Woods, Peter J. – “Songs For Nothing” – [Aftermusic]

Thurston Hunger   3/17/2011   12-inch, A Library

Spectacular “noise” release on the aptly named AfterMusic label.
In the vein of Sudden Infant and Panicsville, Woods’ use of sonic
blasts of throttling blots of electronics is balanced by plenty
of breathing space, and broken musical excerpts (piano flouncing,
guitar spritz at the end of the first track, keyboards often
filtered in at other times). Something about the alternating
black and white of noise bursts and nothingness is key (just
as compelling as the black and white art work). Some modulated
Iugula Thor screamgasm on “Miles Traveled/Earth Beneath” is
contrasted with sampled strings climbing your spine. Then into
some burrowing bass and vox humana humdrone. This release has
a lot of “vocals”, not entirely dehumanized and power-electronified
ones either. “The Notion of Progress Accepted as Myth” has these
great digitally sputtered ones, “Collapse at a Distance” has a
mournful, faroff foreign lament over sad gut-string twang before
blowing off some serious steam samplage. The closing track has
these sort of war whoops run through distortion and reverb and
then battling some sort of arcade video game, and ultimately
the game wins. Like I said, spectacular in the sense that this
has so much for the ears, it overflows into your eyes. Hope to
hear more and turn more folks on to this Milwaukee squakee
talkie!

-Thurston Hunger

Check out : http://experimentalmilwaukee.com/peterjwoods