REVIEWS [a]

Acolytes Action Squad - Bust Of (2000 - terraascd1)
18 Dec 05

Probably the closest thing I've heard which emulates the original Throbbing Gristle sentiment. Very visual...a mixture of sampled sounds from a child-slasher movie (playground swings and recorder music) artfully blends with wavering distorted drones and shrieks; rhythms from machines of hell; compelling narrative (on 'No Examples' for example) and weird understated singing from this male/female duo's strong voices all add up to an album as satisfying to listen to as watching a dark surrealist play whilst being treated by person of your choice…eh? ("Another line please Jeremy I'm coming round…!"). Brian and Heather have given power to the freeform some of us can only dream of creating, output like this; a pure innocent beauty with craftily placed spontaneous cries of horror (like the rapid fire manipulative emotions of a year old baby) inspires and releases, charms and challenges.
'Listen To Shang-Hai Freemasonry' is where the album starts to peak in intensity and had me reaching to turn it up and before I become too complacent in my noise reverie tack changes again to a weird minor notes acoustic guitar number, then again to a high charge grating rap on 'God's Wrath, featuring Tonin X (reminiscent of Dalek's recent material). Hints of early The Fall? The second half of the album starts to take on a more introspective tone and one begins to wonder of the motivation and history of the writers, as we listen to 'Exile's Horror Story' I cannot place this stuff for the life of me, relief comes in part when Heather's multi-layered urgent singing reminiscent of Nico; gentle and sweet yet cutting with an intelligent twist, add to the commotion. The sudden ending left me teetering on the edge of a 90ft cliff until I realised I'd been there looking down all the way through, examining our inevitability from various angles. The sleeve deserves a mention too, an eight page booklet is included containing much thought-stream scribbling and enigmatic diagrams. A.A.S tell me they've another on the way - can't wait.
All in all, a compact 38 minutes of lo-fi treats, left me feeling quite misplaced like watching a good old black and white thriller in a dark room on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Perfect.
- Moodi

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ALTER BREITENBRACH - N.A.S.A (Bacteria Records CD04 - 3" CDR - Ltd.43)
14 Jan 06

The world's a small planet. How am I not being myself?
This baby got my attention because it's in a black tin and sexy black and red red envelope and came complete with hygeine mask. As I want to get back to doing more reviews at this moment it's timely so well done Bacteria all the way over in Brazil, and well done me for checking the mailbox...Great Britain! Hell yeah! Awesome little EP begins with nasty grating electronic wind through to a slightly more dense scrape which stops to start I mean starts to stop and stutter with ever increasing gaps until you think it's finsished and they keep on coming, brutally bringing you to a point of forced relaxation...aaahhh nice. But fuck you man as track three hell-screams in at full volume and hits you straight in the kundalini. Some beautifully beastly electronic shenanigans like a pack of different sized monsters screaming and barking at random give way to some even bigger nastier demons..then wait for it as you think it can't get any freackin bigger when the daddy comes up and chews your head, this time bringing back the bass at full roar we were teased with earlier. I'm so scared during the last few deafening silent seconds of the final track that I'm watching for the end in case of some other king-sized jinn surfacing... oh-oh my mistake, the speakers cut out as I had it on too loud! Totally brilliant, bleak, grating, gyrating Brazillian haunting from this fledgling. Download the whole thing (plus loads of other cool releases) from www.antena.art.br...which kinda makes writing this a bit redundant! Hmm, think I'll go again this time with the mask on. Moohahaha!

peace...molly

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Ten years since TAG put out a record. We bumped into original member Robert Baker at a recent Richard H Kirk gig and he surprised us by proudly pulling out of his pocket a shiny new copy of the new production bearing the original enigmatic logo. You can work out on your own what the title means; these guys have always had an anarchic streak in creating and developing their very own patterns of thinking; philosophically, the documentation and research of every aspect of their work is their work. Guys after my own heart actually and the spawning of Thee Free would have definitely been influenced by their 'anti-group' philosophy, originally active as early as 1978. Ironically, early member Adi Newton was known to be a bit of a control freak and certain core members were deliberately left off the credits on a number of albums! That aside, the new incarnation for this production includes original members Baker, M.Hogg and A.M. Mackenzie of The Hafler Trio, another mysterious entity known for their outer limits audio experimentation and 'sound research'.
The CD is typically a very brave output. It starts out extremely silently gradually developing into somewhere between the alpha waves of a self hypnosis record punctuated, painfully infrequently, by certain deep throbs and notes. At a fairly high volume, there are many surprises further along the single 17 minute track; a profound listening experience which resulted in a blissful, timeless state. The recording is unpredictable and is at times erratically and profoundly emotional. Noise Nirvana.
Links:Die Stadt Music The Anti Group
Moodi