Back To Mono (CD)


NON

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Amoeba Review

11/05/2012

Boyd Rice’s latest release as NON continues the experimental artist’s streak of highly experimental noise compositions, marked by drone, distortion and looping noise into infinity. Rice pull off the rock ‘n’ roll joke of naming his album Back to Mono, after the classic Phil Spector compilation, and giving his song titles tongue-in-cheek names like “Watusi” and “Turns Me On Dead Man,” a play off a misheard Beatles lyric. In reality, “Turns Me On Dead Man” is as playful and lively as its title would suggest, taking an indeed Phil Spector-ish backdrop of reverb-laden 12 bar blues and overlaying metallic noise that ebbs and flows over the lush backdrop, sometimes overtaking it, sometimes stepping back. In contrast, the punishing title track sounds a bit like early Jesus and Mary Chain, a band who also played with Spector-era rock ‘n’ roll convention, but takes out the sugary melodies (or any melody at all) as well as any variation — it’s pure distorted drone. Rice’s history as a member of the Church of Satan comes into play in the Anton LaVey-ish “Seven Sermons to the Dead,” combining piercing noise with organ drone and what sounds like an angry mob buried in the background, yelling incomprehensibly while another muffled voice comes in partway through delivering some unearthly sermon. Similarly terrific (in the truest sense of the word) is “Scream,” which calls to mind the near-end sequence of any number off horror films with its maddening loops and occasional disembodied wail — terrifying in concept, yet strangely serene in execution, given its repetition and often dissolution into white noise. Whatever you may think of Rice’s beliefs, his adherence to them musically is something to behold, and the bizarre, often harsh sounds of Back to Mono can be breathtaking when you submit to them.

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Track Listing



Disc 1 Titles
Artist
Length
1.
Turn Me On, Dead Man 		NON 03:08
2.
Watusi 		NON 03:24
3.
Back To Mono 		NON 05:14
4.
Seven Sermons To The Dead 		NON 03:23
5.
Obey Your Signal Only 		NON 02:14
6.
Man Cannot Flatter Fate 		NON 04:00
7.
Scream 		NON 03:02
8.
Back To Mono (Live) 		NON 03:15
9.
Turn Me On, Dead Man (Reprise) 		NON 04:16
10.
Fire Shall Come 		NON 03:39
11.
Warm Leatherette 		NON 03:16

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