertinent rascal imply that our master, Lord Cthulhu, is the sort of thing that can be detonated?!”, right?  Well, I’ve sent this disrespectful heretic an oddly cut purple crystal in an anonymous package and if he looks into it he is fucked.  That’ll teach him!  Ai, Ai!

Anyway, blasphemy aside, this album is very entertaining.  Perhaps, like a lot of debut albums, it is a little over full – RFM recommends keeping it to a tight 40ish minutes and saving the offcuts for an accompanying EP – but who am I to fault exuberance?  This is from the computer-constructed/electronica end of noise: ten distinct tracks working through aspects of a coherently defined sound.  There is a momentum, a squelching bounce, that is gleefully pummelling interspersed with quieter moments spent exploring cyclopean ruins with faulty batteries in your torch.  Nicely balanced and engaging throughout.  Ideal background music for an evening spent flicking through your dog-eared copy of Unaussprechlichen Kulten.

Second are two cuts from the recently formed Bells Hill Digital.  I Will Always Be Dead Inside by Deceiver is as grim as its title suggests.  Part I is a three minute harsh noise blow-out, a planet wide, corrosive hailstorm pitting the black surface of an inhospitable world.  Part II is an almighty eleven minute conflagration.  About halfway through a mournful tone attempts to rise above the roar – like the one building miraculously left standing in an area otherwise devastated by carpet-bombing – but is soon vandalised, deliberately destroyed by the same spiteful fire.  It is utterly without hope and, in my humble opinion, remarkable.  Please investigate.

Scrub by Orange Annihilator is so irresistible that I listened to it ten times in a row the other day, non-stop, on my commute to work.  No, my bus wasn’t stuck in a snow drift, nor have I been seconded to Aberdeen.  The reason this feat was possible is that this five track album is in total three and a half minutes long!

It is electronic noise, best heard at ear-splitting volume for maximum nostril-flaring effect.  Plenty happens but this is not a frantic gonzo cut up.  Segments are allowed a toehold, are established fleetingly, then tumble into the void and are instantly replaced.  Its efficiency and brevity are refreshingly classy.

I think this is a clever example of what imaginative types can do with the Bandcamp model.  I’d argue that this really is an album – it is coherent, complete, self contained – but its length makes it very difficult to present physically.  A 7” single maybe?  Expensive to produce, difficult to distribute.  A credit card CD-r?  A fiddly format that has never really caught on.  Neither of these formats suggest ‘real’ album anyway.  However, on Bandcamp its format is just the same as for everybody else.  Brilliant.

Next is Intercession by Seth Cooke released on intriguing netlabel Impulsive Habitat.  This is one 21 minute track constructed with Seth’s customary attention to detail from sound sources found ‘singing in the wires’ at his place of work.  It starts with a frantic chirruping and buzzing – an orchestra of locusts conducted by Steve Reich – before settling into a shifting pattern of hums, ticks, throbs and gentle feedback tones.  It suggests the micro-climate of self-storage warehouses, server farms, aluminium tubing, ducts in the crawlspace.  In the last five minutes birdsong and traffic can be heard alongside a scything overload in the cables, reminding us of the natural world replicated by the landscaping of the science park outside.  I find this intensely absorbing.  It has a kind of fractal geometry that pulls the listener into the recording.  Despite being as cool as air conditioning and as alienating as fluorescent light I’m sure I can hear a very human yearning behind the machine buzz too.  Exemplary.

Finally, I need to mention the archival project ongoing at the hairdryer excommunication Bandcamp page.  Kev is making as much of the Kevin Sanders / Petals back catalogue as he can find freely available via this resource.  I guarantee that any fruit you pick from this vine will be delicious.  The more I hear of Kev’s work, the more I want to hear and there is no higher praise than that.

All this stuff is freely downloadable:

Cthulhu Detonator

Bells Hill Digital

Impulsive Habitat

hairdryer excommunication