Doc Wör Mirran feat. Re-Drum & Sascha Stadlmeier: 24.3.16
attenuation circuit
Incredibly, the rather prosaically titled 24.3.16 is apparently the 148th release by Doc Wör Mirran, the long-standing industrial-drone-noise project that on this twelve-inch release (in a 300-copy edition) pairs founder Joseph B. Raimond (guitar, bass), Stefan Schweiger (teramine, percussion), and Michael Wurzer (synths) with guests Pavel Aleshin (electronics, objects) and Sascha Stadlmeier (guitar, bass, objects, effects). For the record, Russian drone artist Aleshin also operates under the Re-Drum name, whereas Stadlmeier issues material as EMERGE when not managing his experimental attenuation circuit label.
The five convened last year on March 24th at the group's Two Car Garage Studios in Fürth, Germany for improvisations, two parts of which have been preserved on this attractive slab of transparent vinyl. As it turns out, the format suits the material extremely well, separating as it does two parts that are considerably different in tone and dynamics. With a bass pulse intermittently arising to establish some semblance of order, the twenty-minute opening side pulls the listener into its caustic undertow with wild, pitch-shifting synth flourishes wailing alongside death-rattling percussion, whooshes, and bells. Suddenly emerging from this thick industrial swamp are e-bow guitar textures that immediately point the material in a somewhat prog-like direction in manifesting a strong Crimson-oid character. While violent flourishes do ripple across the sound mass, the five hold the presentation to a generally subdued level as they generate rich, percussion-heavy atmospheres. In this first half, the landscape conjured by the participants is raw and desolate, the terrain littered with smoldering ruins and the carcasses of decaying bodies.
The control exercised on the first side gives way to a considerably more eruptive presentation on the twenty-two-minute flip with the material on side A brought to an intense broil. Again a bass pulse intones, but now the noise mass threatens to render it inaudible as it escalates feverishly. Metallic clangour, sirens, and fluttering percussion effects fill the air, which grows ever more noxious as the minutes advance, and at the nine-minute mark a seething noise wave large enough in scale to consume everything in its path emerges. Improvised it might be, but the contributors' kindred sensibilities ensure the material never turns directionless. This is experimentally driven electroacoustic material that needs to be played at high volume for maximum impact, but you might be wise to warn the neighbours and shut the windows before unleashing it.April 2018