REVIEWS
BRAINWASHED
Written
by John Kealy
Sunday, 20 December 2009
After six years of being just
a title on the Beta-lactam Ring
Records website, I was losing
hope of this album ever materialising.
There was the danger that if
it did ever arrive on earth
that it would be an anticlimax
but thankfully I can report
that it is one of the best realised
Nurse With Wound albums yet.
Steven Stapleton and his crew,
including first mate Andrew
Liles and chief of engineering
Colin Potter, voyage through
the outer limits of The Outer
Limits and Sun Ra's most cosmic
offerings. Influenced by those
haunting electronic soundtracks
of vintage Sci-Fi, Stapleton
guides the U.S.S. Nurse With
Wound through the furthest regions
of the universe, documenting
spatial anomalies and creating
some of the best sounds audible
in the Milky Way.
The incidental sounds that permeate
B-movies and those weird LPs
of electronic music that attempt
to evoke the sounds of the cosmos
are the main points of reference
for Space Music. Beginning with
what sounds like asteroids hammering
off each other, it promises
to be an exciting and violent
piece but after these few minutes
of activity, the calm of an
infinite void sets in and Space
Music proves to be a predominantly
low key piece that lends itself
beautifully to deep (space)
listening. The kind of sounds
that I imagine the scientists
at CERN long to hear coming
from their machines emanate
from the stereo like some interdimensional
transmission in a format that
we have no idea how to pick
up with our primitive technology.
Cold, metallic tones ring out
into the vast infinitum of space
like God’s tinnitus from
the big bang. This is quantum
music for quantum people and
I need an equation to fully
describe it.
Leaving behind the cosmic analogies
and metaphors, Space Music is
more than just another genre
work by Nurse With Wound. This
album sits perfectly well alongside
other “ambient”
works in Stapleton’s repertoire
like Soliloquy for Lilith and
Salt Marie Celeste but just
as there is no tangible link
between those two albums, Space
Music also sits out there on
its own. I find both those older
albums to be difficult listens
in that I find them incredibly
unnerving (although that is
part of their appeal for me)
yet in the case of Space Music
I feel like the Star-Child from
2001: A Space Odyssey; the embryonic
brine of the womb replaced with
a calming, god-like light. The
liner notes mention that subliminal
effects are used throughout
the album and I wonder if these
have anything to do with its
strangely calming ambience.
Listening to this, it makes
me wonder why people point radio
receivers at the heavens when
such unearthly sounds are being
generated on earth. Space Music
is, along with Jack Dangers’
Music for Planetarium, almost
unique in being cosmic music
that truly sounds like it is
from the gaps between the stars.
All those years of tinkering
have paid off and Space Music
caps off both a productive year
and decade in the ongoing adventures
of Nurse With Wound. Perhaps
the next ten years will bring
us that hip hop album we always
wanted.
