Fixture for Toxins brings us a short suite of minimalist music that exists somewhere
between the signposts marked 'noise' and 'power electronics'. Rough textures
are the order of the day here, but unlike many artists inhabiting this area
(and there seem to be vague nods to early Haus Arafna in the delivery here)
much of the sound seems to be guitar and bass generated, and acoustic percussion
also plays a role (or perhaps it's sampled?).
There's a sort of awkwardness to the execution of these seven pieces, perhaps
due to the evidently limited means involved in making them, but on repeated
listens this slightly amateurish quality lends a certain charm. Several of the
tracks are built on stark, strummed guitar (or, at least, heavily distorted
samples of same), accented with occasional percussive flourishes, with raspy,
almost black metal vocals mixed unobtrusively behind the instrumentation. Despite
all the distortion, the feeling is more hypnotic than aggressive due to the
very repetitive nature of the music. Production is not so great, but again,
the roughness suits the very 'homemade' feel very well. The attempts at a more
melodic approach are less successful, as the limitations of the artist are thrown
into sharper relief to the detriment of the music, and the closing 'Prayer for
Collapse' is more than a little overdramatic.
FFT would do well to stick to the more abstract, droning compositions in the
future. Nonetheless, this (probably quite young) artist touches on a few areas
here that are ripe for future development.
