Mademoiselle Bistouri — The No Performance
The No Performance sees this Italian noise project offering up two fifteen minute slices of harsh noise- that’s edged with twists of atmosphere and moments pared back ambience. The release appeared back February of last year-as both a cassette and digital download- it appeared on Vienna, Austria based Fall Into Void Records- sadly the thirty copies of the tape are all gone now- so the only option is a digital download.
The Mademoiselle Bistouri project began life in 2008 and is all the work of one Claudio Frassine- according to Discogs the project has released around thirty full-length releases, and around twenty shorter/ miscellaneous releases. The project seemingly mainly focuses of more harsh noise sound, though it looks like it might have tipped its toe into wall noise side of things too- looking at the labels that have released some of the projects work.
The two tracks are untitled- with each taking up a side of tape. The first side track begins with a fairly actively oscillating blend of grinding mids & high pitched sears- within a minute or so this is undercut by moody strummed acoustic guitar work, which later features a man discussing philosophical like matters. By around the seventh minute, the noise has died back, and we’re left with just the atmospheric guitar & spoken word elements. Fairly soon, as these elements depart, we get a blend of fizzing & murky buzzing noise textures- which nicely paints a bleak mood, as the track nears its eleventh minute we get swirling & slightly jitter layer add to proceedings- and this rather brought to mind the sound of a shoreline, blended with a fairly agitated mood.
The second track opens with swarming higher pitched almost sourly harmonic textures- these unfed by mid range machine like purrs & grinds. As the track progresses you get more swirling sad noise drone weaves added into the mass, and these are underfed by moody tone slices. To me this part of the track really seemed to grind at me, but not in a positive way- I’m not the biggest fan of sustained high tones- and here they are really unpleasantly in it’s all most tooth nerve hitting manner. At around the eight minute mark we shift away from this blend, for a more effective mix of tumbling & slightly buzzing mids-this fairly soon get topped with a thick, but uneven fed of crackling static, and fairly soon this is joined by a slowly marching piano element- which at times feels too simplistic & a little ham-fisted, to really conjure up the clearly sombre moody that’s trying to be created here- as the track nears its end you can hear a male shouting & ranting underneath everything.
After hearing a fair bit of very positive things about this project it’s great to check out some of their work. The blend of noise & moodier atmospheric fare on The No Performance is certainly interesting- and while I enjoyed moments of each track here, mainly the more dwelling wall like moments- on the whole, the release felt a little contrived, in places flat, and uneven- with the noise & moody elements often not gelling as well as they could. I guess I might not be the best person to review this type of thing, as when it comes to noise I’m more of wall noise fiend - though I do like some Harsh noise stuff, and of course I’m a big fan of more ambient & atmospheric fare too- it’s just this didn’t grab me as I hoped it would…if this sounds like something you might dig, it’s best to check out samples & make up your own mind up.