Scorn

Gyral (Earache)
by Lex Marburger

Throb, throb. Hush, shimmer, whisper. Boom. From one extreme to another, ex-Napalm Death drummer Mick Harris created Scorn, and all looked and found it to be good. Ambient dub electronic Thorazine music, Harris, along with bassist Nick Bullen created songs that sounded like a beautiful sunset on the wastelands of post-apocalyptic America. Then Bullen left. Undaunted, Scorn now gives us Gyral (Earache), an exploration of sub-narcotic patterns, drawing away from the shimmering overlays of previous albums.

As would be expected, the beats are emphasized, and the bass EQ is brought down, down, into the subdued maelstrom of minimized audio loops and samples. What this means is that Harris can’t hide behind any curtains of flash and speed (not that he ever hid before, of course). He creates melodies and enchantments with the drumset, with much of the accompanying music almost below the point of audibility. His rhythms shift like a sand dune, and spread their way into your skull, filling it with a fine grit soft enough to lull you into a false sense of security, and coarse enough to jam the gears in your thought processes. I do miss Bullen, though. His bass patterns were a perfect complement to the all-encompassing sound, they were the element that lifted the music beyond space and time, lending synergy to the mix. Scorn is music at the threshold of understanding.