Some music impacts you right away like a hammer to the skull, whereas some other music takes a while. I’ve come back to this a couple of times, and it’s divergent like a lot of late 80’s industrial was – sampling (quite literally) from several deep wells of western and eastern sounds. This is simply put soundtrack music, but not done in a pretentious “artiste” way, it’s down to earth, maybe even humble feeling. No composition lasts longer than 4:05, and that makes the release move along at a pace that keeps those with a lacking attention span at attention.
I have listened to a lot of different outsider music, I used to be, once upon a time a guy who hoped to become a post-production film audio technician. I did make some interesting music in that role, but found it somewhat dreadful and not at all fulfilling. With that, I can see this music in that context – drawing on bhangra rhythms, bells, and electronic loops to design something different. The hums on “Formative Assessment for the Abstinance Theory of Interest” pulling directly from the noise cannon, but this is not a power electronics release, and those muted references to the tropes of that genre are merely references. I keep coming back to soundtrack interludes, which may be a function of short lengths of these compositions. And that leaves me with a bit of an unsettled feeling – I feel as if I should be seeing something – like the footsteps at the beginning of “Supplier” – I should see the person walking.
So if you like music that evokes images, this one has some clear cues that you can work from. I suspect if acid is your thing, this might lead to something amazing, or something terrifying. Either way, I wouldn’t recommend it, only because I wouldn’t recommend taking acid, but if you did, you could likely do worse. Like listen to the fucking Greatful Dead or Phish.
