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Various Artists
Materia Fria

Sistinas Music

Posted: Wednesday, August 15, 2007
By: Matthew Johnson
Features Editor

Sistinas Music and Crunch Pod are the biggest up and comers in the U.S. power noise scene, so you know when the two labels team up to put out a compilation, it's going to be heavy. To Mega Therion sets the bar high for fans of raw, evil noise with opening track "Purification Ritual," a blast of stomping kicks drenched in screeching distortion, and things don't really let up again until the second half of the CD. Vuxnut, the solo project of W.A.S.T.E.'s Shane Englefield, keeps things wicked and ominous with "A Ladder into Hell," despite a slightly slower tempo, and Caustic picks the pace right back up again with "Bugchaser." Listeners in desperate need of a break from the aggression can get their groove on with The Operative's "All City." Though it's labeled as the "Harsh" mix of the song, all the distortion in the world isn't enough to diminish The Operative's inherent funk; chopped and slowed samples give things an almost crunk vibe, like breakcore smashed on cough syrup. The Operative also shows up later on the disc under a different guise; "Lashings," from The Operative's new project, Marching Dynamics, is less overtly funky, but retains a strong sense of rhythm held together by looped samples. Amidst all the feedback and overdriven drum machines, it's nice to have an occasional palate cleanser, and Phantom West's "Fault Lines" delivers. Though it's got little in common with the rest of the tracks here, it's a gorgeous, clean-sounding synthpop track, with project mastermind Timothy A. Clark delivering some of his most confident vocal work yet. "Cloud Factories," by MA 46, is also unexpectedly pleasant, fitting its title perfectly with a mixture of airy synth tones and pleasantly mechanical rhythms that calls to mind Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada. Alter der Ruine's "Duck and Cover" and Hazing Ritual's "Disturbance at 160 BPM" bring things back to a noisy finish, with a snippet of "Puttin' on the Ritz" from Young Frankenstein tacked just to keep things bizarre. Solid throughout, Materia Fria highlights the best of the new breed of rhythmic noise artists, and the unexpected pleasures of Phantom West and MA 46's tracks show that the Sistinas Music label has a lot more going on than tortured drum machines and dance floor annihilation. Get this now, and you'll be up to speed when the rest of the world catches up in another six months or so.