Thursday, February 4, 2010

AVARUS "TOOSASSA" (Ultra Eczema)

Holy fuck. This is some serious "outer limits" shit. I barely even know how to start. I have lots of records by Avarus but none of them go as far out as this one does. They're a communal collective from Finland and for the most part they've trafficked in extreme krautrock-fetishizing drone anthems born of a deep reverence and interaction with nature. Much of their music is acoustic and what electric instruments there are seem to be used sparingly and with the utmost consideration, as if a deadly weapon were being brandished. It's a very deep sort of communion, a very internal sort of music being made manifest into the outer world. What Avarus does is not like what anyone else is doing. This album sees them moving FAR beyond those arenas into a totally free-form spontaneous and improvisational sort of throwdown, an immersive session of music making where nothing is verboten and every idea has validity as well as life. This is fucked up brain goop of the ultra confusing variety. I won't even try to tell you it makes sense because it doesn't. It's crazy weird and so, so messed up. Imagine a bunch of retarded muppets dancing around a campfire in a thick cold wood in the dead of night, all of them ululating and making fart noises and raspberries, howling and stomping. Imagine that for whatever reason they have several broken synthesizers, kazoos and a drum set. They're playing them with abandon. That's what this record sounds like. It's enthralling. It's born of another realm with few ties to this one. These guys are in tune with something much deeper. I don't know if it's the communal living, the endless sex or a demolishing amount of earthen drugs and shamanic ritualizing but the end result is some seriously numbing mindfucking. Every now and then a drone will surface and hang around for a bit, tantalizing you with familiar sounds of Avarus records past but for the most part "Toosassa" drifts around in electroacoustique jelly, oozing all over and coating your ears in weirdness. It's frightening but you can't turn away. Like some sort of foresty art installation, a tapestry of natural and prehistoric sound. The true spirit of primitivism that black metal only dreams of touching, completely free and devoid of any commercial concern. This is the root, this is the infinite. This exists because it always has-it just takes the right tuning to receive it.

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