Anything put out by Neurot Recordings is almost mandatory listening let alone if the release in question is a collaboration between the head honchos themselves and Jarboe of Swans fame (2003 / CD). Jarboe's haunting presence (which ranges from angelic to apoplectic) feels right at home deeply enmeshed within the sheer audial energy channelled through Neurosis' artful soundcraft. The calling card of Neurosis despite their many re-inventions from album to album has always been a tumultuous emotiveness tempered with a smoldering intensity; they can effortlessly shed their leanings towards a post-hardcore/slugde avalanche of sound and go for a cleaner, more atmospheric vibe and still retain their own identity. This is faithfully reflected by Jarboe's flexibility as a singer by gracefully gliding on whatever tapestry of sound the band weaves for her - be it distorted layers of electronics and guitars, brooding synth-based themes or intense, dynamic moments of release. An engaging musical partnership well worth the price of admission.
There's very little recognizably human on this record what with its minimalistically engineered beat sequences seemingly orchestrated by some automaton who wishes to convey through its silicon-based circuitry what it appreciates to be music. But alas, Celluloïd Mata's Sable (Ant-Zen, 2000) was indeed inspired by an ensemble of mere flesh and bone homo sapiens - you'd gather that much just by its strangely hypnotic sense of tonality which paints a convincing portrait of monochromatic bleakness and sullen introvertion. A top-notch piece of cerebral and experimental electronic music taking elements from Autechre's submersive soundscaping and cohesively morphing them into something perhaps a lot less inviting but definitely a lot darker - what else would you expect from Ant-Zen?
According to Freud there lurks within the human mind a raging cauldron of sexual desires and primal, irrational urges which are kept in place by our inherently ingrained sense of the social 'norm' and the imposed order of modern civilisation. Now imagine a peephole into that seething abyss normally kept below the radar of consciousness; what would you see on the other side? In the case of Artax Morgue's Esthetik of a Corpse (Slaughter Productions, 1995 / tape) this translates into an unflinchingly nightmarish vision, albeit synthesised audially, through creepily mesmerising ambient textures composed out of sheets of white noise and disorientating frequencies; an unadulterated mode of expression just as messed-up and inhospitable as its source. Exquisitely subtle in its aesthetics it is not deliberately warring with the listener, it will throw its hook in you and slowly drag you in. And this right here is what sets the difference between the merely shocking (and in some sense entertaining) and the palpably diseased. Take 60mg of psylocybin while listening to this and you're irrevocably hotwired into a world of shit.
