Monday, March 05, 2007
pulse emitter
planetary torture
[2007, housepig]
yeah, yeah, another review for a project out of portland, yes, consecutively. these things just happen randomly. i just had back-to-back reviews of japanese artists last week. deal. pulse emitter is daryl groetsch. he also recently joined forces with glamorous pat to create shitty vibe smasher. love the name. i've only heard pat's starer cd-r, as transparent pat, and honestly, it wasn't really my thing. nevertheless, i'll probably buy something of theirs because i like having shit. it's true. plus, maybe the combination of the two working together could produce good things. i'm keeping my fingers crossed.
alright, so we're not even one full week into march and i'm going to go out on a very small limb and proclaim this to be one of my favorite noise releases of the year. as laughingly lame as i feel about saying that right now, it's 100 percent fact. now i'm the kind of person who can find appeal in most things noise related, but liking and being impressed with are two very separate things.
the only bad noise i can think of is from those who have an affinity for fifteen minutes of dense, untextured, dynamic disregarding tripe. the noise that i get excited about is layered, complex, unexpected, engaging and focus shifting. plus feedback! the sweet, sweet feedback always helps. planetary torture eschews said feedback but is one of my embodiments of impressive noise.
planetary torture is just four tracks clocking in at a shade over half an hour. ape shit starts us off and the funny thing is, when i had just blindly queued this up in winamp and was listening to it, i thought, these synth noises kind of sound like a gorilla, and then i see the track title and suddenly the big picture presents itself. at least i know that i wasn't imagining things. there's some distorted synth noise is the middle section and then an unexpected thick slab of loud distortion for the last minute.
true to form, warming rays opens up with warm synthesized drones coupled with electronic pulses. huh, this is rather pleasant for a disc with the word torture in its title. oops, spoke too soon because half-way through this daryl's swerving down noisier avenues. the interesting thing to note here is how he keeps the nicer pulsing drone in the background as he's applying a steaming pile of ugly over the top of it. let's see, drone with noisier tendencies? that's a plus in my book.
propaganda machine begins with a barrage of squeals sounding much like a thousand electronic crows cawing all at once. for some reason here, in midtown sacramento, the amount of those beasts feels hitchcockian, so i can easily envision how that might sound. shortly thereafter, things start to get into a nice rhythm with the synth (in case you couldn't tell, this is pulse emitter's instrument of choice), but then that gets sped up until it eventually breaks down into mere electronic bleeps and blips. this is reminiscent of that series of tones which preceded the music on old cassettes. anyways, it's pleasant to the ear. while that sound was once the focus, it becomes a loop in the background for additional squeals and distortion to run rampant over.
blasts of static along with very brief passages of nothingness mark the terrific onset of ash. the swirling noises that come in later are just as good, but when that huge wall of noise unexpectedly slaps us silly further down the road, bee-autiful. let's go over the checklist: layered, complex, unexpected, engaging and dynamic. yep, daryl didn't miss a step.
i've seen adjectives like dark, brooding, foreboding, ominous, et al, used in conjunction with pulse emitter's music, and while they do apply to some of his output, none of those are applicable this time around. nevermind the atmospherics, this is straight up experimental noise by a guy who clearly thinks before he pushes a button, or turns a knob. the sporadic occurrences of outright noise aren't the focal points and really seem to be used more as an additional element thrown in to keep things interesting, rather than to simply test your aural fortitude.
Propaganda Machine
[2007, housepig]
yeah, yeah, another review for a project out of portland, yes, consecutively. these things just happen randomly. i just had back-to-back reviews of japanese artists last week. deal. pulse emitter is daryl groetsch. he also recently joined forces with glamorous pat to create shitty vibe smasher. love the name. i've only heard pat's starer cd-r, as transparent pat, and honestly, it wasn't really my thing. nevertheless, i'll probably buy something of theirs because i like having shit. it's true. plus, maybe the combination of the two working together could produce good things. i'm keeping my fingers crossed.
alright, so we're not even one full week into march and i'm going to go out on a very small limb and proclaim this to be one of my favorite noise releases of the year. as laughingly lame as i feel about saying that right now, it's 100 percent fact. now i'm the kind of person who can find appeal in most things noise related, but liking and being impressed with are two very separate things.
the only bad noise i can think of is from those who have an affinity for fifteen minutes of dense, untextured, dynamic disregarding tripe. the noise that i get excited about is layered, complex, unexpected, engaging and focus shifting. plus feedback! the sweet, sweet feedback always helps. planetary torture eschews said feedback but is one of my embodiments of impressive noise.planetary torture is just four tracks clocking in at a shade over half an hour. ape shit starts us off and the funny thing is, when i had just blindly queued this up in winamp and was listening to it, i thought, these synth noises kind of sound like a gorilla, and then i see the track title and suddenly the big picture presents itself. at least i know that i wasn't imagining things. there's some distorted synth noise is the middle section and then an unexpected thick slab of loud distortion for the last minute.
true to form, warming rays opens up with warm synthesized drones coupled with electronic pulses. huh, this is rather pleasant for a disc with the word torture in its title. oops, spoke too soon because half-way through this daryl's swerving down noisier avenues. the interesting thing to note here is how he keeps the nicer pulsing drone in the background as he's applying a steaming pile of ugly over the top of it. let's see, drone with noisier tendencies? that's a plus in my book.
propaganda machine begins with a barrage of squeals sounding much like a thousand electronic crows cawing all at once. for some reason here, in midtown sacramento, the amount of those beasts feels hitchcockian, so i can easily envision how that might sound. shortly thereafter, things start to get into a nice rhythm with the synth (in case you couldn't tell, this is pulse emitter's instrument of choice), but then that gets sped up until it eventually breaks down into mere electronic bleeps and blips. this is reminiscent of that series of tones which preceded the music on old cassettes. anyways, it's pleasant to the ear. while that sound was once the focus, it becomes a loop in the background for additional squeals and distortion to run rampant over.
blasts of static along with very brief passages of nothingness mark the terrific onset of ash. the swirling noises that come in later are just as good, but when that huge wall of noise unexpectedly slaps us silly further down the road, bee-autiful. let's go over the checklist: layered, complex, unexpected, engaging and dynamic. yep, daryl didn't miss a step.i've seen adjectives like dark, brooding, foreboding, ominous, et al, used in conjunction with pulse emitter's music, and while they do apply to some of his output, none of those are applicable this time around. nevermind the atmospherics, this is straight up experimental noise by a guy who clearly thinks before he pushes a button, or turns a knob. the sporadic occurrences of outright noise aren't the focal points and really seem to be used more as an additional element thrown in to keep things interesting, rather than to simply test your aural fortitude.
Propaganda Machine
:: posted by avant gardening, 7:23 PM