YELLOW TEARS "DON'T CRY" (Hospital Productions)

Wow. I'm not even sure how to begin on this record. There's probably about 20 minutes of music on this LP and about a thousand ideas and communications. It's not scattershot and pointless but rather tempered and controlled, even when it's sounding schizoid and fractured. It's a sound sculpture more than anything else, not pure noise nor dark ambient but something born of both those worlds and belonging to neither. When i was listening to it i found myself thinking of John Carpenter, Nine Inch Nails, Whitehouse (Peter Sotos's contributions especially) and Nordvargr, but i don't think Yellow Tears adheres to any of those paths or philosophies 100%. This record confounds me a little, and that's really, really awesome because there aren't many artists out there whose work actually confuses me anymore. Even when it's at its most fucked up and punishing, i've got an idea of where most artists are coming from. With Yellow Tears, i haven't got a fucking clue. There's obviously an element of creepiness here-this could just as easily be the soundtrack to a snuff film as the score to one of the "Saw" sequels. People scream and laugh and cry, massive drones throb and worm around the headphones and staccato bursts of static assault from all angles. But there's also the icy hum of decaying far away synthesizers and the warmth of analogue knob-twiddling, the echoed wailing of ultra-delayed vocals swirling through the skies like forgotten ghosts. It's a symphony, obviously, some sort of honest to fuck composition about decomposition, a tour through a spoiled, poisoned countryside in the dead of night where the people aren't made right. This is the musical equivalent of incest, the thinning of the bloodline and the result of years of desperation and laziness. This is someone's daughter splayed out on a bed naked, knives gleaming in the moonlight. This is the endless bray of sheep and cows and screams in the night. This is the cold, choking hollowness of fear. This is some dank alley where you're going to get knifed and fucked and pissed on. Yeah-it's frightening. I won't sugarcoat it. This is some weird, out-there, messed up music-and it is enthralling from the first second. My only complaint is that it's way too short. It's a different sort of punishment, one that i want so much more of. I can only imagine what these guys would do with 80 minutes worth of space. A worthy addition to Hospital's roster and a terrifying, mindfucking exploration of some twisted psychic terrain.