SCORN

mjeanes

The fourth installment in the Scorn library, this one features some of their best vocal samples and a few lullish songs as well. "The Sky Is Loaded" is possibly the strangest thing ever recorded, while "Little Angel" is very very creepy. It reminds me of the song "Open Closed Apart" from the Lull album "Dreamt About Dreaming" (another of Mick Harris' projects). The "White Irises Blind" single has remixes of three songs from this album.

Fleshpile

mjeanes

SCORN are NICHOLAS JAMES BULLEN & MICHAEL JOHN HARRIS with occasional help from JON WAKELIN. This is the first album length recording I have heard by SCORN, although the "Deliverance" single qualified as a mini album at least. "Endless" shows the Dub side of their sound off to good effect, degrees of GODFLESH re-woven into the most stark, bleak Reggae skeleton possible, removing any dance elements, replacing them with the coldness of a WInter scrapyard. Cloaked in huge amounts of strange effects, this is an ever-changing, ever-listenable track. "Crimson Seed" builds on sharp drums, escaping the initial reverse bell arpeggios into another broodingly stark piece using the ponderous hunting-beast stealth of label-mates GODFLESH, then taking away the Rock carapace for a more electr(on)ic sound. "Blackout" has a more Industrial sound to it, the drums having machine logic. Over these are layers of distorted guitar, harsh electronics & deep, sonorous vox. The music inclines more towards a medium-paced Rock, albeit a Rock bought kicking & screaming into the 21st Century. "The Sky Is Loaded" is a lot more like M.J.HARRIS's LULL work, a series of machine-like loops building & decaying in audio evolution - perhaps a little lighter. Moving from one moodscape to another passes along strange corridors of noise. "Nothing, Hunger" returns to the hard, bright beat of their dance music. This tracks fucked-up flange guitar reminds me a lot of early CHROME set to their post-Dub dance. Through semi-improvisation, they create an ever-changing mood - just so typically SCORN. "Beyond" gradually grows from strange noises & reverse echoes & snatches of spoken voice into a slow, ponderous monster, it's languid lethergy full of atmosphere. "Little Angel" swells on several layers & chunks of Industrial sound, a moody film theme from some futuristic, post-Civilization tale "White Irises Blind" builds it's understated tune on wandering bassline & crisp, snappy drums while guitar creates wiry tracery & various reverse FX & samples combine into a colourful slow mood dance. "Scorpionic" reminds me a lot of the "Deliverance" single - deliberately live-sounding drums work across a rhythmic structure not unlike a more muscular, more relaxed variation on eary CABARET VOLTAIRE sound. "Night Ash Black" prowls on post-Reggae Dub bass & drums, witha soporific vocal approach. It has the confidence of inevitability which a hunting predator might have. "Sunstroke" closes th album, a simple thing built on thick chiming sounds, which grows in a series of loops into a gradually more & more complicated piece of music. This is where Classical Minimalism & Industrial Noise meet. Apparently there's a lot of this sort of thing in the live show. With MICK HARRIS quitting live drums for control of the mixing desk, expect more of this sort of thing, only darker.

Antony Burnham (courtesy of the Metamorphic Journeyman website)

Isolationism was the term used in describing the brooding, post-industrial music of bands like Scorn that was emanating out of England in the early '90s. Not a bad descriptor given the throbbing drum'n'bass lines overlaid by atonal electronic washes and the remote, disaffected vocals and unsettling sampled voices. A duo consisting of Mick Harris and Nicholas James Bullen, Scorn built thick, slab-like layers of sludgy sound, a viscous current kicked along by steady, if plodding, drums. Darkness is decidedly the order of the day. That said, the Harris/Bullen team creates a number of fascinating textures along the way like the ragged, clockwork fabric of "The Sky Is Loaded" or the loopy strains of "White Irises Blind." But in general, there's a kind of sameness enveloping the disc. A tinge of dub here, a smattering of psychedelia there, perhaps, but after five or six tracks, the unremitting heaviness of the drums begins to wear on the listener. And the more varied atmospheric sounds, while enjoyable, cover little ground uninvestigated by, say, Fripp & Eno in "An Index of Metals." Of course, this may be entirely what both Scorn and their fans love and expect, but as a movement isolationism lasted only a few years and, despite its several attractive moments, Colossus might offer a good reason why.

Brian Olewnick (courtesy of the All Music Guide website)