a r t i s t : KTL (Sunn 0))) & PITA)
t i t l e : KTL
d a t e : 2006
l a b e l : eMego
c a t : eMEGO 084
g e n r e : Ambient / Doom / Black Metal
r l s. d a t e : Oct/2006
t r a c k s : 06
b i t r a t e : LAME 3.97 -v2 (APS)
s i z e : 103,4 MB
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It seems we can't escape the influence of a certain Steven
O'Malley (Sunn O))), Khanate) at the moment. Not content with
giving the world countless albums of horrifically enjoyable
doom drone, he has now decided to team up with one of the
world's most influential purveyors of extreme computer music,
Editions Mego boss Peter Rehberg aka PITA. There has always
been a big difference for me between the world of
computer-aided noise which Mego had made it's core sound and
the more rock influenced noisy abstraction that has bubbled up
to the surface with help from musicians such as O'Malley. Not
just in sound but in the philosophy and the attitude behind
it, where one camp would push the realms of what it is
possible to listen to, the other would at most times sound
like people just trying to make any kind of sound û it just
came out pretty damn noisy for some reason. It is interesting
then to hear this collaboration purely from a historical
standpoint; the two musicians reside in seemingly totally
different areas of the musical spectrum, yet on listening to
KTL it seems like a match made in heaven (or maybe hellà). We
begin the journey with 'Estranged' û a 25 minute exploration
into gothic ambience, which maybe edges closer to Burzum's
ritualistic (and prison-bound) electronic work or the icy
cave-scapes of Thomas Koner than the ear-bludgeoning
noise-fest you'd expect. Slowly O'Malley's guitar is
introduced, creaking and scratching its way into the sound
field and coming up to the fore only briefly in the final
quarter of the piece. A nice way to lull the listeners into a
false sense of security, this cavernous chunk of gloom is
followed by the first part of four 'Forest Floor' tracks,
which with a skeletal finger ushers us into O'Malleys
black-metal inspired world while allowing Rehberg to conjur up
wobbling sub-bass frequencies and horrifying electronic noise.
The second part pushes us more definitely into Rehberg's world
as distorted squeals erupt over O'Malley's bass drones; this
is extreme music as it should be, all-encompassing and
visceral, rich in imagery and deadly in it's statement. By the
time we reach the third part our bodies are already battered
and sliced to ribbons so we are pushed beneath a thick swamp
as Rehberg processes the sludge and doom so synonymous with
O'Malley's name and makes it sludgier andà wellà more doomy.
This is where you realise this is music that simply must be
played at a high volume. Like Tim Hecker's incredible 'Harmony
in Ultraviolet' the distortions and computer-processed sounds
only reveal themselves when the decibel level pushes the point
of discomfort. The fourth and final part of the quadrilogy is
probably the closest to 'proper' black metal, with heavily
distorted riffs bursting through the crumbling noise and
coming across like a Xasthur track playing in a room next
door, I keep expecting Malefic's throaty groans to appear
horrifically on top, but they never come. Now the disc takes a
turn, after the narrative epic that was 'Forest Floor' we are
heralded out of the album with 'Snow', a track which to me
sounds what I imagine it would be like to be trapped in an
underground storage unit in Siberia. It's frightening but at
the same time strangely beautiful, and as chains clank and
metal scrapes against metal you become somehow drawn in to the
intense imagery that has been left exposed. The density of the
previous tracks is sidestepped for a more minimal approach
which strangely enough enhances the terror and dread felt
across the whole disc. 'KTL' is easily one of the most
involving and simply horrific discs I've heard this year; it
marks a disparate new phase in doom music and is the finest
exploitation movie you'll never see. A huge recommendation.
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01-Estranged [24:47]
02-Forest Floor 1 [08:32]
03-Forest Floor 2 [13:44]
04-Forest Floor 3 [09:29]
05-Forest Floor 4 [08:16]
06-Snow [13:02]
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77:50 min