From Silesia Larmo brings us his short cassette Noise Tape #1 EP (ZOHAR 280-4). Right away the red and black cover indicates something about the grisly contents, with profile of human head showing exposed muscles and tendons – flayed alive in short. Plus there’s a project logo that suggests Larmo is itching to be mistaken for a Black Metal act. In fact Larmo is an exercise in remorseless industrial noise, meaning much percussive hammering, vocal growling and grunting, shocking electronic eruptions, not averse to violence and willing to harbour a general pessimistic mood. Even so, its creator Miroslaw Matyasik – who worked as C H District for about 20 years before this – insists that he has been reborn as a merchant of Intelligent Dance Music, and sets out his wares on that basis. I wouldn’t know if this is good IDM or not; it’s mostly unlistenable; what comes over is overly-forceful aggression to cover the general lack of original ideas, although ‘L(armo) #1’ and ‘L(armo) #2’ are, at least, startling in the way the way they present the material. ‘Doom(s)day’ promises some form of apocalyptic release in its title, but when it comes to the music it takes our man far too long to get his behemoth of a spaceship wheeled into place on the launchpad, let alone get ready for take-off. I can’t help feeling a lack of organisation, purpose, coherence. Last heard him with his Live at XIX Wroclaw Industrial Festival record, his lockdown statement of the day.
Another EP in cassette form from the band That’s How I Fight – their Between Movements (ZOHARUM NO NUMBER) record seems to suggest this foursome are at some watershed moment in their careers and are musing about their own past with these four songs of new material. Traditional rock line-up with added synth, loops, and samples; guest bass player Paulus Kinsky appears on one track, C H District remixes another. Not unpleasant sound, the players seem to work well together, but none of this music has anything to say or takes the listener anywhere special – it just meanders around in pointless circles. The long track ‘14’ is supposed to herald the arrival of their next album, but it’s simply eight minutes of nothing happening.
More brutality, assuming you’re actively seeking out this commodity, can be heard on Lugola’s Deform (ZOHAR 270-2), another live recording wrenched from the infernal bowels of the Wroclaw Industrial Festival (the XXth such event, from November 2021). I have never attended this affair, but in my fevered imagination it takes place inside a large iron warehouse underneath the surface of the earth, and rather than scan your ticket at the entrance, the venue staff blast you in the face with a blow-torch. Lugola, in real life Michał ‘Neithan’ Kiełbasa, uses titles redolent of cruelty and pain such as ‘Parade of Death’ and ‘Tightening the Noose’, and the panels of the digipak are decorated with skulls and another flayed head from an old medical book. So far so bloodthirsty, but I’ll say in his favour that at least Lugola keeps things simple – there’s one basic clanking continual electronic noise that he makes with his machines, on top of which he bellows his verbiage of hate in a shouty tuneless manner. The “noise” side of the work grinds and grates in a nice chaotic monotonous manner, and sounds like it could be pretty interesting, if he’d only keep his mouth shut for five mins, but he’s got something to day and he’s very intent on delivering himself of it. Pretty raw and unrefined, but this record delivers a powerful charge. At least his work is more focussed than that of Larmo above. Label press are convinced this record is proof of how Lugola works best in a live setting, claiming he exhibits the full range of emotions “from excitement to anger”.
All the above from the Polish Zoharum label, 3rd January 2023.