Hiverlucide & Pyramid Waves :: RiotxNoise (Solium)

Almost fifty minutes of improvised spazzing noise and dizzying breaks, all mastered rather loudly, make RiotxNoise far more than exciting; if the premise wasn’t enthralling enough, there’s also vocals and a damn harpsichord on this LP; now that’s good business if you ask me.

Pure, unfiltered organized chaos

May I perhaps interest you in some kind of power noise with black metal inflections? “That’s not really your cup of tea,” you say? Well, I’ll make it become your cup of daily morning tea then, because this collaboration between Pyramid Waves and Hiverlucide sure is entertaining. Almost fifty minutes of improvised spazzing noise and dizzying breaks, all mastered rather loudly, make this LP far more than exciting; if the premise wasn’t enthralling enough, there’s also vocals and a damn harpsichord on this LP; now that’s good business if you ask me.

I sure am not a black metal expert, but this fusion of intense electronics and black metal instrumentation does not come as a surprise; there’s a record I listened to a while back, Murmuüre’s self titled, which is a proper black metal record, but with the addition of these absolutely insane walls of glitchy electronic noise, it’s such an interesting listen. RiotxNoise isn’t quite the same, and I’ll get to why in a second, but the sound palette is rather similar and it’s the only comparison I could draw to possibly draw your attention to this LP; every piercing cold scream in the first track is matched by the absolute chaos of all sorts of noises, whether it’d be guitar or spastic drum programming or even some pretty insane electronics.

All of this also happens to happen on the spot, as the record is improvised; it becomes quite clear once you realize the harpsichord absolutely never shuts up, it’s this constant dizzying flurry of notes that almost sounds like it’s struggling to not get suffocated by all the aggression on top. And, that’s what ultimately makes this record stand out, this is pure, unfiltered organized chaos, all happening as it goes on.

The album starts off slowly, as it’s clear that things are just opening up. While “Votre ordre est fragile” may be undeniably intense, it’s not intense all the way through. It’s the vocals that really amp up the piece, as Void starts repeating this same phrase—which I believe is the track’s title, but with something extra—over and over, and at that point the anger starts to really fill up: the harpsichord starts—to not beat around the bush—going apeshit all over the place, the drums get intensely more unpredictable and fast paced, as well as quite a bit harder, and the noise really fuels up, growing and growing until it almost swallows majority of the instrumental.

The track keeps this chaos well alive for more than half of its runtime, which is kind of impressive; the key that allows it to keep going is the variation within the drums, because they’re never the most insane part of the piece, but they sure do vary things a lot, dictating the current pace of the tune.

A dizzying storm ::

The second performance, titled “Brûler jusqu’au centre de la terre”, is more interesting. While track 1 is certainly a pleasure, track 2 slows things down significantly. For starters, it begins with a menacing drone section, so it is indeed slow; it’s also very ominous still, as the scatting beats and glitchy noise add quite a bit of torment, but atmosphere definitely prevails over the excitement in this case. It takes quite a while for the piece to get going, but its unnerving nature makes its lengthy introduction rather enjoyable.

There’s lots of pulsating electronics here, calling to the intensity of some ’90s digital-era Merzbow projects, but I really love how the drums match the energy by sometimes going into some sort of drum and bass grooves that sound like they’re struggling to pick themselves up. The halfway mark is also interesting, it’s this creepy short segment that inevitably explodes back into noise, there’s some ambience here but it’s pretty limited by the chaos that’s still going on beneath it. After said halfway mark, the track continues to focus mostly on the pulsating electronics, with some neat touches every now and then like some trills or harsh noise screeches, keeping things energetic but never reaching a proper high—it’s just a dizzying storm.

I definitely hope to hear more from these two together, because what they offer on ‘RiotxNoise’ is surely noteworthy. There’s interesting textures and a really pleasing intensity, sounds pretty good to me.

“Votre ordre est fragile” is the more interesting between the two tracks, as it showcases everything that this collaboration has to offer in terms of sound and creativity, but also because it’s pretty nuts, to be honest. Regardless, both pieces will make sure you’d want to hold onto something as you stand up after the album’s over, and they’ll surely entertain while the album is still on thanks to how insane they are.

RiotxNoise is available on Solium. [Cassette | Digital]