Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Vital Weekly on Locrian "Territories"

From Vital Weekly

LOCRIAN - TERRITORIES (CD by Bloodlust!)
Somewhere else we look into a solo CD of Andre Foisy but here is a CD by his band Locrian, a duo of himself and T. Hannum. They played guitars and electronics. Seeing this release on Bloodlust! its hardly a surprise that it contains noise. A slow menacing sound of pounding drums, piercing electronics (derived from guitar playing? I am not sure here) and more loud guitars. That is the opening track 'Inverted Ruins', which includes Mark Solotroff, head honcho of Bloodlust, on vocals but Locrian has more to offer than just that. Each track seems to be recorded with the help of other people, so that's why things are probably more varied, beyond the boundaries of pure noise. 'Between Barrows', the second piece on the CD, is a much more subdued piece of music, carefully improvised. Although Locrian don't return to the careful style in this album again, its not said that every piece is one of loud noise only. The closing statement, 'The Columnless Arcade' is a finely driven motor like rock song, bursting out half way through, full of energy. 'Ring Road' sees the burning of a guitar (metaphorically speaking of course), like a giant dark beast bursting out, while 'Antediluvian Territory' is an almost ambient like guitar tune. The epic 'Procession Of Ancestral Brutalism' is then the noise centre of this album. Locrian delivered a great album with this CD. Here too we are dealing with the notion of noise that is varied, like we have discussed more recently: not that endless walls of feedback and distortion, but a varied bunch of pieces, some of which happen to be very loud and some not. But Locrian does all of that outside the world of pure electronics and that is a great achievement. An excellent CD! (FdW)