Kontinent — Stasis
Originally released back in 2017 Stasis was the third album from this now-defunct PE project, and what’s on offer is a starkly seared & gloomily pained take on the genre. Here from Zoharum is a CD reissue of the album, presented in a suitable grimly stern digipak featuring on its front cover a stark circle of concrete figure like shapes.
The album was originally released as either an LP or tape on UK Unrest Productions in May 2017, not sure of what numbers each format got, but this reissue comes in an edition of three hundred copies, and as of this review the label still have copies for purchase. The Kontinent project started in the year 2015- lasted until the end of 2019. In total it released just four albums, and behind it was one of the members of Polish PE group Kevlar- when the said member moved to the UK.
The release takes in eight tracks in all, and this really is PE at its most hopeless and starkly grating. We kick off the album with “Inner War” here we find just shy of five and a half minutes of grim cable buzz ‘n’ churn, shouted and barrenly reverbed vocals, and twitching junk percussive rattle. As move on we come to woozily burning sonics of “Breeding” with its blend of barrenly bouncing feedback purr, angularly oscillating electronics, and distant heard from inside a death machine vocals.
Moving onto towards the end of the album, and we have the feasting disease crackle and distant ill at ease throb of “Thief of Fire”- which features some great bayed and echoed vocals that seem to stick like rancid-over- used flypaper to the track's sonics. With the album playing out with unwell worming high pitch meets creepily muffled dialogue of “The Wandering Soul” which later on shifts into a blend of scrubbing ‘n’ searing noise electronics, that’s underfed by a distant ominous hoover, and as it fades out creepy deathbed moans.
Stasis is an album is for those looking for PE at its most greyly primal and angularly unwell- it’s an album to batter your hope with, refocuses your dislike of humankind with, and gentle unhinge yourself too…so in no way easy listening, but if you’re in that type of grimly persecuting mindset, this will be a perfect fit.