Published by Alessandro Violante on May 25, 2016
“Nothing is better than a humming powerplant“. So the founder of Futurism, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, wrote in the famous 1914 essay “Lo splendore geometrico e meccanico e la grande sensibilità numerica“, and the founders of rhythmic industrial Esplendor Geometrico were influenced by that essay. Stefan Lehmann aka Greyhound and Syntech is a musician that has appropriated this vanguard vision, developing it with German label Hands Productions, which has published his more important albums, just like his last effort Inner noise level released on April 22nd.
Instead of Syntech less organic and more out of bound sound, here we have the quintessence of old school rhythmic industrial / power noise way of thinking. We can find the influence of the Spanish forefathers and Winterkälte (the last one the more obvious). To understand Inner noise level poetry we have to focus on perfection and precision of sound, mathematically faultless and looping, a sound without errors and made “Without human intervention” citing Italian industrial black metallers Aborym. We will always be fascinated by the way noise could be ingeniously used to make music without other elements. Sixteen well produced “Legèr ballets” gives no rest to attentive listeners, in which ferocious, direct and distorted rhythm ‘n noise attacks take turn to more placid numbers.
Most of the time we have a dry, precise, crystal clear and clean distortion, which is based on robust rhythms. The enthralling element for the beginners of the genre is the fact that, in a kind of music focused on rhythmic precision, the semblance of controlled chaos is present even during fast-paced moments. Someone could lament the absence of vitality in a work like this, but this is rhythmic noise for you: take it or leave it. More of that, these tracks will tell us many things, with fields of repeaters, gray post industrial/post modern cities landscapes, alienation seeded in big metropolis. There is a story behind any rhythm, any sound, any fragment that follows an infinite loop.
The opener Loss has a slow, martial, machine-like rhythm, tracks like MoVing machines, Lead the way, Candle and Crash are fast-paced and disruptive, we have more EG influenced placid numbers (but only in BPM) like Insect and Cold floor, and even less redefined closing tracks like free, in which a range of noises goes toward an explosive and, we could say in a Futurism related way, symphonic climax. The dirtier Come to rest has a less clear distortion and dull rhythm, the closing number Right here echoes first generation industrial artists with a sound from a highway (just like Einsturzende Neubauten).
There is something that links different decades of German industrial music to each others, which goes beyond genres and influences, and links the Bargeld of the beginning with Lehmann: the understanding of the extreme expressive power of noise. Inner noise level is a celebration of machines and their sound, noise as an expressive form, the element behind the totality of rhythmic industrial scene, of which Lehmann is an important member. A “silent” scene, a global noise movement ready to be discovered: this is a good starting point for your exploration.
Label: Hands Productions
Rating: 8, 5