Cut Hands – Afro Noise1 8.1

                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.

Now on Facebook: Beach Sloth

             I made it: a Facebook profile. Some might want to trumpet this from the rooftops, but I’m currently unaware of who those people might be. Hopefully this will give you a better way of connecting with me, with Beach Sloth.

                Yes, I am aware the profile has been around for about a month or so. What can I say? I’m a sloth, I’m lazy, and I’m bad at self-promotion.  This a passion of mine, and I hope it inspires others to search out new music, music they might not be exposed to everyday. 

 What I’d like to happen is for further input. Originally when I created this blog, I wanted a great deal of comments, etc. But I wanted to avoid the “oh look at me, aren’t I hip?” problem so many other bloggers face. That reeks of desperation and quite frankly isn’t my modus operandi. 

                Setting up the blog for anonymous commentators has its own worries: I want to avoid spam with this blog. Things should look a particular way: clean. There’s no need for endless clutter. Clean formats are the best, that’s why I initially was wary of the Tumblr format, but it has since grown on me.

                Why now? Why should I bother doing this now? Well, I’ve started getting more and more emails from people, increasing in positivity and personal tweaks. Originally I got a lot of emails about random stuff, it is cool that you’re a banker in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but I doubt I can help you with your problem of having too much money. Guess that former Nigerian prince is going to make do with the money he currently has. 

                Things have improved. Now I do receive actual emails, actual Gchats from people, people who are the crème de la crème of the blogging world.  Maybe I’m a bit shy, but I’ll try to be a bit more responsive. A few have even written some extremely kind emails, and I’m positively thankful for that. Little bits of support show me that ultimately doing this is a worthwhile endeavor, rather than it just being some ‘living inside my head’ kind of stuff.

                If you’d like then, become a fan, become a friend. I’d like this to work both ways, with people telling me things as well. My approach to this fan page is painfully new; I hope I can take this journey down Zuckerberg lane with all of you. Sadly, first has already been taken, but there are countless other numbers waiting right for the grasping. To be treated to a number, simply go here