Boyd Rice / Non - 'Terra Incognita: Ambient Works 1975 To Present' (Mute)
2/5
By: Kari Wynn
One could never accuse Boyd Rice, (a.k.a. Non in his later existence) of not being interesting. Here's a chap who takes the drunken f**kwit at the back of his gigs caterwauling, 'This isn't music!' as a high compliment.
Placing a heavy emphasis on process, rather than end-result, Boyd went about torturing vinyl as we know it to create his signature creep-tastic sound. 'I have done everything to vinyl that that you can do. I have put records in the oven. I have used sandpaper on them. I have cut them up and put them together again in different ways...' he says. Not wanting to miss out on a good old envelope push, he even went about releasing singles with locked and looped grooves for endless playback of sonic dirge. No, 'uninteresting' could never be the indictment. 'Unlistenable', perhaps. 'A load of malarkey', definitely. But certainly not dull - at least, not in theory.
Ladies and germs, if you ever truly wanted to know what 'ambient' was all about, then look no further. Mr Rice has done you the courtesy of putting together his most soul-guttingly oddball works (spanning back all the way back to 1975) into one convenient skull-shattering compilation. Ripping apart loops and samples and mangling them into something resembling something akin to the oddest moments of Plastic Ono Band on a massive heroin comedown (but thankfully, sans Ono screeches) must be tough work.
Full of ethereal chatter, otherworldly crackles and sonically morose quasi-white noise, Rice/Non has no time for drums or beats. No time for toe-tapping, happy numbers. Rice/Non only has time for music that sounds somewhat like what your flatmate's spooky art student mate keeps bringing around to play you while you're on some happy drug-binge high. You tolerate it for awhile, thinking, 'Gee, maybe I'm just not clever enough to like this.' Then you come to and realise it feels like you're being skull-f**ked to death by Boredom - or that you're on the set of some 1960's art-house film where complimentary nooses descend from the ceiling near the end - and you wish he'd just toddle off to the cemetery or wherever he whiles away his evenings.
From what dark recesses did noise like this get pulled? It may be clever, but it certainly ain't big and it sure as bloody hell ain't healthy.
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