Top Bar
Musique Machine Logo Home ButtonReviews ButtonArticles ButtonBand Specials ButtonAbout Us Button
SearchGo Down
Search for  
With search mode in section(s)
And sort the results by
show articles written by  
 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Robe - Remains Of A Burning World [Thor’s Rubber Hammer Productions - 2009]

Like many noise activists within the experimental doom/dark ambient/sludge scenes, Indiana’s Kyle Willey and Adam Cooley have been hyperactive, producing around fifty releases over the past five years under various guises on CDr, cassette or MP3. Most of these are available to download free-of-charge with torrents seeded by the artists themselves.

Released on cassette in an edition of 100, these six lo-fi, industrial movements position the listener outside, in bad weather, struggling to discern the sounds within a nearby warehouse. For the most part of side one, the ominous billowing of a coastal wind dominates the mid-range creating a churning fog of white noise that obscures a dirty, encrusted bass playing atonal chords. Side two is a little less oppressive giving greater potential for narratives to emerge: Second blood’s low end atmospherics sway like a pendulum as a church organ plaintively intones weakly like a threatened candle flame while distortion builds an avalanche. Next, machines march on the debris in the appropriately titled Decay, while an occasional click, like firing a cigarette lighter, gets unsettlingly nearer and nearer. Finally, Visions of a Dead Future combines whistling tones to form a rusted, resonating clarion call as an old orchestral recording begins to play from a drowned gramophone bringing to mind the work of William Basinski.

The persistent and occasionally majestic decay of ‘…Burning World’ suits the cassette format whose limited dynamic range and hiss blends seamlessly with the bleak, incessant churning. It demonstrates how effective Robe.’s improvisations are at creating scenes of decline and degeneration. Conversely, Robe.’s  abundant release schedule, seemingly unshackled of commercial and editorial concerns, makes ‘Remains Of A Burning World’ just one drop in an expanding dark ocean.

Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5

Russell Cuzner
Latest Reviews

Robe - Remains Of A Burning World
Like many noise activists within the experimental doom/dark ambient/sludge scenes, Indiana’s Kyle Willey and Adam Cooley have been hyperactive, producing a...
260226   Violent New Breed - Violent N...
260226   Ozone: The Attack of the Redn...
250226   Fossilization - Advent of Wo...
250226   Hvast - Chwasty Polskie
240226   Dirk Serries - Zonal Disturb...
240226   The Stargazer’s Assistantâ€...
240226   Stephen O‘Malley - Spheres ...
200226   100 Tears - 100 Tears( Blu Ray)
200226   Garden Of Love, - Garden Of L...
200226   Blood Dolls - Blood Dolls( Bl...
Latest Articles

Crude ‘n’ Hope-corroding Wall...
Back in 2024, I got my first taste of Absurd Reality, and I was so impressed by how crude and nasty its take on walled noise was. Behind the project is South...
290126   Crude ‘n’ Hope-corroding ...
231225   Creepy Images Books - Killer Art
221225   Best Of 2025 - Music, Sound &...
041225   The Spectral Sounds of The Pr...
281025   Michael Hurst Interview - Unb...
071025   Xiphos - The Rise And Fall Of...
030925   Third Window Films - A Label ...
130825   HNW fest- Barcelona- 12th Apr...
250725   Raté interview - Walled-in F...
180625   Matthew Holmes - Of razor-sha...
Go Up
(c) Musique Machine 2001 -2025. Twenty four years of true independence!! Mail Us at questions=at=musiquemachine=dot=comBottom