If you've been reading this blog on a fairly regular basis, you likely noticed that I have developed something of an obsession with Opal Tapes as of late. Responsible for a good portion of my favourite albums at any given time, I've found myself wondering if I should just start a blog where I focus my energy entirely on writing about Opal Tapes releases, and nothing else. While I've only entertained this idea in half-jest, the frustration I feel when overwhelmed with a pile of amazing releases from the label — and no time to cover them all — is all too real. From the aquatic dub of Persuasion, to the incense laden guitar experimentations of Gosheven, to the claustrophobic, ritualistic tomb drones of David Terry and the haunted warehouse soundscapes of Emra Grid, the label manages to cover a wide stylistic terrain while still maintaining an unmistakable curatorial consistency, each seemingly disparate release linked through a shared aesthetic compatibility and the ultimate end-goal of headphone transcendence.
Shadows, the duo of Andrew Bowen & Dimitri Ploumpidis, joins the Opal Tapes roster with an album of corroded metals and choking, faulty machinery that shreds itself open from the inside out, finding moments of unexpected catharsis and violent release — not to mention a newfound usefulness and functionality — in the essence of its own dysfunction and decrepitude. This begs the question; If even the most useless, and irreversibly broken of tools can be repurposed into something of value, then what exactly constitutes the term "obsolete"? An important question to ask ourselves, and a term we must soon rethink in a world rapidly running out of space, and soon faced with the decision to adapt, or to drown in the encroaching waste of our own excesses.
As if turning on a switch, The Arrival opens the album with the sounds of stripped patch chords and exposed wires guided by unsteady hands into the dirty inputs of some mysterious, towering supercomputer, each connected synapse awakening a new and terrible aspect, the listener held in place in a state of tonally, electrically induced catatonia. On Galactic Traveller, it is soon made apparent that this long dormant monolithic entity is in fact an ancient and benevolent computer god, casting judgement and smiting the unworthy with rippling blue flickers of superheated electricity, as half formed rhythms materialize violently out of thin air before collapsing in on themselves, leaving behind pockets of distortion and irreparable tears in the fabric of reality.
Throughout Particles of Life is the sense of things made weaponized, the relative harmlessness of every day items bastardized and re-appropriated into tools of violence and destruction. Waveshaper takes the disemboweled guts of a motorcycle engine and Macgyvers them into some sort of post apocalyptic war machine, carving a tunnel of industrial percussion and white noise destruction on a heat-seeking path towards an undeniable and horrible conclusion, where Cuthands — sounding like your grandparents clattering old washing machine that they inexplicably refuse to replace suddenly come to life — shakes furiously, sending loose bolts flying in all directions in a lethal spray of shrapnel and noise before unmooring itself completely, tearing through the walls and down the streets, leaving the listener with the impression of a narrowly escaped demise, and a sudden, inexplicable urge to unplug every household appliance in sight.