Even some of the most open advocates of the Stooges' seminal 1970 album Fun House couldn't stand its final song "L.A. Blues" for its unsettling formlessness and perhaps inability to provide a climactic rock anthem closing. Hearing Fadensonnen's White Night makes the thought of their seething even stronger, for the album is essentially that same abrasion spread across 48 minutes and even less intelligible than the Stooges' sprawling noisemonger tendencies.
On their debut, the New York duo explore free-rock obfuscation, rife with grooves awash in marbleized amplification. Though Fadensonnen haven't the slightest air of black metal in them, a comparison to Wold wouldn't be too far of a stretch: amidst the sonic blur-- all percussion muffled and the definition of other instruments abstracted-- a curiosity of what lies beneath prevails. The liner notes dispel that mystery, though, listing stylophone, toy saxophone, slide whistle, and tape manipulation among others, but whether they're discernible is another discussion in itself.
White Night has potential to be the wildest psych-rock discombobulation of the year, filtering rock bombast through the abstruse flavors of musique concrete, free jazz, and noise. Muscular, flange-doused chords emerge from the opening of "Black Heat" just seconds before cymbal clatter and wah noodling consume them whole. Fadensonnen are keen on disorienting listeners, but they employ more than barrage tactics: they provide a defined (albeit confounding) progression for the following "Fire Of Nights", for upon reaching an apogee of damaged guitar swathed in screams, it dissolves into an understated drone, accumulating reversed clangor and sweeping back into chaos. Among the most schematically piquant is "Do The Slide", lost in the elaborate cognition of assorted percussion and electric tampering. It's not difficult to find that Fadensonnen have a method to their madness, but chances are that only they themselves get it.
[Fadensonnen Blog]
[Stream/Buy White Night from Fadensonnen]
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