The Fortieth Day "IV" CD
More post-apocalyptic
industrial crush from the duo of Isidro Reyes and Mark Solotroff, both
members of the confrontational Chicago power-electronics group
Bloodyminded. As The Fortieth Day, the two musicians engage in a much
heavier, more droneological machinedeath assault using synthesizer, drum
machine, bass and guitar to sculpt massive rhythmic noisescapes, and
over the past decade they've been cranking out some supremely crushing
mechablast on short run cassettes on Solotroff's Bloodlust! label. This
material has gradually been getting reissued on disc, including the 2007
release IV that features two half-hour long tracks of
apocalyptic industrial drone. The first of these slowly enters amid
crackling electricity and looped drones, leading to abstract guitar
figures looping around grinding machine noise and wheezing engine-roar
that builds into an ominous, heavy black throb. More of these dissonant
guitar loops are introduced as clanking drum machines circle around
heavily distorted synth drones and sputtering low-end feedback, and at
times this gets so blown-out that it feels like the speakers are about
to shred apart. The machinecrush is constantly evolving as the duo
cranks up the distortion, turning these layered loops and rumbling
engine drones into massive walls of rhythmic factory throb that almost
resembles an incredibly distorted dronerock band off of the old HeadDirt
label buried under a mountain of tape hiss and growling electronic
noise, backed by tinny, skittering drum machine rhythms. The other track
is a lot less propulsive, though. By this point, the duo are burning
everything down with controlled feedback, fractured melodies, waves of
machine grind, layered drones and effects pedal abuse that results in a
hallucinatory machine-noise soundscape, with none of that percussive
pounding showing up until almost ten minutes in, the deformed clatter of
the drum machine crawling beneath creepy distorted keyboard melodies
and sheets of shrill feedback.
I've really been digging all of these Fortieth Day reissues, each one a punishing chunk of hypnotic industrial dread.
© CRUCIAL BLAST
