Anatoly Grinberg & Mark Spybey | 123 m
Ant-Zen (DL)
The broken transmission bathes you in an aura of semi-consciousness. Soon there are snarling vocals and percussion, taking over, with a menacing cryptic twist. And this too subsides and this balance between cascading melodic tempos and dark corners battle – left to their devices. Russian sound designer Anatoly Grinberg and veteran sound collagist Mark Spybey (Dead Voices on Air, Zoviet France) pair up for the first time on record in a mysterious collaboration that would beguile the best of haunted houses, and electronic music lovers alike. The dalliances in groans, dark electronics and post-grunge/techno rides a fine line between all of the above with a dramatic fervor.
It’s a gritty record, but doesn’t spare too many keys, in fact even though there seems to be a tendency for silt-laden dank cadences, this manages to take its time to relieve itself of negative energies. There are bright spots, and welcome lulls, and moments that glide high tonally (Timo Clock). This cooler wave grows more evident on Thusk, with the deep stringed swoop across the channels. Though the strange characters once again show up, and emit this intensely otherworldly vocal babble that echoes into the beyond. Are they conjuring spirits, or is this an unknown dialect? One thing remains stable, the quixotic flare for inciting the ear, both in your face and in repose. On this track you may be locked in a nightmare, or simply meandering a shadowy jungle-scape.
The two, not shy with percussion, unplug and start again fresh with the discombobulated electronics of Dub You. This is a finger-lickin fresh cut, holy heebie jeebies. Anyone who likes an expertly crafted flash-cut edit, will adore this deconstructed ‘dub’. It chugs along with an unflattering, bulging presence that’s quite funky in the same way Gene Wilder leads those kids down that crazy chocolate river Wonka tunnel. Yes, a psychedelic sort of reverse-all-the-gears (and view everything from the mirror reflection of the same) funk. Ping, bam, boom! And this rolls right into the next short track, Body Song.
123 m covers a broad spectrum of moods, but they seem to add riffs like spices, a pinch of Meat Beat Manifesto here, a dash of angelic phrasing there. It’s aggressive to moody to sleepy and much of this food for the senses as this will have your mind tempered to a light melting state.
toneshift.wordpress.com 