Wednesday 26 January 2011

Dementia and Hope Trails & Pregnant Spore - Split


Artist Pregnant Spore & Dementia And Hope Trails
Year 2011
Label Side-A-Records
Genre(s) Psychedelic Noise, Drone

It's nearly the end of January. We've all lost our afterglow from the festive season and no doubt most of our resolutions have been shattered. It's not exactly the most pleasant time of the year, couple that with the hideous weather and dark nights n' you've got a recipe for despondency. Luckily Side-A-Records are stepping up to the plate to provide some much needed entertainment in this gloomy time. There's nothing like a bit of psychedelia to chase the blues away.

Served up in an over sized PVC cassette case (Think old style VHS box) with beautiful Psychedelic covers. These two tapes offer up about an hour and a half of finely sculpted psychedelic noise. Pregnant Spore is the new operative name for one Dim Dusk Moving Gloom, an artist I have reviewed and enjoyed previously. After doing a tad of detective work (Read: Spending mere seconds on Google) I learned that Dementia and Hope Trails is also an alias of Justin Mark Lloyd.

The Dementia & Hope Trail tape opens with a drone, calming and cool. Evoking images of floating in an endless crystal blue stream. The music carries itself slowly, almost as the current, reaching new heights of shimmering beauty. In no way is the music oppressive, allowing the listener breathing space and to be caught up and carried away. The slowly morphing guitar begins to take on a slight soulful edge which carries on until the end of the track. It slowly builds and gains more distortion until becoming a wailing siren, the sound of the guitar imploding. The next track opens with a far more disconcerting air. Slow pulses that sound reminiscent of the transfer into Nightmare Silent Hill (See: Silent Hill series of games). Much heaver than the prior track, crushing despite the minimalism. Soon shudders and thumps begin to merge into a dense electronic hum, the sound of a million angry machines. The overall atmosphere in this track is very close to the works of Akira Yamaoka, something that I wish more drone based works could aspire to. Dementia & Hope Trails creates genuinely affecting drones. The first, more ambient track serving as the perfect foil for the grimy, dirty, creepy second track. Both will carry you off to far away places, the only issue being that you might not want to open your eyes wherever the second song takes you.
Pregnant Spore offers up two cuts of more noise based material. Twitching Minions coils bursts of explosive noise around low rumbles and scrapes. Starting slowly, punctuating an uneasy silence before building into an all out assault. Some fast paced cut-up styled noise sections occasionally break through the blast furnace of sound. Vocals swathed in effects bubble just below the surface, threatening to surge up and burn the face from the listener. Virus Sex bursts forth from the speakers with, if possible, a harsher high end buzz and crumbling low end. Slower than the preceding track but just as tense and unnerving. Screeches and electronic whines flutter around a dying tone, gutted by the side of the road. Letting out it's death throes.

This release offers up amazing presentation alongside two fantastic artists (Well, one, you know.) offering their best. What's not to love? Lift yourself out of the winter blues, you deserve it don't you?