Ptomain - Ptoma [Toxic Industries/Irritant Series - 2010]This release takes it's name from one of medical terms for a corpse, and the cover artwork for this brutal yet ghoulishly intense HNW release nicely follows the titles theme with a picture of an uncovered mummified & leathery corpse. Ptomain(which is another medical term for a type of putrefactive bacteria, or form of poison) is a german based project that over the last two years or so has released twenty plus releases which have taken in full lenghts, split tapes and a great twelve inch split with Vomir. This is the first purely Ptomain release I’ve heard after hearing a few of the projects splits, and I have to say this is a solid and worthy HNW release. On offer here are two untitled twenty minute tracks that serve up thick, brutal and unrelenting HNW submersions- I guess each track is the sonic equivalent of been submerged into either boiling-water or boiling-fat for a length of time. The first track’s ‘wall’ is a mixture of crunching juddering ‘n’ rapidly frying static tone, with the track having a wonderfully full and completely overwhelming feel about it. It all starts off very full and crushing, and stays that way right until the tracks bitter end. Through-out the 'wall' you can make out subtle shifts and alterations in the tracks dense judder structure,yet nothing ever breaks the tracks complete white-out. The Second track’s ‘wall’ is once more very dense and suffocating- it’s built around a slightly higher pitched, rapid and more static bound judder ‘n’ jitter than the first track. This track also has quite a snaking and almost juddering groove to it’s make-up, like it’s feasting and devouring all the other sound around your listening space, yet it’s still very full, dense and unstoppable as the first track. This ‘wall’ has less movement and shift in it’s structure, though at times it feels like it has; but this is just down to a good show of interlocking structureal depth. So “Ptoma” severs-up two very full, dense and totally unforgiving slices of brutal wall–making- it's guaranteed to blow-out and annihilate the sound of the world around you. Just shut your eyes and let the constant and unbreacking static churn feast and devour your brain….just like the Ptomain bacteria itself. Roger Batty
|