Metal Rouge – Storm Veil / Desert Champion CS

NNF127

 

Ex-Auckland high artists Helga Fassonaki and Andrew Scott first began hammering their flux-core electronics into sustained tunnels of pale fire back in early 2006, when living down under in New Zealand’s thriving hive of free music freemasons. Their early documents were obscure, open-mouthed starclusters of harsh Hototogisu-heatspells, FX-heavy improv, and isolated tinkering. Since relocating to the Hollywood grid, however, the Metal Rouge matrix has transformed significantly. Recent volumes of their excellent Ephemeroptera series, as well the Eulogy For Keeler disc (on Phantom Limb), have showcased MR’s increasingly controlled avant noise architectures, but Storm Veil/Desert Champion strikes their best balance yet. Both sides unfold from keening, tense beams of drone light, layering levels of expressionist tones one after the other, slowly growing into futurist frenzy, a thousand interstitial atoms of tempest noise warring for amp space. A focused and furious 40 minutes at the forge/4-track. Pro-dubbed, shell-imprinted tapes in cardstock J-cards adorned with metallic fabric shreds plus gold flecks. Edition of 100.