Polyartist Michael Hann returns in his Rejections guise with another set of immensely dark ambience with beats. Anyone who’s ever encountered his writing or previous musical outings will be aware that he’s not only unafraid of venturing into the depths of the unknown, but positively relishes teetering on the brink of the void of blackness of his own making. With a title straight of of the JG Ballard catalogue, ‘The Vertical City EP’ (a reference / homage to Ballard’s 1975 novel ‘High Rise’) finds him pushing forward intrepidly into the black abyss and re-emerging triumphantly.
The titles of the four tracks on this cassette release - taken from chapter titles in Ballard’s dystopian novel - are indicative of the mood: ‘Critical Mass’; ‘Death of a Resident’; Body Markings’; Blood Garden’. We’re in dark and brutal territory, more Prurient than ambient. Whirs and clicks, subliminal pulses and supersensory frequency modulations drill the listeners’ cranium while aggressive percussion assaults the senses more than it provides rhythm. ‘Body Markings’ witnesses a squall of noise over a deep grove that cuts through bone and sinew: it’s fucking brutal but it’s unquestionably compelling
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Things take a turn for the Test Department on the final track, ‘Blood Garden’, its aggressive percussion balanced by a swirling nuclear wind that chill the bones to the very marrow, wrapping up a release that’s bleak but utterly enthralling.
Rejections Online
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