Aural Aggravation

ant-zen – 4th February 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Increasingly, when the consumption of music and art in general has become increasingly focused on accessibility, ease of consumption, and essentially a trade in intangibles – many no longer own any music physically, and simply stream everything – there is, conversely, a keen hankering and a strong, if niche, market for artefacts. Having grown up with first vinyl, and then CDs myself, I get this. The idea of not actually ‘owning’ your collection is bewildering, and the fact is that a playlist is not a collection. What happens when a subscription site folds, or when an artist withdraws their work from your platform of choice? Even bands who host their own music on sites like bandcamp, can withdraw or delete it at any time.

I’m no fan of MP3, but at least with an MP3, you’ve got something (although it pays to back up, or you might not). But with a true physical format, apart from fire or flooding, you have something pretty robust. But that’s not even half of it. It’s about the experience. The object. I can still recall when and where or how I came to acquire a large percentage of my collection, which runs well into the thousands of records and CDs (but no longer tapes, so much, for various reasons).

With the vinyl renaissance well under way, the late-cut single is very much a growth area. These things aren’t cheap, but what pressing plant is going to do a dozen copies? Meanwhile, a lot of artists with small fanbases still want something physical, but it would likely take then several lifetimes to shift a couple of hundred or more units. And then there’s storing the things. No-one wants boxes of unsold inventory they’ve paid a fortune for filling the spare room. And so, those who want something to cherish and simply own are generally happy to pay that bit more for something intrinsically scarce.

Kadaitcha’s latest, ‘fracture’ comes as a square lathe-cut 7”, which looks like one heck of an item, and of course, digital download, and contains two heavyweight slabs of dense, thunderous noise.

‘night’ is a crunchy, doom-laden drone driven by industrial-strength percussion. The guitars buzz and the vocals growl, almost submerged beneath the dense, murky noise; the beats blast like the heaviest machinery known to man. It’s like a black metal Swans. Flipside ‘rekill’ places the electronic to the fore, sounding like a JG Thirlwell remix of Nine Inch Nails with stuttering blasts and walls of digital distortion exploding from the speakers. It’s overloading, everything all at once, an instant headache distilled and amplified. This, of course, means I absolutely love it. Feel the pain.

AA