Animal Machine/ Clusterfuck - Split [Harsh Noise London - 2020]Here we have a harsh noise split bringing together two projects from London based noise-maker Ernesto Bohorquez- the projects here are Animal Machine, which is a solo project & for this release dwells in more twisting ‘n’ turning static based noise. And Clusterfuck- which is a collab between Bohorquez( electronics), and Jared C Balogh(drums), and offers up slight more chaotic/ jam type noise making. The release is part of a batch of ten CDR releases put out by UK noise label Harsh Noise London- with Animal Machine taking in four tracks, and Clusterfuck six- length wise these run between thirty seconds & over twenty- with a total release runtime of sixty-one minutes.
First up we have the Animal Machine tracks-three where recorded live in London in 2017, and the final track from the project is from a live recording Poland in 2009. The tracks kick off with the buzzing sweeps, lo-key serrated grind, choppy hisses and cascading static churn ‘n’ spurt of the nearing six-minute & half minutes of “02.11.2017(part 1)”. Moving onto the shorter just under three minutes of “02.11.2017(part 3)” with its blend of deep skating static, spurting hiss & clunky glitch tones. The final Animal Machine track is the longest the twelve & a half minutes of “4.15.04.2009” which is mixture of rapidly slicing 'n' baying static textural play, and hiss meets glitching noise pile-ups- with occasional junk metal darts & muffled vocal drags.
Moving onto the second half of the split, and we have the six tracks from Clusterfuck- here Bohorquez collaborates with US noise-maker Jared C Balogh(Trans Atlantic Rage). All the tracks were recorded in 2012, and sadly it seems Balogh died suddenly in 2019. We kick-off with shifting feedback, junk hits, cut-up drum attacks and hiss bound noise making of “I”- which crams in a lot of stuff in its one minute eighteen runtime. There’s spiral stop-start hiss & loose drum jam cut-up of “IV”, with this part of the split topped off with the just shy of twenty-one minutes of “VI” -it blends scrawling-yet-shifting sheets of hissing & static noise texturing, searing & baying noise roasts with improv drums & sudden cut-up moments- all rather bringing to mind the loser moments of Merzbow’s Japanese Birds series.
So in summing up this split- it moves between more static toned-yet active noise-craft, and percussive backed noise jam outs- so if either of those float your boat you’ll be wanting to check out this split. Roger Batty
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