Maurizio Bianchi & Pharmakustik - Zersetzung by Kristian Robert Carter
" the state or process of rotting "
Zersetzung is the German word for decomposition.
Longtime MB collaborator and audio engineer Siegmar Fricke are Pharmakustik and he knows a lot about decomposition. He has been clinically dissecting sound for over three decades, critically analyzing the component molecules of audio data and meticulously documenting the sonic debris. Assembling the shards of sound into towering superstructures of fragile geometry. Constructing monoliths of complex patterns both dense and weighty but possessing an air of fragility as if the huge wall of drone he has constructed could be swept away with a simple flick of the wrist. His digital experimentation is as deep as the ocean itself but just like the ocean waves they pour forth and recede into the distance, in constant movement. Back and forth. Like time itself. Inexorable and unstoppable.
Everything decays.
All matter is in a constant state of decomposition.
One could say that life itself is one slow drawn-out process of undoing.
The moment we are born we begin to fall slowly to pieces.
Our cells divide, break apart and we eventually end up as an atomized dust, returned to the state of nothingness from whence we emerged.
The four tracks upon this beautifully packaged release are the exploration of the decay that Mr. Bianchi recorded on a small handheld recorder. The ambient sounds of his home city of Milan are broken down into granular particles of pure noise and treated with layer upon layer of technology. What was captured in the original field recordings is given a new lease of life by the cryptic mining of the decomposition that is built into everything that exists upon this planet and every single object, person, animal or vegetable that has ever existed?
Pharmakustik strip away the sound of life itself to reveal the slow decomposing collapsing energy of nature and time.
Cracking static and crumbling waves of sound that are enveloped within a huge echo chamber give this album a claustrophobic air. Unusual spirals of noise twist and undulate like medieval mythic serpents, their presence is felt but they never become fully visible. Remaining at the periphery of awareness.
The second track sounds as if waves are crashing onto a vast deserted beach, the wave of sound crunching into the sand and then slowly receding leaving behind freshly deposited digital shingle that crackles with cobalt electricity.
The third and fourth tracks sound as if they have been recorded within a huge decaying industrial complex that is slowly falling to pieces, the individual sections of disused machinery captured and amplified as they are consumed by the passage of rot, rust, and entropy.
Siegmar Fricke hails from Germany and during my research into the term Zersetzung I discovered that the former East German Republic ( DDR ) had a covert surveillance program with the same title.
The Stasi used analog equipment to monitor and police dissidents imposing a sense of paranoia and mistrust in those who were targeted for surveillance.
It is not known if there is any allegorical link to either the process of decomposition and the Stasi surveillance program but one can imagine the sense of claustrophobic weight that was leveled at the surveyed dissidents especially on track three with its muffled voices and helicopter like sounds that flicker and dance across the speakers.
Whatever angle one approaches this album from it is impossible not to be consumed entirely by its dense weight and complexity.
Having worked together for many years Pharmakustik is still finding ways to explore and develop the ideas and sounds of MB.
Highly recommended.
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