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

Bryan Lewis Saunders - Near Death Experience [Old Captain Records - 2018]

Near Death Experience is a harrowing, often intense & at times deeply disturbing trip into the mind of American spoken word artist Bryan Lewis Saunders. This CD release appears on Ukraine's Old Captain records- taking seventeen tracks and a runtime of seventy four minutes. It’s fair to say it's one of the most troubling, at times downright unsettling & scary recordings I’ve heard in sometime.

Saunders seemingly started releasing recorded work around the mid 1990’s- at first as part of spoken word collections, going onto release stand alone cassette, CD, and vinyl releases.  Near Death Experience originally appeared on the Erratum label in 2010, as a vinyl album ltd to 500 copies- this recent edition of the release adds in an extra six tracks.

All of the tracks featured here find Saunders voice front & centre, with a few tracks taking in minimal psycho ambience & subtle/ unsettling noise elements. His tone moves between pump-up & ranting, onto slower, disturbed & weary, through to all out manic & unhinged. But which ever setting he's in, he most certainly demands ones attention- as he managers to blend together curious unsettlement, emotional distress, and growing mental unwell-ness.

Subject wise he moves from weird encounters in a local store, onto shifts from nervous unhidgment to all out psycho derangement. Self torture- be it mental or physical.  Through to rapid drug lingo related rants, onto if one had seven lives like a cat & the pained life’s you could live. Through to creepy & depressed homeless man self belittlement, onto generally wondering & highly unsettling psycho chatter.

In conclusion if you want to get truly unsettled & disturbed by a spoken word album- I’d say Near Death Experience perfectly fits that need. Though you can’t really listening to it in one long sitting, as it really does start to overwhelm you with it’s unrelenting  unwell-ness  &  seriously disturbed tone.

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

Roger Batty
Latest Reviews

Bryan Lewis Saunders - Near Deat...
Near Death Experience is a harrowing, often intense & at times deeply disturbing trip into the mind of American spoken word artist Bryan Lewis Saunders. ...
290324   Stuart Argabright & AfterAfte...
290324   Piranha - Piranha(DVD)
280324   Typhoon Club - Typhoon Club(B...
270324   Jerzy Skolimowski Collection ...
260324   Latex Choker - Sealed
260324   Occlusion - 59: No Input Wall
260324   Nihil Impvlse - Anabasis
260324   Marta Forsberg - Sjunger För...
260324   The New Boy - The New Boy( Th...
250324   The Stargazer’s Assistant - ...
Latest Articles

The Music of Clay Ruby & Burial H...
Over the last couple of decades Wisconsin native, Clay Ruby has been creating some of the world’s finest dark electronic music under the Burial Hex mon...
280324   The Music of Clay Ruby & Buri...
290224   Sutcliffe No More - Normal Ev...
100124   Occlusion - The Operation Is...
181223   Best Of 2023 - Music, Sound &...
051223   Powerhouse Films - Of Magic, ...
181023   IO - Of Sound, Of Art, Of Exp...
210923   Lucky Cerruti - Of Not so Fri...
290823   The Residents - The Trouble W...
110723   Yotzeret Sheydim Interview - ...
250523   TenHornedBeast - Into The Dee...
Go Up
(c) Musique Machine 2001 -2023. Twenty two years of true independence!! Mail Us at questions=at=musiquemachine=dot=comBottom