One of the many things that attracts me in music is when it seems to convey what the earth might be saying if the planet actually had a voice. Those raw, dirty tones and songs of the present-day depressed, suicidal Earth, or let's go back in time of vast green idealism, and when the destruction was far more minimal. Sounds like hippie nonsense, I know, but EN/Q./AHAD had a similar effect on me as I sank into all six of these tracks.
After the exclamatory opener, the album starts off with what sounds like soft glitch crickets that you hear in a warm midsummer's night. Like the planet, layers are built over one another, as the improv sax accompanies a scraping viola, conjuring mourning and death symbols in my mind while my heart races with the shrieking feedback and the siren drones. While this may not be an album about nature and the destruction and/or creation of it, the improvisational jazz elements and fierce electronic set solidly resemble those themes. The album's cover art might suggest destruction or waste motifs. Or it could just be a photo of randomness and amusement.
It seems common that my favorite tracks of improvisational jazz or noise folk is normally the last one. While "Beugro" is an intense glitchy, glass breaking, pre-taped object track that appropriately ends the Paw Music chaos, the most memorable song happens to be also the longest one: "Old Smuggla'". The moaning sax tugs at the heartstrings, and it is propelled with light background static that progresses into utter viciousness. It's rigorous and the noise literally sounds like an angry, spreading fire, until it calms into quiet, singed nothingness. Dynamic, savage and honest, Paw Music punctuates and prevails victoriously.
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