Nocturnal Emissions
Mouth of Babes

This is a sick and perverse album by Nigel Ayers, alias Nocturnal Emissions, one of the most daring experimenters of the rich esoteric-industrial scene of the eighties. "Mouth of Babes" is a revealing title: it's exclusively infants who haven't surpassed eighteen months that form the elements giving voice to this grand work. The same can be said of the packaging - even considering the limited edition - which is, needless to say, a diaper.

Tender verses and undecipherable grunts, processed, deformed, violated, that become cries of the demon, torments of pain, desperate screams, thus leading to a departure from the purity that they are presumed to possess. The result is a surreal, sick, estranging work, distant from the classic works of the Englishman, whether they are those with a more industrial imprint, or those directed to his majestic dark-ambient, something that comes close, especially for the scenarios that emerge, to what Albin Julius did with the project Der Blutarch, or if you will, to the darker experiments of fellow countrymen Zoviet France.

As with every great experimentation, the cerebral aspect is important, "Mouth of Babes" stimulates the minds, and the images that are elaborated are as evocative and fascinating as ever. Perhaps an unknown world to us, in the underground of the earth, a separate universe of pagan rituals and black masses, populated by these infants, dressed in their own way like the child depicted on the cover, intent on who knows what initiations, power games, plans for a post-apocalyptic future entrusted to them. The language is that of the titles, "Eekah," "Ooarroo," "Lleeehh"... phrases seemingly indecipherable, seemingly random cries of those who haven’t yet learned to speak, but that in reality conceal great truths, sacred liturgies, summits that decide the fate of the surface above. Maybe these infants represent a subpopulation, a circle of spirits materialized underground: victims of executioners, premature deaths, abortions, unborn fetuses, and perhaps it is for some reason of this kind, for an interrupted and never complete development, that their voices are so unreal and decomposed, almost frightening, who knows. 

What is certain is that Nigel's work is remarkable and attentive to detail. Assuming it must not have been easy to manage these three little ones to lend their voices for an album by this madman hailing from the darkest musical underground (sure, in many albums branded Current 93, it’s not uncommon to encounter children singing haunting lullabies or dispensing strange sentences, but these are indeed children already gifted with speech) the work done in terms of collage and production is monumental, worthy of the best Nurse With Wound, with moreover a rich use of irregular tempos (when, rarely, the rhythm appears - almost always with oppressive and martial tones -) and clearly, more or less 70% of the work, the processing of recorded voices, which beyond the mere 'processing' is incredible how they are juxtaposed, worked on, inserted in contexts that make them always disorienting, heavy, and menacing, much more than an endless drone or the most chaotic and destructive industrial bombardment can be. They are just voices, nothing but harmless voices of infants, but the range they manage to cover is impressive, reinventing themselves now as cantors of death now as voices from beyond. 

In the end, reading the lengthy explanation entrusted to the artwork, which delves a bit into the theme of language and the use of the mouth in the early months of life, these latter should be considered as an instrument itself, as indeed is the voice of a grown subject X, and the work, beyond the esoteric and mental implications, wants to demonstrate how they can, in all respects, be considered a form of musical art.

A very inconsistent artist, it’s true, but this album is absolutely unmissable.