Smrznik — The Robot Who Looked Like Me
Firstly is worth mentioning the rather odd cover artwork which features a smiling & bespeckled man in a top hat, tails and holding a riding crop- quite what this has to do with the albums concept or sound is unclear, but the picture does make the release stand out from most other HNW releases. On the back cover we have two more smaller pictures of bespeckled & smiling fiend, also on the back cover there’s a quote from Polish Sci-fi writer Stanis³aw Lem 1961 classic tale of inadequate communication between human and non-human species “Solaris”- which of course has been made into three films over the years, the most celebrated and thought provoking been Andrei Tarkovsky 1972 filmed version of the book.
So onto the track it’s self, and interestingly it sounds noticeable different depending on how I play it!. I started by playing the album on my Mp3 player with Sony ‘press in your ears headphones’ and when I play it like this the ‘wall’ sounds like a mixture of chilling drill meets locked Geiger counter judder with smaller and detailed layers of jittering static over the top. Then I played on my PC with my better Sony ‘sit on ears’ headphones and the main tone sounds like a feasting bass bound judder with a tighter and tense layer of smaller jittering static tones on top- the smaller jittering static elements often form quite complex and off pattern textures which really sucks you in deeper into the tracks cold & hypnotic world.
The tracks main drilling meets Geiger counter/ bass feasting tone remains fairly locked and stayed through-out the tracks length, but the smaller detailed element do shift and jump off pattern here & there- though they never deviate too far staying mainly warped around and through the tracks main tone. The track thins out mid-way for this quite creepy English male voice saying “You don’t know me, oh but you know that” and then the wall kicks back in again, and seemingly it's even more chilling/ hypnotic in it’s feel.
So to sum up another very chilling yet deeply rewarding slice of distinctive HNW from this great Sarajevo based project, that’s very oddly illustrated yet very pro-looking in it’s lay-out, colour printed cover and cd face. Certainly another one of this years HNW highlights, and I can’t wait to see/hear the HNW soundtracked Sci-fi film that Smrznik is due to put out soon on french based anarchofreaksproduction lable soon