Chop Shop - Oxide [23 five - 2008]Oxide’s tense, stark and white neon bleak soundworlds are built from corrupted, decaying and damp ruined taped elements & Over the piece's near on hour playing time a very real feeling of anticipation, dread and starkness is built up, that at times almost reachers fever pitch. The piece is built from layers and textures of tape corruption and decay taking in all manner of muffled, stuck, droning and latter agitated tone. It all starts off relatively stretched out and fairly pedestrian if still very bleak, I guess best described as greyed & pale ambient air. As it progresses the shifting from one texture to another gets more rapid & there’s also a greater layering and knitting together of the sound layers as it gets more suffocating and connored-in in it’s feel. The deeper you get into it feels more and more as if your been slowly swallowed by the sounds stark and muffled presences and increasing weight of atmosphere. It's a dammed journey into stark, draining and bleak space with no harmonic or pleasing textures to be found- this is one of the most airless, mean spirited and hopeless things you’ll ever have audio swam through, yet it keeps you attention fixed unwavering through out it’s decaying and wearing out decline. With Oxide Chop shops Scott Konzelmann has managed to build a draining, sometimes jarring and noisy- but always compelling long shifting sound canvas, which through simple in it's concept is deeply rewarding and replayble. Roger Batty
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