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PT14

VEYOU - Swamp Hag  CDr

1. (29:11) mp3

Basementronics by Nick Hoffman and Stephen Holliger.
50 copies
Released October 2011

OUT OF PRINT



REVIEWS:

The Sound Projector (Ed Pinsent)
January 2012

Last heard from the American sound artist Nick Hoffman in September with a couple of very subdued and inexplicable releases, still amazing the crowned heads of Europe to this day. Here he is again as one half of Swamp Hag, teaming up with Stephen Hilliger to create the half-hour CDR Veyou (PILGRIM TALK PT14). The cover drawing is also by Nick. With its EC Comics styled lettering, and its melted distorted face of a forked-tongued and fanged demon with rheumy eyes, this artwork makes me think I’m going to get a blistering noise assault the second I press the play button. Instead, Veyou turns out to be a beguiling session of what the creators call “Basementronics”, which I assume means a form of live electronic music made in a dark and dank cellar, hopefully by candlelight for added atmospherics. This lumpy non-musical sludge seems to ooze out of the pores of gigantic grey ogres rather than resemble anything produced by mankind, and you almost feel you could take a bath in it (although it would be a very slimy and sticky bathing experience, admittedly). Quite some way from the brutal Wolf Eyes school, this brand of low-key noise dispenses with the rock-music elements such as aggression and loud volume, and it just grumbles away very mysteriously, manufacturing its own peculiar brand of uglification. Photograph of set-up on the inside (if indeed that’s what it is) suggests that the process involves sending and repeating signals through mixing desks and pedals, generating mutations as needed.

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