Small Cruel Party – Ἡσυχασμός 10″
£15.00
Small Cruel Party’s rebirth is complete and has found a home with Ferns Recordings, who have already released a few of his works. Here’s a new one (actually a re-issue of a cassette from 2019 by Banned Productions), with a Greek title, ‘Ἡσυχασμός’, which means ‘thank you’ (according to Google translate). Each side contains one ten/eleven-minute piece of music. ‘Propagation d’un phénomène ondulatoir’ (meaning ‘Propagation of a wave phenomenon’) and ‘Quemadmodum cevi ad fortes aquarum’ (meaning ‘In the same way I came to the strong waters’). The thank you’s on the cover are also in Latin, and I think it also says that he recorded the music last year. As always, everything with Small Cruel Party things is very cryptic here. A nightmare for the reviewer but also a good part of the fun. Everything becomes a form of poetry within the whole body of work that Small Cruel Party presents. The first piece consists of rhythmic flickering that finds its way through various delay pedals, which, as these things go with delay pedals, go in overdrive. I assume many musicians would find this out as unwanted distortion, but William Ransome, mister Party, leaves such things in; all part of the minimal process of the music, I assume. The minimalism of the other side works differently. On the first side, these are waves followed by quieter parts, but on the second side, the minimalism is continuous, with a slow variation. The music does a very slow phase-shifting, and further on in the piece, there is also a loop of percussive sound (a metal cup being struck) and the delay pedals working their magic over time again. Music that is the result of direct action or, perhaps, part of a ritual that happens to also involve music? I don’t know, but as with so many works by Small Cruel Party, I found this fascinating music, and it could have easily had an LP-sized length. – Vital weekly
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