Coelacanth
Mud Wall
CD HMS 003
The Sound Projector
Issue 13
2005
reviewed by Ed Pinsent, 28/10/2004
Here's their other release for this season, a single 58-minute cut.
Helen Scarsdale has rescued this release from comparative oblivion
of its original obscure issue on the Mystery Sea label. Taken from
recordings make at 'a private performance,' Mud Wall is packaged in
layers of opaque, green murk. Three screenprints, half-tone photographs
of extremely obscure shapes, are slid into the jewel case. Each card
is backed with a puzzling prose or poem piece, alluding to water,
minerals, the passage of time... immersion within this 'mudbath' of
clues, visual hints, and of course sound is perhaps the best way for
anyone to enjoy and understand this unique sound-art entity. As both
sources and methods remain cryptic, it's impossible to categorize.
The music simply trundles in with gently fascinating waves, rattling,
churning, and gurgling. Again, without expending reams of useless
prose, may I commend this CD to you all very highly. What's more impressive
about the 'Canth is the quality of air and space that is suggestive
in these very 'open' recordings of theirs - even more so than in the
recent Brent Larner escapade After School Activity. Yet at
the same time, Mud Wall has density and surface. This is
the very converse of the often-claustrophobic world of sealed off,
blocked-in digital music. Wonderful, nearly inexplicable sounds; let
this duo show you the hidden mysteries of life. |
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