Prurient, a/k/a Dominick Fernow, has been one of the leading noise artists of the past ten years. While abrasive as any noise artist, his music has been some of the genre's most compelling. An overview of his discography is daunting and unwieldy, featuring multiple releases throughout the aughts. Interestingly, he has been relatively silent for the past two years following a trio of releases of various length and format in 2009. During that time Fernow became a member of Cold Cave, whose synthpop is a thousand times lighter and more accessible than anything Fernow has produced on his own, no matter how indebted to darkwave and goth the band happens to be. When it was announced that Fernow would be releasing his first full-length album as Prurient since working with Cold Cave on the experimental metal stalwart Hydra Head, by far the largest label to release a Prurient record, I was more than just a little intrigued. Would the record be as harsh as previous works or would it embrace the dark synthpop he has had a hand in creating over the past couple of years? The answer, it turns out, is a little from column a, a little from column b, and a lot from somewhere else entirely.
I'm going to toss out a lazy one-sentence review of this up front: Imagine Goblin collaborating with Skinny Puppy and you will have an idea what "Bermuda Drain" sounds like. At the same time, there is an immense amount of variety here, making that description more than a little unfair. Komische, electronica, noise, ambient, post-rock, doom and industrial are just a few of the genres that echo throughout this record, making for a wholly unique listen that defies categorized. Consisting of nine songs that average around four minutes in length and containing vocals throughout, I guess you could call this Prurient's most accessible record to date, but accessible is an extremely relative word here. It is accessible in the way early industrial Ministry was compared to Throbbing Gristle, but not much more. This is still incredibly harrowing music, made even more so by a lyric sheet that could double as the journal of a serial killer (choice lyric: "If I could, I would take a tree branch and ram it inside of you, but it's already been done"). In short, this is not for the weak of heart, or anyone looking for a synthpop dance album ala Cold Cave, even if a couple of tracks could fool the casual listener into thinking so. Instead it is a record that reeks of leather, angular haircuts, combat boots and late-80s Wax Trax, but it is also all way better than any of that.
Initially I was put off by the more "accessible" approach of "Bermuda Drain," compared to, say, "Pleasure Ground," one of Fernow's greatest noise statements, or even the more varied, but no less harsh "Cocaine Death," but after repeated listens I've come to realize that the record's diversity allows for even greater depth than in the past. It would be absurd to try to capture into words what is going on throughout this album, but it is easy to say that this is one of the most rewarding records that I have heard all year. Over the last few weeks, I have found myself listening/processing it at least twice a day, and usually more. I've found that as bleak as it is, there is a great and sad beauty hidden in-between the psychotic and brutal, and often all are present at the same time. The album begins with a scream and ends with stately melancholia, demarcating a work that is as fragile as it is menacing.
A sticker on the front of the record recommends that one listen to "Bermuda Drain" while doing a little nighttime driving through tunnels in Europe. There is certainly a connection between that image and the more refined approach that Prurient takes here. The record's cold electronic feel matches the steely precision of a European car as it hums through a sterile artificially-lite roadway. At the same time there is a naturalistic pagan primalism that throbs at the heart of this album. Titles like "Palm Tree Corpse" and "Sugar Cane Chapel" call to mind some twisted nature cult ala "The Wicker Man." Further, it is Fernow's violent and lustful lyrics that bespeak of base emotions which have existed since before our forefather's began to walk upright. The expression of such deep human emotions transmitted so effectively through the cold harshness of the machine are what make Prurient, and "Bermuda Drain" so unique.
"A Meal Can Be Made"
"Palm Tree Corpse"
No comments:
Post a Comment