Skin Graft/Dim Dusk Moving Gloom — split

Promotion is, alas, a staple part of the music industry. Years back, when a friend of mine tried to start up a “proper” label, he told me with resignation that realistically he needed to spend twice as much money promoting his releases, as he did actually making them. Tis the way of things. You can get lucky, but there will always be perseverance and hard work.  Why do I mention this? Well, this tape arrived to me with one side blank… Ha ha. These things happen…

Fortunately for Skin Graft, this promotional faux-pas can be easily rectified; I simply visited the Rainbow Bridge website, where the tape is available for download - and I suggest you do too. Such are the joys of modern living.

So, a split release between Skin Graft and Dim Dusk Moving Gloom; with somewhat basic artwork and packaging, but a suitably puzzling image on the front cover. The Skin Graft side, “You Victim”, jumps straight into some warbling, dizzying treble skree and crunch; with juddering bass bursts trying to force their way through after a minute or so. A third of the way in, and a clipping rhythm chops into the skree, which develops into a pulsing, circling, rhythmic churn; riding over a spitting wall of noise. The piece has a bleak, monotone quality; utterly relentless. With a third of the way to go, a hissy wall of static rises up over the engine-like grating; rising higher and higher until it totally obliterates the rhythm beneath. After the churning rhythm finally drops out, the static noise descends into some great broken crackle - always the most joyous of sounds in noise’s palette, I find. It doesn’t ever carry any connotations of negativity for me, its just a beautiful sound.

We flip over (from download to tape) to the chaotic electronics of Dim Dusk Moving Gloom’s “The Gnashing Of Teeth”. After a few rips of echoing noise, small, high-pitched squiggles swirl around the stereo field; embedded in ripping, if slightly dulled, noise. After a while, lusher, almost choral sounds reverberate in the middle of the squall. These develop into clean, ringing, digital lines; which then get attacked by increasingly frenetic squeals and rumbles. The obvious tension between the lush, spacey sounds and the abrasive noise, wail and grind, didn’t really work for me on headphones: they just cancelled each other out… But through speakers the two elements seem to merge in a more conducive manner, and a tension is achieved. As the track develops, the spacey sounds spiral downwards, and the whole piece starts to cohere much more convincingly; until finally any traces of elegance disappear entirely, and the tape flails to a chaotic dispersal of its elements.

Both sides of this tape see the respective acts presenting explorations of stasis, whilst being anything but static.