see: scanner's mindless
noodling over alphaville), the cremaster in question
is the iberian duo of ferran fages (pictured
bottom right) & alfredo costa monteiro
(pictured right top), true superstars of eai, with literally dozens of
fans EACH. though they usually indulge in traditional instrumentation
(yet still managing to alienate the casual listener), in cremaster form
they're operating in noise country; mixing board & guitar/pickups.
i've seen other cremaster releases referred to as
harsh or painful, but the only one i've heard personally (infra on
antifrost) seems to suggest links more to crystalline japanese eai.
meanwhile, cremaster's holiday in raw
eai takes place in mattin's
(pictured left) home territory; his outdated laptop (which seems to be
a point of pride) feeds back through the internal microphone, which he
then fucks about with in typically obscure fashion; lo and hi-tech
wrangling. on top of that his constant confrontational politicking
(think a drunk, surly cardew) helps set him down
awkwardly between austerity and brutality.
satire
which years of apathy and disinterest in the political arena have
helped me to shrug off immediately. in any case, i guess they had to
admit their ridiculously elaborate packaging wasn't realistic if you're
issuing 3 new albums a month. and liking the album without even the
promise of a free matching t-shirt makes me feel like slightly less of
a whore for the impulse-buys.
Not a collaboration between
Basque laptop terrorist Mattin and cult filmmaker Matthew Barney,
unfortunately (shame – sure he could have done a better job than la
Björk). Cremaster, in case you don't know, is the Barcelona-based
EAI duo of Ferran Fages (feedback mixing board) and Alfredo Costa
Monteiro (guitar and pickups). No surprises here as to what to expect:
lots of decidedly user-unfriendly noise, some of it relatively harmless
– fine static drizzle, sprinkles of pops and clicks – some of it pretty
obnoxious, ranging from howls of feedback to all-out screaming. It's
jolly enjoyable stuff, if you like that kind of thing, wonderful for a
hangover (as in Vyvyan's famous question to Mike in The Young Ones:
"What's good for a hangover?" "How about drinking the night before?")
but if you've got several Mattin or Cremaster albums in your collection
you can probably do without this one. That said, if you have
got several Mattin or Cremaster albums in your collection you're
probably an Iberian Peninsula EAI / noise completist, in which case you
won't want to pass it by.–DW
discography
w.m.o/record label
desetxea net label
www.mattin.org