A saturnine piece of slithering tenebrae oozing ominous Industrial, Noise, Dark Ambient & Avant Electronics with Field Recording fragments from two old-guard mandarins from the Industrial radix, Dan Burke (Illusion Of Safety) & Thomas Demuzio. We are portioned fifteen tracks, extracted from three live performances that were executed in CA during 2004. Predictably from these experienced heavy-weights, the material is excellent & varied with considerable expertise expended on track-to-track expansion, succession & mood modification. Perfectly capable in isolated incidents, it’s best absorbed as a full piece by experiencing the complete duration as one event. The cover of the album is a photograph of a police cordon around some kind of corporate building. The police, all baring riot shields with helmets & face-guards, have the sun reflecting in there visors, giving them a preposterously inhuman appearance. It’s both ridiculous & despicable. Above them, on a giant digitized bill-board is the caption “UPCOMING EVENTS”. Presumably we are stewing in those fucking events now as the album heralded & perhaps even tried to admonish? Against the advancing state/corporate death-knell. Many of the track titles reflect the image – Primordial Decree, Umbrella Sanctions, Deregulation, Mediastorm etc. a small sequence of sampling, from this face-off/protest or another similar one also makes it’s way onto “Leave Hear Right Now” capturing a glimpse of the absurd & excessive police bigotry & pre-emption along with that “machine-like” disquality that the inferiorities seem to communicate in. Sound/material wise, it’s mostly a case of consternation with a perilous undercurrent & a slowly encroaching menace. The sense of orderly abuse, professional, uniformed, spit-shined, fresh out the box & seemingly legitimate whilst simultaneously utterly criminal & deeply immoral is very well devised & translated. I wonder if the material was designed/inspired by this picture specifically? Or the image was attributed afterwards? Whatever the inner details of the concept, this album is another fine politicised exposé from two committed veterans of the Industrial-Noise-Electronics compound. Thoroughly good shit!
Rekd: 2004
Label: No Fun Productions