Deterge – In Cahoots C26

Heavy Psych

This cassette was released way back in 2013, oh how time flies and how I just sit on my ass and let it pass me by. It’s no surprise that this tape is totally fucking bad ass as most material both live and recorded from Jim Haras has been nothing short of excellent.

Side A opens with a seething hot white noise assault accompanied by Whitehouse influenced vocals. Certainly not my favorite track on the release but a decent opener. However it’s not until Atomic Productivity finally kicks in where things take a turn towards an excellent convergence of power electronics and death industrial. The rest of the release is flawless.

Haras mixes together darkwave synth layers into pummeling industrial rhythms and tortured screams to create an unearthly audio hell with a frantic feeling. The sound design is well thought-out and creative with well placed textures and interesting vocal sounds. At times the music has a vibe of an 80s scum film and at others it’s just straight hate, either way; it’s great. Worth mentioning is the last track entitled Accelerated Rate which is anything but. A slower track with creeping ambience and good layering harkens to the sound of an act like Theologian more than artists in the power electronics realm.

I consider Deterge to be on the forefront of American power electronics scene and this tape simply furthers my belief that Haras is doing great things with the genre. Similar artists that come to mind are Ex.Order, Prurient, and Genocide Organ. If that doesn’t get you interested I don’t know what will.

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