Starless - Lezo
Another release from a new label called Despot (see former review, Edward Sol). This one was released as an only-digital album back in May 2020 on Kathacomb, and then later on it was released on Despot in 2021 as a limited cassette release. This release features an act called Starless, and behind this act, we have a Yuri Samson which also has another project called Kadaitcha (which Kalteldur reviewed back in 2019). Whereas Kadaitcha was a murky drone and dark ambient kind-of-a-beast. Starless seems more in the free-styled electro-acoustic/avant-garde-sound. Lezo is the second release/album with this project, the project´s cassette debut was released back in 2013 on Quasi Pop Records. Please note that the release isn´t on Despot´s Bandcamp page (for reasons unknown), but can be listened to/purchased via the Bandcamp site for Khatacomb.
The first track on the A-side called Entro (think it´s the same as... Intro) starts the track off with interesting free-jazzy clarinets, evocative guitar-work, and pulsating electro-noise. Couldn´t help thinking about some of the most experimental recordings by Cabaret Voltaire and Controlled Bleeding here. Good to hear that someone uses real instruments once in a while.
The next track Lezo offers pulsating white and pink noise, distorted old-school sounds (Throbbing Gristle kind of sound), and some mind-bending kind of percussion... plastic tubes? Z´ev fans anyone? Again, in the sort of experimental sound approach so far, sounds very unique and personal. Lovely atmospheric and organic sound, very old-school industrial feel to it (notice the ritualistic vocals here people!).
The third track with the mysterious title Chudovys´ka brightens your mind and ears with a throbbing sound that sounds like... a tiny smurf/gnome clapping very fast inside your ear! Sounds ridiculous I know, but it actually sounds good. Eerie atmospheric sounds creep in from behind, while a strained and mechanized human being makes creepy sounds in the background. Spooky and distorted doom-trumpets are being present as well! A very nightmarish sort of a track, cannot help thinking of William S. Burroughs Naked Lunch here. So far this album is FULL of surprises!
We flip the cassette and continue with the fourth track called Kvitten´. Still in the area of how dreams actually sound like, if you think about it. How the scenes inside your sleeping mind change like some weird cut-up movie/soundtrack. There are moments on this track that seems gentle, but quickly it changes into something rather horrific/terrifying. A very schizoid track indeed, but a good thing that all the individual recordings stick together (in some twisted way). Again, this album keeps surprising me in a very good way. It´s the art of making a bad trip a good trip going on here!.
The fifth track on the B-side is called Inshiy. Haunting piano notes and intense evocative moods. The perfect soundtrack for a ghost story here. Love the reversed recordings going on... and that slightly angelic feel going on. Not sure if this is heaven or hell here, or both at the same time. Angels to some, devils to others I guess. The sounds, in the end, mechanized rumblings from some weird machine with ghosts inside... brilliant!.
The last and sixth track is called Saga. Mysterious Ukrainian spoken words, percussions, and clarinets. An evocative piece that again sounds like something from a movie, imagine a Ukraine film-noir with a hard-boiled detective. He doesn't speak in a tone that his desire is to make people happy, but more in the way of just telling how things REALLY are. Like that hard-boiled detective telling you the secrets of the town of a bottle of bourbon. A very good recording, if Laibach would do something similar like this then I might consider listening to them again! Very very very good!
A 100% brilliant album with all the tracks being good. Highly free-styled and experimental, but with a clear conceptual focus. The sound is incredibly good and well-recorded... you can almost taste the sounds in the mouth at times! The whole album sticks together like glue, but at the same time... each track is an independent piece in itself. Tons of reasons for you to check this album! For fans of Throbbing Gristle, Controlled Bleeding, and Laibach.
Bandcamp (Label):
Discogs (band):