Spiritflesh includes drones, birdsong and other recordings of animals, percussion, effects. It is by no means the assault on your ears that industrial music is supposed to be***. I am sure that if you described those elements to most people they would dismiss it as new age cobblers. In fact, the album is incredibly involving... enveloping. I think this is because Nigel is able to combine the white light of ambience with a darker undercurrent, so the whole carries just enough weight and intensity. Too little and it would be cheesy in the same way that the whooshing positivity of trance is cheesy. Too much and we enter camp "hammer house of horror" cliches or the outright nastiness of much of the industrial scene.
I’m reluctant to get into a track by track dissection. The album sucks you into its own world but allows you the freedom to wander about. It is easy to forget that nobody else was producing music quite like this at the time, because so many people have been producing derivative versions ever since.
John Eden
Uncarved
I’m reluctant to get into a track by track dissection. The album sucks you into its own world but allows you the freedom to wander about. It is easy to forget that nobody else was producing music quite like this at the time, because so many people have been producing derivative versions ever since.
John Eden
Uncarved
released June 1, 1988
