Ur — The Day Of The Lord/ 060606 Session
It's been very long since I last listened to one of their works so i was curious about this "The Day Of The Lord/ 060606 Session" CDr, released by Russian label Abgvrd.
The playful titles call to mind the absurd, exoteric word-plays of Nurse With Wound: the album starts with "The Word Of The Lord Is A Sword To The World", then proceeds with "The Law Of The Sword Is The Word To The World", " The Word Of The Sword Is The Law Of The Lord" and "The Sword Of The Lord Is The Law Of The World". Ur's sounds on this album indeed show the influence of Stapleton's music, along with atmospheres recalling classic dark ambient names like Lustmord and Deutsch Nepal, and cult italian acts such as Ain Soph.
This kind of stuff is a bit out of my territory, but I found myself engulfed and enthralled by Ur's slow and implacable mayhem of drones, buzzes, creepy low frequency synths, seemingly untouched field recordings and monotone bass guitar percussion. They're definitely good sound alchemists and the cocktail they prepare is easily enjoyable.
The album starts with a softly creeping, rumbling low-frequency synth loop and carries on with a pretty traditional dark ambient track punctuated by bell-like sounds and what I suppose are field recordings of some sort. The second track is more aggressive, with its bleak and muddy drones mangled by piercing synth tones and layers of electronic noise. The piece is well structured and layered. It's not harsh noise by any means but it works really well.
Things go back to quiet with the third track, which is again quite standard and effective dark ambient but the real gem is the fourth track, which is also the weirdest of the bunch and the one where the lesson of the industrial forefathers is most present. An extremely dull and repetitive line of electric bass carries on for the whole length of the piece, while what sounds like an out of tune violin dwindles over it, softly tortures the ear. A few variations and additional layers of sound keep things interesting. Hell, this even reminded me of some Faust. It's probably my favorite track and the one that is most likely to get multiple listens.
In conclusion, I think this is a pretty good album. Its variety and solidness prove that Ur know what they're doing. This material probably it's worth more than a simple CDr release. Recommended to fans of early industrial acts in the widest sense of the term. You'll find the same will to experiment and wander in all possible directions here.