Genre:  Ambient Noise

01 Symptom 1
02 Symptom 2

D.I.S.C. (Death Inducing Signaling Complex) is a collaboration between Australia’s Rats with Wings and Wyrm, a project led by one Allan Zane that hails from the United States.  Where one side’s involvement in the music ends and the other’s begins is a blurry line considering the sounds featured here are generally rolling frequencies and static blips, bizarre chirps and faint machines toiling in the distance.  I’m generally not one to listen to atmospheric music or its cousin genre noise, but this particular release is interesting from a critical standpoint.  The examination of what kind of emotion and instinct are dragged out by responses to certain sounds is a fascinating.  It manages to avoid the trappings of creating overly soft ambience by spicing it up with occasional harsher sounds and different textures.  Simultaneously, the artists never overuse these tools and avoid creating a CD of different tones of white noise.

The atmosphere is generally mechanical but slowly reveals what seems to be a slightly organic sheen.  Deceptively low-key for its first 7 or so minutes, “Symptom 1” begins to ebb and flow to further extremes of both hypnotic synth swirls and bizarre, heavily-manipulated samples that add a tense, urgent feeling.  The track builds up and lets go, starting all over again from a few minimalistic suggestions to another riotous soundscape, although the pattern seems to quicken.  From there it twists into an even more alien tone, seemingly trying to portray a sense of cosmic loneliness.  However, this is of course an interpretation that can be quite different to different listeners.  The track’s climax is mostly low-key and eerie, save for a dramatic crescendo to signal its end.

“Symptom 2” is once again off to a low-key start and builds slowly, bubbling and burning to uneasy moments before returning to the original mood several times.  Sometimes a noises might sound like a human voice, there’s a moment that sounds like heavily distorted percussion, but it’s likely something more vague and suggestive than that.  Overall this track isn’t quite as dynamic as it’s predecessor but is more fluid as it slips in and out of different moods.  At around 18 minutes the overall tone takes an almost sinister turn, sounding almost like listening to above surface mechanical clashing from underwater.  From here the composition builds on a sawing synthesizer loop until it pulls itself into different territory, though the same mood is kept.  “Symptom 2” slinks back into the shadows for just a moment until it’s kicked open at 25 and a half minute mark.  The tension builds with increasingly rapid and unpredictable overdubs, instilling a sense of anxiety in the listener while the once solid base of the sound seems to become more and more overbearing.  The ending of this track and the disc is basically the music recoiling, the machines shutting down, whatever alien beast drawing its final breath.

An interesting voyage through sound and the listener’s response to it, not something for cursory listens or those looking for a sense of urgency in their music.  D.I.S.C. seems content to stew, using repetition and well-blended sonic textures to slowly pull the rug out from under its guest and pulling him to someplace new and unknown.  Sometimes dark, sometimes tranquil and sometimes overbearing, but almost always interesting.  My only complaint is that sometimes it seems when the sound drops and returns to a very  minimalist sound, sometimes the ebb and flow process is overly long.  Sometimes the technique works to build tension, but other times the listener is left wondering if they’ve already heard the key motions of the sound.  I’d advise those interested in taking this journey to act quickly.  Only 111 printed CD-R copies are being released, hand-numbered and in a full color sleeve.