Self-Release / CD/LP/DL / 2023
When you reach for “Ritual/Habit/Ceremony” you have to be prepared for almost an hour of CNC, or Consensual Non-Consent style of entertainment (not to be confused with Computerized Numerical Control, although all in all… it fits too). Chances are you will willingly want to be the sluts of the album. You’ll let it do whatever it wants with you. Not that you have any leverage or choice at all, past the first note ;D
I spent a long time looking for the right quote in Burroughs’ “Explosive Ticket”, one that best describes what’s going on with this album. I got through all the mucus, the smell of musty and decomposing flesh, which is what the narrator exposes us to in the perky glow of sperm shimmering in the spotlight. The mechanics of the tracks are as dynamic as the vivid descriptions of sexual intercourse in the aforementioned middle part of “The Nova Trilogy”….
“He lay surrounded by phantoms from his erotic sexual dreams (sexual and dangerous*) and afternoon masturbatory fantasies, phantoms that kissed him, licked him, caressed him, stroked him – from time to time he took a sip of the thick phosphorescent liquid brought by the guards, which left a burning, metallic aftertaste in his mouth – his gums and tongue were swollen and lacerated with erogenous silvery abscesses – his skin sparkled with a phosphorescent pink lined with a cool menthol note, it burned with a sensitivity pushed to such extremes that a breath of air was enough to make him have an orgasm, and an uncontrollable explosion of diarrheic stool streamed down his thighs – the guard collected his cum into a shiny cylinder – through the transparent walls he could see hundreds of other prisoners locked in similar cells being milked of their cum by guards dressed in white. “
The sexual aspect, of course, is only seemingly the core of my deliberations ;P In fact, in my mind, and now in this text, two experimenters accidentally met. Despite the obvious, that each of them worked on different mater, the two works are almost perceptually similar in terms of their construction. Hence this rather dominant and quite clear association, which I will try to describe here as accurately as possible. I rush to explain ;)
Both Burroughs and Dwyer possess potent amounts of creativity. It is well known that Burroughs in the aforementioned trilogy (and not only) has been playing with the form, repetitive phrases and interlaced this with richly showered with all kinds of discharge scenes of the close-ups characterized, so to speak, by high diversity in terms of their quality and volume.
The peak of diplomacy. There will be no censorship. Dwyer, on the other hand, keeps us tied with a thick cord to a cold wall and changes the instruments with which he brushes our progressively thrill-hungry bodies, at certain intervals, flawlessly locating the most sensitive areas. The strings sound like a lazy morning, and the keys are like an orgy in Teletubbies costumes, on the lawn, in front of the Town Hall. I don’t know why this occurred to me ;) With each minute it gets more and more confident, and the movements become more decisive… As in the case of the dramatic performance of Marina Abramovich, who allowed the audience of the show to be a part of it by authorizing them to variously esperiment with her naked body…
The manner in which the narrative is conducted in both cases is both nonchalant and aimed at warming the coils of the potential victim to the maximum – still in contrast to the extreme message in Abramovich’s case. Over there, the emotions stopped being positive at a certain point, and the whole action turned into a nightmare. And here? It’s just a methodical, patiently conducted action aimed at a light, yet effective, temporary destabilization of the nervous system. But after all, isn’t that what the fun is all about? John distributes the sounds, and then describes them with the words: “This is occult adjacent strain of sound.” so he knows perfectly well what he’s doing. More than that, he is perfectly aware that he is the navigator, the pilot and the ship here. This album is an impression. Fleeting, incredibly alluring and intense.
A round of applause for the orchestra and conductor.
Marta Podoska