PRURIENT “Troubled Sleep” CD, 2003 TRUCULENT RECORDINGS

I remember when some months back I asked Scott ‘Gruntsplatter’ Candey to suggest me a title from his mailorder catalogue. He insisted me on picking a CD entitled “The History of Aids’ that, to say all the truth, I added to my order quite reluctant. A week after the package had come, the disc had become one of my favourite acquisitions of my whole life, and with just a single release in my shelves, Prurient was already one of my most admired projects so far.

Time passed, and the CD span and span and span… until Jeff, the big cheese at Truculent Recordings, sent me a mail announcing the release of a follower and the promotional copy finally arrived home.

Its appearance wasn’t exactly what anyone may expect from an album of these characteristics. The artwork was full of pictures with close-ups of different persons outdoors. In particular, the man and women in both sides of the booklet had a painful and concerned expression. I opened it and found the usual data: ‘Recorded late winter 2001, released summer 2003. Limited edition of 1000’. But besides the most prosaic info, there were three long passages corresponding to the lyrics in the album, and a note: ‘All Lyrics by Jean Feraca from her book Crossing the Great Divide’. ‘Is Feraca the woman behind the booklet?’ I wondered myself.

Once I took the CD out of its case to the player, I was a bit disappointed with the length that the stereo displayed: 28 minutes and 49 seconds is a scarce time for a standard-priced CD, isn’t it? Though, well, considering that $11 is ‘standard-priced’ for Truculent… But once I pushed play, the chopped through distortion, undecipherable emotional musical piece that suddenly attacked my ears in a raging explosion, instantaneously made disappear the rest from my head. Feedback started to yell along the agony of melody… until Dominick is who truly screams in woe with his tortured vocals. Unrelenting power over 4 minutes and 17 seconds that prolongs itself for another minute and a half with ‘Lock’: different approach, but identical strength: dense and fuzzy walls of noise with sporadic lo-fi outbursts and a more growling voice this time. ‘Shades’ supposes an apparent pause because of its initial decrease of sonic saturation, despite the lightning-fast tempo of the opening vibrating layers. Needless to say that it’s a stationary phase, as the piece soon emerges in density for its reduced time of another minute and a half; and next comes the track that gives its name to the album. ‘Troubled Sleep’ commences with exactly the same vibrating sound, like a sort of pile-driver, though mixed in a fuzzy wave with another lo-fi melodic classical tune and feedback buzzes. The subjacent passion of the music surfaces from the prison of the punisher equalization to sporadically show its beauty covered with ruins of deconstructed sound; even during the rawest moments near the end of the piece, between the sharpened voice and the frenetic chaos. As suddenly as it concludes, ‘Glass’ appears; there’s no time for introductory parts or fade outs. This glass commences apparently quite unstoppable, but soon it begins to crash into pieces in a panning speaker play. Rotating explosions and a granular thin layer in the background with an exorbitant volume, as along the entire disc.

During the second half, the length of the tracks enlarges, probably to not dilute the climax between short ephemeral interludes and provide a more remarked thickness. ‘The Zealot’ has a couple of well-differentiated sections. Over the first one, almost clean high-pitched feedback with some low rumbling, and the agonic voice of Dominick on top with some reverb and echo. Not too much is needed to offer intensity but, just in case, the second half turns into a blurred mess of more shrieks, human and machine desperation together as one single cry. Surprisingly, the last couple appears as noticeably different when compared with the rest of the CD: first of all because of their long duration (nothing exaggerated, though: 4:11 and 7:23 respectively), and on second place because of their progressive scheme. Especially in ‘Tambourine’, which starts with low minimal field recordings, while in the background we can hear some object manipulations with a rough textured sound. Near the half, a roaring low drone becomes more and more evident, the same that some windy resonances. It’s a gradual increase until at 2:40 something seems to break again, and we attend the usual Prurient infuriated madness till the end of the piece. And closing the tracklist a concluding epilogue is needed: ‘Tarantella’. Dominick recites the verses of the writer through its distorted serrated voice, nothing else. Even in this case I must confess that it’s hard for me to follow his words with the text of lyrics in front of me. The storm comes from behind, a deep low line approximates but it never arrives to detonate, as the listener supposes. The last two minutes and a half, after voice has finished its part, only the turbulent electrified clouds remain, and you already know by then than everything is gone.

Probably, the fact that etiquettes and rigid styles become inadequate, insufficient and cheap, is part of the grandness of Prurient. Initially anyone would call this Noise in its harshest shape, but we all know how disinclined our friends in the style usually are to include vocals, at least in a recognisable form. Should I call it Power Electronics? Power Electronics raised to the tenth power, perhaps? Power Electronics with such a metaphysic lyricism?! Existential noise then... Well, and who cares?

In any case, searching for J. Feraca in Google I’ve come across the answer in a sentence of the author: ‘You aren’t just a poet when you sit down and write poetry. You’re poet because of the way your mind works’. So Dominick Fernow shouldn’t be considered a ‘noisician’, but a poet, and this isn’t a round piece of plastic anymore, it is just poetry.

Marcos Alcocer

marcosalcocer@sekuenciasdeculto.com