COURTIS / MARHAUG
North and
South Neutrino
CD / antifrost
At first there is nothing, then a little sound creeps in, gets bigger and
bigger, expands, explores its surroundings, possibilities and abilities.
After casting away byways and misguided sideways it will find its way
straight into the dome of the auditive sense of the listener – if he or
she is able to stand that crucial first quarter of an hour, the birth of a
sound, when there is nothing but a crackling, hissing static with steadily
rising volume and a proportionally rising factor of unnerving the listener.
(Actually, this CD is a good one to drive unwelcome visitors out of your
room, or just about anyone.) Slowly, just like everything on this work is
growing or decaying slowly, a droning bass-sound crawls in. Some seven
minutes later it is gone again and the whole mood changes to a flirring and
blazing high-pitched ringing, or is that just my ears hurting. But that is
only half of it. The best parts, the distorted and distorting parts, are yet
to come. Static noise, blazing fire, raging wind, icy rains and growing
nervousness alternating with soothing primordial stillness. Until, at my
personal highlight, the track starts to breathe over the soothing sound of a
gentle interference. A moment of pure magic and silent (?) beauty. Like
diving in a giant iceberg.
Obviously, there are two ways to listen to this: One is to play it at a
sensitive volume on a regular stereo, to blend in with the background noise
of traffic, people next door and me typing on this keyboard. The other one
is to play on a irrationally loud volume and listen to it with headphones
on. I have tried both, and the second one will leave you internally bleeding
and psychotically torn and broken in your mind. Three quarters of an hour is
all that it takes.
Lasse Marhaug and Anla Courtis are well experienced in the field of
noise. The Scandinavian extreme noise-diver Marhaug has been around about 15
years or longer as a central part of the noise-scene over in the
northernmost parts of Europe, From the legendary Scandinavian Noise
Manifesto via the whole Origami-network (together with Tore H. Boe in the
central musical manifestation Origami Replika) and doing the
Jazzassin-records label, then moving on to an almost free-impro avant-rock
outfit called Del and ever so on. Marhaugs list of releases and
collaborations is vast and truly inspiring including Merzbow, Kevin Drumm, Otomo Yoshihide,
Sachiko M, Matt Davis, Aube, Bad Kharma, Grunt, Gob, and dozens of others.
Funnily, he has never really worked with minimal electronic artists or any
of the new breed of electronic experimentalists, but I guess his art is
still one that relies a lot on “traditional” noise-making, foregoing the
purely digital pc-based sound-construction and also rarely ever taking
harmonious or soothing keyboard sounds into his equation.
