Annalized & Noiose — Esoion
Esoion is a bubbling sonic stockpot of varied female vocalising and mood-setting-to-seared noise-scaping. It’s a decidedly volatile and shifting work, which at points feels like it’s going to boil over & engulf itself, but never does. Over the release's forty-or-so-minute runtime, it remains engaging and creative.
The album comes as either CDR, C45, or digital download- I’m reviewing the last of these- so I’m unable to comment on the artwork or the release's presentation. It was released by Italian label Industrial Ölocaust Recordings
The project brings together Annalized-aka Annalisa Pascai Saiu Sardinia-born, now living in Turin Italy based transdisciplinary artist. poet, performer, vocalist, visual artist, noisemaker, and improviser. And Noiose- Italian drummer/ noise maker Emilio Bernè. The pair have been working and touring together for some years, and as far as I can gather Esoion utilizers both live & possibly studio recordings to create its often-dense sonic weave.
As its digital version it’s presented as one long track- though on the tape and CDR, it’s split into two fairly similar length twenty-minute tracks. So the singletrack here slides in at forty-one minutes and twenty-one seconds.
The track opens with a low-key running feedback grit, and a mix of Annalisa doing playful sort of vocalizing/talking in Italian, and other background chatter. By the third minute, we find more pronounced feedback rings ‘n’ jarring tonally crunch hits- with this Annalisa's vocals moving from playful, to more demented and troubling mixing together emotional baying charts, wailings, barren harmonizing, and rough throaty chatter.
By around the 11th minute, things have turned very nasty indeed- with Annalisa's vocals rapidly shifting between rapid gravel speaking, throaty wails, mid to high-pitch chatter, and emotional warbles and bays. Underneath Emilo flows a jagged structure of noise hits, shudders, feedback pulls, and stabbing tonal glitches - which at points nicely build up both the tension and emotional disquiet of Annalisa shifting vocalizing/ vocal sounds.
At around the twenty-five-minute mark, Annalisa's vocals disappear- to be replaced by thicker runs of smashing, tonal reeling, and light forking noisescape- which is akin to rolling your ears in beaded glass. Annalisa suddenly reappears at her deepest most primal and rough- gurgling out roars, groans, and grunts- truly terrifying stuff.
In its last ten or so minutes we find a blend of textural roll & glitch, with more seesawing vocalising/ wavering chanting…with the noise stopping, leaving a slightly breathless Annalisa and a rather shell-shocked audience handclaps
Esoion is a true sonic trial by fire- pulling you from the playful, onto the building/ moody, though dense and demonically demented, onto the overloaded- near boiling over.