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The Swiss Aktionist’s previous recordings have been extreme juxtapositions of furious noise and uncomfortable silence, but this album is a radical proposition. Recorded ‘during a period dominated by severe disturbances of loss, mental abysses and despair’, ? does not shy away from expressing those traits. Notes tapped on the lower register of a piano and a weeping accordion signify utter depression amid Phillips’s exceptional use of nocturnal field recordings. Owls, crickets, warehouse resonance and forest noises form a hallucinatory, slow-moving concoction; but it’s his use of the human voice that makes this album so unsettling. A male voice, pitchshifted to a demonic other, laughs and grunts amid spiralling snippets of a female voice caught somewhere between orgasm and pain. The interaction between these recurring voices reflects the voyeuristic qualities of Luc Ferrari’s concrète pieces, with Phillips pushing the psychosexual drama to the brink of self-annihilation.
The Swiss Aktionist’s previous recordings have been extreme juxtapositions of furious noise and uncomfortable silence, but this album is a radical proposition. Recorded ‘during a period dominated by severe disturbances of loss, mental abysses and despair’, ? does not shy away from expressing those traits. Notes tapped on the lower register of a piano and a weeping accordion signify utter depression amid Phillips’s exceptional use of nocturnal field recordings. Owls, crickets, warehouse resonance and forest noises form a hallucinatory, slow-moving concoction; but it’s his use of the human voice that makes this album so unsettling. A male voice, pitchshifted to a demonic other, laughs and grunts amid spiralling snippets of a female voice caught somewhere between orgasm and pain. The interaction between these recurring voices reflects the voyeuristic qualities of Luc Ferrari’s concrète pieces, with Phillips pushing the psychosexual drama to the brink of self-annihilation.