Drew Daniel & John Wiese — Continuous Hole
Continuous Hole is an eleven-track adventure in taut 'n' tense textually sound making. It shifts between the jarring and complex, moodily shredding, slightly unease, and playful. The release is the first collaboration between Drew Daniel (Matmos) and John Wiese (Sissy Spacek/ solo). It was first released in 2018 as a Ltd vinyl pressing on Gilgongo Records- here from Cold Spring is a new CD release of the album.
The CD comes presented in a six-panel digipak- on its front cover we see a rather elegant, if slightly macabre home office with two chairs drawn up to a desk, which has a human skull, and a large antiquated book open on it. The rest of the panels largely take in a single black circle on a white background, as well as minimal texts.
After the highly manic intro track, we’re into “Abhorred Shears” which is all rapidly hissing ‘n’ sliding semi-harmonic synth tones and whistling ‘n’ scarping tonalities- it comes off like a nervier & manic version of Coil, at the more noise bound end of their catalogue. We have the dartingly buzzing ‘n’ spiralling groove of “Scramble Suit/e” which keeps threatening to completely mangle itself up. Or the hazy simmering unease meets the rapid textural quickness of “OBV”.
In the albums second half we go from the chop ‘n’ spinning gallop groove of “Done It” where you can just make out managed/sped-up voice & radio detail from time to time. We have the textural merry ground wooziness of “Sleek Disorder” which slowly but surely builds a jaunting/half-heard harmony between its spinning chops. With the album playing out with “Surprise” which is one of the (slightly) less manic moments here with its moodily sinister pitch shift twangs & hovers- which rather brought to mind something off Naked City’s Absinthe album- though as things move on we get the addition of seared noise pitch swells & a sudden single grunt.
Continuous Hole is pretty much what you’d expect/imagine from a collaboration between the minds behind Matmos & Sissy Spacek. Though that is certainly not meant as negative/criticisms- as the album is an appealingly jarring & sonic nerve-grinding ride.