Laurel Halo—Possessed

Metahaven’s 2018 documentary Possessed summarised the first steps of our messy divorce from technology. The internet age promised a joyful future delivered by instant, uncensored global communication. But the web has instead tangled us. It's bought itself out, reduced humans to commodities, been hijacked to sow profound worldwide division. Its chatter has become as deafening as it has meaningless. We are reliving the 1970s, a perverse rotting of the previous decade’s utopian values. With Possessed, Laurel Halo provides the soundtrack to this disintegrating future.

Possessed is at its most striking when noisiest. ‘Zeljava’, a lead-heavy and costive mid-point track, lingers long after it’s finished. But even the soundtrack's gentler passages—with Halo stepping back to make space for Metahaven’s visuals—make a very strong impression. Contrasts between the soundtrack’s two extremes are abrupt and jarring. Themes are introduced as flippantly as they are chucked away, and instrumentation is unswervingly eclectic. Possessed is a picture of chaos. A whole comprised of mismatched, conflicting pieces.

If one thing unifies Halo's material here, it’s panic. No matter the form, the content is fear. The solo piano of ‘Rome Theme III’ is a good example; bare and baroque when compared to its electronic peers, but no less defamiliarising. The piece stops and starts in staccato half-phrases—it’s like an animal limping from its predator, sustained by will alone, seconds from collapse. Conversely, ‘Breath’ is an amelodic and ambient piece—but it feels like Angelo Badalamenti soundtracking Hell. One of the few reprieves is ‘Stabat Mater (Except)’. This piano arrangement of a 18th century Pergolesi theme acts in delicate counterpoint to the chaos around it.

It’s remarkable how broad Laurel Halo goes on Possessed; how many tones and techniques she touches on. This soundtrack is ultimately so wild and diverse it feels exhausting. But its dense fury does provide a catharsis, and a comforting sense that we’re all as confused as each other.

Possessed is available for purchase and streaming here.

Words: Andrew O’Keefe

Rinus Van Alebeek — Let me help you get rid of this

our sheet and rain, our eye of straw;
the saloon door swinging its own frame.

thermalling the wet air as it
crests,
the plougher's flumed community chest,
ascending, clefts the cloudy blue.

an empty schoolroom screams — a tannoy
in the narrow wood (he should
have called by now).

that pebbled leg is down the tube;
he's flipped, rocked, rolled through
a fugue.
he raised a head — he poured a drink
for you
and skated off,
and cleaved the ice in two.

—

Rinus Van Albeek’s Let me help you get rid of this is the Berlin artist’s latest tape. Van Albeek’s releases without exception feel transgressive, unexpected and forbidden. They’re what you found, discarded, forgotten; glinting, a gemstone in that bin on your tired route to and from work. Inside, patchworks of private moments, too candid to be real. Each tape is a new surprise, and Let me help you get rid of this continues the trend.

The tape plays with negative space and quiet — catching your breath in your throat, deepening awareness. And when sounds do emerge from their boltholes, they stay intimate. Everything feels so close it’s inside the microphone, with deep rattles of wind granting even the air tactility.

Morsels of laughter and music break the surface from time to time. We are ushered gently around a carnival, a sea front, exploring the wonder of small things. We never leave this intimate space. Van Albeek positons the listener as genius loci, watching the world with wryness and sympathy.

The South East coast of England hosts hundreds of dying seaside towns. Mown by international air travel, they stand as emptying monuments to domestic tourism. Let me help you get rid of this pins you to the centre of one. The gulls, gales and barren arcades. Towns on the cusp of the future; their last breaths gasped under the shadow of modernity’s vulture.

The tape is nostalgic and premonitory; abstract and concrete; tristful but bursting with uncontained joy. A piece of life itself is being passed and wound on the wheels; a blank portrait, waiting to be filled with someone you recognise from long ago.

Let me help you get rid of this is available to purchase on casette only here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe

Various Artists — Ruido En Cuyo

Ruido En Cuyo is, as its title suggests, a noise compilation from the mountainous Cuyo region of western Argentina. It is a wide-ranging release, hulled from the work of diverse and disparate artists. But these differing approaches and intents find common ground in their sublimity and their numinousness. Let's examine the components of this wildly successful whole.

The first track, Ñoki's 'Al gas', heaves things into life with a dysphoric reworking of what can just about be discerned as panpipes. 'Al gas' has a vastness recalling late Caretaker releases — but snatches its own grandeur away, pulling an unexpected hip-hop verse out of the hat. It's one of those tracks which sounds strange on paper, but soars in such assured hands as these.

