CRITIKAL
- graphorrhea
(CD,
Kvitnu)
As far as the theoretical framework of collaborations
are concerned, Critikal is one of the most intersting due to its strict
logic and consequent performance. And this carries over to the music as
well. Critikal is the bonding of four renowned noise-experimentalists and
the main condition is, that with each release one of the four constructs
music from the sound material provided by the other members. This logic
makes for quite diverse array of music that always clearly shows the
handwriting of the person in control, but also has heavy and clear routes in
the interests of the other three. This time around it is Dmytro Federenko’s
task to take over control and to peruse sounds done by Tobias Astrom, Jeff
Surak and his long time comrade Andrey Kiritchenko. If you have heard some of the
things that Federenko released under his Kotra moniker then you might have an idea what
you are up for.
The result seems to be influenced by the dynamic and
structuralism of the logic of the collaboration behind it. The various sound
parts and stunning distorted eruptions of all kinds of noise seem to stand
in the aural room without a lot of connection to each other, almost as if
randomly categorized, or at least ordered by some elaborate algorithm. With
time the noises seem to start to order themselves – or as usual I am
wondering if it is just my mind searching for structure and order where
there is just chaos – and an almost evolutionary dynamic starts to unfold.
Low grumbling noises, very much like those used in science fiction movies to
support the movement of gigantic insects, lay down a floor for feeping and
rumbling noises and then some crushing distortion. After a while also the
compression and tension of the soundparts contrasting each other start to
fade a little.
When I was younger I liked the full blast noise, of
course, Merzbow
and Masonna and the like, but as I grew older and sank deeper into the sea
of noise, I started to find a liking for more subtle and enigmatic and less
harsh and direct in your face sounds. The processing of sounds into a dense
carpet makes more sense to me now than trying to blast away every living
breathing being with plain amplification. That I find a lot more during the
second part of “graphorrhea”. A humming noise indicates irradiant live,
some crisp scratches mean that industrialism is still winning out and the
high pitched frequencies whistling in the back give me hope that not
everything that lurks around the corner is evil. The overall atmosphere
changes from harsh and corrupted to dark and evil over the course of the
record and I get sucked into a dystopian world that I last experienced this
way when I listened to “black vomit” by Wolf Eyes with Anthony Braxton.
As a final remark, the title “graphorrhea” refers
to a symptom of psychological, manic disorders that result in writing long
lists of meaningless words. Like some autists will also, or the guy who in
seven years work copied the old and new testament by hand, or someone who
sits down and over the course of several years types a few hundred record
reviews into the internet. Meaninglessness and manic compulsions to do
meaningless things – meaningless in the sense that overall society will
put down for these things – is central to almost all artistic impulses
that focus on the fringe, the weird, the uneasy or the distorted. So yeah,
for good art, ie. art that I find interesting, any kind of manic disorder
that helps to bypass the rules and regulations societ puts into visionary
minds is fine by me.
