Vomir/Fukte — Electro-Static
First off it’s worth giving a mention to the sets packaging: The two grey cassettes are spray-painted/ dripped on (one in red, one in blue). These are housed in a plastic box with pieces of computer motherboard, the box comes wrapped in a grey t-shirt, then this is all fixed together with a piece of electric cable. I sadly only got the bare bones tapes & cardboard inlay for review purposes, but the full packing does sound rather appealing…
The set features two C25 tapes, and in all there are eight tracks spread over the two cassettes. These eight tracks last between the three minute mark to just under the twenty five minute mark.
The first tapes tracks are named after famous figures who are connected with the development & use of electricity. Filling up the first side of tape we have “James Clerk Maxwell”, and this 20.22 track starts off with a single slightly oscillating low end electro drone texture. By around the minute mark the droning tone is joined by a slowly accelerating yet brooding electro noise drone, and from time to time sweeps of smaller noise textures. As the track goes on more sustained drone textures & electro dwells are added to create this oppressive & suffocating droning wall of sound- over the rest of the tracks running time the pair thin down slightly, then build up the wall of throbbing & oppressive drone again. I guess you’d classify the track as brooding/ lo-fi electro drone with a few subtle noise undercurrents- the tracks ok for what it is, through I did feel it did drag on a little too long for its own good.
Over onto side B, and this side offers up four tracks. First of these is “Hans Christian Ørsted”, and this come in at the 7.42 mark- it's built around a two mix of oscillating/madly jittering mid to higher toned electro tone & a throbbing/ brooding low end electro whirring drone. Towards the end of the track the low-end element slowly rises & electro judders in an effective wonky manner. I rather like the electro drilling feel of this track, and it nicely sets an airless/ oppressive mood. Track two is entitled “Michael Faraday”, and this comes in at the 3.40 mark- and this is built around a sustained wonky pitch shifting whirring judder that has slight smaller skipping elements on top- the tracks not my favourite here as it just feels a little too freeform/ under developed for it’s own. Next is track three, and this is entitled “Hendrik Lorentz”, and this track brings together a slowly churning/whirring/chopping mid tone electro texture, that has a often sustained grim/ ghostly siren tone running over the top- I guess you’d say this track is a mixture of electro drone texturing & muffled/ out-of-focus industrial texturing, it ok but again feels a little too long for it’s own good. Lastly on this side we have “Nikola Tesla”, and this mixes together juddering ‘n’ rumbling mid paced wall making, which is smarted & singed by accelerating/ billowing electro noise tones- this track is most effective, through it’s a pity it didn’t last a bit longer than it’s three minute runtime.
So onto tape two, and on side one we have a Fukte solo track. The tracks entitled “Magnetic Emptiness”, and this takes up the whole of side C at the 24.49 mark. This tracks is a mixture of swirling & panicked electro tones- you have a swirl higher pitched tone & a juddering/purring mid tone. These tones are fed together into a semi noise fed mass of electro edginess that drones/ buzzers on in a rewarding manner for the tracks run time. All told this tracks an effective ‘n’ brutish slice of electro texturing, which really grinds ‘n’ buffets ones head in a most rewarding manner.
Over onto side C, and we have two solo tracks from Vomir. First we have “Aspérités Corporelles” which comes in just under the ten minute mark, then we have “Invocation De La Peau Ternie” which is just under the fifteen minute mark. The first track is built around a wonderful crude ‘n’ lo-fi hacking tonality, which is surrounding by muddy juddering sub-tones. As the track progresses more muffled ‘n’ crude low-end tone rise in the wall to create this great suffocating ‘n’ swampy vibe. I guess you’d say this track is a very nasty ‘n’ blown-out mixture of HNW & low-end sludgy electro texturing. The second track is most straight HNW track of this collaboration, and it finds Vomir weaving a ‘wall’ of juddering ‘n’ turning lower to mid ranged noise, which is mixed with more active jittering mid ranged noise tones. All this creates a nice firm ‘n’ dense wall which has a nice feeling of layer activity with-in it.
It’s fair to say this collaboration is a rather hit ‘n’ miss affair- you have rewarding electro dense drone dwells & electro/ HNW cross breeds, but you also have more than few vaguely interesting if unsuccessful experiments too. I feel that on the whole this is a worthy collaboration; I just wish they’d been a bit more selective on what they put on the tapes.