Christopher Forgues makes the kind of excruciating caterwauling that has become
surprisingly fashionable as-of-late, and under the Kites moniker, he's been able
to aptly use his almost formless pieces to articulate some truly unique ideas.
Fitting for the most part somewhere along the Merzbow scale of freak-outs (only
a bit less punishing perhaps), Forgues and his Kites project make for piercing
sonics which sound little like even some of his most obvious reference points.
For one, Forgues makes (yes, MAKES) all of his own instruments, and the zaps,
zips, and crushes of fuzz that emit from these hand-made creations have an
engrossing aura that may help win over more than a few skeptics. His new
Superior Moon EP (released as a 3" CD on the Mountain Collective For
Independent Artists label) does away with the contrasting bits of lo-fi folk
aversions that sat in-between the rather abusive tantrums on last year's superb
Peace Trials. And while the single-mindedness of Moon makes for
significantly less diversity in sound and almost no breathing room for the
unprepared, Forgues' latest is a 20-minute suite that rips about frantically and
favorably.
All nine, untitled tracks run a similar gamut of spasmodic cacophony, the only
thing possibly discerning them being that a few aren't as overtly excruciating.
But each section of the disc flows without skip, proving that each part needs
its other half for the whole execution to work out. On one end, Forgues emits
minimal, pulsating blips and almost ambient low-hums on the second and third
tracks, before using spaces like the fourth and eighth tracks to catapult shards
of synthetic feedback and static into the listener's whereabouts. Most
revelatory of all may be the ninth track, where Forgues throws in some
blink-and-you'll-miss-it portions of what sounds like an old electro-hip-hop
record, offering an apt tribute to avant-pioneers such as Christian Marclay
around Forgues' own usual muses.
Superior Moon is not a casual recording that can be broken into tunes by
any means, and listening out-of-sequence is without a doubt a disservice of
sorts. Whether or not the abstractions of Kites will have you moved or disgusted
has much to do with your own tolerance for such noisiness, but for those avant-noise
mongers who enjoy sets of improvised chaos that rarely make it on record,
Superior Moon provides ideal home-listening.
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