Chris Forsyth: guitar; Jaime Fennelly: harmonium, electronics; Fritz Welch: percussion, vocals
After this session – recorded in a rehearsal space in Antwerp, 2010 – Peeesseye disbanded, thus the three tracks comprised by Sci Fi Death Mask are the last traces of their existence on tape. The noisier approach – as opposed to the project’s relatively calmer beginnings – prevails, in that the lo-fi recording is ideal for exalting grungy suburbia where valves are constantly red hot, the smell of moldiness is all but unendurable, the throbbing mix of harmonium and guitar strings causes the ears to swell, and Welch’s furious screaming appears as that of a samurai prior to committing harakiri, not before having hit whatever is available at short distance with depraved abandon (*). Throughout all this, the mind wanders and thinks. Or perhaps not. Love or detest them – and I did acknowledge the bulk of what they did as very good – these guys have created a unique body of work over a decade’s span. Begrimed trance, punkish attitude, impurity everywhere, refusal to obey the laws of adjustment to a “scene”, animal participation, brilliant titles (in this circumstance, I particularly like “Let The Hate Flow”). On occasion, the trio’s antisocial position works better for my encephalon than a cycle of La Monte Young. There’s something of a ragged richness in those drones that should be recognized, in spite of being assaulted by the aforesaid enraged vocal outbursts (“Legs Without Feet”). The 20-minute farewell of “What Is The Value, What Is The Purpose?” fuses the group’s principal sonic traits into an ill-shaped jumble of clustered-as-hell fixed pitches, spastic thumping and drool-from-the-mouth arpeggios, a goodbye waved from a swampland of discordant debris.
(*) Taken from Frank Zappa’s “The Adventures Of Greggery Peccary”
MASSIMO RICCI. TOUCHING EXTREMES. 