Category Archives: Contrastate

As requested by Hogon here’s the A Gnomean Haigonaimean compilation lp. This review is taken from Metamorphic Journeyman : CRANIOCLAST, who provide the cover for this album & contribute the first track – “Like A Propeller Running Up”. It consist of a bass & found percussion pattern – thin & skeletal, through which can be discerned what sounds like a screaming crowd. After this, more to the front, appear both male & slightly-sped-up female voices speaking in German. “Apapa Logos” by VOX POPULI ! comes next – a minimal flutey rhythm is built up with more ethnic tuned percussion, building into a primative ritual dance with voices adding weird sustains over the top. The piece changes, never becoming a predictable rhythmic pattern, avoiding such shallowness. MAX EASTLEY & DAVID TOOP offer us “Fe- Tshun -Ti-Fe (Burial Rites)” – another rhythmic piece, this one dark & sluggish, atmospheric as a foul black swamp, a Lovecraftian creation struggling to free itself from a sucking bog – strange sounds & images over a warped conventional frame. “Giant Steps” comes from ARCANE DEVICE - a fairly short piece from them & perhaps one of their most mechanical, structured pieces – the usual sustaining, shape-shifting feedback’s there, yet built over a squeaking machine rhythm – not typical of their work, but an interesting bio-mech soundtrack anyway. “Babel Cript” from OSSO EXÓTICO combines a selection of odd found sounds into a brief collage including a typewriter & other familiar sounds. Finally for this side comes a piece by LE SYNDICAT called “Dissection Fantasie” – a chaotic slam-bashing structure which hints broadly at structure & shape, using harsh noises which distort & clash, becoming hardly any more mild than your average Japanese Extreme Noise cacophony merchants. The second side kicks off with “Ormuzd” by BRUME – the longest track on this album at 6’03″. It drifts in on strange sounds, becoming a clumsy, feet-tripping-over-feet percussive rhythm. This fades to allow the jazz-like ceiling-reaching slabs of sound the floor. A fidgety rhythm grows & fades away, again allowing the piece to change, the weird primordial fanfare again ranging towards the snarled rafters. UN DRAME MUSICAL INSTANTANÉ comes next, with the strange “North Eating South Starving” – combining spoken/chanted voice with a mutating drum rhythm through which rises violin & bass in an ever-changing fantasy with its roots in Progressive improvised Jazz. “Cette Rose Qui Tourne Sans Cesse Aus Dessus De Mon Couer” by ETANT DONNÉS comes next, combining whispered voice with loud ambient noise, growing in intensity, becoming whistles, thin streamers of feedback. It fades away & grows once more, albeit briefly. P16.D4 come up with “(His Second) Night Of Fear” – a strange thing which seems to consist mainly of a discordant machine-like noise which cycles around & changes pitch. It punches metallic, alien noises at you, becoming a junk-chime-carillon. GODFRIED-WILLEM RAES brings us the noisy sound collage “Murphy”, bringing together such images as Funfair klaxon, crying baby, thrown junk, and what might be marching feet & dropped furniature. It grows in pitch, cycling upwards until it suddenly fades away. CONTRASTATE contribute the last track, the darkly cold & chilling soundscape “Through the Lens Of A Mad Eye”. This dates back to their less constructed, more noisy period circa “A Thousand Badgers…” – a Stygian black moodscape of growing & fading sounds, distant echoes of mean thoughts. As with the other album, each track is divided from the next by snatches of spoken word – sudden abstract comments & disconnected snatches of interviews.  A Gnomean Haigonaimean was released on vinyl by Johnny Blue (NOY 002) in 1991.

Tracks:

1. Cranioclast – Like A Propeller Running Up
2. Vox Populi! – Apapa Lagos
3. David Toop / Max Eastley – Fe-Tshun-Ti-Fe (Burial Rites)
4. Arcane Device – Giant Steps
5. Osso Exótico – Babel Cript
6. Le Syndicat – Dissection Fantaisie
7. Brume – Ormuzd
8. Un Drame Musical Instantané – North Eathing South Starving
9. Étant Donnés – Cette Rose Qui Tourne Sans Cesse Au Dessus De Mon Coeur
10. P16.D4 – (His Second) Night Of Fear
11. Godfried-Willem Raes – Murphy
12. Contrastate – Through The Lens Of A Mad Eye

(Recorded as Side A & B)

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