jason campbell/praying gods (split c60 from hermetic museum recordings)
london ontario noise all-stars jason campbell and the praying gods join forces for sixty minutes of messy audio something-or-other. yeah that's right, it's completely beyond description. anyway, mr campbell's side buzzes and crackles and chirps through "pain" 1-5, all manner of sounds are put through digital delay and computer and god knows what. i can't really detect any sort of break that would signal the ending of one track and the beginning of another so i give up trying to keep track and let it wash over me like a tide of medical waste. it's mostly harsh and therefore best listened to really really loudly, as voices and samples fight through the static and a sort of melody that sounds like it was played on a telephone pierces through in spots. nasty stuff. the praying gods side opens with "clown makeup", an entirely acoustic(?) vocal noise piece that sounds like it an over-eager foley artist trying to imitate a group of animals doing.... something, i can't even imagine what. pretty amusing in spots, the rest of the time it doesn't even sound like a human being. next is "facial bone injuries", harsh scratchy loops and fuzz, followed by "labrador" which seems to be a continuous feedback tone dissolving into keyboard notes held so long even stereolab would pee their pants a bit, followed by psuedo-melody and heavy, asthmatic masturbation-type breathing. after that is 'whales were bears', a guitar noise track that scrapes and plunks and peels the skin off of your face with coffe cans and silverware before getting tired and going to sleep, letting the computer vioce synthesizer on 'a place i'd like to die' take over. i have no idea what is being said, i uderstood one part: "jesus christ look at that -buzzzz-" and then it turns into white noise and overmodulated voice synth crackle and static. a bit near the end the voice resumes, sounding like a computer pig talking through it's nose. then it's over. although both artists have put out things that i like better, this wasn't bad and would probably be a good place to get started on them, considering the wide range of styles (especially on the praying gods side). i will give this three out of five broken microphones.