HINAGESHI BONDAGE “Pariisi Vuonna 1959” CDr, 2001 NIHIL MARKET

And with this one we end our review of the complete Nihil Market series (look for Sshe Retina Stimulants and Depther in this section as well) with this Finnish duo, probably more familiar to some of you because of their Verdura Records label.

Every title is in Finnish, but I’ll comment each track separately anyway, in order to depict the varied content of the disc more easily; this way you can go directly to the song I’m referring to. Well, ‘Lähestyminen’, the first one, is rather simple: just a minute and a half of high-pitched feedback with slight variations; it’s not absolutely ear-piercing because the volume is not completely loud, but the tone is wounding enough. Then we have ‘Jumala On Kauneus’ with some few seconds of more feedback to be followed by a repetitive loop that will keep on incessantly for more than five minutes. It’s rather melodic but distorted, giving a more textured impression to it. Other samples are added, in a looping mode as well to complement the main one; as a sort of feminine voice, for instance. The general impression is essentially cold and somewhat flat due to the small amount of samples intervening, but for some reason it works in a paranoiac and somewhat obsessive way. The principal loop gets a more lo-fi quality and changes its tempo and pitch in the end, as like sounding in a turntable losing power. And pay attention to this little detail, which is pretty eloquent due to the fact that Hinageshi Bondage obtains most of their sounds from this source, turntables, together with electronics, guitar and voice; which explains the rounding character of some of their efforts, like in this second piece. The third is ‘Viilto’, which fades in again in a cyclic manner, but this time harsher. Like happened before, there’s some additional sample that comes out during the second half of the second minute; but towards the fourth one, the tone varies dramatically into a deeper one, and again looped, distorted as well and there’s no too much variation from here until the tenth minute, when the track ends, because the very small variations appear so fluidly that are almost unnoticeable, the whole fading away slowly for a minute or so in the end.

Now some things change for a while. In ‘Virvat’ the prior gritty layers disappear and we have an almost tribal rhythmic percussive pattern (yes, it seems a turntable) plus dynamic layers of feedback in the background, together with something sounding like a filtered voice. The result is pleasing and dissimilar when compared with the first three cuts. After this, ‘Sävyt Tanssivat’ commences with some noise and a symphonic sample till the first half minute and the apparition of feedback raging violently in a loop. Some noise bursts sound randomly in a lovely manner, making of this composition one of the rawest in the album. The final is especially remarkable, with some sort of powerful interferences, and finally is the initial musical sample what remains. ‘Planeetta Kuume’ is fairly brief, just a minute and a half: even a bit shorter than the introductory song. But on the other hand is probably the most active one, with a monotonous bass in the background, but the focus are the multiple factory-like resonances, highly echoed and reverberated. The seventh track, ‘Pariisi Nukkuu’, has opening bursts through a pronounced delay, and then an industrial thick wall takes the main and unique role, save for some mysterious note emerging periodically from within the sonic chaos. Throughout the fourth minute there’s an additional loop, this less harsh than the rest as well. It’s followed by some hard-to-be-identified sounds, but what’s important here is how the massive pandemonium produces a shelter of frequencies. Again the track suffers some slight variations in the last seconds to end smoothly. And ‘Paine’ concludes with the lowest atmospheres of all. Extremely calmed repetitive bass with deeeeeeeeep reverberations making your room rattle; just play it loud and get pleasure from the heavy low cover, more and more prominent with the development of the piece.

Even if ‘Pariisi…’ probably won’t be chosen as the album of the year in every mailing list, its final result is peculiar and entertaining enough to deserve the investment of your hard earned euros in it. Different and varied, easily of being enjoyed if you’re into Experimental electronics, and for sure appealing for the most curious part of the audience. Probably, the final product is not especially dynamic, but surely they never pretended it; its virtue seems to be the way they arrange the looping structures within the whole compositions.

It will be nice to hear more of the project in the next future; and we can say the same about Nihil Market, which has been quite inactive since the edition of the already referred releases, that put out a classic act and two newcomers with sufficient potential to provide more surprises soon. Very nice once more.

Marcos Alcocer