Supernatural Cat – 16th September 2016
Christopher Nosnibor
Christ, what is this? 15 seconds in and already I can feel my brain bending and shaking as it struggles to compute all that’s going on. A pile of CDs slide off the shelf overhead and narrowly miss my face. Ok, so my office is a tip, a collapsed cascade of books and CDs that resembles an attempt to recreate the vibe of Francis Bacon’s studio and JG Ballard’s writing room, but this is pretty much unprecedented. Disc avalanches are usually provoked by my trying to extract one from one precarious pile or another. But then, GoRgO is pretty unprecedented (although I suspect slightly less so for seasoned fans of the band).
The press release describes GoRgO, the latest album from Lin (bass), Lan (bass) and Lon (drums) aka MoRkObOt as a work of ‘low-end noise rock origami’. And is it ever? You wouldn’t put this explosive racket in the drum ‘n’ bass section of any record shop (assuming, for a moment, that record shops still existed in the broader society), but breaking it down to its component parts, that’s exactly what it is. And with one drummer and two bassists, it’s drum with a whole lotta bass. Bass that sounds like guitar. Bass that sounds like the grinding of rock on rock. Bass that sounds like lorries in collision. Bass that sounds like machine-gun fire. Bass that will fuck with your innards and your equilibrium. Bass that sounds like the gnarliest metal riffs. Bass that sounds like the emptying of bowels after eight pints and a vindaloo. Bass that sounds like nothing on earth.
But no, while it’s all about the bass, there is treble. I mean, no treble would be utterly ridiculous. Imagine what that would actually sound like! The range of frequencies MoRkObOt wring from all that bass is astounding. And it’s not just noise: this is highly technical and innovative. Yes, it’ hits like a tornado and is absolutely dizzying, but there’s a lot to hear and a lot to appreciate. There are flickers of melody, groove and a lot of dynamics. There’s a lot to hear and a lot to take in.
The drumming’s pretty impressive, too.
Aural Aggravation 