Various Artists — The Stage As Antiworld

Here’s a two-disc sonic journey into dada anti-music, dense & surreal noise craft, wonky ‘n’ warped jam-making, and abstract/unbalancing soundart. It’s a release that both engages and frustrates in equal measures- as it plays with your logic, senses and at points even one's own sanity.

The release appears on UK’s Cold Spring Records- with the two discs being presented in a six-panel digipak, which features on its front cover an old illustration of a boy conductor wearing a bow tie- with overlaid layers of typewriter type behind him. The set also takes in a monochrome & red type booklet, featuring pictures of the three performers featured here.

 I’d say that both discs here are bizarrely fascinating and deeply frustrating- it really depends on how much patience you have to how much you’ll enjoy, or find this deeply trying.

The single track/ set runs on disc one fifty-seven and a half minutes, and is apparently a blend of live and studio recordings. It brings together The New Blockaders & Grinder-Without-Organs.  Things open with layered crowd noise- that is at first lightly edged with feedback sears, as we move on elements of rustling and shift metal, and wonky sawing Volin are added- with the crowd noise sounding more and more like it's a recording of a schoolyard. As we move on we have moments of dense noise build-up, metal cascading, and hissing sears. At around the halfway point more layers of tapping ‘n’ sawing string craft are added, along with layers of pre-recorded female voices saying random/odd things are added.  With the track's biggest trick/ moments of frustration coming in its last ten minutes, it seems like it’s finishing/ fading out into hovering ambience before once again moving into crowd recordings/ clapping sounds again- and truly at points you are wondering if it will ever end, and you’ll be stuck in sonic purgatory for evermore.

 

The second disc takes in two around half-an-hour-long  live recordings- from two locations: London’s Café Oto, and Auckland New Zealand’s Audio Foundation

The first track brings together Grider-Without-Without-Organs, and Theatre In One Anti Act With Film, together, these two projects feature seven players altogether- so I imagine this live in Café Oto would have been a very cramped and chaotic experience, which of course, perfectly echoes the sonic experience here.  It opens with a selection of drags, knocks, shifts and metal scrapes. We then get the addition of male and female voices- these are very well-pronounced English voices, and sound like they may be of AI origin. They start to have a very random and surreal confession- which at points almost makes sense, but often doesn’t- this backed by more vigorous metal cutlery-like movement. At around the six-minute mark, a rolling ‘n’ churning set of drums and baying-rapid guitar/violin improv are added into the mix. More sinister whispering male AI voice work appears later in the track- along with the rest of the chaos.

The second track features The Theatrical  Panopticon, and I’d say this is the most abstract/non-musical of the three recordings. We open with a loud recording of what sounds like a mix of someone moving furniture/ plates, laughing and making unclear conversation- with the occasional creepy female whisper over the top- it’s a most unbalancing experience.  As we move on, we get blends of a man clearing his throat,  the scratching sound of some form of material, chair movements, and more moments of unclear talking, etc. At a point, it seems like it’s all over- as we get a load of applause and clapping- but no, it’s another trick- as fairly soon we get first more knocks, and shuffles, with moments of manic laughter- which soon move into more odd/ half heard shiftings, and faint conversion.  This track well and truly messes with my head- and oddly it still retains that power, even after a few plays- so if you enjoy want for a better word sonic headfucks- it’s a must!.

If you're looking for a release that will puzzle, reward, and at points frustrate/ screw with your head The Stage As Antiworld will be for you. And big kudos to Cold Spring for releasing this double-disc oddity- as clearly it won’t have a huge audience/ most certainly won't be for everyone!.