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cat.no: nM 1.2
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1 Eroded Platform Microscopy All material structured, decomposed, manipulated & mastered by P. NG5361. Bandera, SRS MOBILE STUDIO, summer of 2001. Reviews "Sshe Retina Stimulants is one of those names I see
around, maybe lend an occassional ear to, but never really dived
into. Apperentely they use here environmental sounds ("gathering
acoustic signature from central railway stations" it is called
on the cover), which are then sampled into a short loops. These
loops are played all over the frequency spectrum and is heavily
loaded with sound effects. This results in a more harsher form of
industrial music, without leaping into industrial boredom." "Here are seven tracks from this Italian artist, based around
manipulated field recordings of railway stations. The insert calls
it a "symbiotic alchemy of social decoding and personal icons,
designed to extract perception and meaning from saturated media".
Okay. I can't say whether or not the material succeeds on that front,
I'll leave that up to Sshe Retina Stimulants. What I can
divulge is that these seven tracks are all rather long experiments
in harsh electronics, though by "harsh" I simply mean
abrasive, because there is also an ample balance of ambient action
in here too. All of the songs run right at or more than six minutes
(usually the latter) and make use of loops and extensive layering,
certainly masking the field recordings beyond recognition. One thing
that I don't exactly like is that the compositions are often jagged,
with stuttering arrangements that jump about. On one hand it can
be startling, and that's nice, but on the other hand it can disrupt
the flow and on occasion sound like a mistake. My only other complaint
is that many of the compositions don't hold my interest past the
halfway point. Their repetitive nature is not completely effective,
and the changes are often not drastic enough to really make a difference.
A track like "Communicating Escalator Anorexia" is different,
using significantly calmer elements as well as some very aggressive
sections that carry the piece along through its eight minutes very
well. "Instant Newsagent Consumption" is similarly effective,
with several distinct modifications and moods covered along the
way. "Prime Coffee Overdosing" seems to fit its title
well, starting off with jumpy rhythmic chunks and eventually plowing
into a full-blown assault of traditional harsh noise. It's interesting
to note that all of the song titles are three words (along with
the name of the project and the record itself): "Crowded Vending
Automatism", "Eroded Platform Microscopy", etc. The
packaging here is very minimal, mostly black in fact, with plain
text and only a few abstract images on the front cover. It's supposed
to come in a slim jewelcase, ad for some odd reason the label put
"promo" markings all over it, blah, blah. This is definitely
not bad. I think fans of the harsher side of things would enjoy
this more than I, but I do cite promise. This is not generic for
what it is." "I just received the new Sshe Retina Stimulants compact disc,
"Central Node Recording" (Nihil Market) from Paolo Bandera.
The recordings are really rich sounding, and they are full of depth.
SRS once again delivers a recording that is distinguished by frequencies,
both high and low, that blast out of the speakers, while at the
same time, feel as if they are a part of a cohesive composition.
I am looking forward to delving into this disc much further." "Paolo Bandera alias P.NG5361 kenen we van het
legendarische project Sigillum S. maar sinds dit monster
een winterslaap houdt, stopt deze Italiaan ineer tijd en moelte
in zijn soloactiviteiten als Sshe Retina Stimulants. "Central
Node Recording" bestaat uitsluitend uit elektronisch bewerkte
field recordings die gemaakt zijn in stations; en wie reeds vertrouwd
is met S.R.S. weet dat het feedbackachtige geluid van remmende
ijzeren wielen op ijzeren rails tot de lievelingsklanken van de
schuldige behoort. Toch is "Central Node Recording" wat
minder extreem dan de gemiddelde S.R.S. release: de oorsplijtende
hoge tonen blijven binnen de perken en rusten op laagjes white noise
en zwaar gefilterde concrete geluiden. Af en toe zorgen de loops
zelfs voor een effect dat we met enige goede wil ritmisch kunnen
noemen. Metaalslakken die niet genoeg kunnen krijgen van de ijzeren
conceptalbums van Aube zitten in elk geval goed voor een
uurtje koptelefoonpijn." "Being released by the co-editor of this magazine is not the
reason why I'm telling you this record is good, but the music and
covers are definitely so high quality that I can't come to any other
conclusion than give absolute recommendations. Even though this
has professionally printed glossy covers, printed labels on CD and
"professional" looks, I must admit that if this was a
real CD release, it would receive better reaction from people. This
is better than any other SRS material that I have heard so
far, and I do have their 7"s, CDs and some tapes. Sound is
more varied than it is in old recordings, but follows the same atmosphere
that is in other SRS work. Noisy electronics, samples and
rhythm, with great use of echo and other effects and talent to put
it all together with great result in all songs and a solid full
length CDr." "Paolo Bandera or P.NG5361 is best known for
his work with Sigillum S. but since this monster is hibernating,
S.R.S. is getting most of his time and attention. "Central
Node Recording" is a limited (150 copies) cdr filled with manipulated
and heavily filtered field recordings made in railway-stations.
