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cat-nr: verazität: 059, release date: April 2008, ltd.-edition: 60, mp3 
"Wish & not wish" was recorded and produced by Amputation Desire & Goghal by manipulating and processing source material of each others. | |
Like the other verato project CDr I reviewed (Ctacik – Amur Region) my first impressions didn’t amount to much – as atmospheric as the black and white cover is in its own way, it nevertheless didn’t make me want to grab it and immediately put the disc in the player. If the Ctacik disc taught me nothing else it showed me that appearances can be entirely misleading and indeed, this split effort from two European ambient noise outfits somehow made the trouble put into the packaging seem lacklustre by comparison. Each outfit gets an equal share of the allotted timespan, and both turn in twenty-minute plus epics. Simply put, each took for their source material the other’s work and refashioned and remoulded what they were given to play with. Essentially what we’re dealing with here is noise, but the creatures on show are startlingly different. The base material is white-hot jet-engine blast, but each outfit has tweaked the musical DNA in such a way as to render the two beasts into two distinct subspecies. Amputation Desire takes a distinctly ambient approach, the noise being more of a subtle presence than an in your face monster. Imagine if you will hearing an airliner on a hot, still, summer day, arcing overhead somewhere high in the blue – if you listen carefully you just MIGHT be able to hear the quiet whine of jet engines. That is EXACTLY what “Wish” sounds like, except a tad louder and with a subtle accruing of layers. Some of these layers are like elongated detonations and stretched explosions, but never much above a middle distance roar. The accumulated effect can be likened to some heavyweight danger lurching monumentally over the horizon, as if some metallic behemoth portending the inevitable approach of doom looms menacingly in the distance. The terror is exponential; first there are just quiet hints but as time goes on the terrible reality becomes ever greater and clearer. The aggression here is subtle and understated, hovering in the distance but nevertheless physically palpable. Goghal’s interpretation is entirely another kind of beast. This one isn’t afraid to nail its rusty bloodstained colours to the mast. This is the very same beast that stalked Amputation Desire’s track, but now it’s here and looming directly above you. It is here to fulfil a long-ago programmed purpose – that of utter destruction and desolation. Searingly intense rays of white-flecked heat stream out with malevolent intent, razing and levelling stone and flesh alike in its bid to obliterate everything surrounding it. Here is hatred for all fleshly living things writ large, a twenty-two minute manifesto and declaration of misanthropic intent; mercy is an intentional omission from its vocabulary. As noise goes, it’s not bad. Amputation Desire’s treatment is the more interesting of the two, substituting a controlled, brooding, hovering menace for the standard nakedly aggressive delivery of most noise musicians. Its veiled power and malevolence, more felt than observed, speaks louder than any amount of blistering senses-numbing electronic chaos. Goghal tends to that end of the spectrum, though, relying on heaviness and oppression to achieve the same end and in some ways that aspect is a little disappointing. Having said that, though, it actually isn’t a bad example of its sort, in fact it’s a great deal better put together than many similar efforts, but it has to be said that what really lifts this album is the inclusion of AD’s “Wish”. It’s a prime example of how noise can be coaxed to be many things other than abrasively antagonistic, but still create a sense of mass and power around it at the same time. It was obvious, to this reviewer at least, that Amputation Desire understand that idea well, and consequently know how to manipulate their material that encapsulates that philosophy. by heathen harvest | ||