Genre: Noise/Power Noise

Track Listing:

01 Poor Quality Of Life
02 Adherence To Psychosis
03 Do Not Forget
04 Excess Of Death
05 A Sense Of Loss Of Control

Klinikal Skum is Ryan Oppermann's project dedicated to medical fetishes, mental hospitals, and psychosis, for it aims at creating really dark and sick atmospheres of human sickness. Oppermann has already been active since, at least, 2002, issuing music under various monickers. These 5 titles appears to be « successful autotherapy sessions ». Let's see their effect on your intrepid reviewer...

Progressively a low drone emerge on “Poor Quality Of Life”. It's quickly supplemented by gratings, and an howling oscillation. Afterwards, evolution goes on with repetitive patterns consisting of oscillating dissonant tones adorned with high-pitched and crackling noises. The track evolves towards progressive addition of sound layers and alternation of sounds. Sound effects reveal some fineries such as stereo effect, reverberation, or other subtle modifications.

We note a sample about psychosis epidemiology: this will be a constant on this album, for its concept revolves around this category of mental illness. This track finishes as it began: progressively, with the basic sound layers slowly fading away.

“Adherence To Psychosis” sees the appearance of some metallic noise before another sample about the mental illness. The track is relatively similar to the first on in its approach. But, it's more focused on creating harmonies between drones, it features some proto-rhythmic pattern and even more aversive high-pitched parasites, sounding like some tortured cassette. Texture is always mildly abrasive. The disturbing element thus doesn't come from saturated sounds but from the insane ensemble of tonal variations. Some metallic noises appear again, together with a coming back of lower sounds. In a way, this track accentuates oscillation and extends to the whole structure.

“Do Not Forget” creates another atmospheres, with more distant sounds and apparently random “FM-transistor” perturbations. The track is more linear in its intensity, but tends to play subtly with sound's texture, variating abrasiveness intensity, slowly eroding listeners' minds, together with pseudo-melodic tonal fluctuations. Droning sounds are pleasant and with well-proportioned vibration, balanced distorsion, rendered with carefully chosen sound effects.

White noisy track introduces “Excess Of Death”, as well as the following concerns about schizophrics' suicidal vulnerability. Here, clearly, there's a pseudo-rhythm due to a repetitive pattern. Elements comprise little grating, massive low sound mildly distorted and a tonal incursion. They are not always repeated exactly the same, giving a rather random effect. The track is hypnotic. Some slow metallic wave appears more and more regularly, while the track is getting more and more bare, just consisting of low oscillating sound and discrete parasites, before the track slowly returns to higher frequencies' dominance...

On “A Sense Of Loss Of Control”, the dark description of some schizophrenia's side effects is well illustrated by the atmosphere: low vibrating tones set a dark atmosphere. Constant parasites are accompanied by intertwining drones, a bit more like on the first track. Evolution however tends to be around oscillation in the whole track. Alarm like noises alternate with parts dominated by the strange twittering of parasites, sustained by constant mechanical resonances...

A progressive approach is often used. No sound walls here: it's all about structuring a balanced set of different sounds. Sounds are not that competing or aren't melted in layers, but rather occupy each their own place, and may of course exchange it throughout a progressive movement. This makes the whole more accessible and offers attractive changes. There is no aggressiveness. Of course, it's noise music, not ambient. But, even if music can sometimes be hypnotic, most of the time it's too anguishing to leave listener in peace...

This is not due to sounds' abrasiveness but to oscillation of patterns, or mastering of abrasiveness. Energy is dissolved into an heavy control of sounds. So, the last title may not express at best this loss of control. Actually, it rather leaves listener in pieces, as an echo to psychosis fragmentation of the self. The album globally uses noise appropriately to express psychosis' cognitive and sensitive parasiting and subsequent slow spatio-temporal desaggregation...

No, I didn't need antipsychotics afterwards. But I guess I could envision noise otherwise, as a intriguing expression of psychosis and thus better understand the way it erodes existence...