PSYCHON

Apocalypse has been dubbed the weekend pill

CD, Narrominded / scarcelight

“Apocalypse has been dubbed the weekend pill” is the first record I know slowly and deliberately praising its own destruction over the course of its running length. (Maybe it is just the copy I received that has flaws – but if so, I thank my own gods for this.) Because what starts as a strikingly beautiful post-whatever electronic composition, filled with rich textures and lots of sparkling ideas, with time and from track to track turns more and more towards noise, annihilation of beauty and the discovery of a different aesthetic of beauty in the chaos and whitewash of destructive frequencies. So much so that by the last track, “you get paid to help churches”, all that is left is a stunningly harmonic and intriguing puzzle of noises, weaving a soft and lush texture. Like first recording some laid back, straight forward keyboard atmospheres, putting them together and then hacking them apart with overdrive, distortion and some bad ass filters, until all is left is some cackling and cracking sounds, some harsh and some less harsh, but all put together carefully. That build and build and build and then start to fade until the completely fade away by themselves. Something you’d never dream of when first gliding into the laid back grooves of hybrid-genres mixed into electronic tracks that as much defy as they welcome any categorisation.

With the beginning of “King Backwards” (track 1) you feel comfortably in the realm of mix-wizards and electronic music originals such as Cornelius or Vitamins For You, but already in “zoom at the professors” (track 2) there are some gentle glitches and waves of soft noise breaking in like the tide on a silent evening. The distorted funk-bass and drums-groove pounding away suddenly in the middle of “zoom at the professors” gives it away, as do the rhythmic structures made of yet more noise in track 3, “chairman of the bored (no office necessary)”. As soon as we have reached “three men, a big truck and a piece of art” we have entered the land of glitches combined with minimal bass-lines. That is the way noise in various forms and shapes starts to infiltrate the as of yet undisturbed harmony of krautrock / psychedelia / electronica / jazzy arena-rock / come what may. Before feeling betrayed, please remember that Psychon are of the good side, they mean well and they’d never want to harm you. A little opening of your mind and listening (for listening is more important than speaking) is never any harm, is it?

If you have remarked upon the rather outlandish track-titles with a certain hint of memory and familiarity – they were all culled from the subject headers of spam. That might also explain the humour of these people a little. So here are some facts on them as well: Psychon are Lars Meijer and Coen Polack (who run the Narrominded-label and also play together as Living Ornaments) and Jantijn Prins. All three up to now formed the Psychon Troopers, who recorded half a dozen CDs which I admit, I never heard of. After changing the guidelines in their music-making from free improvisation to composition and from playing live to playing in the studio, they decided to also change their name in consequence.