Thursday, March 16, 2006

Anthony Saunders - Rehearsal Tapes Volume 1

Artist: Anthony Saunders
Release: Rehearsal Tapes Volume 1
Label: Rehearsal Tape
Year: 2005
Format: CDr
Tracks: 8
TRT: 78:24

Total harsh noise crunch. Well that’s not all. Throughout this massive release, totaling almost 80 minutes long, there exist the harsh sounds that every noise lover can’t get enough of. But Anthony goes beyond just simply creating noise because it’s there. In these rehearsal tape out-takes he presents a broad range of styles here. The harsh blackness of a noise wall knocking you unconscious, the subtle high-pitched screeches with looped effects, electronic glitch mayhem and well produced self created sounds all around, even something tribal sounding on track 4. The track titles themselves are basically untitled, but are listed as "Rehearsal Tape 060805" for example, being the dates that these tracks were created. That being said this release goes from March 27, 2005 to August 12, 2005 so Anthony defiantly spent some time on his creations.

There are a lot of various going-ons in each track. You don’t get the pleasure of just sitting back and relaxing to this material. Some noise I find great to read to because it sits in the back of your mind and you don’t need to be aware of it. However, I can’t say the same for this release. Every second something seems to be changing and when you think the track is over, it’s not. I tried reading to this and after finishing a couple pages I noticed that I couldn’t bloody remember what the fuck it was I just read and found myself looking at my speakers for a second or two. The last track did give my ears a break though. A great 14+ minute ambient tone with clicks and ticks that help soften the brain and return its focus to the real world.

The artwork is a pretty basic one-page style slim case with track listings and info on the backside and a color picture of a pretty attractive distortion design. The cdr simply has a small label on it with the release info. Anthony Saunders has preformed live with over 30 artists, including Government Alpha, Cock ESP and Dev/Null to name a few, and if these rehearsal tapes are an example of his live material, God help us all!