A Closer Listen
Errorgrid’s Raw Øblations series kicked off last fall and has been resurrected in early summer, with the sixth edition just hitting the airwaves. The series has now reached twelve tracks, clocks in at over an hour and works as a compilation, joining the twin flagships Darker Sounds of a Present Future and Quantized Realities. When played in order, the set also makes internal sense, launching in dark, beatless ambience and progressing to percussion-heavy industrialism. The label continues to go from strength to strength, having established a name through hard work and a steady output: 47 releases in only four years.
BLAKMOTH kicks off the series in suitably dark fashion with “Abjuration,” a dense drone that lets in little light across its ten-minute plus playing time. The label’s introductory statement describes the series as “experiments and abandoned, unfinished or discarded tracks that were too precious to destroy and yet unfit to pursue further.” This is where we might agree to disagree: these entries are worthy. BLACKMOTH’s entry recalls Raison d’être, claustrophobic yet elegant, easy to sink into and hard to get out of. Wuot‘s “Rise” follows, a more active, undulating drone built upon a simple pattern yet possessing what the label calls “abysmal depth.” The pairing is so perfect that one assumes the label had such a thing in mind all along.
The third volume is the first to include multiple tracks, and again the progression is instinctive, the loping beats of “Nightmare Grit” building on the foundation of drone. Sombre Lux asks “whether art is more genuine and refined when it is left unprocessed.” It’s a valid question, especially given the extreme polish of some studio productions that leach the soul from the songs. Title track “Fed to the Crows” is especially menacing: intricate and dark in equal measure. Halfway through, these crows have a sudden surge of strength, a noticeable bulking, as if they have devoured their prey. “From the Hip” is thick and lanky, edged by distortion, as if mulched in a blender.
Eric Schlappi‘s Contamination is another three-track EP, a video partnership with Bastien Lavaud that delves into abstraction, both sonically and visually. Again the tempo is nudged just a little bit higher, the synths sparkling just a little bit brighter. The label calls the effect “intentional modular synesthesia.” “Corridors” sounds like an arcade game at an IDM concert, the beats stopping late to let the synthesizer rule the roost. The title track is more unhinged, disrupting trajectories through competing layers of synth, straightening its wires in the center as it turns into a techno pounder ~ until the end of the thirteen-minute piece, when the fracture and frizz reemerge.
TL3SS‘s “Split Lip” is suitably described as “stern and stomping,” the tuffest track of the series to date. After the 27-minute Raw Øblations 4, this four-minute fifth installment is a palette cleanser. Uncompromising, yet not brutal, the piece benefits from clever twists of timbre and a steady pace. And now in 2024, Broken Circuits‘ Obscured Paths become clear, as they share tracks that were once intended as part of a concept album, “set aside as our Standing in Ruin EP took form.” These extremely short pieces – three tracks in seven minutes – are the best of the batch to date, hidden experiments made public, an alternate timeline, a different reality. By now the series has reached all-out industrial strength, which is where we like it, but the build from beatless drone to droneless beat has deepened our appreciation of all six oblations. The next installment, from label founder Nundale, is already in the works, and we can’t wait to hear it! (Richard Allen)
Tue Jul 09 00:01:49 GMT 2024