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 ARANOS
/ MUELLER / ROSENAU
Bleeding in Behind Pastel Screens
2001
CD
Crouton
45:32
A collaboration between Crouton mainmen Jon Mueller and Chris
Rosenau, and Nurse With Wound/Current 93 collaborator
Aranos - a Bohemian multi-instrumentalist with a scary singing
voice, this is at the same time both wilfully difficult and surprisingly
listenable. The collision of styles given here is entirely successful,
as is the mixture of traditional instruments and manipulated sounds -
something that it is very easy to get wrong. The two long pieces that
close the album are particularly fine, with the gorgeous harmonies that
begin 'Now Sparkling Ice' giving way gradually to scraping fiddle and
dolorous, tortured vocals. It is as if a gypsy violinist set up shop in
a science laboratory next to a cathedral, the soaring strings finally
giving way to calculated weirdness, which leads nicely in to the caustic
jabber of 'Boiled Pear'; ten minutes of inspired noise jumble, which sounds
like Matmos put through a food-processor. The crystal-clear recording
gives this track in particular a frozen, jarring, almost painful ambience
that has me in mind of the sudden clarity induced by an alcohol-induced
migraine. Still, enough about tomorrow morning, for tonight these Croutons
have frothed to the top of their successfully blended musical broth. Souperb.
STEWART GOTT - 4 April 2002
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