Culver, "The Psychic"

There's something initially not quite right about finding a First Person 3" CD-R release from Lee Stokoe's (Marzuraan, Skullflower) catch-all drone/noise project. The incredibly prolific Culver normally inhabits a world of hazy noise feedback, more suited to his Matching Head label's photocopy wrapped cassettes than First Person's almost cute transparent plastic sleeves.
First PersonFermenting its own black murmur, this bleak single track nurtures in its grooves a well of static. Floating face up in the dead zone the undertow bass strum stirs slowly, too soft for distant thunder this becomes the first of perceptible layers. Subsequent listens provide different peaks and highlight different paths through the coating of sounds. The occasional lapses into almost conventionally musical tones sometimes disappear altogether, like sound peeling away from a lathe cut on its last legs. Heavy bass stones slip through the shaking, buffeting the speaker with blows and threatening to sink it as multiple levels become apparent. The Psychic is a nineteen and a half minute avalanche onboard an adrift ferry, the onslaught almost feeling like a loop at points. It may be dark black, but there is nothing on this release that sounds like it is built to create fear. There is a total absence of malice within this noise, leaving just the unknowable drift.
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