| Mush Records started as a front of left-field hip-hop (cLOUDDEAD, Aesop Rock, Boom Bip), working in tight affiliation with the Anticon collective. But over the last year or so, Mush has mutated into a wellspring. Octavius' Audio Noir, however, thrusts Mush farther away from its original template than ever before. Which is not to imply Mush ever had a monolithic aesthetic; it's just that Audio Noir bears precious little hip-hop in its DNA. Instead, Octavius dwell in the kind of electronic/post-rock netherzone heard on later works by Massive Attack, Flying Saucer Attack, and Third Eye Foundation. Four years in the making, Audio Noir is the turbulent brainchild of vocalist/programmer William Marshall (aka Octavius). The disc's nine tracks live up to its title; at a time when there's little about which to be optimistic, Audio Noir persuasively captures a mood of impending catastrophe. The album's first track, "Monochrome" fades in with the ominous lethargy of Massive Attack's last two albums, but it tempers that heaviness with David Lynch/Angelo Badalamenti's sublimely morose tunefulness (both get a songwriting credit). Giovanni Cruz and Jason Manuel add sea-spray guitars while Marshall's highly processed vocals rage like a more subdued Trent Reznor. This is what late-80's astral-rock mavericks AR Kane might be doing now if they were still together. Octavius continue to mine a potent doomsday rock vein on "Vacant/Panic," "Speed Limit," and "Artificial Sparks of the Electrical Stripping." On these tracks, Octavius recall boundary-challenging ensembles like Dalek and Techno Animal. But Octavius earn their serious-as-cancer aura without succumbing to heavy-handed tactics. The group find more power in suggestion than in bludgeoning the listener: check out the way they subtly commingle a sense of dread with uneasy calm to chilling effect on "Momentum/Parisian War Song." It takes rare skill to craft a song that carries paradoxical elements like these. Octavius pull this off again on "Artificial Sparks of the Electrical Stripping" a lumbering rock juggernaut that's at once exotic and familiar, ceremonial and introspective, vaporous and heavy. And it's a brilliant idea to contrast hippo-heavy beats with delicately tolling chimes. I haven't heard Octavius' debut album, Electric Third Rail, but, according to Marshall, Audio Noir is "much more a celebration of our influences" than was the previous work. If that's indeed the case, Audio Noir is the rare full-length that benefits from faithful adherence to the band members' record collections. - Stylus |
2XLP/Out Of Print