Kosmodrom — Conquest of Space
Kosmodrom or Êîñìîäðîì is the recent & main sonic focus of Serbian noise maker Aleksandar Nenad, who most known to wall-noise for his hugely prolific, though now sadly defunct HNW project Dead Body Collection. And while this new project has wall elements; it’s less the focus of that sound- been best described as a blend of Merzbow inspired Psychedelic noise- scaping, moody intergalactic drone work, and set noise backdrop.
The release is nicely presented- with the transparent red shelled tape, featuring colour labels on both sides of tape, each featuring a planetscape & the projects logo. The release sleeve is pro-done affair, featuring a full-color cover, which takes in an illustration of a spaceship hovering in a deep red sky above a space station. so a nice bit of classy presentation.
Each side of the tape features a side long track, and on side A we have “Thousand Miles Out From The Earth”. This opens with a sustained, though pitch stretching electro tone which sets the space bound mood. With-in less than a minute this initially element has been blended with a selection of simple ‘n’ fixed skittering & rattling noise textures, and a sustained billowing- with the whole thing taking on more of more a ‘wall’ bound setting. A minute or so further down the line we start getting shifting & altering ebbs, drags, and wails of more psychedelic mid-to-slightly higher tone elements added to the mix. The rest of the track really stays in the blend of deep billowing & rattling ‘wall’ backdrop, and the seemingly more random, so sometimes effective Psychedelic & space-bound noise sways.
Moving onto side B, and we have “... Which May Be Mars, Or Hell!”. And this time we get a fairly sinister-yet- spacey drone tone, this fairly soon drifts into a blend of rocket billowing & thinner jitter static based ‘wall’. And fairly soon we once more get these shifting selection of swirling, baying, & stretching mid-to-high-toned noise pitches added to the mix. On this side these do seem to alter the ‘walls’ backing a bit more, and the whole thing seems slight more dynamic & interesting in its feel.
So what did I make of it all, well let me start by saying I was a huge fan of Mr Nenad's Dead Body Collection project. Next, I’d say that Merzbow more spacey & Psychedelic like Space Metalizer stand as some of favorite of his output. And lastly I'm a huge Sci-Fi fan. So, in theory, I should love this. But sadly I don’t. Sure there are elements & promise here, but on the whole Conquest of Space left me feeling somewhat disappointed.
I think the main issues are two fold- firstly the spacey/ psychedelic elements often feel a little too random, uncontrolled & unfocused- at points there are interesting shapes starting to form, but they just sudden fade back. Next the whole thing seems to be mixed in a rather unbalanced manner- the ‘wall’ elements, which are frankly rather run of the mill, are high in the mix. Where as the psychedelic elements often waver or completely disappear in the mix.
As I say they are positives here, I like the opening & nicely moody building sustains. And from time-to-time, the psychedelic elements start to jell nicely. So I certainly think there is hope here, and with a bit more focus & work I’m sure Kosmodrom could fulfill its promise of wholly effective space-bound noise craft- it’s just at the point of this release( from late 2016) it wasn’t really there.