Aufgehoben
Khora

The Aufgehoben are four, they come from England and "Khora" is their 4th album. The practice of releasing a massive reworking of a live recording is not new, but for Aufgehoben, this approach is systematic, characteristic of their entire production. The group's project consists of this, an improvisation session, often just one day long, recorded live, without overdubs, and months or years of exasperation, extremism, processing on the computer what came out of it.

The result is a raw, granular, very dense noise, perhaps reminiscent of the more percussive Merzbow, except that the noise is not synthetic, but the product of the transfiguration of conventional instruments, stubbornly clinging to the definition of rock, as if wanting to drag it into the hell of a volcano. And if in the previous "Messidor" there were only flames, the music of "Khora" is constantly on fire.

Ultra-distorted bass drums that become the pulsation of the entire signal, drums paving their way from every direction in a massive stereophony of presence, unbalanced equalizations, the source of every sound carefully studied not for greater realism, but to drag perception to a place where the conventions of acoustic spaces no longer apply, perhaps inside the drums, until becoming the very heartbeat. And beyond the detonating power of the percussion electronic sounds, tortured guitars, scrapes and sizzles. By overturning the natural hierarchy of different sounds, once again the normal perception of a sound environment is violated, hyper-amplifying details, Cagean silences reaching up to covering, rumblings of the power of metallurgical machinery.

"Ignorance Oblivion Contempt" and "A Bastard Reasoning" prepare for the concepts at play, separated by "Annex Organon", the only track with enough silences to catch a breath. But it is the last track "Jederfurish" that is the manifesto, an unrelenting track, pure apnea, the most violent and paradoxically (according to the group's statement) the only non-edited one. 27 minutes of progressive overlapping without ever taking away, additions without any increase, like a layering in a bottomless vortex. A continuous dilation and resuming speed, but never decreasing tension.

Beyond the new prophets of noise like Sightings, Lightning Bolt, Aufgehoben are not just a vulgar demonstration of power; beneath all that noise there are sounds, information, perhaps even sophisticated references, the only problem is that they are all irreparably damaged.