Lesser Dog & Azoikum — Forging Oppression

Forging Oppression is a C60 split bringing together two projects who mine dense-yet-murkily reeling harsh noise craft. We have here Lesser Dog- the new project from Portuguese noise maker Hélio Leal , and long-running German project Azoikum- with each offering up three around ten minute long tracks.

The plain black cassette comes presented in a monochrome cover, and this features on its front a decidedly unsettling picture of raised hands with one of them missing a finger. The tape comes in an edition of twenty-three copies, and as of writing the label still have copies left.

So first up on side A we have the three Lesser Dog tracks. We open with "Pariah"- this is a blend of ranting and surreal noir-like male storytelling voice buried in a blunt and dense mesh of juddering ‘n’ jittering mid-range noise. Next, we have the mid-range reeling meets muffled forking rattle of "Deviance", with the side been topped off with rolling ‘n’ hacking static meets murky junk abuse of "Overthrown".

Flipping over and we of course have the Azoikum tracks. These kick-off with the dense and muffled churn-meets-hazed forking sweep of “Blind obedience”, which at points has a swirling up and down semi groove to it. Next, there’s the racing & skitter feel of “Ordo Ab Chao” with its densely chaotic blend of ripping and baying static, sour mid-to-high pitch tone sweeps, and sways of rattling blunt junk. With this side been finished off with “Uprising Reversal” which brings together rapidly swirling static grain rip and churn, skittering pitch sweeps, and muffled blends of high pitch forking.

If you're in the market for dense and bluntly edged harsh noise- with an often muffled and murky flow to its attack- I’d say you get some nasty joy from Forging Oppression. With both parties’ sides nicely complementing each other for a balanced split, which plays nicely as an hour-long run.