Alo Girl/ Last Rape — split
As usually with the Urashima label the Black on black vinyl comes in the distinct silver ink on black card slip sleeve; & this time I think it’s one of my favourite cover thus far with just under half of the cover taken up with the panicked face & body of a female victim who just being captured by her killer & the two projects name in nice bold 70’s like typeface underneath. Side one is the Alo Girl side & it offers up a sixteen minute track simply called ‘Dedicate To Susan’- the track starts out with a film sample of jaunting, yet sinister music box & organ soundtrack music that moves into an panicked, turning into screaming confrontations between a male & female Italian spoken couple, then more weird music box/organ music which all seems to been heard through water. As the track goes on the weird music box/ organ music element starts to become more looped as it’s attacked by static jitters, noise boils & feed-back purrs in a rather effectively creepy, wonky atmospheric & at times brutal manner.
On Side two we of course have the Last Rape track which is entitled ‘Gathering The Pieces’ and comes in just over the 15 minute mark. The track starts off with a few seconds of sampled film Italian conversation between a man & a women before going into what sounds like a field recording of a steady rain downpour that’s jittered & bucked by slow static tone abuse. The track has quite a calming, yet melancholic & disturbing feel about it. It brings mind watching either a dying animal or murder victim as they stager then fall & try to stand up again in a rain downpour; the body getting more coated in rain, blood & dark black mud- this image is played out in slow monition no matter how you try you cant seem to look away. The jittering static sometimes rises or powers-up in it’s tone & presence but most of the track keeps fixed on this drowsy , melancholic, disturbing & ultimately hypnotic vibe. The track ends with another short film sample which is this time in English & it consists of one man asking another about his witnessing a murder & if he enjoyed it- which is a very fitting end to the track.
So another excellent release from the Urashima- this time focusing in on the more hypnotic, sinister & atmospheric side of the static jitter & texture gaillo infunce noise. To find out more pop along to Urashima site here