(08.14.05) Contrastate, now defunct, was formed nearly twenty years ago by Stephen Meixner and Jonathan Grieve. Paddling about in the primordial waters of experimental soundscapes, they released a number of influential records before splitting up near the turn of the millennium. Fin de Siècle Media has done a great historical service by re-releasing Contrastate’s first record (Seven Hands Seek Nine Fingers) which was released as a limited LP release, and by collecting rarities and forgotten tracks from 1989-1999 (including the last piece Contrastate ever recorded) for False Fangs for Old Werewolves. Contrastate existed in a dark ambient realm of whispered soliloquies, groaning machinery, old world drones and crepuscular minimalism.
The three tracks of Seven Hands Seek Nine Fingers are as close to a mission statement as one would get from the band: “As Time Began,” “Thirst for Knowledge,” and “The Man Seeking Experience Enquires His Way of a Drop of Water.” “As Time Began” is a nineteen minute exploration of sonic sub-spaces — whispers of wind and echoes of ancient machinery drift through dark caverns filled with dripping water and black holes that fall through to centuries past. Backmasked loops arc and curl in the dim hollows like blind worms writhing along invisible lines of current. A voice intones mystical passages from arcane texts during “Thirst for Knowledge,” a sermon delivered against a background of bells and swelling underground winds. The final track is filled with water — water rushing, water dripping, water flowing into cisterns and basins and cauldrons and pipes. A man’s footsteps dance in the background, a solitary walker who is seeking some oracular information, some experience, within this constant bubble and rumble of water. An immersive experience in headphones, “The Man Seeking Experience Enquires His Way of a Drop of Water” is an elemental ritual, a shamanistic dream quest, that gets piped into your head and is allowed to drip into your brain.
False Fangs for Old Werewolves is an marked evolution from their origin. The music has become more dreamlike, more fragmentary, as snatches of spoken word theatrics bloom from the ambient and rusted soundscapes. “I am a Clown Collecting Moments (and other chocolates)” flits between captured circus sounds, snared fragments of conversation and brief bursts of chaotic melody. “Poodles in Practice Dress at the Battersea Dogs’ Opera” is nearly longer in title than in duration; its brief existence is but three paragraphs of text, a operatic chorus, and an assortment of howling dogs. “Like a Saint on a Stake” is a blistering soliloquy arrayed against a background of strings and drones. “Pierre Never Made It” ticks past with the metronomic rhythm of a pocket watch until the vocalist begins his intoned speech, his measured statement against mediocrity and the persistence of history.
More instrumental songs like “Virophilia” and “Circumcised by a Blind Rabbi” ooze with medieval terror. In “Virophilia,” the guttering echo of a heretic lost inside a cracked cistern is pursued by the thrumming noise of some steam driven machinery that groans and whispers with a wooden tongue and metal teeth. “Circumcised by a Blind Rabbi” whirls like dervishes with hand drums and bowed instrumentation gathering speed as they continually tighten their rhythm. “From the Opened Red Lips” sussurates with wind through metal cans while a voice wordlessly sings a sacred song from some forgotten nomadic tribe (Tuvan, Mongolian, Native American — it crosses boundaries like a breath of wind).
Constrastate lies inside the triangle inscribed by the Renaissance orchestration of late-period In The Nursery, the apocalyptic folk of Current 93 and the agonized noise ambience of Nurse With Wound. But, even like these other bands, they were a moving target, constantly evolving and experimenting with sound. Constrastate don’t make music; rather, they are concerned with testing your hearing. The worlds imagined by Meixner and Grieve require dedicated listening, and reward such fascination with an endless parade of supernatural sounds. Both Seven Hands Seek Nine Fingers and False Fangs For Old Werewolves are vital landmarks in the evolution of ambient,
industrial and experimental sounds and kudos to Fin de Siècle Media for making them available for our enjoyment.
Seven Hands Seek Nine Fingers and False Fangs for Old Werewolves are out now on Fin de Siècle Media.
- Fin de Siècle Media
- Contrastate
