Anne-F Jacques & Tim Olive — Dominion Mills
The three tracks, all untitled, are indeed all very similar; formed, as they are, from apparently basic set-ups. Olive’s ‘magnetic pickups’ certainly have wires over them, if they’re not indeed simply ‘a guitar’. Jacques’ gear leaves much, much more to the imagination; but has a consistency of sound that grounds it to the ear - even if the eye remains clueless. Whilst the improvisations are arguably, fundamentally monochrome; the duo do elicit all manner of shades from their toys. The first piece begins with a repeated, nervy, high-pitched squeal, faltering like a beginner on sax; which sounds over a bed of murky scraping that resembles nothing less than a distant horde of pigs. It would be tempting, though not without a reasonable amount of truth, to just say that Jacques provides all the droning, looping or repeating sounds; but the truth is that the duo are often indistinguishable. Indeed, as the first track progresses, it becomes very unclear as to who is doing what. The second piece starts with very recognisable wire/pickup (or possibly guitar) scrabble and scrape - at points akin to raindrops in a cave. Though these micro-sounds explode, sporadically, into larger, shrieking forms; almost as if vocalising. Throughout most of this, Jacques appears to restrict herself to background rumbles, practically industrial loops, under Olive’s foregrounded skitter. The last piece, which at thirteen minutes is nearly twice as long as preceding tracks, has perhaps more light and shade on offer. Here, the pace is often slower, and the sounds merge together, so that respective roles become obscured again. At points, the duo recreate the sound of a very long comb being dragged across a radiator; later reproducing this in a more metallic form, whilst a very large cat purrs… it's quite possible that both these effects are courtesy of Jacques’ mysterious ‘rotating devices’, which certainly work better with more space to run.
I must admit that I like the conciseness of Dominion Mills - it's over in less than half an hour - but at the same time, I found myself wanting more from the duo. The, frankly, restrictive set-ups do mean a narrow palette of sounds; but Jacques and Olive make a virtue of this - exploring their objects fully. It is undoubtedly quite a hardboiled listen, but from another angle, it's actually rather subdued ‘noise’. Since junk noise is most often seen as visceral and ‘thuggish’ (in the best way), Dominion Mills might be viewed as a cerebral version of that genre - most definitely ‘physical’ and noisy, but with an approach dominated by listening, rather than vigour.