Kleistwahr - Where the Word is Never (2024)

It's probably fair to say Gary Mundy is a musical pioneer by some definition, at least by virtue of Ramleh being the other name most commonly associated with power electronics back when it was mostly tapes shared amongst friends of friends, photocopied lists of the same returned to the curious in stamped addressed envelopes. Whitehouse may have had the greater influence on what followed (although I suspect that's very much open to debate) but the appeal of Ramleh, at least for me, is that there was a lot more going on than just sonic assault. It was harsh as fuck, violent and free-form for sure, but it was never just random noise with the volume jammed on eleven; and this is as much true of Mundy's solo recording as Kleistwahr. Ramleh, for example, have switched between layers of screaming feedback fed through effects, to walls of guitar, to the single, It's Never Alright which somehow reminds me of the Groundhogs; and yet all feel like the work of the same individuals, communicating a similar mood regardless of how it's played.

Kleistwahr began back in the eighties with one foot in more or less the same cacophonous camp, but has continued to evolve - or possibly to refine its attack - particularly since the resumption of activity back in 2009, and more recently the annual release of one new album each year, sort of like the Beano Book when you were a kid, but more harrowing.

Frivolity aside, this is the latest, again representing a certain evolution from its predecessor - last year's For the Lives Once Lived in this case. The sound is loosely familiar - a pensive drone of organs, instruments and noises sharing some imaginary cavernous space which, for what it may be worth, definitively sounds like a studio - as distinct from the usual bloke sat in a cupboard with his digital reverb. It drones and it's dark, but it thankfully isn't - ugh - dark ambient. There's too much going on for this to sit in the background despite an undeniably hypnotic quality. Where the Word is Never expands on previous offerings in that it almost comprises songs - which isn't immediately obvious, but the more you listen, the more you notice the drones and the slow chords falling in line with the heartbeat rhythms of something happening a few buildings away; and similarly distant vocals deliver just enough of a legible narrative to underscore themes proposed by titles such as Hell Won't Want Your Soul or It's All Escape. The effect is akin to a droning soundtrack which doesn't quite admit to being comprised of songs, albeit songs on the verge of collapse, until third or fourth listen; and it's grim, except that it goes beyond grim into something uncomfortably numb - like Swans with all the ego and bluster kicked out of them, which actually makes it very difficult to describe, as may be obvious from this paragraph; and because it's all catharsis, there's something ultimately comforting about this noise, or at least a suggestion that it understands.