Kalamine Records – 14th September 2024
Christopher Nosnibor
Whether it be solo works ranging from ambience to classical, or collaborations running the full gamut in the electronic field, Deborah Fialkiewicz’s output in recent years has been nothing short of prodigious, and spanning as many forms as her work does, there is never a dull moment. This latest work, under the POOCH moniker, in collaboration with Dan Dolby (Bassist in Mastiff, Noisemonger in Catafalque and Sulphur Nurse) is no exception. It offers a set of eight dark, stark electronic compositions which owe a considerable debt to early industrial and electronic works, bringing a combination of dark atmospherics and nagging beats. Although entirely instrumental, we’re in the kind of territory occupied by the likes of Cabaret Voltaire, Test Dept, and Chris and Cosey’s Trance.
As an opener, ‘Hades’ is as dark and subterranean as the title would suggest, a bleak, murky pulsation squelching around and leading the listener down, down, down. It serves as something of a primer, a mood-setter, but doesn’t fully prepare one for the altogether steelier, starker, more rhythmic and percussion-driven pieces which follow.
The title track pairs a dense, dirty bass with clattering, metallic percussion which assails the mind like a concerted assault with the contents of a cutlery drawer, and it bashes away relentlessly for four and a half minutes straight. On paper, it might not sound much, but as an experience, it’s pretty hard-hitting. Built around short, clipped repetitions, it creates a suffocatingly claustrophobic aural space. The word ‘pooch’ evokes a cuddly companion, something friendly, but there’s nothing cuddly or friendly about this, a listening experience closer to being whipped with a chain than fussing a canine buddy.
Each composition bears a one-word title (‘GameBoy’ being a forced blend-word (it doesn’t really qualify as a portmanteau) in order to maintain the theme. Funtime bit-tunes are bent with glitches and warping drifts of darkness here, before things begin to slide further into beat-orientated minimal techno.
The steady beat which dominates and defined the spartan ‘Quazar’ is almost soporific: the track assumes something of a background position as it clicks along nonchalantly, with a low, unshifting drone hovering just around the level of register. Nothing happens. It doesn’t need to. And while the thunder which heralds the arrival of ‘Midnite’ might initially serve as an alert, the piece soon melts into abstraction. The final track, ‘Stimpy’ may be missing Ren, but hits hard, built around a strong, thudding beat and looped electronic undulations.
For all of its cuddly connotations, Pooch is a pretty dark album. To my mind – and it could be to my mind alone – music which is heavily beat-orientated and instrumental feels impersonal somehow, and I find it somewhat disorientating, disconnecting, alien. And so it is that the pounding beats of Pooch leave me feeling somewhat dazed, detached, even dizzy. But it’s impossible to deny the detail, the quality of the execution, or the fact that this is an outstanding work.
AA
Aural Aggravation 