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 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Cory Strand - Everything Louder Than Everything Else( Infinity p [Vagary Records - 2013]

"Everything Louder Than Everything Else" finds this Minneapolis based noise and ambient artist in his extreme pop song deconstruction setting again. As he takes recognisable tracks & turns them into mostly unidentifiable journeys into extreme drone, walled noise, and HNW/ambeint crossbreeds.

For this release Strand is using the work of theatrical pop rock singer Meatloaf, and in particular three tracks from his 1993’s chart topping comeback album  Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell. He  is utilises elements of the world wide hit “I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)”, along with elements from two other tracks  from the album, and these come in the form of "Life Is A Lemon (And I Want My Money Back)", and "Everything Louder Than Everything Else"( which this release is of course named after). The C60 tape features five tracks in all-three on side A, and two on side B.

Opening up side A we have the just over twelve mintues of “I’ll Do Anything For Love”. The track opens with a mixture of ragged ‘n’ violent billowing thickness, which is pock marked ever so often with buried clangs- fairly soon these fade, and we're left with the blurring & reverb shuddered billowing textures. As the track progress this blurry ‘n’  juddering looped harmonic haze starts to build and slowly   take over the sound mass of the track, until you’re left with a dense juddering wall of shimmering harmonics.  The tracks ok, but really I just felt like it was a fairly standard take on walled noise meets shimmering ‘n’ hazed  ambience- Stand has done this type of thing much better in the past on releases like Three Pieces For Lindsay, or his Love Katy collaboration Just Wanna Try You On.

Next we have the just over ten mintues of “But I Won’t Do That”, and this track starts out with a thick, churning & ragged shapeless billow- this seems to be continual descending, as Strand layers in subtle buffeting ‘n’ battering sub-tones. As the track progress you start to hear slightly more shape to the textures, but they never get fully defined.  The  whole ‘wall’ has a nice blunt & blurred feel to it’s ragging brutality, so at times one has difficult to defining it’s true shape, or textual patterning. I found this a lot more satisfying than the first track.

Lastly on side A we have “Every Night Of My Life”, and this comes in at just over the six & a half minute mark. This track is sequenced directly in from the last track, and it conists of a mixture of fixed billowing ‘n’ juddering walled noise, which is endless hazed by a stuck AOR keyboard or piano tinged loop- this creates a interesting mix of brutality, and stuck almost Reich like harmonic flow. This again is another rewarding track


Over onto side two, and first up we have the just over twenty & a half mintues of “Everything Louder Than Everything Else”. This tracks opens with the untreated chours sample from the song of song of the same name- then Strand starts to loops the chours sample over & over again. Mixed with the loops are these swirling’ ‘n’ churning noisy sub-tones- these subtle at first, but slow grow more noticeable.  As time passes the track gets more warped & noisy, as the churning & swirling elements get more entrenched, and the song loop fades. By the 11th minute the sample loop has all but faded to a distant semi recognizable churn, and we’re left with just the churning ‘n’ swirling textures, which just get more blurred & weathered as times goes on. Again this was another rewarding track, which shows Strand using a fairly simple set of textures to great hypnoitc effect.

Lastly we have the just over eight mintues of “Your Future Is Defective”, and once again this sequenced directly in from the first track. The piece is built around thick ‘n’ brooding judder, which has quite cold industrial undertone to it. Just at the edges of the track you can make out this mysterious ‘n’ moody ambient element, but it’s often really difficult to fully define it’s pattern, as Strand has deeply buried & washed it out. This track works as a great brutal yet atmospheric end to proceedings


For the most part this is another worthy chapter in Strand's pop song deconstruction work, I just found only the first track somewhat of a let down. But the other four tracks each offer up effective ‘n’ creative hypnotics, and blurring/ rewarding at times harmonic repetition.

Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5

Roger Batty
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