EVOL

Punani Shell

CD, Scarcelight

What do you think does the communication between bits and bytes sound like, as they run through processors and relays while you daddle away on your Playstation? At times they’ll go completely apeshit, when you’ve lost yet another life in a screaming rage of explosions, fire and evil troops coming in at you. At other times they’ll rest and have a little sigh, while you try to sneak around those evil opposing forces to kick their butts a few minutes later. Most of the time though, you’ll be stuck in midfight, trying to defend yourself as best as you can on a medium ability scale. The bits and bytes within your playstation still go apeshit, because to them your pleasure is hard work.

The sonic freakouts of Evol – a pair from Barcelona who also run the Alku label – are a hard piece to swallow. (In comparison to other releases on Scarcelight, like Psychon or Accelera Deck, this one is definitely among the heaviest to digest.) It is definitely a runner-up to Pita’s whole work as well as the Gameboy-symphonies of Matt Wand. Both sound like easy listening in comparison at times. Maybe Scarcelight just wanted to test the stereo-equipment as well as the minds of their listeners. The sound is definitely digital but the analogue sources still remain audible.

At times the clatter, shouting and chaotic shrieking of these sounds reminds me of the shrill communication within a herd of apes, especially chimps. I’ll admit, I saw “Planet of the Apes” on TV a few days ago, and then “Twelve Monkeys” yesterday. (I like every movie in which Bruce Willis wakes up completely desolated and destroyed only to take on the biggest task in his life yet, like “Last Boy Scout”. Do what you like, that is the way it is.) So I am kind of tuned into apes right now. Which means, also being tuned into trying to find forms and figures, coherence and structure within otherwise chaotic and cataclysmic objects or combinations of objects. Maybe I should be looking for chinchillas, right?

The funny thing is, here and there discernible pieces of tonality emerge from the ruckus, but you’ll only hear them after the fourth or fifth run through. Like the military signal played on a kid’s flute at the end of minute thirteen or the distorted birdsong somewhere in the beginning. Most of it is the hint of an instrument with strings here and there. At the first instance of this recognition of well-known sounds, you’ll think your brain has just melted away. But it is your mind, that has wonderfully managed to adapt to the input you administered.

“Punani Shell” won’t find a home in most homes, and for those it does, I am completely unable to give any guess at what the people in their would be like.