Published by Alessandro Violante on October 6, 2023
We have written it, we have repeated it and we repeat it once again in this review. If we should find the worthiest successor of rhythmic noise music, we wouldn’t have any doubt about finding it in Sirio Gry J. The artist defines its music as “industrial electronics”, and we could agree with this definition, but in our opinion Phrentic Affliction could have been the best evolution ever for rhythmic noise/powernoise music.
The release, published on 7th September on MiniCD format by its label Monolith Records, could be considered as a sequel to its previous release Synnecrosis, released two years ago by the same label. As always happens with its music, here the artist aims at making the listeners think about topics going beyond music itself.
As well as what done with Synnecrosis, here Sirio Gry J wants to make us think about how our future will progressively become dominated by biomachines, algorithms and the worst manifestations of information society. The artist isn’t the only one talking about these topics, and this dystopia is becoming reality.
In The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Shoshana Zuboff talks about similar topics, and bring us thinking about what is happening and about starting a revolution against the direction society is going to.
The artist is more pessimistic (and maybe more realist) than the writer, and doesn’t offer solutions. Everyday we can feel how our existences are strongly dominated by technologies and how we are becoming binary humans living our lives inside a huge social experiment created by big tech corporations. In this experiment, we receive inputs and, according to them, we send back outputs; inputs/outputs, 0/1. Sirio Gry J also talks about this, and its music can only be cruel, strong, uncompromising and light years far from any trend.
Each song of the release explores different rhythmic and sonic solutions. Comparing its music to that of other musicians couldn’t be possible, and finding the best song of the release could be useless.
The remixes done by Uncto (the project of Dominik Müller and Rafal Fürst) and by Ken Karter add further substance to the release, enriching it with original and interesting interpretations of Disgregatio Temporis and of Exhausting Healing.
Disgregatio Temporis, which original version has powerful and mutable rhythms, becomes an industrial techno uncompromising output conceived to be enjoyed by hybrid post-humans; Exhausting Healing, an heavy song dominated by industrial rhythms, here becomes more syncopated, claustrophobic and roughly acid.
In less than 35 minutes, Phrentic Affliction synthesizes the best expression ever of this kind of music.
Label: Monolith Records
Rating: 9,5