Flesh Coffin – Borderland

I have understood two things while preparing for this review and listening to this album, thinking about the release, musician and sound. One of the things was about the miniCDr format. I think it is one of the worst and most boring formats that you can possibly release something in. Of course you can go as far as floppy discs etc, but 3" CDr is not far from floppies in its absurdity. The other thing was about the title of this project. Flesh Coffin is the project of Andreas Brandal. His releases were reviewed sometime in the past. This project is oriented more towards noise and horror and not HNW, ambient or so. So I came to the idea that the term Flesh Coffin means the body of a man. Coffin, made of flesh, imprisoned something - soul for those with faith, organs, responsible for vital functions for others etc. Maybe I'm the last person on Earth who came to such a conclusion and sort of understanding, but I'm pretty happy about this. This album with playing time of more than 20 minutes was inspired by the book of William Hope Hodgson called The House On the Borderland. It is a horror novel that appeared in the beginning of 20th century and even H.P.Lovecraft wrote about it as one of his biggest inspirations. One more book that you must read. Two tracks that are on the disc were recorded in the second half of 2009 in The Station, Bergen (I suppose it's the record studio of A. Brandal). Borderland is rich in sounds, overlapping in various forms and layers, merging with each other and suddenly separating and going to opposite directions after the density of sound textures is changed. You can hear field recordings, distant voices, hardly making through the dominant raw distorted texture and the louder I listen to this album, the better it sounds to me. I usually don't like to listen to reviewed music too loud, but it's not possible to do otherwise with Borderland. After first few times that I've listened to this mini disc, I was thinking that this is most likely one of the worse records of Flesh Coffin that I've heard. But to raise the volume level was the main thing that was needed to hear all separate details that previously were simply lost in the murky, monolithic sphere of noise. The first track, going the harsh noise path with sudden turns in sound, reaches the moment where it changes into some sort of industrial with the hidden melody of synth, rough noise, densely layered on top and finally you are left with the crumbled record of junk noise. The formula does not change that much in the second track - many layers of noise, changing, developing and writhing like snakes. Andreas Brandal leaves quite a lot of space for your own imagination, hiding tiny pieces of musical elements under the brute layer of noise. Sometimes they seem to be an illusion, but then they repeat themselves, develop, disappear and suddenly reappear. Distant dripping of water, metal percussions, samples etc. If it wouldn't be the 3" disc, I would recommend this EP as one more proof of Andreas Brandal talent. But now I'm annoyed by this small plastic envelope though I guess you can expect nothing more from the label with such name (not active already). Anyways, the musical side of this is really good. Every time I take the work of this Norwegian guy, I know what I could expect and hope, but every time when my hopes are confirmed, I am no matter what pleasantly surprised and listen to his creations with amazement.

Format: miniCDr
Released: 2010
Label: Suck My Guts Records
Edition: 30

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