DECAYreviews: GNAWED /RXAXPXE Split Cs (Industrial Culture Records)

This arrived in the mail a few weeks  ago out of the blue, I rip open the package to make sure it’s not a bomb ( it has the weight of one, not that I’ve ever picked one up, but let’s just say the whole package seemed “bombey” . Anyways a cassette tape  encased in two sheets of  metal bolted together, holding the  cassette tight in it’s grips. (Yes, you actually had to unscrew one or two of the bots to get the cassette out, pretty unreal) It almost seemed as if the  piece were  fabricated for the project, either way the sterile presentation of the  metal case leads the imagination wild as to the sounds that could be contained inside.

The GNAWED side opens up  with dark, growling LFO scraping manipulation  madness, oscillating  undulating thwrawts of ripping bass, almost instantly bringing the listener down into the  perspective on all  things unnerving. Muddled CB radio esque style  vocals emerge  from the modulating squelching feecback  synthesizers and a more  dynamic space  emerges and then it clutters into  chaos, vocals and  synths building up into a maddening, nauseating eclipse of chaos.  A vortex in the  universe starts sucking in on itself, creating broken  vacuum stuttering  synthesizer and  vocal swells which unveil a  dark  sloppy underbelly of your  subconscious; the  rattling machines which you are  slowly turning into. This is  really well paced harsh industrial, but the  clarity and  sounds never really suffer as a result. Individual sounds blend together to  thicken the  chaotic sound, yet are  never pushed to a point of muddying the mix, donr  very  well IMO,  A great glimpse into the dark, chaotic harsh sonic world  that is GNAWED.

Flip the tape and RXAXPXPE HITS  YOU  right off the  bat  with a bleeding, oozing, clawing harsh noise wall, layers and  layers of  feedback occasionally give  way to high pitched squeals of what sound like a baby  bird caught in a high pitched machine that needs  lubrication  BAD. Cluttering and  clanging dark undertones modulate the wall but it  remains LOUD steady and pretty unchanging, then it  DROPS;  giving way to a second track which is just as  errie, yet  has a slower and  more  refined pacing to it, Scratchy in the beginning and  then the  feedback  decays into a middle-low  bass drone which  slowly modulates- sub oscillators help  dig  out  your  grave. The  title and  sounds of  this  all point to the  soundtrack to the burial of the listener, Slow moving,  relentless, and maddening.  High pitched blasted distortion waves come in and out over the bass drone, but it  goes on  for  a few minutes, and  then CUTS in and out and in and out, until your not sure where the entire thing started.  Distant  distorted vocals  slowly creep in and become a more  prominent part of the mix but actual words/lyrics are  pretty indistinguishable, would be nice if the lyrics are  available  somewhere?  Aside from “personal meaning” to the  artist him/her/them selves, I have honestly become frustrated with listening to people  sing, yell , scream with no access to the  content, i would like to  know, but  ONLY if the  artist wants me to know, kind of a side  rant, but the music and  project title, only lead me  to assume the  lyrical  content is  harsh/negative/etc. Maybe I’m wrong.  About 10-12 minutes in really gets going in a distinct, yet concise direction on the XRXAXPXEX side, a  sudden cut  of a  feedback wall brings in a new more  dynamic feedback wall, which holds the most meat-   sounding of  simple mic and  feedback scraping whilst possesing an  internal tension which  elevates the track to the peak of the RXAXPXE  side. It’s a bit more  raw in it’s fidelity, yet controlled and  articulate, and the  groaning vocals play a wonderful counterpart to the stop – start flutter of the  feedback punches. A  solid  tape overall and worth checking out if  your into the harsh/industrial  still that borders on wall  at  times.

written by : malo

available  still from http://industrial-culture.com/