Awkward Gigaku — Men Behind The Sun
Awkward Gigaku is a Uk based project, whose seemingly only started out this year- according to Discogs they’ve only put out this and one other release at present. But seemingly the projects connected with free improvisation & harsh noise ensemble Awkward Geisha- who have put out around thirty releases.
The four tracks here each run between five & nineteen-minute mark- all adding up for a total release runtime of forty-six minutes. The album opens with two short & more manic tracks- we have “Atrocity” which roughly melds together slurred & meaty textured static sears with cut-up snippets of high pitched noise pulls, dramatic oriental music & other jarring samples. “Autopsy-Of-A-Friend”- finds a more even mesh of cracking & slightly buckling textured noise, which is under-run by a shifting & buried blend of sour wavering harmonics, sudden mid-range noise grind, and sustained higher pitchers.
The second half of the release sees the two longer tracks- first we have “Freeze”- this sees a very dense, but roughshod blend of raging & rapidly rumbling low-end walled noise, sewed with slowly shifting sways of sourly harmonic sear & slurred noise whine, extra battering sub rumbles, and sudden sustains of more moody noise texturing. While “Rat-A-Cat” is a battering & baying storm of slurred high pitched sourness, random off-key noise texturing, and lower-to-mid range buffeting noise- with latter on more churning & brooding synth grinding coming into place
The whole release certainly mangers to capture the torturous & claustrophobic vibe of both the film and the unit it’s self- so as a recreation of that it can’t really be faltered. But on a pure listener level I found the whole thing often a bit too mess & haphazard for its own good- sure there some interesting textures, and unsettling moods going on through-out the release, it just often lacks any real coherency or structure to really have a larger & lasting impact. On discogs, the projects listed as a Harsh Noise & Power Electronics unit- and really much of this sounds like messy & thick PE without the vocal elements, and sadly the wall elements are not focused enough to really appeal to fans of HNW.