raxil4 + Harmergeddon
raxil4 + Harmergeddon: 2020
★★★★☆
raxil4 + Harmergeddon: 2020 is available via Bandcamp and is a collaboration between raxil4, a.k.a. Andrew Page, and Harmergeddon, duo Nathan + Polyphoniefae, who’s work is mainly powered by lights and TVs. It was recorded at their HQ (The Welfare Unit) in Romney (Near Dungeness) and released on the 25 September, 2020. It consists of seven tracks ranging in length from the opener, titled “3” which lasts 36min:52sec to track 5 called “c” lasting a modest 2min:43sec. The other track titles are just as intriguing; “1”, “2”, “a”, “b” and “d”.
Andrew Page working in the Beehouse, Finsbury Park
According to Andrew’s Biog he describes himself as a multi disciplinary sound artist, specialising in analogue electronic dronescapes, acoustic audio phenomenon and installation. So the big difference here between a band like Sunn O))) and raxil4 is there are no guitars, keyboards or any other recognisable instruments. What we are hearing is analogue tape recorders, a 1st generation nintendo gameboy, sinewaves and radios that has been heavily processed and manipulated to create the sound. I say this because during our email conversation I remarked that I had seen Sunn O))) play live at the Roundhouse venue on 28 October, 2019. There are some similarities between raxil4 and Sunn O))) but also big differences. I'm always struck by the way this genre can accommodate highly controlled modernist ensembles through to slightly comical pseudo-shamanistic black metal performance. The actual sonic difference between these two events are almost unnoticeable yet the semiotic messages are poles apart. With this recording we have a kind of wall to wall distorted overdriven sound with details flying around the sonic landscape. The only thing I found hard to to contend with was the fact that I was listening through small headphones but imagine this music would be better experienced at ear splitting volumes.
Granted, slow moving drones at extremely high volumes is not for everybody. It's worth pointing out that this form has a steady history of commercial high and lows. Serialism and avant garde jazz structures are often breaking through into the everyday. The early line up of the Velvet Underground was heavily influenced by John Cale who had already spent quite some time working with La Monte Young in The Theatre of Eternal Music. Lou Reed later released the four track album Metal Machine Music that layers feedback to spectacular hypnotic effect. Even the Beatles indulged their drone exploration in Tomorrow Never Knows from the Revolver album.
The Anthology of noise and electronic music Vol#1 on the Sub Rosa label kicks off with a track called Corale (1921) credited to Luigi and Antonio Russolo. The track is over a hundred years old if you recognise that it probably sprang from the early experiments as part of the Art of Noises manifesto published in 1913. But drones have been part of the musical vocabulary from as far back as the Middle Ages when sustained musical notes were used as backdrops for monophonic plainsong chants. Vocal techniques later gave way to Instruments like the Hurdy-gurdy and the bagpipes which took the place of the poor souls who had to sing sustained notes for long periods of time!
Another thought that struck me after listening to the first few minutes of the album was that I was reminded of a comment by Steve Reich who sites that a good piece of structuralism usually reveals its entire form within the first few moments you interact with it. From there it almost negates the need to continue looking at or listening to the piece. For example the artwork by Tom Friedman: 1000 Hours of Staring (1992-97) (https://www.moma.org/collection/works/114939), is made up of a sheet of paper that has been stared at for 1000 hours over the course of 5 years.
La Monte Young’s Dream House project is an ongoing performance of sine-waves that interact, fluctuate and resonate within a building. Its been playing since the 70s but the viewer doesn't need to listen to the whole piece to experience or understand it. Just like a holographic fragment, a single visit contains the genetic of the whole just as a few minutes looking at the piece of paper stared at for 1000 hours delivers the whole effect. One doesn’t have to replicate the same outlay of time to ‘get‘ the piece, the whole concept of the work is present within moments or an eternity.
So what does raxil4+Harmergeddon: 2020 sound like? Well my feelings about this album were overall very positive. After several minutes I started to feel like I was travelling in a futuristic space vessel at super high speed. Perhaps a bit of Silent Running crept into my thoughts, (I put that clip in there to the left ‘cos I love this film and if you listen carefully you can just hear raxil4+Harmageddon:2020 playing in the background) but the sound of roaring engines pushing on harder and harder towards their destination with lots of electronic bleeps and clicks that I could only put down to an ongoing maintenance programme tending to all the the vessels needs. The whole album is fairly relentless with this kind of sonic texture. The only let up is towards the end of the record there are some voices under the sound, just audible, were they part of the recording, who knows? It did give a peculiar scale to the sound; what I thought was a huge volume suddenly had a more reduced scale, something had shattered. It did change my experience of the recording.
I spoke at the start about the Sunn O))) gig at the Roundhouse. Most of the gig was spent wearing earplugs, let’s not forget that two hrs of standing in a space with probably the volume of a jumbo jet blasting your ears ain’t good for anybody. However, the following day I did feel a subtle sense of euphoria which I can only put down to the fact that the physicality of the noise/sound/music left a feeling of a kind of mental defragging, like a reset button had been pushed. It was a very pleasant feeling. I wonder if a gig from raxil4 has similar effects, I imagine it would.
I hope our Le Doc reader might feel inclined to check out this record and support Andrew with his musical project. I for one will keep a close ear to the ground for his future projects.
Chris Tosic
Biography
raxil4 is multi disciplinary sound artist Andrew Page, specialising in analogue electronic dronescapes, acoustic audio phenomenon and installation.
He has performed live all over Europe, many of his performances have been in non traditional venues, often choosing to play spaces with character and interesting acoustic qualities, such as caves, churches, crypts, prison cells, psychiatric hospitals & water towers.
He has also performed live and installed durational works in galleries such as Tate Modern (London), The Barbican (London), The Arnolfini (Bristol), M-HKA (Antwerp), Sonnestube (Lugano), Soundfjord (London) & GV Art (London).
Some of his generative pieces have been discussed in classes on composition within the Royal Academy of Music. The first 400 releases of his back catalogue now reside within the British Library Sound Archive.
