|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LP
|
|
DIAG 053LP
|
Japanese crust punk and grindcore icon Eri Fuzz-Kristiansen, aka Gallhammer's Viviankrist, keeps the curveballs coming on Diagonal with a bloodied mastication of charred noise and rhythmic electronics, following up the label's acclaimed sides by Sote (DIAG 054LP) and Not Waving/Jim O'Rourke (DIAG 049EP). Co-released with the metal-minded Ritual Productions label, Cross Modulation is a brutal testament to the acridly personalized sound that Viviankrist has explored solo since 1995 in Tokyo, when she performing vocals, sax and SP-202 sampler in her first industrial/noise unit. 23 years later her music is still sorely raw, yet riddled with a new found poignance and atmospheric unease that places her music sometimes as close to Kali Malone's see-sawing dissonance as the power electronics of Pan Sonic or the possessed pulses of Conrad Schnitzler and Merzbow. Since the demise of Eri's main project Gallhammer at the start of this decade, when she moved from Tokyo to Oslo (home of her husband and bandmate in Sehnsucht, Maniac -- also former vocalist for BM legends Mayhem), she returned to her early Viviankrist alias from 2017 as a place to express her primitivist-futurist urges, resulting a trio of CDs including the vicious solo strike of Morgenrøde for Cold Spring Records (CSR 268CD). Now on Cross Modulation she intuitively tempers that album's phosphorous burn with a deadly incisive application of what black metal/techno pioneer Black Mecha terms "mentation electronics". Alloying avant-metal with rhythmic noise, ambient techno and mind-bending drone to a metallurgic tang, Cross Modulation serves a dense flux of energies in seven parts, piercing a path thru maelstrom electronics in "Eleventh" to churn up grizzled Vainio-esque rhythms in "Blue Iron", while the tenderly bruised ambience of "Midnight Sun" provides a bittersweet palette cleanser for the tart technoid prang of "Insects", a bout of slow gripping psychedelia in "Out Of Body", and the rugged North European pastoralism of "Behind Mirror".
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
CSR 268CD
|
As Vivian Slaughter morphs into Viviankrist, the music also changes from the intense cold desperation and raw nerve brutality of Gallhammer into a kaleidoscope of electronic sounds... still brutal and shattering, and still depicting soundscapes that close in on the darker side of the soul. A way to escape the dull pressure of a reality that sometimes seems to slip away into psych wards and chemicals. A reaction towards indifference. A shard of mentality released in wave after wave of fully analog sounds, sometimes disturbed by digital intrusions. The twilight and dawn of things to come from a renewed Viviankrist. File under: Japanese noise, power electronics, electronica.
|