With releases by the likes of Gnaw, Couch Slut, and Nastie Band, Sleeping Giant Glossolalia has been leading the pack when it comes to extreme sounds from the fringes of the avant-metal scene. An exercise in controlled chaos, Hyrrokkin & Merzbow's collab raises the bar once again, pushing the concepts of "collaboration" and "remixing" out into the stratosphere.
The sound of Faltered Pursuit is a glorious, raging onslaught which often overwhelms like seven free-jazz bands playing simultaneously. Yet, there is deep, hypnotic satisfaction lurking here. Hyrrokkin guitarist Ed Ricart explains how the album took shape, and reveals the hidden order behind it:
"Once we had Merzbow's tracks, the process started with a bunch of listening. I wrote down the time code wherever I saw a good opportunity for us to respond to what he was doing. I found some key pitches that worked within these various sections I mapped out. I assigned a numerical value to each of the pitches. I used a random number generator to output sequences, and we used those sequences to determine the order of the pitches I'd selected, and made a bunch of different tone rows that way. I made a giant matrix of these various sequences. I wanted to pay homage to Merzbow's process, giving some control over to the computer, to allow it to influence my own compositional choices. It was fun to approach the composition process as sort of a nod to the genesis of electronic music, serialism, Stockhausen, etc."
In the summer of 2013, the band recorded the basic tracks for Faltered Pursuit in one afternoon with engineer Bill Skibbe (Protomartyr, Fucked Up, Jack White) at Key Club Recording in Benton Harbor, MI. Pushing the collaborative spirit of the project further, the band invited friends from around the country to contribute new layers to the recording: Jerry Busher (Fugazi, All Scars) tracked additional drums and percussion; Chuck Bettis (Meta-Matics, All Scars, Mossenek) recorded vocals and additional electronics; Andrea Parkins, an integral fixture within NYC's improvised music community and beyond, delivered amplified accordion and electronics. With this part of the project in place, the group then reached out to prolific composer and cornet player Rob Mazurek to completely reimagine their creation for the B-side of the record. Working out of his home in Marfa, TX, Mazurek had free rein to rework the sum total of everything recorded, however he wanted, bringing the entire project full circle to one final layer of long distance reinterpretation.
"It just seemed outrageous and perfect and somewhat hilarious to put yet another remix on the B-side of this record," says Ricart.
Faltered Pursuit is an exhilarating example of the possibilities of collaboration, and the interplay of structure and chaos.
Faltered Pursuit Tracklist:
Spatially Raised, From Seed to Volatility
The new economy 'seemed' suddenly to dissipate overnight
Let's All Dance in a Rigorous Line (Rob Mazurek remix)
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