Lasse Marhaug ~ The Shape Of Rock To Come
Nasty little filips
flick repetitively out of the speakers like the sound of something passing
too quickly for comfort. Something starts to happen a little way away, it
seems to be some form of frequency adjustment. This might be a testing ground.
Those filips are still shooting past. These noises are very tactile, seems
possible to reach out and touch them, though who knows what effect that would
have. Those frequencies are getting louder, their sonorities ever more threatening.
The filips cease. The noises are no longer individuated, there is only noise
now. Noise remains. Noise has taken over, won through, succeeded. All such
descriptions are ridiculously anthropomorphic. One’s response to noise
may be cerebral, as well as physical, but noise itself is like being scolded
by a too-hot bath. If the pain can be endured, the experience can be a release,
a middle finger up to the acceptable. Noise is a joyful extreme, it’s
like staring at the surface of a rock: there’s no repetition –
the more you look, the more everything becomes irresolveable. As you submit
to noise, you realise that everything is happening too quickly and in too
microcosmic a way – so much so that it’s impossible to keep up.
As a result you’re faced with a choice: retreat or surrender. Noise
really does win out. There’s no arguing with noise. It’s easy
to understand how noise could become a thrillingly addictive narcotic.
Lasse Marhaug’s noise undergoes a number of successive phases. Each phase is noticeable at the moment of change, thereafter it’s as though it was always that way. Noise is huge steel objects dragged unwillingly over concrete. Noise is volcanoes erupting. Noise is cleansing fire. Noise is unbearable pain. In the last minute of the 20 minute long Sleeper, a rhythm unexpectedly emerges as though made from bending the sounds that went before it into a particular shape. Then it’s over.
Magmadriver is a different brand of noise, a different species. It’s a plague of hornets so vast that day becomes night. Every single one of those hornets is frenziedly furious and you’re the cause of their ire. You’re their target. It takes them 13 minutes to reach you. It Is My Kind Of Top layers different types of noise on top of each other like geological strata reduced through volcanic erruption to magma and steam. In it’s – and the album’s last minute a singing becomes audible as though the very earth were crying out in pain and pleasure.
Noise is a word that is just not onomatopoeic enough – the hard-edged ‘n’ with which it begins isn’t blunt enough, the hiss of its ‘s’ only a narrow hint at the sounds it so inadequately represents. Noise is cathartic, obliterating, corruscating. It’s unwelcome unless it’s welcome. Listen too long and noise becomes everything and anything that isn’t noise is a compromise. Ultimately noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is... (which is of course a vast oversimplification).
The Shape Of Rock To Come is fascinating, detailed, extreme. Its five tracks each explore varying degrees of intensity. Each one would be singularly useful for cauterising wounds.
Lasse Marhaug’s noise undergoes a number of successive phases. Each phase is noticeable at the moment of change, thereafter it’s as though it was always that way. Noise is huge steel objects dragged unwillingly over concrete. Noise is volcanoes erupting. Noise is cleansing fire. Noise is unbearable pain. In the last minute of the 20 minute long Sleeper, a rhythm unexpectedly emerges as though made from bending the sounds that went before it into a particular shape. Then it’s over.
Magmadriver is a different brand of noise, a different species. It’s a plague of hornets so vast that day becomes night. Every single one of those hornets is frenziedly furious and you’re the cause of their ire. You’re their target. It takes them 13 minutes to reach you. It Is My Kind Of Top layers different types of noise on top of each other like geological strata reduced through volcanic erruption to magma and steam. In it’s – and the album’s last minute a singing becomes audible as though the very earth were crying out in pain and pleasure.
Noise is a word that is just not onomatopoeic enough – the hard-edged ‘n’ with which it begins isn’t blunt enough, the hiss of its ‘s’ only a narrow hint at the sounds it so inadequately represents. Noise is cathartic, obliterating, corruscating. It’s unwelcome unless it’s welcome. Listen too long and noise becomes everything and anything that isn’t noise is a compromise. Ultimately noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is noise is... (which is of course a vast oversimplification).
The Shape Of Rock To Come is fascinating, detailed, extreme. Its five tracks each explore varying degrees of intensity. Each one would be singularly useful for cauterising wounds.
Colin Buttimer
July 2004