Corpse Candle — Waste Not Want Not

Language often fails ‘music’ and none more so than those releases labelled post-industrial noise, power electronics or HNW. The perceived varieties of sound involved can seem relatively narrow, as can the often outlined historical context (from dada through musique concrète to industrial) all of which constricts attempts at elucidation in words.

The perceived varieties of sound involved can seem relatively narrow, as can the often outlined historical context (from dada through musique concrète to industrial) all of which constricts attempts at elucidation in words. The modes in which to listen are also limited. ‘Noise’ often presents an inversion of ambient music’s aspirations: while it shares healthy experiments in sound generation that avoid traditional instruments, it is not generally designed to work as a mood-inducing backdrop. Any attempt at sticking this on while going about your regular domestic duties will find you either filtering it out unwittingly as you concentrate on the ironing, or wondering whether your washing machine is on the blink. Like much visual art, this demands total unaccompanied immersion unfettered by the distractions of modern life.

‘Bats in the Belfry’, the first of three tracks and also the longest at just over twelve minutes, starts with an electrical hum and a sputtering motor throbbing into life, spitting out each revolution as it attempts to maintain its cycle. Swiftly, it is joined by screeching layers of searing hot white noise, melding together into a cyclonic totem to unsuppressed madness. This is the sound your synapses make when you see red and all attempts at control are abandoned. The tundra of noise builds as electricity charges around unrestrained, like fallen pylon cables fighting snake-style, until, at last, the current decays leaving intermittent explosions and sparks in its wake.

Having survived that, the slightly shorter ‘Fresh Grave…’ and the closing track appropriately-titled ‘Well So Long Then’ feel a little more restrained (but only a little). They are both similarly engineered, drawing from the same bank of noise but focus on fewer layers where extended buzzsaw tones writhe rapidly around each other, punctuated by metallic collisions. Ultimately, all is enveloped in a soaring electrical noise which constantly evolves with doppler-effected undulations until its entropic processes reach their inevitable end.

So, even with a clear space and a sharpened mind, the main challenge here is that of endurance. The sound Corpse Candle presents here is coarse, relentless and violent. Although concentration will be rewarded by revealing remarkable resonances, reverberations and even fragments of melody, ‘Waste Not Want Not’ could easily invoke panic and palpitations in the casual listener. Why not try-before-you-die here !