Angharad Davies, Rie Nakajima and Alice — Dethick

Recorded over two days last summer in a rural English church Dethick is a ten track album of noise bound-yet often-acoustic improv, and brooding-to-angular modern composition. As a release it rather brought to mind the work of Steve Parry, and his project Hwyl Nofio- in the way it sonically recreates the barren, worn, weathered, and at times sinister landscapes/ buildings of abandoned industrial & rural British island- with its blend of yawning & sawing string work, grim pitch shifting drone work, and manic-to-skewed noise making utilizing various found items.

The CD release appears on the always worth Another Timbre- the most consistent/ prolific modern composition labels around. It comes in the labels house style white mini gatefold packaging- on its front cover we have a rather fitting Acrylic polymer painting of a mountainscape with a grey sky backdrop.

Each of the ten tracks here run between just under a minute & a half, and the eight-minute mark. Things kick off with the wonderfully entitled “Wet Metal”- which is a drowsy chaotic brew of rattling plates, gongs, wood twists ‘n’ bangs, string whistles & saws.  As we move on we come to the low-key, yet nervy “Different Formation” with its blend of skittering chime & creaking wood- which is slowly but surely added to by building & swirl string work, that moves from furtive plucks-to-strung out saws. At the albums midway point, we get “Another One”- which alternates between forlorn & sour, with a nice use of silence separating the tracks two settings. With the longest track coming in second to last with “Supposedly Audible Fly”- this finds a fair tight & frenetic blend of rapid buzzing, simmers, scrubs, & slices- with later on the occasional to cluttering & knocking elements coming into play.

It’s fair to say that Dethick is a very primal, mostly un-harmonic, and cluttering album- so you really have to be in that mindset when you enter, otherwise, I feel this could be at times grating- in a bad way…so take that in mind. But certainly if you enjoy noise bound- but acoustic improv you’ll find much to enjoy here.