I suppose any possible arrangement of sound for it to be dubbed 'music' must have a psychological analogue, a mental configuration as it were that reflects an overarching audial theme to its subject, i.e the listener. If such a condition isn't satisfied by the case in point then we could in a formal sense dismiss such an 'arrangement' as noise. But herein lies the paradox - at least in my mind anyway - since for all its noisy recalcitrance with regards to what your typical Average Joe considers as music to dub this offering as mere 'noise' per se would be a misnomer since it manages to conjure such a wide gamut of other-worldly mindscapes that your typical chorus-verse-chorus-verse-solo act couldn't even dream of concocting with its intrinsically myopic compositional strategy.
Philosophical musings aside, ‘New Orthodox Line’ sees two Russian acts symbiotically bleeding into each other's aesthetical imprint and producing an offering that is over and above the mere sum of its constituent input from the outfits involved. Let me clarify for the un-initiated that the only sense of rhythm and tonality you'll get from this odious split stems solely from the distorted clunking church bells and the monotonous chanting - that's it as far as structure is concerned, everything else is submerged in a tub of harsh feedback and disorientating frequencies. Mind-penetrating cacophony washes over the lingering chants without eclipsing their presence altogether and sampled screeches resonate with tinny reverberation. After a while this seeming thematic antithesis of order versus chaos reaches an end and we plunge headfirst into a whitewashed soundscape of assuaging ambience, resurfacing feedbacks and oscillating clatters of metallic noise. Suddenly of all things, the chilling cry of an infant echoes through this audially weaved expanse before thick ambient layers and the resurging, familiar chanting motif clasp the remaining shards of any sort of cohesion left amidst the splintering noise and henceforth signal an apt closure to this surreal inward journey.
The closest 'metal' aesthetic semblance I can think off the top of my head is Abruptum's ‘Casus Luciferi’ but ‘New Orthodox Line’ is really on another plane in terms of conviction and artistic flair. As the scathing textural dissonance tactfully disrupts your neural circuitry, this sonic experience attains the mystique of a religious mass - formal schemata and meaning are deformed beyond recognition and sheer, direct understanding precedes over any sort of musical conventionalities. At this level of abstraction, potential naysayers might quip a sarcastic comment, mock at the seeming uselessness of such an endeavour and retreat back to their familiar and more approachable musical milieu, but what our unfortunate bipeds have apparently failed to grasp is that objectively speaking pure Art never needed a purpose in the first place anyway.
(originally written for Diabolical Conquest - 31/5/2008)
Philosophical musings aside, ‘New Orthodox Line’ sees two Russian acts symbiotically bleeding into each other's aesthetical imprint and producing an offering that is over and above the mere sum of its constituent input from the outfits involved. Let me clarify for the un-initiated that the only sense of rhythm and tonality you'll get from this odious split stems solely from the distorted clunking church bells and the monotonous chanting - that's it as far as structure is concerned, everything else is submerged in a tub of harsh feedback and disorientating frequencies. Mind-penetrating cacophony washes over the lingering chants without eclipsing their presence altogether and sampled screeches resonate with tinny reverberation. After a while this seeming thematic antithesis of order versus chaos reaches an end and we plunge headfirst into a whitewashed soundscape of assuaging ambience, resurfacing feedbacks and oscillating clatters of metallic noise. Suddenly of all things, the chilling cry of an infant echoes through this audially weaved expanse before thick ambient layers and the resurging, familiar chanting motif clasp the remaining shards of any sort of cohesion left amidst the splintering noise and henceforth signal an apt closure to this surreal inward journey.
The closest 'metal' aesthetic semblance I can think off the top of my head is Abruptum's ‘Casus Luciferi’ but ‘New Orthodox Line’ is really on another plane in terms of conviction and artistic flair. As the scathing textural dissonance tactfully disrupts your neural circuitry, this sonic experience attains the mystique of a religious mass - formal schemata and meaning are deformed beyond recognition and sheer, direct understanding precedes over any sort of musical conventionalities. At this level of abstraction, potential naysayers might quip a sarcastic comment, mock at the seeming uselessness of such an endeavour and retreat back to their familiar and more approachable musical milieu, but what our unfortunate bipeds have apparently failed to grasp is that objectively speaking pure Art never needed a purpose in the first place anyway.
(originally written for Diabolical Conquest - 31/5/2008)
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