NADJA & FEAR FALLS BURNING – s/t

(CD, Conspiracy)

Two heavyweights of the longwinding and distorted format unite, and as the usual productivity of the participants suggests, this is not the last time we will hear of them. One is Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff, who form the entity Nadja, known as much for in depth enterprise-expeditions into walls of sound thar drag melodies way across the quarterhour mark and drench them in enormous layers of noise and sound. And the other is Direk Serries, also known as Vidna Obmana, who seems to have forsaken this moniker in the favour of even more minimal and slowly evolving guitar-solo with dozens of amps and loops that is called Fear Falls Burning. Both have enormous discographies to show for themselves, of them a lot solo and a lot in cooperation with other, likeminded artists. Since the two are so close in style, though not in technique, it is an interesting thing to listen to them. And – to give that away right at the introductory part of the review – it is a highly gratifying, deep and dense masterpiece of droning ambient noise. Partly meandering as on a tectonic level and sometimes on a symphonic scale, but never less than impressive.

Even though the basic styles of Nadja and Fear Falls Burning are really close and the CDs of both would be stacked next to each other by most listeners and sellers alike, their way of working is quite different, which makes it even more interesting to get deeply into these four quarterhour sparring rounds of sounds being sent back and forth, manipulated, twisted, stretched out and then dragged about some more. Sometimes noise just does not seem ready or aesthetically pleasing enough, if it hasn’t been dragged around the floor for some time. Aidan Baker likes the studio and to rework and rework and rework his pieces over and over again. Fear Falls Burning is quite different, pushing more and more amps into the racks and then turning them all on at once to revel in the sheer mass of sound produced by static and equipment. The pre-happines before striking the big chords and being blown away.

This collaboration on Conspiracy Records has turned out more industrial than would have been expected. Big drums set a rhythm that is more felt than could be counted, with cymbals so loud and broken and echoy they will overrule the guitar sounds a lot. Especially during the end of the first quarter hour punting, though those time measures are mostly just to add a little more numbers to the display of the CD player, because they morph into each other. Let’s call that extra edge, shall we? In Ambient Noise Drones (could we call this genre AND from now on, pretty please?) drums are the hardest instrument to play, because of ther definite time set. Drums, unless you use them solely to produce scratching and screeching noises, are basically not instruments that can fade out. Of course, playing may get more and more silent but the moment the drums stop to play is easily felt and heard. A guitar could be left leaning against the amp producing sounds for ever and a few hours. That’s what silence would mean to those artists, a roaring and pounding silence.

Amidst this environment of noise and drones, is it a weird thing to say the melodies evolve slowly but bviously? There is nothing you could whistle, but distorted and screeching sound distinctively move in chord progressions that are being repeated, even if it takes a few minutes to get back to the point. Despite all the thunder and the heavy and dense noise coming with these tracks the final result is not at all unpleasant, quite the opposite the tracks are of a mountainous, glacial beauty that stands tall and pounds with the pulse of the planet rather than the hectic pump action of the human heart. A tale of the things bigger than human civilization evolves from such mythic / mystical sound avalanche. An avalanche moving at 2 miles per day.