Ensamble Passionaria follow up with 'Frackmaputechnoising'. This is another oddity. Laid-back house pounds beneath some garbled spoken word, whose tone (somehow) sits between lecturing and apologetic. This track, too, takes a sharp turn at its mid-point, swelling into bright and beautiful noise structures.

The noise reaches its apex in Ese's 'Culpables', which provides the album with a welcome burst of energy. It's a little rote when compared with what's come before — but still incorporates speech wonderfully. Imagine the disembodied narrator of Radiohead's 'Fitter Happier' being fed into a shredder.

Lorenzo Gomez Oviedo's 'Piercing' allows for some breathing room, engulfing the fire of 'Culpables' with a mysterious fog. It plays out like a ramble into the woods as a rāga-style drum beat accompanies. It feels like reaching a frontier; walking deeper and deeper inwards, and exploring the liminal space between the comfort of home and the dark danger of the wilderness.

This sets the tone perfectly for Los Paysasos Muertos' 'El payaso oficial'. From the dark woods we fall into a clearing. A Mike Patton-led cult conjures demons up from the wet soil. Fireflies paint green freckles across the soft orange of the gloaming.

Indro's 'El agarrobal mendoza' makes a retreat from the woods, reintroducing mechanical sounds. Handles creak and rain buzzes on contact with the power lines. It's still unsettling — but plays with familiarity, leaving those untamed, Romantic landscapes in its wake.

This proves, however, to be a short stopover. Roi Maciaz's 'Hechizos de socoscora' brings the focus back to ritual and conjuration. A relentless chug, like the paddles of a steamer, pulls us past the scene. We are drawn in and scared off all at once. Not for the first time on Ruido En Cuyo, we are made to feel on the threshold of something — toes over the tip of the diving board, the water below too black to hold our shadows.

A Casa presents, in 'Días sin nosotros', a number-one single from hell. It's a hopeful, even catchy composition; but one that's shouting from beneath six feet of molten tar. In this sense it's partially reminiscent of Fever Ray — but this is firmly in a style of its own. It comes completely out of left-field, contrasting beautifully with the rest of the compilation.

Things get switched up again. Darío Matta's 'Portantiero / Bábaro' explores negative space and quiet. In such a colourful and varied release, the last sonic mine to be plumbed is silence. It's an understated, noodling sound collage. Alarm-like tones patch its fabric, but never intrude or insist. It pulls attention like a silent crib.

And rounding things off is Inti's 'Pelusa', the compilation's longest piece by some distance. Again we intrude on the liminal; thresholds, cliff edges. 'Pelusa' feels like an industrial Castle Dracula. It shifts through time and space, and provokes the irrational fear of a presence in a corridor you can see is empty.

These ten compositions support each other beautifully. Distinguishable but contiguous, humbly ambitious, they juggle beauty and terror like it's easy.

Contributing artists: Ñoki, Ensamble Passionaria, Ese, Lorenzo Gomez Oviedo, Los Paysasos Muertos, Indro, Roi Maciaz, A Casa, Darío Matta, Inti

Ruido En Cuyo is available for streaming and purchase here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe

Will Guthrie — Some Nasty

Great improvisers always have one foot dangling over the cliff's edge. Their work seems ready to crumble under itself; to tangle, snag or melt like a cassette tape. Will Guthrie is no exception to this rule. The Australian percussionist works in many spaces, and with a wide roster of collaborators. But the work is invariably electrifying and dangerous.

Some Nasty sees Guthrie performing alongside Indonesian gamelan and gong players, and delving into a new world of electronic backing tracks and esoteric field recording. As ever, the atmosphere is heavy. Dark clouds are punctuated by clattering raindrops of noise. But some surprises, like a spirited homage to My Chemical Romance's 'Black Parade', liven proceedings. And the extreme energy of Some Nasty's noisier passages will bring out anyone's stank face.

One movement on Side B slips into an irresistible groove. It's a conventional sort of playing rarely heard from Guthrie, but all the more successful for it. Bordered on both sides by erratic and challenging traditional percussion, it's a stark and welcome contrast.

This release as a whole benefits from its diversity. Phrases and moods appear like cats eyes, rushing in in a bright and surprising surge. It's as difficult to pin down as one of Guthrie's cacophonous crescendos. Perhaps he's the only one who can truly keep track of it all.

Will Guthrie’s Some Nasty is available for stream and purchase here. Tetema, a fantastic collaborative project with Mike Patton and Anthony Pateras, can be found here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe