RDKPL — Herr Pes Trinch

Here’s two tracks of electronic noise from RDKPL, on Inner Demons Records; I’m reviewing this via a download code for Bandcamp, so there’s no packaging to consider, but I like the simple, diy, ‘bedroom’ packaging that I’ve seen on other Inner Demons releases. Both tracks are ten minutes in length, and both play with similar sounds.

‘231022_03’ begins with two stereo split paths of electronic wailings and whinings that both shadow and fight each other; they’re both punctuated by lots of juddering noises, like a ‘trapped’ delay echo. These churning judders are perhaps the dominant sounds throughout. The sounds themselves are, I think, software-derived; it’s unclear, but their movements suggest that. At points, the sound field clears a little, revealing tones or electronic burbling; it also reveals a nice textural grit and grime, possibly acquired through a lo-fi recording method, which provides a very effective and pleasing context for the foreground sounds. Truth be told, those foregrounded sounds aren’t overly exciting in terms of timbre or colour, and if anything, generally the track suffers from repetition.

The second piece, ‘231022_04’, begins with a barrage of acidic pooting and synth shriek, creating a better sense of movement and dynamics than the first track. Here, the electronics do appear to break down, akin to cut-up noise, and there are several effective passages where sounds spin, shift, and then cut out; this all generates a more meaningful structure than on ‘231022_03’. Sonically, the sounds are much better articulated and manipulated, they’re more effectively distressed and modulated, even as they rise and fall in short bursts.

I feel like the second track achieves what the first was aiming at, and in that regard is a pleasing piece of staccato synthetic electronics, a cut-up barrage with some acid buried in there. The first track doesn’t display those qualities so well, but it does feel similar in spirit to some early Maurizio Bianchi works, where it sometimes seems as if he’s just mindlessly twiddling knobs, creating a genuinely in/non-human music; however, ‘231022_03’ doesn’t have that charm, or that coldness.