Sutcliffe No More — Diving Board

Diving Board is the sixth album from this British two-piece. It's a nine-track affair that finds them focusing on the more dementedly theatrical/ intensely spoken-word side of their post-PE/ extreme & experimental electronica sound.

The CD release appears on Austria’s Klanggalerie, with the disc being presented in a glossy/ yet grimly illustrated mini gatefold. On the front/ back covers, we find bleak silhouette art relating to the title track. And inside, we find a selection of pencil drawings of fat and deformed humanoid figures. The album can be purchased directly from here

The album opens up with the title track. This is built around a warbling/ constantly churning organ and darting/searing electro pitches, which is topped with a blend of billowing spoken & waveringly crooning male vocals. We get lines here like ‘confused on whose cock & whose cunt, whose fingers and whose hands’. It’s a great opening track, having a wonderful, unhinged and demented vaudeville quality to it.

On “Paradise Lost” we find a taut & dense blend of pinging ‘n’ scarping electro tones, malevolent purring drones, and a warbling whistling tone. This is an edged, angered spoken word that hisses & bay regarding those who 'can not talk without betraying & can not listen without a script'.  With “The Kestrel Descent” we find a tightly warped and wavering electro fluting- tones, which is topped with a spoken word story regarding a Kestrel's unfortunate encounter with mankind.

The album plays out with “Unholy Poem Of Piss And Shit” here, we find a blend of pared-back hover, foreboding purr, and building in intensity electro choppiness.  The vocals here are in a detailed/ hushed whisper, though from the off, there is both coiled intensity and threat about them.

Diving Board is yet another consistent album from Sutcliffe No More, which sees the pair twisting 'n' turning their intense sound in interesting and rewarding ways.