Amp Studio is the solo project of Richard from AMP. It’s been a long time coming, emerging as it does from the metaphorical vaults and featuring tracks excavated, twisted reworked alongside new material inspired by these luring gems. The end result is a two-disc behemoth that crashes in and demands a certain attention.
Shifting screeds of noise – not drones, but vast sheets of sound which shimmer and roil,
A rolling piano motif repeats endlessly against a grainy hum of noise on ‘Spinfactors’. Gradually, the hum builds and engulf everything including the whispered vocals which drown inaudible in a sea of reverb. ‘Sleep City Drone’ (one of the older tracks unveiled here) has overtones of Throbbing Gristle, as a barely audible beat pulsates beneath a mesh of sound, through which Richard drones, monotone. The lyrics may not be high literature (‘rock ‘n’ roll… washing machine…’) but they work in the context of an album built round reconfiguring fragments of the drab everyday, of the postmodern maelstrom.
Amorphous washes of sound build and turn: it’s the kind of dense mesh of sound that completely envelopes the senses, rendering the experience as much physical as psychological or emotional. As such, any response to the music – such as it is – will be largely involuntary, subconscious.
|
‘Slip’ (another of the older pieces featured here) manifests as a digital explosion with bursts of static white noise and frenzied bleeps shooting in a Brownian motion. It’s a relentless barrage, which makes the cloud-like ambience of ‘Tiller’ perversely seem more impactful and shocking in context.
It’s a remarkable album, and immensely powerful. Certain or otherwise, it sounds more like the destruction of the studio, amps and all, than anything else.
Ampbase / Amp Studio Online
|
