Published by Davide Pappalardo on October 4, 2018
11xxx27 is the experimental electronic project of Erminio Granata, an Italian musician and DJ known as a cofounder/owner of Infidel Bodies (together with Marika Pagano), and for his work as Code27 and Hyperlacrimae, too. Under this moniker, he explores the fields of ambient and drone music with an industrial edge, often delivering short glimpses made of emotions and distant memories, instead of proper songs. In 2017 he presented his music to the world with the self-released album The reality is inexorably destined to decline, the collaborative effort with Nocturnerror (Carmine Laurenza) 03, and the cassette Essence for Infidel Bodies. In these works he showed different facets of his art, moving among dry soundscapes, dreamy scenarios, and droning obsessions.
Now, he returns with the new cassette No Hope No Fear, once again for the Naples based label specialized in limited cassette editions. A new evolution and a further step in the crafting of his vision, this work returned to some of the aforementioned elements already used in the past, mixing them with new rhythmic patterns, field recordings, and techno-industrial-tinged moments. The result is an even more varied and mature piece of music, centered on the theme of war, oppression, the losing of hope and fear amidst the ruins left by it. Marches, metallic percussions, samples taken from documentaries and postwar films concur to a grim and desolated atmosphere.
Filo spinato starts the work with its throbbing ambiances, conjuring an oniric ambient mantra with ritualistic qualities, soon collapsing into droning soundscapes. The next track Drunk with tears employs cinematic arpeggiators and evocative lines, growing into a pulsating affair with measured rhythms and stressful atmospheres. An obsessive piece, adding during its second part riffing distortions. The long decline delivers a stomping techno industrial number, a severe locomotive made of looping kick-drums and distant effects. Sudden steel-like beats enrich the songwriting, while the track gains speed, becoming a monolithic and frantic episode.
Nobody is free assaults us with its industrial drones, using dissonant effects and thundering rhythms, a noisy affair evoking the storm of war. Cacophonous ambiances and hypnotizing drums guide us during its obsessive movement, leaving us no hope. Hard commission is a crawling rhythmic noise number, characterized by sharp loops and slow beats, a sort of factory made of sounds. After a while , an engaging rhythm has its say, completing the mesmerizing atmospheres. Sudden alarm-sounds evoke the reality of war once again, following the main theme of the cassette. Later, the track is revisited by Operant, who rework it as a way more caustic episode, employing sharp drill-like sounds and shouted vocals. Then, a compulsive rhythm dominates the track, orchestrating a series of distorted kick-drums.
A work perfectly mixing different elements of today’s electro-industrial music, be it techno-driven pattern, noise/drone, ambient, rhythmic noise. The result is a musical rendition of the harsh reality of war, its violence without rhyme or reason, the chaos and hopelessness it brings. So, a link with the tradition of industrial music, but with a modern perspective: the kind of work which moves forward the genre, without trading coherence for novelty. Highly recommended.
Label: Infidel Bodies
Rating: 8