What’s often advertised as noise-rock tends to be just noisy rock. It’s usually very straight forward and just a noisy use of instruments. Lovely as this can be, I find it refreshing when Austin noise-punks Quttinirpaaq‘s third Rural Isolation Project LP is said to be “bleeding-noise industrial electronic rock”. This is the solo project of Matt Turner, who also joins forces with King Coffey from the Butthole Surfers in stoner-noise-rock band Rubble. Not a stranger to other Texas-driven noise happenings, Turner turns his head and gives us a harsh experience, and while we get comfortable in our chairs in front of the speakers, he pierces our minds with feedback and distortions from beyond, but keeping us seated with beats.
Dead September starts out with ” Bleed Out”, a drum-over-reverbed-machine-beat and ice-cold bleeding harsh noise. The next tracks continue to be lovingly distorted and to use a drum machine, with distorted vocals, feedback, and in contrast, a cosy, warm distorted bassbeat, but then here comes the piercing cold-blooded noise again, giving me a lovely headache. It continues with a thrashy beat, straight noises fading in and out and lots of distortion. The first side ends with “Dead Birds”, with its hypnotizing catchy blues-psychedelia-rock beat with a few interesting sounds going in and out; and then a massive drone fading in after some time, creating a big soundscape I would let myself drown in and disappear for more than the mere minutes it lasts. It ends abruptly, leaving me disappointed and hungry — put it on again, goddammit!
Flipping to the other side (when you go to the other side, you are on the other side!), our hearts gets softened with some milder beats, although it’s still kind of harsh. In the mix I think I can hear some field recordings, or some instrument in thedistance, and even some power tools. It’s not very loud and powerful, or obtrusive, rather mild to the senses; and to have a glass of red wine to, maybe. But then it has a lot of variations, and turns out to be a very good avant-garde electro-acoustic track, as unpredictable as musique concrète. New things to discover with every listen, and Nurse With Wound comes to mind, although I think I prefer this track. The record continues with distorted electro drums and various sounds, uneven beats and the last track pressing on a doom-metal feel with strangeness, and lovely distorted guitar and bass sounds.
The End. Or flip it over again!
-Ronny Wærnes-
