New Humans - Aka-New Humans..... [Semishigure/ Bottrop Boy - 2008]The New Humans are an art/noise collective & this an hour long album offers up two noisy & sawing improvised tracks featuring at there centres the always busy C,Spencer Yeh (Burning Star Core and any number of growing projects) on Violin and modern artists/ string abuser Mika Tajima who handles Guitar, bass , chairs(!) and glass. The pair are joined on each track with different collaborators. Track one is entitled You in the background and is centred on bizarre spoken word almost rhythmic rants and mantra like texts by Vito Acconci -a Brooklyn-based poet, architect, landscape architect, and installation artist. Underneath the spoken words are a bed of sawing, scarping and perching violin tone, subtle and sinister electronics by Howie Chen and crutching feedback waves of guitar. The track certainly mangers quite an intense claustrophobic and demented feel- with Acconci spoken words having a sort of deranged Jello Biafra tone about them. Though it’s effective I felt it rather over stayed its welcome at near on 25 minutes. The second track is entitled Double Negative and starts off with very tight airless, agitated sawing and manic picking from Spencer’s violin which takes up the first seven minutes or so. Then a deep noisy guitar/electronic noise textures by Howie Chen is introduced and let boil & rubble around the violin, slowing growing in pitch and length with the violin almost loosing its way as it seems to splatter and waver. At about the twenty minute mark the noise elements drop out leaving the circling vicious violin for a few moments before adding on the sound of draging chairs, low down bass rumbles and slight clattering drums elements. It’s pretty text book example of what you’d expect from C,Spencer Yeh violin based track to be-it's satisfying enough in it’s self- but once more it does seem a little too long for it’s own good at just over half an hour. All in all an another acceptable if a little predictable addition to C, Spencer Ye every growing discography, With the first track been the most effective and compelling because of the mix of sonics and texts. Roger Batty
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