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“sado-mechanism”, the debut release from lifeisfeedback on GOTO Records brings forth a slice of knurled dubbed- out techno from the heart of Bristol. Block rhythms, cult film and overloaded processors are brought together to deliver a vision of an imminent future.
The hollow mechanic growls of “Voice Return” kick off proceedings, soon joined by techno chimes and buzzing kicks. Alien sirens and calls from abandoned industry join the groove, before segueing into “Nervous System Scan”. The tempo drops, just like the floor beneath, as a subterranean world opens up in its place. Is that the greeting of a voice, or the murmurings of some half- machine left to its own decay? The air here is still humming, whistling even, still unsure of the biology of its own world. The only framework holding this place together is of scattering percussion and throbbing bassline.
The march picks up pace in “Feline Operations”, its slinky rhythm running still with the grotesque ghost- voices left to rot in this oxide arena. The first signs of human life are spotted in “A Right To Violence”, eluding to a very real struggle, but are they echoes from the past, or a call for now? Chaos ensues within its frantic death disco workout, before “The Ache” brings proceedings back to a sludge-shredding four-to-the-floor. Other voices cut against acidic synthetic sequences this time, in a panicked confusion that only calls out for a further escape from these environs. At last, “Behind The Mage’s Blast” opens the portcullis to whatever lies beyond – an expanse of rolling, rumbling percussion and chiming atmospheres still trapped somewhere in forgotten fates.
Life is feedback, let it ring out.
All audio by lifeisfeedback.
Mastered by Finlay Shakespeare.
Front cover photography by Sophia Stefelle
Original installation by Purple Taiko & Joe Evans.