ant-zen – 12th February 2024
Christopher Nosnibor
First – the format! So much is being made of the vinyl renaissance right now, and much as I love vinyl, it’s hard to be entirely comfortable with this comeback, in this form. Back in the 90s, when CDs were in the ascendence, I often bought vinyl because it was cheaper: I could pick up an LP for £7.50 when a new-release CD was £11. I still have the receipts in my vinyl copies of PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me and Pandemonium by Killing Joke, among other treasures. Now, vinyl is a luxury item. Even a standard LP is around £25, and many are pressed on two pieces of heavyweight vinyl and cost closer to £40, or more if released on Record Store Day. This isn’t right. It’s not honouring the format, it’s another example of exploitation.
But this is rather different, and altogether cooler on so many levels: ant-zen have brought us this release by Kojoohar & Frank Ursus in the form of a 7” EP, with two tracks on each side. You can’t blame them for the price tag given production costs, but the unique hand-printed inlays, etc., at least make each copy unique and make this release a million miles removed from the capitalist conveyor belt.
The thing that matters here is that this release is completely suited to this retro format: a 10” or LP release would have been extravagant, indulgent, and frankly, ill-keeping.
It’s worth quoting the liner note for the back-story here, too: ‘The spark that ignited this collaboration came from a conversation between KOJOOHAR and FRANK URSUS – aka Te/DIS – about the kojoohar album that has just been released at the time and about angst pop and its position in the music scene. talking about new tracks kojoohar was working on, the decision was made to start a collaboration.’
And so we’re presented with Frost Drought, which they describe as ‘a 4-track ep that offers edgy angst pop with analog, gripping synthesizer sounds, metallic rhythms and enigmatic melodies, complementing by frank ursus’ vocals… music and lyrics of FROST DROUGHT describe a world of isolation, mistrust, alienation and the individual’s distance from itself. left alone in the dark…’
Entering the ‘debris field’, we’re presented with dark synths, groaning, whining, whistling, and a slow-tempo-echo-heavy beat. If the baritone vocal is distinctly from the gothier end of post-punk, the instrumentation is equal parts post-punk and ultra-stark, bleak hip-hop. ‘never compromise’ pushes into stark, dark, electro territory, in the realm of mid-80s Depeche Mode. Ursus’ vocals are commanding, but so dark, and the music is so claustrophobic as to be suffocating. ‘never compromise’ sounds like a manifesto, and whipping snares sounds crack and reverberate in an alienating fog of synth, and with hints of Depeche Mode’s ‘Little 15’, it’s as bleak as hell, too. ‘threshold’ is dark and boldly theatrical, like Bauhaus battling it out in the studio with Gary Numan.
There’s no light here: this is dark and it feels like a dragging weight on your chest, on your heart. Drawing on early 80s electro but adding the clinicality of contemporary production – and a dash of Nine Inch Nails – Frost Drought is a challenging work, thick, dense, and intense, it’s a heavy listen, and one that’s incredibly intense.
AA
Aural Aggravation 