The photograph of Edwards that occupies the interior of the gatefold sleeve is interesting, showing the artist at work. A tiny Casio keyboard not much bigger than an iPhone and what looks like a Yamaha drum machine, both of late 70s / early 80s vintage, with myriad effects units and three miles of cable connecting the pedals in an array of permutations, evidently arranged in such a way as to achieve maximum noise. Edwards is an analogue fiend, and it’s not hard to determine his roots lie in the music of acts like Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire.
‘Plekzationz’ comprises four tracks, each spanning a little over a quarter of an hour in time, and a side of vinyl in physical terms. ‘Part 1: Chance Meets Causality Uptown’ features a wandering bassline that’s assailed by electrical currents that soon give way to a full-spate electrical storm, a pulsating cyclone. In the final five minutes a dubby bass wanders back in as drums clatter in infinite reverbs and delay.
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Hot on its heels, ‘Part 2: (No) Escape from ‘79’ introduced harsher tones from the outset, feedback and blasts of noise, quasars, phasers and stun, before ‘Part 3: Inside the Analog Continuum’ evoves around rhythmic submarine echoes scattered beneath screes of sound, waves of chorus and meshes of white-noise and phased ring modulation.
‘Part 4: A Pedant’s Progress’ - which was ‘spontaneously combusted live’ is completely free of overdubs, and shudders around a full spectrum of tones, bleeps and thumps as eardrum-stabbing shards of sound slice through a sonar pulse and rumbling shudders. Mostly it’s repetitive and painful. Which is every reason to recommend it.
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