erotocomatose lucidity c30
[2008, closet sorcery]

cm*chaos majik (or cm (shares its abbreviation with a late 90s trance duo), or cm*chaos magick) (not to be confused with eric ostrowski and corey brewer's chaostic magic) is the new solo moniker of pendu sound's todd brooks. cm used to be known as mialessot, but now it's not. it's also his one solo project, to go along with his various other artistic endeavors and groups (feral comb, barkminer, abuse report and ghost moth).

erotocomatose begins with minimal electronic chirping and waves of a slightly distorted echoing rumble. pretty soon those chirps will start to play a larger factor, turning into shriller drones over the top of a gentle throb of electronic ambiance as well as humming static. there's a few nice peaks of bulldozing rumble along the way in the first five minutes.

from there, todd joins a rad oscillating base with a series of high-pitched tones, minimal distorted stutter and dynamic modulations. it's the dark, undulating tone, belonging to the base, which captivates me the most. everything else that's happening is just icing, at least until around the four minute mark when brooks shifts his focus to manipulating and sustaining the shrill tones into a rather rhythmic pattern. eventually, he'll move into a different tone and modulated rhythm, but it's still nice. the final minute and a half of side a are in a purely minimal mode: somewhat high frequency drone and light echoing electronic sputter.

the second side will take its time in warming up, though the foundation from the latter portion of side a does make a recurrence (this was recorded live). the screeching drones make for a pleasing stopgap while you're waiting for something else to take place, of which we're given a few teases: a brief tonal pattern as well as ripping distortion, but nothing substantial happens for about four minutes. then a bassy rhythm pops up, though it doesn't stick around for long at all, quickly evolving into a dense wall while the screech of the background slowly increases in amplitude along with it, until, finally, both team up to create quite the sonic force. the noise will settle down in a little bit, though the swarm of locust frequencies and undulating base will remain, trading the focus back and forth with each other. todd will also hit a couple of solid rhythmic passages, again, in the closing minutes.
erotocomatose lucidity is a nice tape put out in an extremely small run (twenty-four) by florida's closet sorcery. i like that the label and artist name actually have something to do with each other. as far as noise goes, this would probably be on the minimal side of things, but the high-pitched droning can definitely up that ante. overall, it was that fantastic undercurrent of oscillating hums (present throughout, though altered slightly as the tape progresses) which really sold me on this. i dug todd's noise, too (made solely with homemade analog devices and feedback loops), the juxtaposition between high and low tones made for good listening.

Erotocomatose Lucidity A1

(note: there's no actual tracks, but i broke down the first side where there were significant changes in the music, as noted in the review.)

Chaos Majik @ Lit Lounge; NYC 7/03/08