Sonic Terror Records ~ You Know How We Do
This is a half hour
compilation on Sonic Terror Records. There’s always something slightly
ridiculous about music that refers to itself as terrorising – like you’re
supposed to be sitting on the sofa shivering with fear? It’ll be a mostly
empty threat ‘til music reproduction technology has advanced to such
a marvellous point that it enables big hairy musos to reach out of your stereo
and threaten you in person. Having said that, the first track by Enduser (‘There
Are A Lot Of Angry People In The World’) is a very enjoyable slice of
drill/dark/slice-core full of hyper breaks and fun horror samples. III Cosby
then proceeds to turn the tempo knob further than it should really go: the
track’s called ‘Burn Out’ and it may just have caused that
to happen to whatever circuit boards produced it. There’s a half-pace
breather in the middle section before it girds its loins again for a final
race towards the finishing line. Rusuden’s ‘Ana Appears Normal’
is an attractively raspy piece of repetition. Jerohme Spye’s apparently
been listening to a fair amount of Squarepusher and Aphex, unlike your reviewer.
That’s not intended as criticism - Nineteen is a fine series of morphing
percussion episodes that cuts this way and that like a jet-powered namchuk.
Isil Krunq’s Line 47 and Vinacco by Zwingli are another couple of Aphex
approximations, perhaps a little less beguiling than their predecessor, but
still enjoyable. A mixed bag of tracks, but well worth a listen.
Colin Buttimer
March 2004