Coleclough & Murmer - Husk [IRC Distrbution - 2006]Husk seems to hover in an English autumnal rural dread, it emits the smell of decaying plants, potent rotting of fungi. It brings to mind abandoned rusting and decaying corrugated steel farm buildings, walks through moss slippery forest as dusk is just ushering in. odd animal calls that sound like human screams echoing across crisp night air. On offer here are four tracks, Husk the first and longest here at half an hour, Which really does instil the sense of been lost and bewilderment. Possibly awakening finding your self wrapped in polyethylene sheeting in the middle of a wooden area, unsure quite how you got there. It mummers of almost still chimney smoke sliding up into bone white skies from near abandoned house, miles away from anywhere. Yellowed newspapers stuck to the broken windows, there seems no sound as you walk past ,but you can sense someone or something, is pressed against the news papered covered windows listening as you pass. The tracks drone ,organic creaking and errier bell like tones ,seem to have an life of thier own, feasting of it’s self and growing in dread and power. It's always on the edge of something horrible and violent happening, like something suddenly rushing out of rain heavy oak branches at you, but it never does it just dwells on the edge, keeping the poor listener upright and looking around in fear. The other tracks follower similar tone of growing rural dread- all are good, but my favourite is Approaching Purara,with it’s slow evolving sense of uneasy as the drone grows. You feel like you’ve taken a wrong turn in your car or on foot, but you cant seem to find you way back to the main road, you go down one single track road after another , as the trees mesh in tighter above you seemly ,giving the feeling of near dusk. As you slow more and more, you can make out the distinct sound of pigs grunting , but you cant figure out where the sound is coming from. They really have managed to create a really sinister and horrifying feel with the drone element and the modified and twisted sound of pigs. I’ve lived most of my life in the country side, never really finding pig sounds frightening or macabre, but they certainly are here. A shudder inducing trip into dank woodland and decaying farms buildings, where who now what lays in wait for you . To buy your own slice of rural terror direct, go here. Roger Batty
|