Label: United Dairies Format: CD
One of Nurse With Wound‘s most assuredly out there recordings in a career constructed from such moments, Santoor Lena Bicyle takes many of the elements of rhythm and groove Steven Stapleton and collaborators have been working on over the last few releases, condenses them, mashes them up again and throws half away to produce a further chapter of derangement. With Aranos on board, the mood is enhanced by his string-bending and bowing, making the customary, if a little neglected, trademark NWW musique concrète sound writhe again.
There’s comedy and tragedy, ominous threats of something Other in the clink of chains and whispers. While dribbles of one sound make curiously inverted connections, another is assuredly waiting in the wings to surprise and tickle. All this and the packaging too, with a CD sandwiched between to 5″ squares of double-sided wood bolted together, and here’s the even better rub: these are none other than sections of the eleven paintings by Aranos and Stapleton which provide the track titles, sealed with a ribbon; guaranteed to break the future bank of those unfortunate enough not to make the necessary splash on buying it in this gallery edition.
Some sublime block taps, creaks and slow bass shuffles on “Mary Jane” make for what is possibly the album’s melodic highlight as Aranos draws halting emotion from his bowing to the accompaniment of a rattly metal-strung acoustic guitar and some warped crooning and deep-throated growling Blues singing. There’s some more scat bemoaning to the halting scrapes on “Dusty Belle”, (with ominous yowls) and these two together make for a odd addition to the flavour of NWW, but the real surprise comes with the ultra-Funky, Can-style cod reggae groove interlude of “Sunset Belly Mother” to follow on in similarly off-kilter song mode from the extraneous material released on Second Pirate Session.
Elsewhere, impish yowls are brought up from the stretched, coiled wires; pianos tinkle seemingly to themselves; water trickles; the scrawl of tension in a violin or viola or a gong or a scrap of metal can make the skin crawl as the percussing of same edges tension into the scheme. By the closing squeaks and somewhat lavatorial groanings of “Knife Knows His Doing”, complete with helter-skelter drum-machine finale and disturbingly scratchy baby-wail noise assault to make every Techno fan run a mile wailing in horror, there is plentiful evidence of the playful dementia tally accrued – and the verdict? Lysergic in excelsis, once again.
-Linus Tossio-
