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 LUSTMORD
The Monstrous Soul
2000 (re-issue from 1992)
Soleilmoon/Staalplaat
54:12
UK distribution: These Records
This is a re-issue from the early nineties, first released on World
Serpent, and it certainly sends a shiver of recognition down my spine.
At the time it was recorded Brian Williams of Lustmord
was living in a squat at the Oval, then one of the bleakest areas of South
London. I speak of this from experience, as at that time I was myself
living but a stone's throw away, in a studio flat near Kennington tube.
It was a bitter time: decaying tower blocks, boarded up shops heavily
defaced with graffiti, huge empty ransacked buildings, burned out cars
and the streets strewn with rubbish, smeared with excrement. Those streets
were mean too. Twice in the space of a year I was robbed at knifepoint.
The Monstrous Soul conjures up the gloom and the despair of the
time, its dark booming electronics mingling with sinister references to
devils and demons as real as the ugliness of urban blight and human degradation.
Active since 1980, with strong links to other dark ambient/industrial
acts such as Coil, SPK, Current 93 (also resident
in Kennington at the time) and Throbbing Gristle, Lustmord have
released a string of dense, doomy, high quality recordings. A personal
favourite is the early Paradise Disowned, literally an underground
record in that it was put together in such diverse subterranean locations
as an abattoir, the ocean floor and the crypt of Chartres Cathedral. However,
The Monstrous Soul, with its repeated samples from the cult horror
flick Night of the Demon, and subtle input from Clock DVA
founder Adi Newton, runs it pretty close in my estimation.
STEWART GOTT - 2 October 2000
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