David Thrussell has a new approach to biting political commentary:
acts of instrumental subterfuge. Unlike his previous releases (both
as Black Lung and Snog), The Grand Chessboard is strictly
instrumental; all commentary is implied through the track titles and
subliminal information transmission straight through the protruding
bump of your tailbone. The title of his latest Black Lung release is
taken from Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 book, The Grand
Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives,
and it is a dance record for the dissolution of the last global
empire.
Loop structures gyre around each other while hard rhythms break
against your ears like oil-drenched waves on a polluted shoreline.
Bubbles of caustic fluids boil through “The Dilemma of The One
Alternative” and “Geostrategic Phantasmagoria” like the sizzle of
super-heated liquids scorching off red-hot machinery. “The Multiple
Contest” veers towards Mlada Fronta territory, the churning pistons of
machinery marching across sand-chewed desert sands while “Despotic
Heroic Diversion” vibrates with a white noise crackle beneath a
pumping house beat, veering from epileptic breakdown to brittle
ambience. Thrussell never lets the dance beats persist for any
duration; he keeps the party flavor going only long enough to find the
sweet spot before he shatters it with an abortive barrage of noise or
fractious ambience. “Sickly Serotonin Squeeze” snaps with whiplash
regularity between boogie-friendly beats and the harsh gibbering of
noise. “Neither Dominion Nor Exclusion” scampers and shivers with
sparking electricity and guttural synthesizer melodies while a
Ligeti-esque choir tries to attain escape velocity in the background.
The Grand Chessboard capers around the pyre of the fallen empire like
a madman, its rhythms adding fuel to the prancing idiot and its
chaotic constructions unhinging the mentally terrified wallflowers
clustered at the edge of the firelight. David Thrussell’s work as
Black Lung has always been music on the edge of extinction,
soundtracks for the disintegration of society. With The Grand
Chessboard, he’s given you a reason to dance as it all comes down.
The Grand Chessboard is out now on Ant-Zen.
