Paskine - The Shapes of Collapses

A Closer Listen

Paskine has recorded a ferocious, unstoppable event. Things are falling apart – collapsing – on a massive scale, the universe itself vomiting out intergalactic dust. Dead stars litter a pale sky emitting only a cold, crushed radiance. This isn’t just the sound of collapse but the crumpled shape of it.

An intense and unforgiving blockade of noise kicks things off. A tame flame morphs into a funnel of fire, and a pillar of black ash rises from the scene like conclave smoke. Although seemingly chaotic, this is nevertheless a cycle, moving steadily from one stage to another.

Another explosion tears through the music’s constantly crumbling facade, ripping it until only shreds of sound remain audible and recognizable for what they once were. Rush, rush, rush. A fire engine is a red blur on the road. Coherency wanders in a daze, blood soaking through a wet shirt. Ambulances are on the way – wailing sirens occupy piercing registers – while the unwanted effects of tinnitus arrive in the form of a ringing drone.

The Shapes of Collapses is an extremely threatening body of music. The listener has no form of self-defense. Made out of a churning, congealing metal and an extremely flammable substance, a repetitive cycle eats away at itself before succumbing to an avalanche of noise as all of the elements crash and burn. But it can be thought of as a natural process, too. Creation is a natural thing, growing up and out of decay like shoots of grass in Chernobyl’s wasteland. The melting of ice and volcanic eruptions, of moisture being sucked up into the clouds and then falling as rain or hail. It’s a vicious attack, the result of a freak storm brought on by global warming. The music dismisses hard factual evidence because it’s in the middle of burning papers, documents, and books, like Fahrenheit 451.

Later on, the bass rumbles and quakes like a distant Tyrannosaurus Rex, creating Jurassic shudders like mini-earthquakes. Despite the apparent carnage, a vague order still exists; the last shred of stability. The created things are prone to destruction. When things are destroyed, the cycle begins anew. The Shapes of Collapses is a rough and complex sophomore. It’s the sound of something seismic falling apart, staining something once pristine, like a pool of ink on a white page, or a black belt dissecting white cloth. (James Catchpole)

Available here