Mattin/Tim Barnes - Achbal al Atlas

Little Enjoyer
le07

Hard to figure out exactly what we have here, though who cares? Apparently cobbled together during a 2005 tour of seven US cities—there are only three tracks, hence one aspect of the confusion—we find Mssrs. Mattin and Barnes hollowing out the ears of their audience, applying a sonic cleanser with which to rub one’s auricular canals ‘til they’re squeaky clean.

The first cut opens with a steady, dull beat from Barnes, a homing call that attracts some skittering percussion, is suspended, then returns swathed in electric noise. The general atmosphere is not all that dissimilar to the same duo’s performance at this year’s ErstQuake festival (albeit without the, erm, lyrical content) that I enjoyed a great deal and I likewise find this track to be a lot of fun. There’s a clear pause about four minutes in; the sound quality when it re-enters is different enough that I assume we’re in another place/time, though still in extreme noise territory. Good stuff. From here on, though, my attention wavered somewhat. Track two begins in like climes then (another venue switch?) abruptly subsides into washes of cymbals over a discreet hum that eventually becomes the sole element, distorting somewhat, shifting high. The final cut has some nice interweaving of altissimo static whine and metal—Tony Conrad is purportedly in here somewhere, perhaps around this section—until another ellipsis sends us once again, I guess, to an alternate site where the noise-making strikes me as less inspired.

“Achbal al Atlas” (googling reveals a school in Temera, Morocco, where some pedophilia charges were lodged) is a mixed bag, fine at its best, a little too unfocussed otherwise. I believe they're issued in lovely, hand-painted covers. The image above is the closest to my copy.

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