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By: Mark Gomes
Article published: 3rd Jun 09
Release: Album
To Cure: A quiet weekend
What:
Regression
Who:
Nate Young
On:
Ideal Recordings
Related links:
Wolf Eyes
Nate Young is a fiend catcher and master of morbid atmospheres. The Detroit native's latest solo disc, Regression, out-graves anything by his erstwhile group, Wolf Eyes, with apposite subtlety rare in analogue electronic music. Passing over familiar Noise strategies of assault and explosion, Young's tape burbles, synthesizer whorls and junk textures are determined by a cold, disciplined pathology of restraint. Suggestions are slow, obsessive, painfully delicate and creepy, with Young probing and pouring over every little thing as sociopathic sonic stalker.
'Sweating Sickness 1' is a jungle nightmare with metronomic bass pulse, hissing background insects and Bernard Hermann-styled bugle loop as bleeding respirator. 'Sleep Anxiety', again, is superior bad times: weird grey-scale static and knife-sharpening sounds corresponding in unsettling and tense alliance. 'Trapped' has all the muted thumps, desperate scratching and stewing sickness you'd imagine a buried, now awakened cadaver would emit, and 'Dread' is John Carpenter asphyxiating in a basement. New Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque.