Formerly of Volcano the Bear, Nick Mott has been working on his own music for the last couple of years. This single is a mixed result, too short to give a good idea of where he is going yet it contains glimmers of potential. It looks fantastic with Mott’s distinctive collage-work on the cover but somewhat falls down on the actual music. Luckily the limited edition version succeeds where the regular version fails by adding a substantial amount of music to the work.
The main part of Almost Entirely of Nerves and Blood is a single sided 7" featuring the title track. Beginning with abstract rubbing of ridged surfaces over a glassy drone, the piece suddenly pops open with thick electronic feedback. However, as nice as it sounds, it feels like a beginning for something more substantial but isolated on one side of a solitary 7" single, it seems somehow throwaway. This feels strange as by putting so much work into releasing just five minutes of music should point to the importance of the work but "Almost Entirely of Nerves and Blood" never quite gels together for me.
A limited number of singles also come with a bonus CD-R with a 15 minute piece, "Great Swords of Another Age." This is a lot better than single itself as there is enough time for the ideas Mott employs to take root and bear fruit. Sounding like the kind of existential atmospheres that should have accompanied a film like Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, this really could have been a full release on its own (maybe with a bonus 7"). Greyed out soundscapes and dread-filled rhythmic passages come together to make an unreal and powerful trip.
 
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