Friday 13 April 2012

The 2kDozen 500: #137 - Vatican Shadow, "Kneel Before Religious Icons"

Homemade circuits. DIY techno. It's like Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works but with weirder/less weird titles; "Missing HMM364 Squadron Purple Foxes Assassins" anyone?


The titles look like headlines from newspapers or the ticker across the bottom of rolling news channels - "Shooter in the Same Uniform As the Soldiers". I visualise some lad spending long nights making music with the TV rolling and rolling its news in the background, long into the night. There's a terrible, nibbling paranoia that twists through the middle of this music but never really goes anywhere. Is it about the news? I suppose it must be: but I'm not sure how. Maybe it's the background sound of war going on thousands of miles away - industrial and distant and ominous.


It's good, I can tell you that much. Just not sure I can tell you why. I'm a bit limited. There's the religious angle as well, and I can't really explain that in the music either. (Was I really this thick back in January? I'm sure I had things to say about albums then.) Perhaps our artist labours under a vatican shadow himself, courtesy of some incense-reeking childhood? My speculation skills are waning. "Church of All Images" recalls Kraftwerk's Tour de France, the sweaty breathing and the propulsion with a hazy brassy fanfare in the background.

There's a mind locked in somewhere dark and frightening and this is the brooding, hypnotic music sound that comes out. It doesn't stop. I'm happy it doesn't. Well, a bit scared. A bit Terminator. Dance with me if you want to live...

Rating: Troops Marching out of Afghanistan

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