Review Summary: Fucking nasty
On
Fully Ripe, Gashkadin toys around with digital instruments to create a chaotic vortex full of sounds that are both haunting, yet impenetrable, signifying that this noise artist has done what he intended to - frequent the realms of misanthropy
and fright. While most of the album is dominated by a few layers of sound that jump constantly between pitch and buzz, a few hidden layers of chilling samples and slower electronics exude almost a dark ambience. This creates an essence that's vital to the album's atmosphere and, in subsequent event, its quality. Considering the conventionally "musical" elements on this twelve-minute-long EP are non-existent, this layered cacophony of sonic distortion is one, like many noise albums, that relies on the mood it sets and how intriguing this mood is. Luckily for Gashkadin, he's gifted in setting up a landscape of black angularity.
Songs include samples that are placed in ways that make
Fully Ripe a more dense and convincing listen, oftentimes throwing you deep into the bowels of labyrinthine catacombs ("Red Wine"). Other times, Gashkadin ends up dropping you into a big whirlpool of whooshing noise bursts and high-pitched squalls - both of which are convincing, but the real problem this EP runs into is that it drags. At first, it's almost hypnotic, but then the tricks that Gashkadin uses to make
Fully Ripe a trance-like listen reveal themselves as tricks and little else. For example, the marriage of tortured shrieks and a disarray of buzz on opener "Foucalt Pendulum," sounds natural, and the track is a perfect example of Gashkadin weaving these trances. However, there are times on the next few minutes where the intense cacophony and the increased theatrics in the samples take away from this effect, leaving Gashkadin in a wall of fuzz.
However, more times than not, Gashkadin is a convincing noise artist whose dramatic flair doesn't detract too much from his abrasive sonic textures. They all coalesce into distinguishable, yet visibly coherent layers in his walls of discordance, and indeed, it transports you into a great abyss of smoke and grit without letting you out of its vehement clutches. It may just be worth staying.
