Noisepoetnobody - Potential vs Eventual EP [Scry Recordings - 2022]Seattle, Washington experimental musician Casey Jones (aka Noisepoetnobody) has sporadic releases physical dating back to 2007, and countless newer works on his bandcamp page. His new 2022 release is this Potential vs Eventual EP, with three untitled tracks totalling roughly half an hour. Despite the artist's moniker, the music is far from the most abrasive I've heard, sounding closer to dark ambient or drone than harsh noise. The album's opening is a moody metallic resonant tone that arcs and glimmers in a manner that should be pleasantly familiar to fans of classic psychedelic drone-like Nurse With Wound's "Soliloquy for Lilith". Its tone is rich and physical, likely generated by some kind of electroacoustic process. As time passes, a higher octave melodic synth arpeggiation adds a chordal shimmer which serves to anchor the original sound.
The low register electro-acoustic resonances continue in the next piece, this time with a more percussive quality, and 'flicking' sounds not unlike very distorted recordings of a thumb piano (an "mbira"), with the semi-tonal rattling of the metallic keys, which contain an earthy mixture of consonant and dissonant harmonics. Many of the sounds in this track appear to be playing backwards as well, as I heard the distinctive sound of reversed transients and impacts. Heavy delay is introduced at strategic moments as well, creating a sense of the entire space falling away.
The third and final piece is the most industrial of the set, centring around sputtering low-frequency noise that wouldn't be out of place in a Throbbing Gristle live set, evoking images of cities laid to desolate waste. Curiously, a ghost of a clean arpeggio haunts the backdrop, almost like a distant ice cream truck. The effect is dreamlike and surreal.
This recording occupies a sort of middle ground between active free improvisation and meditative ambient space, in a very listenable manner. There is an imperfect roughness and inharmonic dissonance to every sound present, yet the overall effect is calming, with no sudden changes in style or mood to break the entrancing effect of the underlying drones. Recommended for fans of esoteric moods, post-industrial projects like Nurse With Wound and Organum and ambient music with a rougher, more organic feel, largely bereft of synthesizer use. Josh Landry
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