Review of Slaughterhouse in Diskant
How many albums do you know of that were recorded in an abattoir? The noise/drone duo Terry Burrows and John Bowers answer that question under the name of Tonesucker, whose 2006 album ‘Slaughterhouse’ captures the intense claustrophobia of a filthy parade through an abattoir. The album opens with a monolithic guitar chord repeated every twenty seconds, the track’s title ‘Hook’ ominously punning on the portent of the horror that the listener / cow awaits. As the song develops there are some wonderfully weird guitar crackles that begin to burn then gently fizz out – just a sample of the great tones and effects the two guitarists Bowers and Burrows achieve in this album. One of the most nerve-wracking songs imaginable is ‘Crush’: a glacier-slow raising of pitch and tension, which achieved (I would guess) by gradually moving a slide up the guitar’s neck. On ‘Slice’ the duo treat us to hypnotic wavelength vibrations – that underlying hum synonymous with Earth and Sunn O))). It’s amazing to think ‘Slaughterhouse’ was recorded with just guitars (plus pedals and amps) – the array of sounds squeezed out of a couple of the instruments is immense. It’s an incredibly intense listen packed full of triumphant droning and delicious noise. According to Terry the final product of ‘Slaughterhouse’ insisted on “tortuous amounts of audio sculpting” – all worthwhile in a particularly effective four songs. Listening to this album makes you wish there was a drummer somewhere in the mix, and lo, Tonesucker have done the right thing. Drummer Steven Elsey joined earlier this year, and the band will surely benefit from this addition. Pascal Ansell.
Live Review in Music Works
Tone Deaf 4 Kingston, Ontario.
October
14-16, 2006
By Kristi Allik and Julie Fiala
This year's instalment of Tone Deaf, curated by artist Matt Rogalsky for the
Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre, had an eclectic line-up of practitioners, including
performance artists as sound artists, video-sound investigators, guitarists
as noisemakers, electro-digital gurus, and other cross-genre performers...
... Mike Cassells, composer, jazz musician, improviser, and member of Tonesucker, a live electronic ensemble from the United Kingdom, played a session of long-distance musical improvisation connected in real time via the Internet. This improvisatory piece started quietly, with ambient sounds and quiet drones, followed by an abrupt introduction of atonal, rhythmic, and penetrating drones. Cassell's sonorities provided a tonal foreground to the noise-like sounds of Tonesucker's music. This gradually evolved into a more chaotic, dense climax, gradually becoming more pitched and tonal. Real-time musical performance and collaboration over the Internet is certainly challenging, due to issues such as the transmission delay time, the lack of visual contact, and the limited bandwidth. This performance provided by Cassells and Tonesucker, however, gives a taste of the possibilities.
Read full review
Hear the
Tonesucker/Mike Cassells performance
here
[Photograph courtesy of Matt Rogalsky.]