Tetsuo - Eternal Respect [Self release - 2019]Tetsuo sees the welcome return of respected French noisemaker Julien Skrobek( Ghost, Gesis, Ruine, Sumbru & many other projects). Eternal Respect is a three track, self-released CDR release- which sonically sits between tense electro-improv, textured noise, and taut sine wave sculpturing. The blank CDR comes in a monochrome sleeve- featuring on its front an angled picture of two tower blocks, and on its back minimal texts- taking in track listings & runtimes, kit used for making the release, etc. The release came in an edition of thirty copies, and as far as I can gather there’s still copies left- head here to find out more
The CDR has a total runtime of just over thirty-seven minutes- with each track running between ten & thirteen minutes. The first track is entitled “Access”- and this sees the taut bounding of a locked clugging ’n’ chopping, yet muffled noise loop & sour high pitch dwells. The whole thing has a very disorientating & queasy seared quality to it- feeling like your trying to find your way out of a smoke hazed tower block, that's filled with both pulsing waves of streaming water & distant alarms. As the track progresses the elements nicely blur & merger, deepening the feeling of seared uneasy.
Next we have "Levels", this is the shortest track here, & it’s also the most head screwing & intense too. It’s built around a mixture of constant & rapidly slicing sine wave, which is underfed by this locked electro creaking gradient- I wouldn’t advise headphone with this track, as I’m sure it could really freak you out, especially if you attempting to walk/ do things at the same time.
Lastly, we have the title track- this is a slightly more brooding, though still a very taut & tense piece. It’s built around a locked blend of phaser like almost rhythmic chopping/ pulsing. This is under fed by a more spread out mixture of grainy feasting static, wavering sour pitch drift, and choppy seasick static grain sub tones. This feels the most muffling & paranoid hazed of the three tracks, really pressing down on you in a tense & compacting manner.
It’s always great to hear new work from noise artists of Mr Skrobek calibre because you always know what every he turns his hand to is going to be very well conceived & executed. Eternal Respect will certainly be of interest to those looking for very tense, and at times mind altering noisemaking that features both discipline & sourly queasy-ness. It’s not as straight wall noise or textured noise as much of his past work, but there's certainly facets of the genre in the projects sound. Roger Batty
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