Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Spasm - Smear (1997)

The end of the month is coming up once again, so let's close it with a bang!

Bringing the bang for your buck is Spasm, a group consisting of Mark Spybey (Dead Voices On Air, ex-Zoviet France), Eric Pounder (Pounder, ex-Lab Report), Curse Mackey (Pigface, ex-Evil Mothers) and Invisible Records-owner Martin Atkins (Pigface, ex-The Killing Joke).

This collective goes for an hourlong attack with improvised noise rock. The tracks are constructed around Martin Atkins's somewhat unorthodox drumming, with a barrage of odd vocalisations provided by Mark Spybey. The main building blocks are the fragments of sound taken from the recording session; everything from guitar drones, blurred howls and feedback to the oddly timed speech sample.

I bet the drugs which were consumed before the recording session kicked in somewhere around the fifth track, as Ignorance is bliss marks the beginning of a psychedelic fuzzfest for the rest of the disc.

Although the improvisation is a key element of the band, it never spirals totally out of control and I think everything holds together really well. Although this big psychedelic mess can be a bit overwhelming at times, I still have to admit enjoying every second of the organised chaos. Distorted space rock ritual for the industrial age? Fuck if I know. It's atmospheric, "out there" and loud. What else do you possibly need in life?

Hope you enjoy!

Download part 1
Download part 2
(95+45MB/320CBR)

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