Reverse paints a cityscape of greying facades, wondrous skylines and a somewhat frightening underbelly.
We Can Elude Control really caught my attention last year with Nocturnal Emissions and the guttural Accumulator. The imprint of Paul Purgas, aka Emptyset, is now introducing a new name to electronics. Roberto Crippa is a London based electronic musician with a penchant for noise and musique concrete. His debut album, Reverse, paints a cityscape of greying facades, wondrous skylines and a somewhat frightening underbelly.
Crippa, originally from Milan, is a pioneers in London’s noise scene. His performances see live recordings, library sounds and outright experimentation blended into an insular and unsettling soundscape. The album seems to remove emotion, instead the focus is on the physicality of sound. Brutalised bass rhythmically punishes in “Order,” a flyblown landscape of cement and pavement painted in broad and haunting sounds. Chords press into skin, the sheer weight of Crippa’s bars forcing air from lungs. A constant tension menaces the surface, an unease and uncertainty permeating all. Silence is the other side of the Italian’s style, pauses and scratched stillness juxtaposing the claustrophobia. An ever present paranoia stalks the LP, tracks like “Matter” carving ever tightening circles around the listener. That unnerving element is never escaped, instead it is consistently amplified. “Helix” closes, the listener being swallowed under ultra-stretched string and mounting interference.
Crippa pulls you into his sepulchral world. The atmosphere is cold, almost debilitating. A sound of late night wakings, wakings brought on by a chilling dream or a shrill distant cry. At times Reverse is difficult to digest, but this is an LP of severe scenarios and almost inhuman environments. Hag-ridden echoes from machines that don’t dream.
Reverse is available on We Can Elude Control.
