Cut Hands – S/T

Susan Lawly/Very Friendly

THIS REVIEW IS UNSUITABLE FOR THOSE NOT OF AN ADULT PERSUASION OR LACKING A SENSE OF HUMOUR

She fumbled with the lock, scratching at it unsteadily with her key. Her head was swimming slightly from the drink, and she could feel his hot breath on the back of her neck, urgent, lustful, and bestial. Finally the key engaged and turned, and the door swung open with a suddenness that made them both stagger slightly. They fell through the doorway into her flat, and she steadied herself, closing the door with the tip of her foot. She turned and kissed him, violently, her hand rubbing his crotch, before breaking away and brushing a stray lock of red hair back behind her ear, a gesture both defiant and provocative. William Bennett could feel his erection rising. He flashed her an evil grin and ran his hands powerfully over her breasts. “I’ll fix us another drink,” she said.

As she disappeared into the kitchen, he prowled through the living room, taking in every detail: the Venetian blinds, the dark green velvet throw across the sofa, the piles of books. He poked through the CD cases littering the floor by the stereo: Scott Walker, The Master Musicians of Joujouka, John Coltrane, Alvin Lucier. Man, this woman had style. Then he noticed a copy of Dedicated to Peter Kürten peeping out from below a Best of…Slim Harpo! compilation, and he felt a volcanic desire rising within him.

He walked into the kitchen just as she was squeezing a lemon. Grabbing her hips, he began thrusting at her from behind, growling “I’m coming up your ass, and you won’t like it” as he did so. She started, and looked over her shoulder at him in surprise. “Hey, I recognise your voice,” she said, “You’re William Bennett.” He leered at her in pleasure. “I’ve got most of your albums in there,” she said, wriggling her backside naughtily against his stiff cock. “I know,” he said, “I saw them.” She frowned, “I’m missing Psychopathia Sexualis though. You never reissued that one.” Bennett threw back his head laughed, “Yeah, sorry about that. We lost the master.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket, and took out a CD case. Its elegant cover featured a white fetish design set against a jet black background, with the simple legend Cut Hands underneath. “You haven’t got this one either,” he whispered, “It’s new.” “Ooh,” she said, “Can I hear it?” He put his hand between her thighs, “Yeah.”

Back in the lounge, Bennett inserted the Cut Hands CD into the stereo and turned the volume up high. The opening track, “Welcome to the Feast of Trumpets,” rose majestically to fill the room with its sinister mix of power electronics and urgent bush telegraph drums, before “Stabbers Conspiracy,” an unrelenting rhythmic overdrive of shamanic trance, burst forth to pound the air. “This is great,” she said, rubbing herself up and down against him, “like “Powertronics Across the Zambezi.” Bennett laughed, lifted up her top, and eased the bra away from her body. He cast it away with a snarl of disgust, caressing her pert bare breasts before putting his face between them, “Yeah, I call it Afro Noise. I’m glad you picked up on the African influence. Noise has become decadent and dull and I want to invigorate it. I’ve collected an array of African instruments for this, and there are djembes and doundouns and acoustic drums all over it.” “I could dance to the sound of the drum forever,” she said, closing her eyes to contemplate the shamanic agony and ecstasy. “The drum is the primal instrument,” said Bennett, “The whole album is mostly instrumental. I want the rhythm to drag people into the woods.”

Suddenly the screeching tinnitus tones of “Nzambi La Lufua,” re-worked slightly from the Whitehouse Asceticists orginal, leapt from the speakers to assail their ears. Even Bennett winced slightly at its uncomfortable, piercing sounds. As “Who No Knows Go Knows” took the tempo down, she began to weave a snake dance at its insistent polyrhythms, the phased samples in the background criss-crossing in and out, a naggingly incessant mixture of train’s siren and vuvuzela. “It has a very wide range of moods. This track seems almost ambient,” she said as “Four Crosses” followed, “less aggressive.” “Don’t speak too soon,” said Bennett just as “Backlash” returning the mood to a frenzied dance, before “Shut Up and Bleed” bled like Vangelis playing at a Haitian blood ritual. He pulled her closer and wrapped his leg around hers, sliding his tongue into her mouth and cradling her breasts. His thumbs teased her nipples.

“Munkisi Munkondi,” he said. She looked temporarily startled, “Sorry?” “This track. It’s called “Munkisi Munkondi.”” The song ground away like a trash compactor, all queasy metallic samples and stuttering digital percussion as Bennett drew her skirt up over her hips, revealing the black curly thatch between her thighs. Suddenly a voice broke through the electronic rumblings, intoning like The Super Eagles by way of SPK. “Impassion” followed, flowing quiet and powerful like the Congo River, and Bennett stood entranced by the sight of his pale fingers sliding through the forest of her public hair. She moaned with pleasure, and began shaking ecstatically to the electronic voodoo of “Ezili Freda,” before freezing stock-still to “Bia Mintaru” – the sound of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness performed on a Roland Juno-106 – her eyes closed, her moment transcendent, as the sounds of Berlin’s experimental classical music orchestra Zeitkratzer fused seamlessly with Bennett’s electronic instrumentation.

The closing track, “Rain Washes Away Every Thing,” repeated a fugue from earlier in the album, a dark and dense coda to the singular and outstanding album. “It took me eight years to record all the music on here,” he said. “Worth every moment I reckon,” she replied, running her tongue along her lips, challenging him to go further, “Don’t leave it so long before the next one.” His fingers hooked under the edge of her black lace knickers and drew them down slowly. “The chips are down, and so are your wet panties,” he said, unhooking them from her ankles. “So, what do you think of my Cut Hands then?” “I love them, show me more,” she said. They both knew that the time for talking was over.

– Mary Penthouse-

(All characterisations and events in this story are wildly fictitious, but thankfully the album is very real)