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

See Through Buildings - I Walked Among The Elders [Endless Landscapes of Decay - 2016]

Here’s a digital version of a limited cassette from Endless Landscapes of Decay. The tape has two tracks, both around 15 minutes in length, and both containing harsh walls of noise - though not necessarily HNW. See Through Buildings provides the first track, whilst the reverse side is a remix of the same; it’s credited to e.l.d., which I would assume is Endless Landscapes of Decay. The cover depicts a decaying corpse - though whether this is sourced from actuality or a film, I couldn’t say.

I Walked Among The Elders, by See Through Buildings, begins with a high, piercing tone, sat in a bed of noise. This noise is somewhat distant and dulled, as if it were an nth generation tape dubbing. The tone shifts a little, although it is overwhelmingly static, whilst bassier objects seem to dredge through the noise; then, at around the two and a half minute mark, the track explodes into all out skree. This skree consists of a thick wall of rampaging noise, fast and savage - but again, it does feel dulled: not hollowed out by equalisation, but more distant, and smoothed. After a brief outburst of filtered feedback (or indeed the previous tone), See Through Buildings locks down into an impressively hard wall. It’s bass heavy and driving, filled with menace and dread: fear in suspension. This breaks out - all too quickly - into more trebly territory, with the tone returning again, before undergoing more quickly shifting sections: more treble, drilling mid-frequencies, and low-end saturation. Before the piece ends, cutting off as a nice, reverberating drone emerges, the wall settles briefly on hollowed out textures - probably the most ornate passage of the track.

I Walked Among The Elders (Abandoned Child), the b-side remix, begins with more obvious colour than its parent track. Large mysterious chunks of matter move through a white-out of noise, murky and submerged - but then, from a different angle, it might just be a field recording of a rain storm… The piercing tone is also present, though buried and less defined. Around the six minute mark, a sampled voice breaks through the broken wash: Jeffrey Dahmer, the infamous serial killer, chatting about his cannibalism, and his brute medical experiments. With his words gone, the track continues along its rain-soaked path. The bassy ‘chunks of matter’ modulate slightly - perhaps akin to a flanger - reminding me of the odd way that thunder claps reverberate and shift. The overall sense of the track is almost like an electroacoustic piece buried in saturation and lo-fi noise.

This is a very solid pairing, with the two tracks both displaying good ideas, and complimenting each other. See Through Buildings is changeable and noisy, here, whilst the e.l.d. remix takes a more static and mysterious stance. Both pieces operate at quite a distance from the idea of pure, monolithic harsh noise wall, but still clearly know and use its terrain. If I had any strong criticism, it might be the general low-fidelity nature of the tracks - sometimes bordering on wash - but this is, of course, a personal thing. Nevertheless, a new label for me to watch…

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

Martin P
Latest Reviews

See Through Buildings - I Walke...
Here’s a digital version of a limited cassette from Endless Landscapes of Decay. The tape has two tracks, both around 15 minutes in length, and both containi...
220323   New Musik - From A To B(CD bo...
210323   James Nathan Powell - Aubin
210323   Mark Goodall - Gathering of t...
210323   Broken Cursór/Torturewave - S...
200323   Teksti-TV 666 - Vapauden Tasa...
200323   Charcoal - Charcoal
170323   Welcome To The Dollhouse - We...
170323   Hurry Sundown - Hurry Sundown
160323   Various Artists - Jungle-A-Ra...
160323   The Guy From Harlem - The Guy...
Latest Articles

Trou Aux Rats - The Funeral Is Ab...
Long-running French experimental sound maker Romain Perrot is a man with more than a few sonic projects- he’s probably most known for Vomir, his crude ...
230223   Trou Aux Rats - The Funeral I...
020223   The Residents & Support - Liv...
300123   Worship - In Praise Of Walled...
201222   Blood Chalice - Into The Sin...
191222   Best Of 2022 - Music, Sound &...
061222   Dr Tom Whittaker - The noto...
231122   Hastings of Malawi - Deliriou...
011122   Raffaele Pezzella - Pursuing ...
111022   Fouke - Bigfoot walled noise
150922   Joe Sherlock - The King of mo...
Go Up
(c) Musique Machine 2001 -2023. Twenty two years of true independence!! Mail Us at questions=at=musiquemachine=dot=comBottom