Pimmon - Smudge Another Yesterday

PIMMON - SMUDGE ANOTHER YESTERDAY (Preservation)

I’m late to reviewing this, as it was originally released in April of this year, but having picked this album up recently, felt it was worthwhile in penning something, as this is well worth your attention if you like all things noise/drone-related. Pimmon is Paul Gough, a well-respected Australian experimental musician who has worked with artists like Kid606, Fennesz and fellow Antipodean Oren Ambarchi, and has been making his own music since 1982. This is his first album for 5 years, and it’s a dense experience, covering many textures.

If the album starts inauspiciously with a Florian Fricke-esque ghostly drone, then it immediately grabs one’s attention with the haphazard, chaotic sprawl of “Evil Household Ceremony”, random splurts of noise slashing through a cascading wall of sound, almost like someone grabbing the sinewave and wrenching it back and forth. It feels wonderfully physical, the lacerations crashing right through the spectrum and bouncing back in again. Buried deep down within it are slivers of melody in a loop that close the track in a satisfying fashion. Gough then follows this with the majestic “It will never snow in Sydney”, murmuring synths whispering and clashing with each other in a delicious whirlpool of sonic ebb and flow that flowers with a steady grace. Whilst the contrast of noise and melody is a clever trick in music of this nature, Gough applies it masterfully, choruses of trills and what sounds like field recordings of amphibians supplying a subtle nuance to the climax. It’s a thrilling track.

What is apparent here is Gough’s masterful composition with melody, which is often missing from noise recordings. Striking a balance between noise and harmony is difficult, and it’s a very fine line to tread. “Hidden” sees him apply distorted guitar in the manner of Fennesz, and to be fair, it’s very much of that lineage, although shards of melody can often be made out in amongst the distortion. As a striking contrast, “Dervieux” sees him step in a completely different direction, with two sets of sounds seemingly working in opposite directions, making for a somewhat bewildering audial experience. Whilst one drone sounds as if it’s being processed backwards, another stops and starts, and then almost seems to collapse in itself, and that’s just within the first 2 minutes. For an exercise in what is possible with experimental music of this nature, this is superb as Gough covers all manner of ground, from 90 bpm crashing distorted hiphop percussion to dense atmospheric electronics, it packs a remarkable journey into just 7 minutes.

As a contrast, the album closes with two tracks that eschew the complexity of those before, preferring to use simplistic tones and manipulate them into drone-style pieces, never using more than a handful of elements. The 15 minute “Some Days are Tones” does outstay its welcome somewhat, but it’s a sonorous end to an album that maps out a remarkable landscape. I’ll admit readily that I’ve found the increasing amount of drone-related experimental albums that are coming out do tend to be one-dimensional, but Gough has produced a gorgeously textured piece that demonstrates both his qualities as a composer and his ability to apply them to a sonic canvas that is very much his own. As an album in this vein, it’s hard to think of anything better released in 2009.

Toby Frith