P/O Massacre + Alex Buess + Merzbow
Aural Corrosion
WV Sorcerer Productions label
2xLP (colored and black 45 rpm + CD inside / DL
https://wvsorcerer.bandcamp.com/album/aural-corrosion
Pre-order is open
Official release date - March 3
The Wire review by Phil Freeman:
P/O Massacre is the duo project of Anton Ponomarev (saxophone/electronics) and Anton Obrazeena (guitar/electronics). Their music relies on signal chain manipulation as much as notes and compositional strategies; on their self-titled debut album from 2021, Obrazeena's guitar ran through two guitar stacks and one bass amp, while Ponomarev's tool kit included pedals, Moog processors, spring reverb, drone effects and more, travelling independently through the left and right channels of their PA system. The result was a floor-shaking, skull-vibrating, constantly transmuting roar, part Borbetomagus-like free jazz, part Merzbow-esque noise. This follow-up brings a pair of impressive guests to the party. Its first third ("Chanting The Resonances Of Atrocity") features additional electronics from Alex Buess, who was a member of Swiss noise jazz trio 16-17 and Kevin Martin's industrial dub metal crew Ice, and also worked with Paul Schutze. The second part ("Anti-War Music") is a collaboration with Masami Akita himself. The CD and digital versions feature bonus track "Nonslaught", created by Ponomarev and Obrazeena alone. The collaboration with Buess is the more conventionally musical, albeit abrasive, of the two. Obrazeena's guitar sounds like a guitar, cutting through with clanging post-punk chords, ultra-sludgy doom riffs, and echoing tones like signals sent through clouds of poison gas. The electronics are dubbed out, with static and distorted samples pulsing in a way that recalls Autechre at their most mean-spirited. There's almost no saxophone until the second half, when Ponomarev wails like a dinosaur mourning a dead child, but there are breakbeats and a 4/4 techno thump deployed like land mines. The Merzbow collaboration is much more about overpowering the listener with massive whooshes and roars, but there's a frantic beat at the heart of it all. It's like listening to a set by Pan Sonic played from inside a sandstorm.
Phil Freeman,
The Wire magazine,
March issue 469
