GRY SMK — Cold Water/Withering Life

Bored Bear Recordings presents Cold Water/Withering Life by GRY SMK. The was released as an extremely limited edition CD-R (12 copies) in the Spring of 2014, so I’m thinking you might have to dig a little to find a copy. As with most Bored Bear Recordings I’ve come across, there’s little details available about the artist or the particulars of the release. I suppose it’s part of the label’s mystique. GRY SMK is the moniker of Alex Pearson based out of Nova Scotia. In addition to GRY SMK, Pearson is the man behind In Negatives and D/A A/D, acts I can’t say I have any familiarity with.

As with other releases I’ve experienced with the Bored Bear, they tend to keep things aesthetically minimalistic. A simple foldover sleeve with an unmarked white CD-R is the extent of the packaging. The black and white sleeve features the artist’s logo atop a photograph of a river running through a forest on front and the track titles on back. Nothing special, but it does seem to fit the minimal vibe of the music presented.

Cold Water/Withering Life is a dense slab of difficult listening. The 2 tracks that make up this album both clock in at around 30 minutes a piece. It guess it goes without saying that this is not for those with a short attention span. What we have here are 2 tracks of minimalist, mostly static, electronic drone. Without any details on the release, I assume theses tracks were produced using a modular synth, which Pearson frequently employs. From beginning to end, what you see is what you get, with little to no variation through these meaty tracks. “Cold Water,” starts things off with what I can describe as a persistent electronic hum. As it pulses along, there are some changes in speed and intensity, but for the most part, it stays pretty even keel. Truth be told, it’s not cold and mechanical like I usually find this stuff to sound like, but it’s rather warm and inviting. “Withering Life,” doesn’t stray too far from the first track, but does manage to strike a cold, menacing presence. This piece conjures in my mind a buzzsaw continuously cutting through something.

Sometimes I think I don’t quite have the ear for this type of elongated electronic drone. That I don’t quite have the patience as I get older. That said, I can’t help but admire the laser like focus that it must take to pull off a release like this. I think had the tracks been a tad shorter, I probably would have enjoyed this more. That said, I can appreciate what Pearson is going for here, even if my patience isn’t quite what it used to be.