Those familiar with the Sshe Retina Stimulants backcatalogue
are well aware of this Italian's love for the piercing feedbacklike
sound of a breaking iron wheel on an iron rail! Having said that,
I must add that this cdr is less extreme and high-pitched than most
of Bandera's solo-output. The ear-piercing tones intermingle
with subtle layers of white noise and loops of concrete sounds that
can almost be described as rhythmical! Iron eardrums who freaked
out on Aube's metallic experiments should embrace this hour
of headphone pain." "An already legendary project of Mr. Paolo Bandera, of the
even more legendary Italian act Sigillum S (not to mention
Helix or his work as a long time collaborator in Iugula-Thor
as well), which presents another more than fine CD-R in the Nihil
Market series. The result is as harsh and gritty as you can
expect from such an experimental unit, although shows a less ear-wounding
perspective when compared with its previous efforts after all. Originally
conceived as an alter ego for video activities in the Sigillum
S framework, Super Sound High Energy (S.S.H.E.) Retina
Stimulants started as an ambitious project ‘intended to
conjure a subliminal reference to sensorial synesthesia, with hyperintense
noise causing total hallucinations’ (interview with Sshe
Retina Stimulants, Descent Magazine #4, p. 16, 17), an
effect that our object of comments can provide in the same form,
although the original focus has been rearranged quite a bit for
this occasion. Presented as ‘a volcanic sound exploration of
virtual environmental sources, gathering acoustic signature from
central railway stations and shifting them into hyperventilating
media… a symbiotick alchemy of social decoding and personal
icons, designed to extract perception and meaning from saturated
media’, you can infer that the complex rhetoric speech of the
artist hasn’t faded away with the pass of time, and that with
this release, Mr Bandera has decided to take out of context his
surrounding day-living experiences and get its inner-essence through
his habitual process of sonic deconstruction. The disc consists
of seven cuts, being the first one ‘Eroded Platform Microscopy’,
which starts with a repetitive gritty wave and an increasing granular
layer plus synth. Then the initial wave disappears and new repetitive
patterns emerge. Volume comes and goes, the same as samples. During
the whole disc, the constructions aren’t especially complex
in terms of quantity of sounds, but these are exceptionally structured
and diversified. This way the several ranges of sonority have enough
room to, let’s say, breathe and to be appreciated without forming
a confusing blur. ‘Cloaking Speedlink Detour’ (yes, the
SRS titles keep on being that original, and out of curiosity,
every single one in ‘Central…’ is formed of three
words, figuring a special parallelism) commences with another loop,
this time quite melodic: a sort of nice hypnotic sound repeated
until a second one, this time made of feedback, emerges and the
early sample gets distorted. From then, the tone of the track turns
into an hypnotic encounter of harsh loops that increase intensity
till the middle of the song, when some of the sounds fade away and
the ambiance is calmed to return to another climax and finally turn
down volume, although sound never disappears, just ends abruptly.
The third cut is called ‘Commuting Escalator Anorexia’,
and again starts pretty quiet with repetitive, almost non-distorted
consistencies, and then more granular textures emerge, following
a development similar to the prior track until more or less the
half of the song, when clean bass frequencies totally change its
direction in an unexpected (and brilliant) manner. ‘Traumatic
Delay Announcement’ has a surprising initiation with a percussive
factory-like sampler that comes and suddenly vanishes for a few
times. Then we have some mysterious low-pitched murmuring echoed
voices and a clinical regular high pitched (not ear-piercing) note.
This piece is really monotonous and almost ritualistic, and ‘Crowded
Vending Automatism’ starts in a similar way, fairly cold, with
very few sounds but enough to provide atmosphere, and after eight
minutes of fluid progression, some final interferences awake the
listener from the trance. ‘Prime Coffee Overdosing’ starts
with a down-tempo rhythm of samples, again like a mantra, but noise
appears after the initial minutes, not devastating (you won’t
find devastation in this CD, everything’s heavily measured)
but powerful enough; and yes, in form of repetitive sample. White
noise dominates the climax, helped by a pounding bass like a heartbeat
for a while, and finally some electronic frequencies are all that
rest, increasing intensity till the immediate end. Concluding, ‘Instant
Newsagent Consumption’, besides the usual sounds, has a strong
Ambient feeling for the first three minutes, when some noise comes
out, but dilutes into echoes rapidly, and the ambiance keeps on.
I would say this is one of the tracks with more parts in it, since
lots of distinct moods appear and then go along the general sound.
Moreover, it shows some interesting stereo effects that you should
check with your headphones and some ‘glitchy’ noises acting
in a percussive way during more than half of the composition. So
finally, I can’t see the reason why a disc like this, released
two years ago and limited to just 150 copies, should be still available.
Even if Paolo has always chosen the more underground path, SRS is
a living institution in Experimental music, in perfect shape almost
20 years after the foundation of Sigillum S and offering
something different each time, while an endless plague of mediocre
and cloned CD-Rs is pumping out every single day. Another excellent
lesson in electronics for my collection." |
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