ALBUM REVIEWS |
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Pan Sonic 'Kesto' (Mute) |
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| In the wintery heartlands
of Finland an ambient techno duo have been forging strange distant
sounds by bolting bits of analogue recording equipment together and
seeing if it works. A complex pairing of North European Techno-enthusiasts,
they shared the Sahko/Puu label along with most other Finnish electronica
musicians in the early nineties before grabbing a major slice of the
action with Mute recordings. This prompted their first four albums,
now complimented by a new monster four CD release called 'Kesto'.
As their live shows are fabled to produce the same subsonic battlefield frequencies as the Dept. of Defense have experimented with, I tuned in to Pan Sonic with caution. As they dedicated one of the CD's to Charlemagne Palestine, a crazed 1960's sound artist who used to beat pianos with his bloody hands, I began to feel real fear. By continually blurring the lines between electronica and techno, the overall feel is dark, snowy and jagged. If you travel through the astral rings of abstraction and deconstruction set out by Autechre, Oval or Nonplace Urban Field and Throbbing Gristle, you will eventually end up here, a glacial dark planet bereft of human warmth. Here you must stay for 238 minutes. Each disk has its own feel: Disk 1- industrial and abrasive, Disk 2 - oblique,dirty electro. Disk 3 - unsettling lowbeam sounds, complete silences and 'metal meets concrete' effects. Disk 4: single track only made up of sepulchral pulsing tones, glowing away like Clark Kent's green crystal - for an hour. This 'acoustica' is a fascinating yet terrifying place. Vast bleak soundscapes terrorised by occasional apocalyptic blasts - walls of solid feedback rearing up mercilessly amongst radioactive hums and luminous tones without ever capitulating to a single beat. There are recognisable sounds, a toilet flushing here, a xylophone there but nothing very accessible. The haunting surreality of the last and best disk wipes away the disappointment from some of the languid and overly pregnant pauses this work has sometimes spawned. An awesome work of mood manipulation, this is interstellar travelling music for your cryogenic pod. words: Rufus Sanders
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