Asylym Symphonies - Mental Disturbances
As some of you might have noticed (Via Facebook), we have a new label to do reviews from. A true underground label from Athens, Greece. E.C.T. stands for Electro Convulsive Therapy and has been in action as a label since 2017, and as a distributor since 2019. The first one we are going to review from E.C.T. is actually a copy I received from the Spanish label Mabre Negre. And why is that you might ask? It´s simply because this act Asylym Symphonies contains members who more or less have strong ties to Marbre Negre. First of we have the founder and owner of Margre Negre, who also is responsible for such acts as Gyakusatsu and Urge To Kill. And then we have the guy behind the fierce HNW-act Barrera and Soma, who also have had several releases out on Marbre Negre. I don´t know who the last member though, a good friend maybe. Nevertheless, we´re talking a 3-men group!
This release is their debut. A live recording during a rehearsal session. No master, no mixing, and no post-production. The release has come out as a cassette and as a CD-R edition. Each physical format has come out in 50 copies. The album contains 3 long tracks, 57 minutes in total! Each track is simply named Mental Disturbance I, II, and III.
The first track Mental Disturbance I welcomes the listener into some kind of huge machine room. Echoed, screaming industrial noise and drones submerge the listener straight into it. Excellent multi-layered industrial with tons of psychedelic reverbed mood. Sort of like a mix between harsh noise and early Italian industrial (MB, Mauthausen Orchestra) if you ask me. I dig it, totally! Atmospheric intense recording, lots of stuff and action going on so far. Hard for me to describe all the sounds and stuff going on, but I'm trying my best! Already with this first track, you get that live-recording feeling. These guys improvise something together (not planned), and it actually ends up with something that sounds great!
Track two and track three continue the same route. But again, with ALOT of sound dynamics and variation. Moving from moods being calm to truly aggressive noisy ideas! It´s not a head-on noise thing like Japanoise but works more as a kind of subtle industrial background noise for your local mental asylum. Look at the cover artwork for SPKs Information Overload Unit while listening to this, it actually does makes sense!
Another thing that I really like about this release is that you can feel (and sense) how these 3 people manage to connect and create a new language of sound on the spot. It´s a purely magickal moment of creativity, which (luckily) was recorded!
Last thing kids. E.C.T. is a strictly obscure underground label. Wanna buy the album? Get in touch with them via the links below, no Bandcamp here folks!
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