Animal PSI Review

High from recent greatness on the RRRecords ‘Portland' 3LP and his own LP on Black Horizons, Pulse Emitter (Portland's Daryl Groetsch) undertakes two live excursions on ‘Deadly Space Missions'. The first, a 19 minute performance from May of last year, is a Bastard Noise blow-out of sooty synthesizers, crackling and gurgling like entrée into some foreign atmosphere; mechanical oscillation is the closest thing to a rhythmic device – and a rather good one at that – the acceleration of which indicates some sort of take-off phasing up and out to a pin-head, blinks out, and then back again with higher frequency. Distress calls and sirens, guttural static and alien winds all take the center in the course of the track, an exploratory work of rich texture and abstract meaning. A soundboard recording no doubt - crystal clear and without room noise - for the sake of calling it “live”, this really just captures the prowess of Groetsch's improvisational and performative abilities - and a possible inability to give titles to his pieces. The other, dated eight months prior, suggests a rawer sound, a slight bleariness caused by the intense vibration which surges in waves; chunky garble battles to stay afloat a sea of deep, slow vibrations, loose channels of hi-end static breaking in every so often over the tracks 13 minute stretch. An audible stretching signifies the end of the track - a literal reach for the end – elongating the vibrations from the beginning at a faster pace, though with a lower frequency throb. Despite the dark themes and the label's suggestion we label this “cosmic fear noise”, the physicality of this music (as opposed to its psychological affect) is rather soothing, reaching for the spine through the temples. Blank white CDr comes in two-panel, heavy-paper sleeve, screened in two-tone with insert. Limited to 200 copies.