Sumugan Sivanesan is first up with Spare Your Speakers and this is exactly what II felt like doing as I played the first track. An exciting fusion of noise and extremely high pitched tones is not for the weak of heart or to be played while nursing a hangover. The intensity of the high pitched tone is one which I don’t think I’ve experienced before. It’s not that loud, just extremely high and this has interesting effects on the ears.
(…) There are also two video ppieces on this CD by him that are tightly synced video and sound pieces with impressive use of images to suit the music. The most striking being Anaesthesia, which deals with the recent treatment of those seeking asylum in Australia. (…) Space is an important parameter in Sivanesan’s work whether it be through volume, silence distance or layering. He is concerned with sound that is musical but may not be immediately recognizable as being so.
(…) Each track offers something new in the type of noise being developed which makes for quite an exciting listen.
Durán Vázquez’ Pigua Megapigua begins at track 10 after half a minute silence to separate the two artists. (…) A good contrast to Sivanesan in that a denser almost underground pulsation starts off his offering in an intense way. A connection I feel between the two artists is a feeling of hidden elements that can be barely heard within the music.
The deep subtle rhythms of track 11, Rochas no Ceo, sound as if they are recordings of a submarine under water muffled by the pressure of the water on the microphone. String samples blees trough also in a muffled fashion creating aan interesting blend.
Like Sivanesan offering, Vázquez offers quite different material from track to track although maintaining a certain character. Its quite a mix of different ideas and interesting transformations. Deep angry monstruous bass sounds envelope most of the tracks with looped samples and electronic anipulations accompanying. He manages to create a rather bizarre head-space, almost like being stuck out in a storm with strange traffic-type sounds looming in all around you (e..g. track 15).
The artwork on this CD was by Swiss artist Maia Gusberti, re-p.org, and alongside the music make this CD a very interesting mix of contrastinng and exciting noise based tracks worth checking out.
JR