Sogra — Óäóøüå(Suffocation)
The theme for all of this projects releases is nature and its manifestations- the project has been active since 2014, releasing around nine of so releases- taking in both CDR & digital downloads.
The release is presented in a fairly cryptic manner- the CDR face features a drawing of an upright bandaged figure. And the CDR comes in a see-through plastic sleeve- this features a doubled sided black & white inlay, which takes in the upright bandaged figure, and torn & ink stamped illustrations of city tower blocks. There are no words or texts on the sleeve or cover.
Apparently, the three tracks are simply titled parts one, two & three. The first track is a blend of a roughshod & muffled buffeting texture, which is surrounded tiny snapping grains of noise. This first ‘wall’ certainly summons up the feeling of weathered bleak-ness well, and I enjoyed it for the first half- I just felt it didn’t keep my attention for the whole of it’s just over twenty-one minutes.
The second track is a crude ‘n’ crusty blend of fairly simplistic juddering & jitter tones. I certainly like the lo-fi & uneven feel of this ‘wall’, and at times it feels like the lose structure will finally dissolve- but throughout it’s just under twenty-three-minute runtime. I found this track kept my attention throughout, and it nicely follows on mood-wise from the first track.
Lastly, we have the third track, and to my ears this is the most rewarding & interesting ‘wall’ here. The track brings together an extremely muffled & hazed industrial drone judder, and this is meshed in a taught Matt of smaller grained crackling static. The track very nicely captures both an extremely bleak mood, and a feeling of tension. I could easily have listened to this track at double its twenty-one-minute length.
So in summing up Suffocation- I’d certainly say all three tracks here manage to purvey the feeling of bleakness & isolation. Though I can’t say all of them were completely successful - track one was just ok but outstayed it’s welcome. The second track was more appealing, and track three really made the whole thing worth hearing. So this is certainly not the most consistent release of heard from Maklakov- but has its moments.