Genre: Pagan Black Metal

Tracklist:

01 From Video 2005
02 Milwaukee Soundback
03 Moto to Land
04 Business Class One
05 Business Class Two
06 Fight in Oslo Street
07 Mogel Bakover
08 Glide Brakhage
09 Oppe Wildnoise
10 Y’ang-Yeovil

A Norwegian noisemaker on a Ukrainian label has to make for some interesting music, or at least that is my first impression of this Lasse Marhaug git. Well I dug up some interesting facts on Lasse and it proves that he has quite a history in the branch of noise electronics and experimental music in Norway. With over 100 albums on his back he sure proves to be a stubborn fella as well as a great collaborator with quite a stockpile of humans working with him on different occasions. At first look I found the album in itself to be quite stunning in its both simple and freaky look with a trumpeter (?!) on the run on some bleak and wooden background. Apparently Lasse is not only a noisy git but also quite a modernist when it comes to surreal and quite bizarre artwork; I just have to hand it to him for a good layout on the album. Among other things his homepage proves just what a jack-of-all-trades Lasse proves to be, so all this taken into account can he make anything decent in the way of sound?

Well, I do like this. Along the visual madness comes an album which produces and distils the very essence of noisy chaos on a primitive yet sublime way. It may not be the end of the world but after spending some time in this audible chaos it starts to feel like an emulation of such a doomsday. This album is a compilation of many different recordings done through many years on different times and spaces and on some tracks you can actually feel the travel through time itself. Noise in all its glory but is this even worth the cash spent on its cover? Well it sure feels more like a safe card then most of the noise previously encountered by this beast, however still it feels a bit lacking in its structure. It has a huge amount of soul and some of the more minimalist tracks have a sublime feeling of otherness to it that ranges way beyond the ordinary feeling of noise. Interesting as it may be this album might sound heavily like ordinary noise from time to time and that thing bears heavily against it. Lasse Marhaug is sadly an artist I have heard too little about to make a fair judgement about.

The music ranges heavily in aspects and goes from grinding gears in the belly of a beast asto the silent lull of a sub-atomic engine burning out its last power in the void of space. Noise is the essence and experimental its shape. Somehow I feel this album is a good way of experiencing experimental electro first hand, but it is a quest to actually break the border. Personally my noise tends to lean more against the northern Scandinavian scene and yet I cannot really see how this fits in with bands like Green Army Fraction, Survival Unit and Tekstomp. Well, I assume it was never meant to. This is noise as an artistic form rather than an all out rage against the masses. If you like experimental music and have a sublime passion for noise, get this album. If you don’t like noise you probably will not like this.