Released on a very small scale and still currently available
in a few good record shops in and around Dublin, The
Day I Stopped Reading Wired is an extremely exiting
debut. Recorded on a shoestring over a long period of
time, this ambitious collection of dark instrumentals
denotes great technical and creative maturity, with Josh
O’Connor, Head Noise in chief, establishing his twisted
sonic landscapes somewhere between minimal post rock and
dub electronic in its most somber form, creating dense
atmospheric structures on which he applies layers of distorted
guitars and noise.
Reminiscent of the hazy clouds of sheer noise disturbance
of My Bloody Valentine, this album deals with rough surfaces
and edgy emotions in a much more modular way. None of
the eight musical tracks – Wrong Planet being
spoken – is straightforward. If the same composite elements
of dub, post rock and ambient are used rather convincingly,
the only constant of The Day I Stopped Reading Wired
is the meticulous process of deconstruction carried out.
Beats and other structures morph, start, stop, vanish
in cataclysmic tectonic movements, perhaps better explained
by the album opening line: “the universe has been in existence
for over 170,000 million billion years and will be ending
in a little over ten minutes time”. Ominous, The Day
I Stopped… confronts the fear that human beings have
toward death with cheer joy. This album, warns the cover,
is a sonic experiment. It might as well be a life size
psychological test for all one knows, digging deep in
the subconscious of the listener to reveal the unhealthiest
phobia. O’Connor’s inhospitable creations, organic in
the life-form meaning of the word, seem to live just beneath
the skin and feed obsessions. This album presents a schizophrenic
concept of music, with very little connection to proper
reality but for the fact of being captured on CD.
Drums, bass and treated guitar sounds form the backbone
of the compositions. Melodies are scarce and perverted,
the whole point being to subvert sounds. This doesn’t
mean however that this album has no real purpose. In fact,
the nature of the music here means that, although arid
in form, this album is rich in concept, and manages to
trigger endless imaginative patterns and questions psychological
values.
Far from being pretentious or hermetic, The Day I
Stopped Reading Wired offers some magnificent sonic
moments. With dense soundscapes and atmospheric beats,
Josh O’Connor puts together a very promising first album,
which deserves to be snatched by a truly adventurous record
label.
4/5 |
