Hymen
The fact that there are disproportionately few female artists making hard electronic (or any electronic) music is both a blessing and a curse for Rachel Kozak, aka Hecate. She gets to stand alone in a room full of boys on most occassions as the only woman ready to rip up the decks and bring the noise, but I have a feeling that too often her work is judged on a different scale or with different rules because she is such an anomaly. To be fair, Hecate plays directly into the interest in her feminity by referencing cruel and powerful women in her work, and by sampling what sound like evil witches who fly out from the speakers at 180 degrees from dark music's normal horror samples of women screaming at their own impending doom. In fact, the "I WILL kiss your mouth" sample in "Nest of Vipers" is downright chilling, and a bit like listening to a role-reversed rapist threatening her victim. It's this kind of play on gender roles and worship of the power of women in the occult that gives Seven Veils of Silence its unnerving power. As the album rolls on, it begins to feel like a horrific and sadistic feminist manifesto played out with exotic middle eastern and Indian loops and spastic distorted beat programming. Hecate dials down the danceability for Seven Veils in favor of atmospherics and the frantic, nervous rhythms of ritual. The beats sound more like the pounding drums of blood rites than the breakbeats of her previous work, and while there's still a firm root in the world of manipulated and cut-up breakbeat music, the goal here is surely miles away from the dancefloor. Ambient interlude tracks combine monsterous growling and the squall of back-masked demons set to throbbing bass synths, but serve only as moody segues to the tunes where Hecate does her real damage. This kind of focus on bleak soundscapes, anguished samples, and tortured drum beats isn't going to be for everyone, and repeated listenings have burnt the images of scorpion nests and poisons and black angels in my mind enough that I won't be seeking out similar material for a while. However, this is an accomplished and well-rounded disc that makes a perfect Halloween soundtrack to scare the kiddies, and a good album for those times when you feel like exploring your evil, seductive, corrupted, and ultimately powerful feminine side
The fact that there are disproportionately few female artists making hard electronic (or any electronic) music is both a blessing and a curse for Rachel Kozak, aka Hecate. She gets to stand alone in a room full of boys on most occassions as the only woman ready to rip up the decks and bring the noise, but I have a feeling that too often her work is judged on a different scale or with different rules because she is such an anomaly. To be fair, Hecate plays directly into the interest in her feminity by referencing cruel and powerful women in her work, and by sampling what sound like evil witches who fly out from the speakers at 180 degrees from dark music's normal horror samples of women screaming at their own impending doom. In fact, the "I WILL kiss your mouth" sample in "Nest of Vipers" is downright chilling, and a bit like listening to a role-reversed rapist threatening her victim. It's this kind of play on gender roles and worship of the power of women in the occult that gives Seven Veils of Silence its unnerving power. As the album rolls on, it begins to feel like a horrific and sadistic feminist manifesto played out with exotic middle eastern and Indian loops and spastic distorted beat programming. Hecate dials down the danceability for Seven Veils in favor of atmospherics and the frantic, nervous rhythms of ritual. The beats sound more like the pounding drums of blood rites than the breakbeats of her previous work, and while there's still a firm root in the world of manipulated and cut-up breakbeat music, the goal here is surely miles away from the dancefloor. Ambient interlude tracks combine monsterous growling and the squall of back-masked demons set to throbbing bass synths, but serve only as moody segues to the tunes where Hecate does her real damage. This kind of focus on bleak soundscapes, anguished samples, and tortured drum beats isn't going to be for everyone, and repeated listenings have burnt the images of scorpion nests and poisons and black angels in my mind enough that I won't be seeking out similar material for a while. However, this is an accomplished and well-rounded disc that makes a perfect Halloween soundtrack to scare the kiddies, and a good album for those times when you feel like exploring your evil, seductive, corrupted, and ultimately powerful feminine sidesamples:
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