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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

The Cutmen - Seconds Out [Soleilmoon - 2011]

Named after those whose job it is to treat a boxer’s injuries, waiting until the end of each round for the opportunity to patch up their prize fighter, The Cutmen’s ‘Seconds Out’ pushes its listeners into the ring to do battle across thirteen rounds of punishing home made post-industrial percussion. The team is formed of four highly experienced experimental multi-instrumentalists: its leader, ‘M’ AKA Reeve Malka, who is part of the current line-up of neo-folk pioneers Sol Invictus and co-runs the Tursa label with their founder Tony Wakeford, has selected jazz drummer Stephen Flinn, founder member of the Penguin Café Orchestra Giles Leaman and ritualistic performance percussionist z’ev to join him at the side of the ring.

Their sound is formed of layers of raw, uneven rhythms that loosely lumber like a newly invoked demon. Some are loops of what sounds like short mechanical processes, others bring to mind z’ev’s proprietorial ‘wild style’ of resonant objects swung on ropes, or there’s occasionally subtler sounds like metal sheets dappled by rainfall. Stealthily weaving through the pummelling is a whining bowed glass tone acting like a banshee blithely spurred on by the freeform tribal noise which, more often than not, is joined by obscured speech samples. The only clear clues as to their sources come on the title track, possibly the most affecting of the entire disc that sets Muhammed Ali’s boasts of being the “king of the world” and “the greatest” against exotic polyrhythms drowning in a mystical mêlée. Later, fragments from Enoch Powell stating “wildernesses are good places I notice, for voices, they tend to get a reverberation which is often lost in more crowded places” seem to emerge, contradictorily, from the crowded noises of ‘Horns’.

It most reminds of William Bennett’s recent, astounding ‘Cut Hands’ project that blends African drumming with post-industrial noise – although perhaps this is just because it uses a similar blend of noisy layers with hand made percussive instrumentation – yet in comparison makes Bennett’s ‘afro-noise’ seem polished. ‘Seconds Out’ often comes across as a series of short excerpts culled thick and fast from longer, improvised passages bearing cues from free jazz and horror film soundtracks as well as the post-industrial diaspora. While on the whole it’s a heavyweight onslaught, the rhythms remain infectious more for their many and varied textural and tonal properties than their patterns, playing like a kinetic kaleidoscope filled with choice mechanical detritus, twisting and turning in an abandoned warehouse.

Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5

Russell Cuzner
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