Cyclobe - Wounded Galaxies Tap at the Window

Cyclobe are an English entity composed of Ossian Brown (Simon Norris) and Stephen Thrower. This is their third proper album since debuting in 1999 with "Luminous Darkness". They've not put a full length out since 2001 via "The Visitors". In the space since then, Ossian was a member of Coil during their final years and Stephen (who was also a member of Coil back in the 80s) formed The Amal Gamyl Ensemble and also UnicaZurn. This record has a very tidal, somewhat primitive feel to it, lots of slow builds and unorthodox instrumentation. I don't make out any proper vocals, but I do get a very foreboding sense of dread. Perhaps it's that so many years have passed since Cyclobe put out anything besides singles (two and an EP but who's counting?) and I've forgotten how wonderfully askew their sound is.

This album's title was originally to be used for one of Coil's many abandoned releases, so you can imagine that comparisons will be unavoidable. This thing has the same tone as "Astral Disaster", the morbidity of Coil's bonus cd-r to the seasonal singles and yet it also would seem there's some kind of muffled, terribly mutilated brass band crawling around on the ground trying not to be noticed bleeding all over the place. Strange, almost taiko-like arrangements present themselves at bizarrely timed intervals to perhaps snap one out of the trance "Wounded Galaxies Tap at the Window" induces. You won't be bored with this sinister creation of Cyclobe's, bank on it. Sadly, this is only available on vinyl with a projected CD release having been pushed back multiple times. On the digital front, part of this is available but who wants just a partial fragment of such a precise occult masterpiece.

Gently lilting woodwinds (they sound like it although who knows) are mixed up with strangely rotating, decaying walls of almost alchemical modular electronics. There is a lot of analogue modeling going on in this brew of looped and also synthetically enhanced maelstrom, I'd guess. The Hurdy Gurdy is put to fine use during the title track's herculean push to the finish line. Spectral, haunted sweeps of fantastically manipulated white noise rush to and fro with maddeningly precise placement. I'd love to have heard this thing as they were recording it, god only knows what they left out. Truly magnificent percussive clangs bludgeon you as the curtain comes down but you're too busy being swept out to sea by the other work on here to mind. Then a delicate piano surfaces to deposit you back on shore, the choppy waves subsiding and that disturbing dorsal fin prowling just beyond the light. Welcome to the Wounded Galaxy, you can dream from here as the stars are ripped from the night-time skies. A child's voice lulls you into complacency, you close your eyes.

For the last few minutes, the tide slowly come back in. It arrives quietly, unassumingly, driven to ground by a circular and ever expanding wave of squalls. There is nothing to discern between you and the undertow at first, but keep listening to the dastardly clever hymn the drones -which sound like drowned bells- gracefully illuminate and you will see, how you will see if only for a short while. Then the waves strike. They come in a cascading firework of magnificently warped tentacle-laden sonic overload. The processing facilities of Cyclobe must be grand to witness; you can feel each beat washing over you, utterly engulfing you in an exotic envelope of tones, realignment and finally release. Mar 16 2011