Torso & Gack – The Human Disease Zine+CDR
Torso/GACK/Sandy Saunders – The Human Disease Zine+CDR
The Human Disease is a collaboration between two artists I am not familiar with (it seems like they just keep popping up) Torso and Gack. Immediately apparent is the care in the concepts with the accompanying “zine” style packaging. A booklet filled with an insert which the CD is mounted on, and several pages of propaganda style art which appears to have little-to-no agenda but exemplifying death, disease, and hopelessness. More or less right up my alley.
Clocking in at almost 40 minutes there are only 3 long collaborated tracks here each with a distinct sound yet sharing similar compositional methods and aesthetics as to hold together the album quite nicely. The sounds presented here stay neatly within the confines of the ambient-noise variety. Dehumanization is a succinct introduction with squealing mid-high pitched analog synth groans and vacuum style backing noise, but it flails around, the movement never really settling in one place. This could be a team of industrial workers endlessly drilling away at sewer pipes if I didn’t know any better.
Execution gets a little lighter at first with some watery atmospheres which lead once again into more noisy ambience with gestures not so different then Dehumanization, but utilizing different sounds which keep it interesting enough. Nanking 1937 is the last track which is a live radio collab and is a bit more successful then the other two because of it’s thickness and more aggressive atmosphere, as well as the variety of sounds.
My only complaint here is that some of the material gets a little worn for how long the tracks are, but it’s not that big of a deal. I actually really like this collab and have listened to it many more times then I really needed to just for the review. The aesthetics are in the right place with the smartly designed packaging in the way that it stays within the ambient noise realms with undisputable industrial elements that make it a very intense and detailed listen.
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