Jim Haynes  Established twenty years ago, the Helen Scarsdale Agency is devoted to a unique world of sound recording that embraces post-industrial, collage, minimalism and noise.  It is within this realm of innovation that multi-disciplinary artist Jim Haynes, the agency’s ‘sole occupant’, resides, dedicating his creative existence to a zone of destruction and its attendant processes of corrosion, decay and rust. Working across multiple media, Haynes states rather simply “I rust things”. Whether it be corroding photographs, compiling cinema scapes or producing sound compositions, Haynes uses motors, industrial materials and ‘found objects’ to create a world of dystopia and devastation.

On Inauspicious, his latest audio release, Haynes has constructed a brutal vision of decay concentrated on noise of the harshest and most visceral kind , featuring power drones, spectral radio transmission and the demolition of metal, glass, and wooden entities. Piece one ‘Variant, Number Fourteen’ starts off almost inaudibly - the slow incipient hum of a spaceship in orbit, fostering a sense of inertia and the promise of twenty minutes of deep listening. But as the four-minute mark approaches, we are jolted out of any ongoing state of tranquillity. Haynes introduces his first taste of obliteration - breakage and the distorted vibration of smashing glass and metal, white noise permeating throughout. Could this be what a real alien invasion would sound like? The brutality increases with the addition of what can only be described as a space-age synthetic drill - intense and high-pitched. And then halfway through respite sets as the unrelenting buzz diminishes to a whirr, heralding a host of barely discernible sounds - the calm only disturbed by the occasional sonic strike. We’re almost back in deep listening territory again as ‘Variant, Number Fourteen’ descends into a low-key industrial ambient soundscape – there’s even the slightest hint of melody (blink and you miss it).

For ‘Variant, Number Fifteen’, the territory is the same;  Haynes continues in the same disturbing vein. And for this second composition, there’s not even gentle prologue to ease us in. A harsh, undulating mechanical drone draws the listener in as the intensity gradually swells - the abrasiveness undeniable and giving way to what again sounds like wilfully constructed white noise. Haynes’ ability to consign the concept of destruction to record is quite astounding. The use – and destruction – of materials plays with the concept of industrial music stripping it back to its most stark and literal form. This is no easy trip, but Haynes insists on taking us with him. As the piece continues with a strangely intoxicating electronic and high-pitched drone, the foreground noise builds – layer after layer and transitions into a Throbbing Gristle like denouement. Seering sonic industrial noise builds into an all-out sonic assault only diminishing in the final two minutes.

This is industrial music of the bleakest - which deserves to be listened to as a piece of art to challenge our conceptions of destruction and decay. Take the plunge and delve deep, all formats available here.