5.0 out of 5 stars
Forget vinyl, what about the sonic properties of cheese?, January 25, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Excited By Gramophones Vol. 4 (Audio CD)
Forget vinyl, what about the sonic properties is cheese? Project Dark's limited edition 7" singles were manufactured from preposterous materials - white bread, Edam cheese, hair, Brazillian glasspaper, steel and so on. This CD treats the contents of their entire singles back catalogue as source material. The music's aesthetic is best summed up by the image on the back of the CD - an exploding record player.
Though drum patterns are used on some tracks, most of the music is concerned with manipulations of rough sound. The album begins with the noise of a firework rocket and moves into a succession of succinct and bristly sound pieces, covering a wide range of colours, and fascinated with the blurring into noise.
On four of the best tracks, the Project Dark nucleus - Ashley Davies, Kirsten Reynolds and Tony Pattinson - is augmented by Dub Colossus of Transglobal Underground. (Elsewhere collaborators include artist/Headcoat Billy Childish.) For all the noise input, the music works best through playfulness. Low-cal avante garde, for sure, but somehow, with near zero gravitas and a lurking pop sensibility, it's diverting stuff. But a more wholesome racket than it would like to be. Will Montgomery/The Wire
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