Cut Hands is the solo project of William Bennett, founder of Whitehouse. If you know of Whitehouse and their sick, depraved general interest in sheer awfulness, you’re in for a surprise. This is a surprisingly tasteful affair. Most of it sounds crystal clear, fantastic, and with little of the hallmarks of the Whitehouse outfit.
Little of the hallmarks mean there have been some hints over the last couple of Whitehouse albums. Williams’s interest in Ghanaian and Congolese percussion were present in the last three releases, “Bird Seed”, “Asceticists 2006” and “Racket”. In fact, three of the loudest songs on this album are from those releases, “Munkisi Munkondi”, “Nzambi la Lufua” and the closer “Bia Mintatu” respectively. Personally, I was glad to see “Nzambi la Lufua” on here as it is a favorite of mine.
The newer songs are considerably sparser than you’d expect from Mr. Bennett. Gone are over-distorted vocals. Atmosphere and percussion play a far larger role. Instead of non-stop aggression the music is infused with a large amount of threat. On some of these tracks the percussion is simply fantastic such as “Stabbers Conspiracy” which just leaves your mind baffled. “Rain Washes over the Chaff” shows the few years William spent working on this were not for naught. It feels unlimited by restraints like time or space.
After working in the field of power electronics for so long this is the biggest surprise he could done. Everything is tactile. You can feel the actual humanity in the recording. Considering for how long William did screaming (not a bad thing by the way) it is doubly refreshing to hear him do something so refreshingly different. Don’t worry it is still bleak but in a new wonderful way.