Deflag Haemorrhage / Haien Kontra
Luxury
w.m.o/r 22
CDR
Reissue on CD on Tochnit Aleph May 2009

Download: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16,

The long awaited debut release of Deflag Haemorrhage/Haien Kontra aka Mattin (guitar, vocals and computer feedback) and "       " (real name Tim) Goldie (drums) [+vocals, disc, chain and bird whistle] comprises 15 tracks recorded between July 2002 and November 2003. It includes one truly scary field recording made by Zoe Broughton at Huntingdon Life Sciences back in 1997, where she was working undercover for a ChannelFour documentary to expose the notorious animal research facility's appalling cruelty
to animals (see www.shac.net/HLS/exposed/broughton.html).A concert or album of unrelenting ferocious noise, whether by Hijokaidan, Borbetomagus, Merzbow or The Dust Breeders, may be a highly enjoyable rush of pure
adrenaline, but it's no longer exactly a surprise. Mattin and Goldie can burst eardrums as well as the above - watch your speakers on the apocalyptic "Submucosa" - but they've learnt their lowercase lesson well, and use disturbingly quiet passages and slowmenacing drones to equally devastating effect. Mattin is as unpredictable as ever, lurching from the kind of delicate laptoppery that graced his Grob release Building Excess with Klaus Filip, Dean Roberts and Radu Malfatti, to blasts of unmitigated sonic terror that will melt the fillings in your teeth. His guitar work and vocals are just as extreme, especially on the splendidly titled "It's Not Your Fault You Are The Authentic Version Of What The Rest Of Us Can Only Imagine", apparently recorded live (listening to the screams of terror and the vicious thudding of heavy chains I'm glad I wasn't there). Goldie's drumming is savage and ritualistic, from the isolated explosions of "Humiliated" to the all-out blitzkrieg of
his solo offering "Lacguage = Noumenal Sarcoshyce" (a whole page of similarly impenetrable logorrhea adorns the 6" x 8" album cover), but it's refreshingly far removed from both free jazz and Improv percussion cliche, even though I suspect his collection includes a fair number of Eddie Prevost albums. Luxury is an album of awesome intensity, one that deserves to be blasted mercilessly from a 40,000W PA outside Huntingdon Life Sciences every day until the torture ceases. Dan Warburton (The Wire)