Clint Williamson, Untitled

Running two guitars through seventeen pedals and out a single amp all while simultaneously removing guitar strings with a screwdriver squarely places Clint Williamson’s monophonic tape in the experimental/noise category. Clocking in at just under thirty minutes the harsh and raw sounds of the untitled sound piece seem to have been harvested from a hybrid beast. Opening with a rippling thrum the tape rapidly progresses through various other squeals and scratches, all drenched in reverb and delays. Though lacking any clear structure in terms of cadence, the various auditory gestures are initially dispersed temporally, the echoing delay and reverberation creating a dim space for the sounds to inhabit. Clattering sounds bounce around as if contained in a vast subterranean enclosure, slowly fading away, while haunting guitar notes emerge from the darkness only to sink back again.
More heavily distorted sounds build slowly, growls from an unrecognizable creaure. These hairy snarls dominate much of the rest of the piece. No real rhythmic structure emerging beyond simple repetition, much of the piece seems to consist of permutations of disfigured guitar plucking. After brief periods of experimentation a particular sound is repeated in a tempo-less pattern before devolving back into noisy writhing.
More or less arrhythmic and lacking melody it is the physicality of the sounds themselves that carry the piece. From the mouth of the beast come gnarled woofs and warps. Juxtaposed with the grunts of low-fi fauna are industrial screeches: images of an angle grinder, electronic thrumming, klaxons. These sounds are most interesting when audibly distinct layers become apparent. At a high point in the piece a dirty metallic sound glitters above a low hum, eventually overtaking it as it transforms into warm chirps. Elsewhere successive notes on a guitar descend is anchored by the wail of a siren.
When the sounds are too vague, unsculpted white noise, the piece struggles to move forward, becoming aimless. This aimlessness is in some ways fitting with the generally dismal, hopeless, mood established by piece. Forceful crescendos of noise build but are not sustained, leading nowhere, their harshness reflecting only an impotent rage. Here there is room for criticism, though perhaps inviting connotations of futility these areas seem more frequently to simply generate boredom.
Though the piece successfully establishes an environment the soundscape does not necessarily continue to engage the listener. If the definition of a successful ambient piece is one in which the viewer can be immersed, get lost in, it seems more the case that these sounds will themselves be lost in their actual surroundings. Upon subsequent listens this becomes more true, the novelty of many of the experimental scribbling waning.
To be fair there are many compelling moments that do elicit genuine aesthetic interest. A wealth of sound is present here. In some areas the simple rawness of this sound information gives it an invigorating physicality, however, in other areas it seems more like fuzzy static, the harshness doesn’t successfully alleviate the dull spots. To ask the author to refine or edit down the material would to perhaps run counter to the mission presented by the piece, at the same time however, to ignore the generosity required by the audience to push through some areas seems self-indulgent.