Aural Rage
Even amongsome of Coil's most zealous advocates, works like "Windowpane" and "TheSnow" are considered somewhat aberrant, their adherence to then-currenttechno norms seemed a deliberate step into the mainstream, not astrategy for which Coil are generally known. Much of this fixation onthe reconfiguration of dance music was brought to the group by DannyHyde, so it should come as no surprise that his debut solo album A Nature of Nonsensesounds a lot like that phase when Coil seemed to be spending a lot oftime tripping at London discos. Those dark, synthetic strings,programmed rhythms, shuddering MDMA-filtered beats, acid gurgles andinsect buzzes are all over the album. Unfortunately, this means thatthe album sounds a bit uniform and dated in the same way as "The Snow"does now. Also, like many talented engineers who create their ownmusic, Danny Hyde seems overly dependent upon the gear and software heuses, producing many tracks that sound more like in-store demos forelectronic music gizmos than they do like fully-realized songs. Hyde'smaximalist approach, with a dense beatscape overpopulated with layersof samples and sonic detail, recalls The Orb and Meat Beat Manifesto,only not as polished or interesting. This is something of adisappointment coming from someone who worked on such stunning Coiltracks as "First Dark Ride" and "Nasa Arab." Aural Rage turns in itsown interpolation of the latter track with "Nasahara Arab," a pointlessrefabrication of the original that adds layers of unnecessary busy-nessto the track. Another reinterpreted Coil track fares slightly better,the noisy forward momentum of "Unhealthy Red," based on the Coil piece"Unearthly Red" from Live Four. Two tracks featuring vocals bythe late Jhonn Balance are strong points for the album, thoughBalance's voice sounds incongruous placed amid hyperactive compositionsfilled to bursting with extraneous sound effects. On "FJ Nettlefold,"Balance performs a remarkably possessed vocal, but Hyde miscalculatesby overprocessing and adding Dead Can Dance female backing vocals thatsound ludicrous in this context. Still, it's wonderful to hear Balanceagain, in whatever form. Hyde seems to enjoy a good bit of humor,whether it's Stephen Hawking's computer voice proclaiming "Physics isall very good, but me, I'd rather get wood," or a cut-up of everyone'sfavorite tyrant George W. Bush on "Dubya Does One." Problem is, thesegags visit well-worn territory, and in the case of "A Nutter at Radio3," the jokes are just plain stolen, uncredited, from Trunk Records' Dirty Fan Male.I don't want to be overly cruel to an album that is plainly a verysincere DIY enterprise, but from the rather ho-hum name of the projectdown to the hack-job sleeve artwork, A Nature of Nonsense suffers from a dearth of actual ideas, not an uncommon problem for music made by engineers rather than artists.
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