So, the press info for this album contains the words ‘Berlin techno’. I fucking hate techno. Well, that isn’t entirely true. I’ve had some stonking nights out listening to drum ‘n’ bass at 130 decibels and I love DJ Shadow’s hip hop-infused sonic manipulation as much as the next total music geek. But Berlin techno? Erk, it has me reaching for the off switch faster than you can say ‘ich bin ein Dummkopf’. But Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element, on the other hand, have struck upon a marvellous idea. And that is to bypass all that ‘oonst oonst’ crap, take whatever is still relevant about electronica and fuse it with a love of all things Jesu. You’d think that it would be all pulsey, scattershot beats and clangy, minimal guitar, with perhaps layers of obscure samples and effects undercutting the whole deal. And you’d be right.
Surprisingly, things start out quite timidly on opener ‘Godzilla vs. Kathleen Hanna’, but by the time we reach ‘I Love You Every Time You Smile’, we are definitely copping a Shellac-are-our-guitar-heroes kinda vibe, along with a very post rock ethic (right down to the nuisance-length song titles). Things take a turn for the misanthropic with ‘Call This Number If You Hear Noises’, and it’s perhaps my favorite of the album, so far. At this point I’m wondering who this type of music would appeal to and I’m not having a lot of success. It’s a formula that shouldn’t really work on paper, and seems like even more of a nightmare to pull off convincingly. Then along comes a track like ‘Girl Thief’. More overtly sample-fuelled while retaining its fair share of the album’s chaos, it also drips with Fugazi-style intent. Some songs are more pointless, though, such as ‘Sputnik Was The Start Of All This Peculiar Weather’, which feels like panic stations at a nuclear power plant and has me instinctively running to my shelter.
More often than not, Box Three, Spool Five resembles Mr Broadricks’ dark, sinister alter ego (the one with the heart of pure evil) – Godflesh. Granted, it does kind of fizzle out towards the end: I think the slow build/sudden freneticism of ‘A Word About Panic Attacks’ is the last high point. And there are also a few lost ideas in there, scratching around trying to find a way out, but with music as claustrophobic as this, it’s hardly surprising. As I’ve been alluding, this is very leftfield stuff and on the whole about as accessible as Fort Knox. But if you can unlock the album’s complexity and wilfully obtuse prerogative, it is, to stick with the analogy, pure gold.
A new compilation featuring several Oxford artists has just been released by French label Rabeat’s Cage, run by former Alesiachair member Jeremy Moors. The album, Premiere Evasion, includes Jonquil, Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element, Hreda and Cogwheel Dogs alongside several French artists, and is available for 12 euros here. The full tracklisting looks like this:
