Guilty C. / Maaaa — Morbid Alert / In The Cage

For a 10 minute cassette limited to 100 copies, there are a lot of people involved here: Japanese noise stalwarts Guilty Connector are placed back to back with Polish straight-edgers Maaaa thanks to a threesome between some of Poland’s more wayward labels - the small but longstanding XV Parówek, the brand new DIY label Chaosynod and Maaaa’s triangle.records.

Guilty C.’s ‘Morbid Alert’ gets the A side and proceeds in a relentless mode to spread layers of grey rumble so thickly over their choice of other ingredients that they are rendered unidentifiable. So the piece may incorporate the sound of thunder, guttural groans, a kettle whistling, a car alarm and an old ZX Spectrum game loading in from a portable tape recorder. (Maybe if anyone has an antique home computer they could try to see if anything loads in from this tape, potentially birthing a whole new genre: Harsh Noise Ware!) The combination is like arctic turbulence constantly whipping up a maelstrom of icy debris. But by the four minute mark ‘Morbid Alert’ starts to fade out revealing airy wisps and a bleeping tone in its wake, making it feel very much like an excerpt from a larger more challenging work.

On the other side, Maaaa’s ‘In The Cage’ has far more recognisable elements and, consequently, becomes nasty catalyst for the imagination that’s thankfully brief. Panicked voices over a scribbling, lo-end electrical hum are joined by dogs barking, all agitated and desperately fighting to be heard amongst the overloading din. It provokes unwanted mental images of cruelty from nightmarish torture devices that, by the time it starts to sputter to a stand still, you are glad to be rid of.