Jazzkammer/Howard Seltzer - Tommorrow no one will be safe [Pacrec - 2007]Tommorrow no one will be safe brings a track a piece from Norwegian noise collective Jazzkammer & Usa Electronic artist/ tape manipulator Howard Seltzer & then a one joint track. All of the tracks were recorded on the pairs tour in 2004, and offer up a creative and varied take on improvised music, noise and bizarre soundscapes. Jazzkammers’s Requiem for Officer Bobby Barker opens up the disk, it starts with muffled dragging noise and discordant guitar lite picks of sound and a dry eerier sound like gas escaping, then a ever now and ten bass line appears, that never quite forms it self into a loop. They really build up a wonderful odd and broken anticipation filled soundscape, that keeps feeling like it will suddenly explode as it get more and more agitated and tense the gaps in sound filling in, the gas sound and distortion throb building on it’s self, but it still keeps almost stopping, before building the tension back up once more, towards the end it builds up to almost extreme metal like loop pounding as chainsaw like tones rip and tear away above the rhythmic battering. Next we have Howard Stelzer's Last night at Bld, which again starts off relative tame, as we make our way across an disjointed landscape of a unspooling and ripping tapes, buzz and wine of dieing electronics and robotic like chatter. There’s also the element of a sweet/sour drone pitch hovering in the chaos. The track never goes full over board there’s still control, giving a very claustrophobic feel like been sealed in side a box with these strange jittering and stretching tones and noises. It all finish off with some rather satisfying grainy speaker feedback and swirling and scream tape unreel. Lastly we the collaborative piece and the title track Tomorrow no one will be safe, Which enters with a nice doomy bass line, tape rips and screams, really build quite feeling of dread. Before flipping in the sound like a broken iron lung trying to madly pump, tape whistles and stretch weather whitened washed-out haze guitar. The bassy like sounds appearing again as the pace picks up, but in a more droning and loose plucked form , they throb in grim wonder and the asthmatic percussion tries to keep up and stretch and swirls of tape run back and forth in panic fashion. Before diving into some nice Sharpe slopes of guitar feedback high pitchness at the six minute mark. Midway through the track we drop into this strange sort of black and white nightmare feel, as dieing machine drone pounds on and discounted voices and human sound flow and drive through the sound air, this downbeat subdued and eerier air stays pretty constant until the end, it feels like wondering through long abandon apartment corridors, dust caked windows look out into the grey and featureless skies. A rich and rewarding collection of erratic and often doomy soundworlds, played out with real control and depth of sound. Certainly not for those looking for all out noise attacks, but for those wanting more thought out and detailed noise craft, you can't go wrong. Roger Batty
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