Review Summary: Disjointed noise; Conjuring up new feeling I haven't felt in music before
'Hell is empty and all the devils are here'
- William Shakespeare
I'm gonna be honest, I came off this record extremely confused. I guess some of that is my part to blame. Coming from a background of pop punk, emo, and other forms of mainstream rock, this was my first forte into music of the Experimental/Noise variety. And what a journey it was.
To the Quiet Men From A Tiny Girl showcases a soundscape and presents a feeling I’ve not yet experienced in music yet. Confused, disjointed, and on-edge.
To the Quiet Men From A Tiny Girl is around 50 minutes long, stretched across 3 tracks. Each are similar in presentation, but present a different soundscape. Lyrics are nowhere to be found besides randomly sampled voices and singing sprinkled throughout, but what it lacks in words more than makes up for it in pure noise. Almost nothing sounds conventional in this album; nothing sounds normal, which makes it such an anomaly to me.
The album opens with "Umbrella Link", the shortest track coming in at a minute and twenty seconds, serving as more of a prelude to the next track than standing on its own. The song starts with heavy feedback filling the silence until a short guitar riff cuts it off, immediately leading into the next track. "She Alone Hole and Open" is where the true sound of the album begins. The track starts off with saws, hammers, and power drills, all of which serve as percussion for the entire album. Randomly, synth noises pop through the percussion and leave as suddenly as they appeared. The song devolves into something I can only describe as hellish pig grunting and saxophone noises until the track comes to a close. Writing it out, it seems silly but the finished product actually works in some respect. It’s cohesive in spite of its dissonance. It just works together to create a mood and atmosphere I haven’t seen anywhere else.
"Ostranenie", the next and final track, begins by piercing your ears; a high pitch permeating throughout the soundscape. Wails come through in the distance in different tones, pitches, and structures. Sampled voices and sound bites pop up randomly and frequently. The song gives off the tone of the album more than anything. This is a dungeon. You are in hell, and slowly going insane. At least, that’s my take on it. Midway through the song, a music box comes through and plays a charming and haphazard melody for a few minutes, until near the end of the song, where the track finishes out with an amalgamation of all the noise heard throughout the album since the beginning until now. Out of the three tracks presented on the album, "Ostranenie" is the most powerful.
The issue of rating this has been plaguing me for the last hour or so. I couldn’t listen to this regularly. I couldn’t see myself ever coming back to it actually. I don’t really like the style of the genre, and I don’t ever see myself liking it. However, I can appreciate this as music, albeit different from anything I’ve heard. I can appreciate the effort, the craftsmanship that went into making such a harrowing atmosphere and tone. While I may never come back to it, I do invite anyone else to listen to the album just once to see their thoughts on it. It’s a different experience and one that may open your eyes towards new tastes in music.
