Smell & Quim - The English Method FLAC download

As there is no track listing, I'll have to go by numbers again. The opening track is a chaotic piece with distorted screams, feedback and runaway piano as a female voice gasps and groans in the background. The next piece opens with distorted vocals and a sampled deep bassy rhythm over which all manner of noises are added. This soon changes direction, background noise while voices speak in tongues. Again and again it changes direction, stopping briefly at something like CABARET VOLTAIRE circa "Voice Of America" while a deep voice narrates 'lyrics' - 'Love, Love, Bullshit, Bullshit'. Voices sped up and slowed down appear over the top saying things about nipples, foreskins etc. Despite myself, I find myself sorta liking it by this point - they put this stuff together well, even if it is a little fuzzy sounding. The CABS-type thing eventually ends and another part takes over - with distorted versions of "Three Blind Mice" & a police siren. Next comes a very noisy ambient sounding vocal piece presumably by a psychic detective concerning the murderer and the whereabouts of a young woman's body. This is followed by a very strange piece of rhythmic music over which the members of S & Q scream like lunatics. It conveys a sense of unstoppable events happening - a bleak, black impetus carrying ever onward. The psychic enters again with more info on the 'murderer'. After this comes a dense white mass of sound. Looped voice introduces the next piece, sounding not unlike an animal house tape loop - very strange stuff. The psychic makes a reappearance and tells more about the girl's grave. The next piece, all weird voices and odd noises sounds like MAX GOLDT recording for DAVID LYNCH. Next comes an atmospheric thing with one foot in Japanese Temple Music and one foot in Industrial - gongs and cymbals sound, distorting into the distance, proving that SMELL & QUIM are capable of subtlty and minimalism. This breaks into a sort of 'crowd' sound - a cacophony of voices bringing side one to its conclusion.Side two opens to a pattering, clattering, muffled chaos of noise with banging piano, whistles and gurgling vocals. Muffled sounds of pleasure lie beneath this ear-grating noise. A voiceover introduces the next part - uneasy noise like much-perverted normality over which a vocalist with Mustard-Gas-Corrupted lungs tries his best to orate before drowning in his own fluid. This ends with an echoing tape loop. Next up is a real epic of a track - I've no idea how long it goes on but it's a biggie, and what's more it's the best track on the entire album. Ok, so it may go repeat a little too much, but it's a huge, spatial track reminding me a little of a higher-tech version of the MOTHMEN's 'B' side from "Pay Attention", although this is probably a superior noisework. It has a clean sharp piece of drum machine over which moaning voices and other sounds rise and fall as if caught in some tar pit. Other sounds enter, adding to the strange sense of unworldly weirdness. A much repeated vocal sample appears and adds more to the rhythm, carrying it through many minutes of sound. In its wake comes the final offering - a massive wall of pain-noise mainly generated by human vocal cords which seem to be shouting 'fucker', although this may not be 100% correct.This album is often very primal and noisy, but there are also some gleaming gems in there. If you don't mind SMELL & QUIM's sex fixation, then it might be worth investing in.Originally reviewed for Soft Watch.