7 Apr 2015

The Quietus reviews Gnod – Infinity Machines


GNOD
INFINITY MACHINES

…Infinity Machines is littered with several unexpected new elements, from the rambling spoken word samples taken from residents and artists based in the group's Islington Mill, to the Rhodes piano and aforementioned saxaphone that takes centre stage at several key junctures in the album. The seventeen minute opener, 'Control Systems' begins with laughter from one Islington Miller, with another commenting, "I quite like people being around, I also like to know I can have a bit of space and shut the door". Later in the track, another resident goes on, "notions of public and private are very mixed up...daydreaming is a kind of private space."

Thematically, this summarises much of the activity on Infinity Machines, which is ultimately a clash of the internal and external; the sound of many participating artists manifesting their clashing internal worlds in the Islington Mill, daydreaming together. The album comprises many layered and reassembled sessions at the mill, and the many seamlessly sewn together parts that make up ‘Control Systems' microcosmically comes to symbolise the album as a whole. Several minutes or abstract sound effects, and battling synth noises litter the foreground while wave after wave of bassy throbbing noise rhythmically pulsates underneath. Suddenly glass smashes and we jump cut to odd shapes getting plodded out on a contemplative and very pretty Silent Way Rhodes piano...

Read the rest of the review here: Infinity Machines

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