SCORN

Overall - 5/5

Creaig Dunton (courtesy of the False Prophet Campaign website)

Would Beethoven have created the music he did if he had access to digital technology? Would Da Vinci have painted the Giaconda the same if he could have scanned her onto disc beforehand? And would SCORN have created music like this if MICK HARRIS & NICK BULLEN hadn't split up? Those of us who love this music KNOW that, after "Evanescence" and particularly "Silver Rain Fell", that SCORN were going down the path that gave them album of the week in NME and one of the top albums of the year in THE WIRE. It seemed inevitable until suddenly things went pear-shaped between the protagonists. But did Ludwig's lack of sampling keyboards make his music less wonderful? And did Leonardo's application of oils to board make the Louvre's most prized acquisite somehow more lacklustre? We'd all like to have seen what would have happened if... But fate changed things, and I for one would like to think it was a change for the better. MICK could have carried on along what was becoming for them a safe avenue, but instead chose to stride out - like the Anthropologist ADRIAN BOSHIER - into a far less safe environment. "In For" promises a glimpse into SCORN's dark ponderous netherworld of rhythms - the flat piano flays slowly around like some kind of Victorian mechanical street music while the achingly slow drums and sub-cat's-purr bassline warm the arctic air. "Every Bit Of" delves even deeper into the Industrial substrata of their music, this time using the broken (as opposed to break-) rhythms which have become so much a part of their final couple of albums. You get to grips with it's medium-slow dance pace, regular, repetitive, dark but normal. And it's when you hook into that rhythm that it begins to split & break, behaving the opposite of how your brain says it should. "Noticed" returns to the ambient dub-full-in-your-face sound of "Evanescence" - upfront, upbeat, hard as rock pumping dance music full of scraping sounds and built on the solid granite bass. It gets you moving, insistant and demanding, a simplistic body music over a myriad sound events. Play loud. "Off" seems to form a perfect bridge between their former semi-commerciality and latter oddyform rhythmic anarchy. The overall feel is of something oriental with the chorus guitar over the bass-thick dub while a Pandora's box of noises fly in all directions. Wild & crazy over tamed & disciplined, this one track could act as the missing link for those who feel SCORN should be analysed. Excellent ending to a must-have EP.

Antony Burnham (courtesy of the Metamorphic Journeyman website)

So I finally get around to picking up this 12" only (for now, anyways) release, the first actual Scorn release on Mick Harris's Possible label.

Holy fucking shit. I mean, this is Scorn, and I was expecting quality, but this is absolutely insane. Probably two of the all time greatest Scorn tracks appear on this 12", "In For" and "Noticed."

I hate making stupid comparisons like this, but it really sounds like Logghi Barogghi's best moments with _huge_ bass that was almost nonexistent on that record (I've always thought of Logghi Barogghi as the 'drums' Scorn record, because it seems to focus on explorations into drum sound). The same lilting, offbeat (in a different time signature, actually), and somehow ominous type of 3 note melody seen in "Out Of" and bass that doesn't really groove, it just kind of scares the shit out of you make up "In For." "Noticed," on the other hand, has a real bass groove, but it's coupled with some huge drums and the kind of horrible noises (in a good way) that pervade Logghi Barogghi. Both are far more than the sum of their parts; this isn't just music you kind of groove and nod your head to, this is music that keeps you up at night, that provides a feeling of overwhelming evil and madness, that demands you take notice. If Ed Rush, Nico, and company did stuff _half_ this good No-U-Turn would be the best label around today, instead of overhyped bullshit.

I think my speakers are going to explode.

8/10

A.P. (courtesy of the WPRB website)