This record is vile. This record sounds like crushed teeth. The texture of the sounds on this record are the same as sex dripping latex. This record pulverizes with the intensity of a collapsing steel column. This record is fucking fantastic. WORSHIP IS THE CLEANSING OF IMAGINATION, the split between JK Flesh and Prurient is the new and final Hydra Head release. JK Flesh is the new solo project (but haven’t they all been solo projects?) of Justin Broadrick, the enterprising mastermind behind Godflesh and Jesu, as if you didn’t already know that. JK Flesh is far more beat driven, drawing on Berlin and Detroit house and bearing more similarity to DJ Sprinkles then Techno Animal. Still keeping it steeped in prismatic mystery, the guitar lurks around each corner and never really bears down on you, yet you’re always aware of it’s existence.
Prurient is the main entity of Dominick Fernow, the iconically prolific noise/metal/synth/techno/you-name-it artist who as of recently has been focusing more and more of his attention on his new 9/11-drenched conspiracy project Vatican Shadow. But leave it to Dominick to break from one style and completely plunge back into form on a dime. Anyone looking for the sequel to Bermuda Drain should look elsewhere, as this has more similarities to Oxidation or Colonialist Nature And Misanthropy. The noise leaks and squeals in a pure onslaught of absolute brutalism electronic composition.
Opening track “Fear Of Fear” pounds like a million tank rounds. An NHK Dance Classics style beat belies the cruelty of the guitar as it lunges for your ear drum with repeated penetration. It opens with a distant and near martial drum beat that soon molds and melts into a completely industrial pattern, like Coil at their most danciest. Justin Broadrick’s long distorted roars puncture the landscape of tonal abuse, all the while locking step with bass death prodding you forward. It breaks from it’s primal stance to open in to pure dance mode for a mere second before resuming the onslaught of abusive beats. As soon as the pattern starts again you are aware of what you’re in for.
Track 2, the aptly titled “Deceiver” opens with a freezing cold synth line, fitting for an ancient cathedral and the sound of slicing cymbals before bursting into a spastic Techno fit, with a menacing guitar line garroting the synth the whole way through, this could easily fill a dance floor before clearing desolate all in about 5 minutes.
JK FLESH
It’s “Obedient Automaton” that truly shines on this side though. The final of the three JK Flesh contributions, Obedient Automaton spreads and unfurls like a time lapse of a rotting deer. It begins in sub-space, a motorik bass rhythm moves restlessly from speaker to speaker, while feedback and the sound of metal on metal storms down the hall. A brutish bass octave acts as the falling flag to herald all sound outward. The song is as cinematic as it is menacing. It moves forward, and mows down whatever stands in its way, bones crushing under the squealing Power Electronic pistons before a incomprehensible and buried vocal sample breaks the morass and offers a bit of fleeting clarity before the final howl of crushing feedback sucks back into the abyss and ends this tour of terror.
Prurient
Prurient begins his sonic assault in a slow calculated advance. This is recognizable Prurient, but not to say unsurprising. Prurient has partially made a name for himself in the power electronics scene for not so much relying on crushing feedback and distortion, but ambience. The threat of silence, the threat of quietness. It’s more predatory then assaulting and Chosen Books, his first contribution is proof positive of that. It gurgles from the circle, with a low lying synth meditatively sweeping across a soundscape of broken glass and buzz saws. A repeated sound sample that bends into obscurity chanting “Chosen…we are all” as it continues to collapse more and more into cacophony. By the end of the 5 minute blitz the track is mangled beyond recognition.
Entering The Water begins with a sound like a fly trapped in a jar along with a throbbing conga (that makes it sound more light than it is). These two sounds are the only stalwarts of the whole track as it builds in to a more and more frenzied state with distant high pitched noises that flutter in and out. It seems like a jungle excursion to get you to the temple buried deep in obscurity, the closing track.
I Understand You is the last track on the last Hydra Head release, presumably forever. For years Hydra Head has been the vanguard of extreme music and this final piece, this requiem for the extreme bridges the generational gap. I Understand You is a beautiful and terrifying insurrection of this dichotomy. The synth line is soothing and nebulous, allowing you to drift amongst the stars, or through ancient halls, but beneath that, rumbling low before rising well into the stratos is the power electronics component, screaming into your ear, reminding you of all the pain inflicted on this earth, a unifier and purifier. The feedback and squeals never quite reach fever pitch, nor does the disconnected maudlin synth line ever resolve, and that seems to be the point. The drifting end of all things. There is something truly morose here, not just in aesthete or the obvious nature of the genre, but something nostalgic. It’s almost as if Dominick created this song to be the last song on the last album released by such an influential label and in truth, it’s a glorious send off. There is not a moment amiss here. Regardless of your genre leanings, there will be something here for you, which is a testament in it of itself to Hydra Head. Catalogue number HYH-236-1 is the violent, dramatic, taxing, brilliant and golden final transmission of Hydra Head Records. I wouldn’t recommend it, I would demand it.
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