Terrapin — Killing HF Harlow
The title, and a quotation printed on the cd, allude to the work and experiments of scientist H.F. Harlow. I’d never heard of him before, but some quick research shows him to have been an interesting character to say the least - there aren’t many scientists who’ve invented “forced-mating”devices called “rape racks”… His work with monkeys from the late 1950s onwards was brutal, and some believe it led to the development of the animal liberation movement. So, despite there being no over-powering “agit-prop” accompanying the release, the mentions of Harlow add a sense of darkness and dread to the tracks; though even without this colouring, the pieces are quite overtly of that nature.
As I said, its drone; often quite “digital” sounding drone, with feedback tones and some glitchy noise. The most notable thing is that the tracks are uniformly “short”, for drone pieces at least, with the longest clocking in at nearly six minutes and the shortest at a minute. The first track, “a death a day/intro” sets the tone for much that follows it: a pulsing, beating drone, with crisp, digital lines over the top; leading to a crescendo of distorted tones and bass rumble. In many respects, all of the tracks are just variations on this. Although there is a reasonable variance of sounds and atmospheres - spacey-ness, discordancy, feedback tones, etc - Terrapin don’t have the widest range of colours. There’s very little delicacy or dynamics, something which might have aided the tension of the pieces. Beyond the different flavours of drone tones, “killing HF Harlow” has three other clear elements: glitchy noises, bass and field recordings. The first are sometimes rhythmic, as on “st. john’s wort”; which almost promises some austere minimal techno. But often they provide surface detail and texture over the drones; on “a death a day” they start as glitching sounds akin to fire-crackle, but end up like the flapping wings of a thousand birds. The bass is very much an constant element on the album, a feeling helped by Terrapin’s use of the same bass sound throughout: a deep, throbbing low-end that nearly worries my headphones. This is often deployed in a rhythmic role, underpinning the drones and cutting right through them. Its a nice and effective tool - though the general austerity of the overall sound, coupled with the consistency of the bass tone, draws real attention to it; so, for example, the “Jaws” theme-like stabs of “coralina” become a little confusing and troublesome. The third non-drone ingredient used by Terrapin is field recordings, most notably (again) on “coralina”. Here, waves of dark drone, feedback and buzzing tones clear to reveal the sounds of wind and trees: its a welcome change from the otherwise ubiquitous tactics of drone and crescendo. The preceding track, “st. john’s wort”, has close mic-ed rattling and scrabbling, which is mirrored by rhythmic glitches; and the last piece, “/end”, plays out to percussive clangs accompanying the slow rise of a spacey tone.
“killing HF Harlow” isn’t really a bad album by any means, but its also not anything to set the ears alight. In general terms of drone, the tracks sit somewhere uncomfortably between being too busy and being too austere - a “common”problem in this area. But, given the shorter nature of the tracks, I think the busier sound of “a death a day” (for example) works better than the more “empty” pieces. These more obvious developments often give a “soundtrack” feel, in narrative terms too.